Im not going to screw this one up!

I am on my 5th batch this one is a brown ale. I started fermenting then noticed it got up to 75 degrees while I was work ! I thew it in bucket of ice water and wrapped a cold wet towel around my baby and threw a fan on it. it was at that temp for a day tops! Now three days later it's at a peaceful 68. The air lock was bubbling nicely and has almost ceased now. (I know revvy not to go by that) here's my questions
1) I assume I'm at a nice temp now.
2) I don't have kegging access yet and want to know the best way to clean and sanitize my bottles.
3) i have never done a brown ale what's the best thing to use for a priming sugar.
4) can I add honey to the fermentor (I rarely ever use a secondary) or add honey to a brown ale at all
5) am I doing anything right at all? My og was 1.052. I think that's about right.

2) Get your bottle brush and scrub the bottles then throw in the dishwasher with NO SOAP and hi-heat and/or heat dry.

The heat pasteurizes the bottles and you can rack right into them.

3) Corn sugar is the only priming sugar I've ever used. I don't think that changes per style.

I forgot to add RDWHAHB

I feel for ya - I'm a second time beginner, since it's gotten so much better than when I last brewed in the eighties.

I'm running wet t shirts and a fan in a one inch deep water tray on my fermenters - the skin reads 72, so I'm hoping it's not that much different inside the carboy.

When I tried to take my first batch from a shocking 85 degrees using your techniques I caused stuck fermentation, and never did unstick it. Batch one, status questionable, pending.

normzone said:

I feel for ya - I'm a second time beginner, since it's gotten so much better than when I last brewed in the eighties.

I'm running wet t shirts and a fan in a one inch deep water tray on my fermenters - the skin reads 72, so I'm hoping it's not that much different inside the carboy.

When I tried to take my first batch from a shocking 85 degrees using your techniques I caused stuck fermentation, and never did unstick it. Batch one, status questionable, pending.

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Oh no! I hope I didn't do that!! What to do now! And how would I know it's stuck and how do I unstick it?

Hopefully you managed to save it. Something like a brown ale may be able to hide any off flavors. I feel your pain though. I'm in the process of designing a fermentation chamber. I have a cream ale on tap that got up to 73 for 2 days. It has some off flavors but isn't as bad as some others I've made that got too hot.

It was still fermenting yesterday at 68 like I said it got to 75 on the first day but I got it down on Saturday and yesterday it was bubbling away it's just slower today.

normzone said:

I'm running wet t shirts and a fan in a one inch deep water tray on my fermenters - the skin reads 72, so I'm hoping it's not that much different inside the carboy.

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as far as forum knowledge dictates...if it's 72F outside it could be any where around 77-80F inside...some reading: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ho...does-internal-fermentation-really-get-107541/

What about adding honey?

Well my last two batches have sucked . They just haven't tasted right like a citrus taste that shouldn't be there I refuse to mess this one up out of the five I have done only one was great the rest were blah

Well right now according to my thermometer it's been at 68 since Sunday and the air lock is bubbling once every 10-15 seconds. The fermentor feels cool to the touch.

No sir. But I do believe something wrong is happening. Imma get this right this time I'm leaving it the fermentor for 4 weeks and then going to bottle for 3 . When priming the sugar do I do each bottle or pour it right in the bottling bucket

Well, damn. That's discouraging. I'm starting off with some high specific gravities, so I'm probably running hotter in there than I want to be.

Oh well, things are too far along to fret over it now. I guess I'll need to develop internal temperature monitoring somehow, and then craft a fermentation chamber.

It was a shock to find that batch one was sitting in ambient seventy but cooking at eighty five. But I did everything I could to screw it up anyway...carmelization, overpitching. I'm just glad I only made three million gallons of it ;-)

normzone said:

Well, damn. That's discouraging. I'm starting off with some high specific gravities, so I'm probably running hotter in there than I want to be.

Oh well, things are too far along to fret over it now. I guess I'll need to develop internal temperature monitoring somehow, and then craft a fermentation chamber.

It was a shock to find that batch one was sitting in ambient seventy but cooking at eighty five. But I did everything I could to screw it up anyway...carmelization, overpitching. I'm just glad I only made three million gallons of it ;-)

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I don't care how bad it might be I pass it onto my friends like "yeah you taste the citrus...the wheat came from an old lemon field" they buy that one all the time. ;D I laugh and drink and laugh some more.

That's what I'm talking about!