second brew-my notes

I just did my second brew on Tuesday, it was a Racer 5 clone. For this batch I upgraded my brew kettle to a 7.5 gal SS and boiled it on my turkey fryer (instead of my elect stove like my first brew).

Everything went smoothly through the steeping of my specialty grains but sort of went downhill from there...

This recipe kit called for a 3.5 gal boil and I was planning on doing a late extract addition but "chickened out" and just followed the recipe and added it all in the beginning. I thought I would be proactive and start boiling the remaining water in my large brew pot outdide while I used my stove to boil and add my extract (that volume was only 1.5 gal. Even though I took in account of water displacement of the extract, I miscalculated and ended up with around a 4 gal boil instead of 3.5.

With that much boiling wort it took over an hour to chill, and I may have pitched too hot. Temp was around 74 degrees. I used Wyeast 1056.

really not sure how it will come out...

Well the hour to chill is something that you'll definitely want to fix. More importantly, how were your gravities? Did you hit your expected OG despite teh extra 1/2 gallon of fluid?

The size of the boil really shouldn't have mattered as long as you properly topped it off to 5 gallons.

74 isn't terrible , mid 60s would have been better so get the temps down to there and you should be good! Use a swamp cooler set up if you need to to maintain the lower temp!

Set up a blow off tube so you don't have to worry about plugged up airlocks too!

With that much boiling wort it took over an hour to chill,

Click to expand...

That's about how long it took my first few batches to cool but I had the last batch 3.0 gal cooled down in about 35 minutes.

With a 7.5 gal SS pot you can do full boils and that's what I personally would do (or was this a 3 gallon kit?). The kit probably just said that because most people don't have a pot that big. Thus, I don't think your boil volume was a bit deal. Your IBU's might be a little off but that's not a big deal. Reason being that more sugars in your boil will inhibit hop utilization.

The hour chill is kind of an issue so that's something you should work on. Do you have an immersion chiller or you using an ice bath or some other method?

For ale yeast pitching up to 80F is perfectly acceptable as long as you cool it down within a few hours to it's recommended fermentation range. Yeast actually can tolerate up to about 120F before the heat will start killing them.

Cool, thx for the replies. Yes my final volume was exact at the 5 gallons after I topped it off with chilled water. Between reading like crazy and these two batches, I've really learned a lot.

And if course, from helpful people like you all...

I'm already thinking of my next batch. So my next task is making a swamp cooler and controlling my temps better so I can hit my cooling temps quicker.

Why exactly is it important to get your wort cooled as quickly as possible?

it's important to get the yeast in there and going because the sooner you do this the less likely your brew will get innoculated with something else that you don't want in there.

If you don't have a chiller, boil less, add the extract in the last 15 min., then add cold / ice water to the pot, it will cool it considerably. The longer wort is potentially exposed, the greater the potential infection.

On the other hand, once in a sanitized, sealed fermenter, you can let it chill over an extended time, then add yeast, with lessened risk.