I'm brewing right now...issues and concerns

This is going to ramble a lot.

I'm using an electric stove, and it's taking longer than usual to boil. I think our burners are getting weaker. Anyone ever notice this (I realize a lot of you use gas, or other better methods to boil your wort, but I thought I'd ask).

We steeped 16 oz. Caramel 40 at about 160F in two gallons distilled water.

Sparged Caramel with one gallon purified drinking water.

Waiting (impatiently) to add Northern Brewer Gold LME, and 1 oz Centennial hop pellets and start 1 hour timer. This is going to be a Two Hearted clone.

...this is going to be a looooong night...

Always is HB. Always is.

Don't have to work tomorrow, I'm 25, screw it. I'm in for the long haul.

Oh, and we just added the LME. To get it to a rolling boil, we put a lid on it for about two minutes. Someone on this forum once told me that keeping a lid on it was bad for reasons due to some kind of enzyme. I think just having it on for a couple minutes to get the heat up won't hurt though.

Never heard of the emzyne problem, but a lid will keep in the heat and make it work for you by reaching boiling temp faster than without a lid.

It was ScottT who said that. He was pretty firm. I think it doesn't matter unless you've got something up your ***. IMHO.

Just added one ounce centennial hops. Waiting for hot break.

Editing previous posts: we used 9.3 lbs of LME.

I'm using this as my brewlog.

Hot break!!!

I'm sorry if this is annoying to anyone, but I like the idea of a live brewlog. Other people should do this too, if nothing else, for my entertainment.

dude, your dedicated. i raise my illegaly mailed Hop Rod Rye to you! cheers!

No, it's cool! I like reading brew logs like this!

Electric ranges just suck - I used to brew on one before I moved into my current home and got a gas range. I know, I know... doesn't help you much, does it! But, it can be done. It just takes longer, as you've seen.

I always leave the lid on to help the water boil faster. But after you add LME, DME, etc. keep an eye on it! I mean it!!! One boilover and you'll curse yourself and the time you end up wasting by having to stop your brewng and cleaning up the rapidly hardening, sticky mess you've created. Been there (once), done that, never again, if I can help it!

Hot break - your in the groove now!

The benefit of having two roommates is that there's always one person to keep an eye on it. The downside to that is that we have to split the fruits three ways. Plusses and minusses, still end up with some good beer you can be proud of.

hey, a good brew bud is worth the beer. good times....good times.....

Just added one ounce Centennial for flavoring.

Oh, just to let you all know, what we're brewing is a Two Hearted Clone. An IPA.

Oh, sh**. Just had first boil over. Smells bad. Didn't lose too much though, mess is not too bad either. One of the other 'mates was watching it, and he moved it promptly. We had just added hops. This hotbreak was evidently a bad mother.

We had just had a really controlled, nice disagreement over when to add gypsum and Irish moss. I think in the last five minutes. They say two minutes ago, before the boil over. Still haven't added them.

Just added one teaspoon irish moss, two teaspoons gypsum. Because we're using distilled and purified water, I think that's reasonable. Immediately afterward added two ounces centennial hops. Things are getting chaotic, don't know if I can keep up the minute by minute.

Preparing ice bath now.l

Is that a wirlfloc (you know what I mean) tablet? If so, 5 minutes to 10 minutes before the end of the boil.

Isn't gypsum for changing water chemistry? If so I'd guess before boiling your water, about 2 hours ago. But I dunno.

As for the lid thing. I think it allows impurities (chlorine and sulfur and brimstone and crap) to escape in with steam.

oop. guess I was too late.

Don't know what a whirflock is, we only use the lid to bring it to boil, after that, topless. It changes water chemistry, but it causes things to fall out easier. No reason for it until everything is reasonably absorbed.

Again, chaotic. In a moment I'll have the peace to write more coherently.

rewster451 said:

Oh, and we just added the LME. To get it to a rolling boil, we put a lid on it for about two minutes. Someone on this forum once told me that keeping a lid on it was bad for reasons due to some kind of enzyme. I think just having it on for a couple minutes to get the heat up won't hurt though.

Click to expand...

