First Brew Session

I've been waiting all week for today....here I sit at work with a plan to leave early so I can head home and brew my first batch of beer! Hopefully all goes well....I chose a Krolsch kit for my first brew....even though I am a big fan of Stout.....that will be my second batch.

Anyway, I have a full case of Guiness Draught waiting for me...I will be "forced" to drink it along with another case before my first batch is done....since I need the bottles...

Anyway, I am making a list of what I need to do in order with timing, etc....since I am so anal retentive.

So a couple of noobie questions I thought of:

1) Do I need to boil the water that I will be putting Starsan into for sanitizing...or can I just use it right from the tap....any advice?

2) My kit has pelletized hops.....will putting them in muslin bags during brew reduce the amount of solids in it when it ferments or will it just go through the holes? Any advice here?

3) Should I strain when I pour from kettle into fermenter? I heard it clogs the strainer in funnel anyway and if I am careful I can leave alot of the hot and cold break, hops, in the brew pot cause they will settle.

4) Forawd thinking question: I will be putting fermenter in basement....on the floor. Once my beer is ready to be transfered to bottling bucket...I would need to lift fermenter up onto a table in order to rack into bottling bucket (i.e. for syphon)....will moving the bucket up to table stir it too much...i.e. should I set bucket up at level I need it at the beginning of fermentation so that I dont have to move it.

Sorry for the long post....I am an engineer and by nature quite anal retentive.......

I will let you guys know how it goes....hopefully I won't have any "entertaining" stories for you....i.e. screw-ups

Welcome to HBT. I'll throw answers out based on my experience.

1. No need to boil the water before adding Starsan

2. I've done this a few times and it does work to keep some, but not all of the solids out.

3. Straining is a pain. Do you not have a siphon? The tip on an autosiphon will keep a good bit of the trub out of primary. If not, straining can be done but is easier with 2 people...one to pour and one to stir the strainer when it starts to clog (and it will).

4. You can leave the fermentor on the floor. Just move it up to the table before you start prepping for bottling. An hour or so of sitting has not caused me any issues.

Good luck with your first batch. Keep us posted.

Thank you for reply!

I do have a syphon....but I thought it was best to pour wort into fermenter to aid in oxygenation.

her eis another question: Should I add the DME or the LME first once the water comes to a boil?

Are you doing a full boil or a smaller boil? 3 gallons maybe? If so, just carefully siphon into primary and leave the trub behind. Then aggressively pour your top off water into the primary. For me, this has always oxygenated plenty using this method. I've read where people have used a sterilized whisk to froth the wort up too.

I'd say to remove the pot from the burner and add the LME first. Once stirred well, place back on burner and add the DME. That way you can focus your attention on breaking up any clumps the DME leaves while waiting for the boil to come back.

I keep a small glass of water and a whisk on hand