I think the only problem you can run into by keeping the lid on is getting DMS (Dimethyl Sulfides). I don't think you'll notice unless you keep the lid on throughout the entire boil. It'll be okay.

It will make the beer get a cooked corn smell.

As always, I'll refer to Palmer's How to Brew.

"DMS is continuously produced in the wort while it is hot and is usually removed by vaporization during the boil. If the wort is cooled slowly these compounds will not be removed from the wort and will dissolve back in. Thus it is important to not completely cover the brewpot during the boil or allow condensate to drip back into the pot from the lid. The wort should also be cooled quickly after the boil, either by immersing in an ice bath or using a wort chiller."

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Okay, got it in the ice bath. What I meant was, the Irish moss and gypsum change the water chemistry in a way that causes unneeded particles to fall into the trub. We don't want to change the chemistry for the absorption part, or we won't have anything to fall out.

Now is peace time. Waiting for wort temp to fall.

I brewed a Czech Budvar today then went off to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert (GREAT!!!).

I had a three (3) day old starter (1 C Extra Light DME and 2 C water).

Get this...I found some UNUSED yeast in the back of the fridge. A Wyeast #2000 - Budvar Lager Activator Smak Pak (EXPIRED Feb 05) and a vial of White Labs #WLP802 - Czech Budejovice Lager (EXPIRED Nov 04)!

Starter was kreusening away the second night. See, I don't always follow the rules either....

Pitched yeast around 1:45, came home around 7 and the airlock is gurgling away!

Went to Recipator and it's GONE!!! Now what am I going to use to record my brew log?

ORRELSE said:

I think the only problem you can run into by keeping the lid on is getting DMS (Dimethyl Sulfides). I don't think you'll notice unless you keep the lid on throughout the entire boil. It'll be okay.

It will make the beer get a cooked corn smell.

As always, I'll refer to Palmer's How to Brew.

"DMS is continuously produced in the wort while it is hot and is usually removed by vaporization during the boil. If the wort is cooled slowly these compounds will not be removed from the wort and will dissolve back in. Thus it is important to not completely cover the brewpot during the boil or allow condensate to drip back into the pot from the lid. The wort should also be cooled quickly after the boil, either by immersing in an ice bath or using a wort chiller."

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Again, I don't think it matters unless you have something up your ***.

BTW...and.........

I know everyone means good intentions. But I don't think leaving the lid on for a few minutes at a time will hurt. Every brew I've done before now turned out fine, and I left the lid on the whole time.

rewster451 said:

BTW...and.........

I know everyone means good intentions. But I don't think leaving the lid on for a few minutes at a time will hurt. Every brew I've done before now turned out fine, and I left the lid on the whole time.

Click to expand...

Interesting. Kind of makes me wonder how anal people get about hot side aeration too.

HB99....Isn't that a FREAKING GREAT SHOW???????? We've seen TSO the last 5 years. I think you got to see the West group though right? Al Pitrelli is the lead guitar? Isn't the Beethoven's Last Night music (and pyrotechnics) awesome? (Before this thread jhijack gets out of hand...I started a TSO thread in general if you can find it.....)

Something I forgot to mention, because it happened before I had the idea to do a live brewlog:

My roommate went to smack the smack-pack, and smacked it so hard the entire package exploded. It only spurt out a little bit of its contents, and we put the rest of it in a ziplock bag. Right now it is showing some signs of activity, which is good, but I am a bit worried.

Ziplock bags are sterile on the inside when you buy them, right? If there are any major concerns with this, we might be able to locate some new yeast, but the chances are slim.

My sister saw TSO in Chicago before the Holidays, as did a buddy in Cinci and they both raved. She said they made it snow inside the Allstate arena!

Okay, back to rewster's log...

Now that you're chilling the wort (and yourself), time to have a homebrew - or someones else's brew - while you wait. I'm gonna assume you've already taken this important step! I always do!

ORRELSE said:

Interesting. Kind of makes me wonder how anal people get about hot side aeration too.

HB99....Isn't that a FREAKING GREAT SHOW???????? We've seen TSO the last 5 years. I think you got to see the West group though right? Al Pitrelli is the lead guitar? Isn't the Beethoven's Last Night music (and pyrotechnics) awesome? (Before this thread jhijack gets out of hand...I started a TSO thread in general if you can find it.....)

Click to expand...

Yeah. I saw and commented in your other thread. Al is a great player. BLN was great. They had us on our feet throughout the show. Man, we could feel the heat from the pyrotechnics (14th row) everytime they went off. Now I know what the screens were for behind the string section and drummer. I can only image the heat on the stage.

Rhoobarb said:

Now that you're chilling the wort (and yourself), time to have a homebrew - or someones else's brew - while you wait. I'm gonna assume you've already taken this important step! I always do!

Click to expand...

First take care of head. Yes. This step is the most in control of all of them.

Sparged with enough water to bring it to exactly five gallons. We used almost two gallons of purified drinking water.

O.G.=1.054

That's exactly .010 less than it should be according to the recipe. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

Pitched yeast at 68F.

Got it in a 6.5 gal. carboy with a blowoff tube. This is the end of this thread for me unless anyone has anything edifying to say about it... I'm going to a bar.

Welcome to my brewday.

rewster451 said:

Sparged with enough water to bring it to exactly five gallons. We used almost two gallons of purified drinking water...

Click to expand...

Unless you just rinsed the grains (which you wouldn't do at this point), you didn't sparge - you topped off.

As for missing the OG by .010 - BFD! I've only hit an expected/published OG once in 30+ brews! Sometimes I'm a bit high, sometimes I'm a bit low. As long as I'm not way off, say .030 - .040, I don't sweat it.

Unless you're doing all-grain (hell - even if doing AG!), it's hard to get an exact reading, IMHO. There are too many variables:

How well mixed was the wort after you added water?
How much water did you have to add/how much did you lose during the boil?
Did you take temperature into account?
How good are your eyes at reading a hydrometer right now?
Too many Homebrews?
Didn't get that Lasek surgery?

Also, different extracts will yield different SGs. Different brewing techniques will change your SG as well.

Just my dos centavos!

Still haven't left for the bar, damnit. My eyes are ok for reading, I do this everytime.

I've had about six, but two of them were pretty high ABV, and not homebrews.

I'm not too worried about the gravity differences.

Like I said, temp was 68. What we read was about 1.054. Maybe temp would make a slight difference, 1-2 degrees, but I'm happy with this estimate.

All in all, good brewday. I think we've got a good one on our hands. We will dry hop with fresh centennials in secondary. The boilover was fairly easy to clean up too.

Edit: We "topped off" I guess, although we poured the water through the hop residue in a strainer, guess that's not a sparge, into a sanitized bucket. Then we took hydrometer readings, pitched yeast, and siphoned into the 6.5 gal carboy. I think it is sufficiently mixed.

Maybe you're right though. Perhaps we should have given it a stir before taking hydrometer readings. Live and learn, right?

Back from the bar. Ate mexican with too much hot sauce, drank cheap bar beer, lost at pool. Good day.

Thanks to anyone who was here with me.

rewster451 said:

Something I forgot to mention, because it happened before I had the idea to do a live brewlog:

My roommate went to smack the smack-pack, and smacked it so hard the entire package exploded. It only spurt out a little bit of its contents, and we put the rest of it in a ziplock bag. Right now it is showing some signs of activity, which is good, but I am a bit worried.

Ziplock bags are sterile on the inside when you buy them, right? If there are any major concerns with this, we might be able to locate some new yeast, but the chances are slim.

Click to expand...

Its sterile on the inside of a ziplock baggy. dont worry. Dont buy more yeast, even with a little liquid escaping which probably was dme or nutrient your yeast will still thrive. Pitch it when its done and it will ferment fine. keep it out of the light though.

sorry, i just saw this thread. is the kit you made the 3 hearted ale from northern brewer?? sounds like it and if it is, its great!!! mine wnt into the bottle and 6 days(couldn't help myself) later i had one, IT WAS GREAT!!! i think my gravity was more into the 1.070-1.074 range for mine though. i loved it, i don't even think it lasted 2 weeks. just thought i'd put my .02 in here!!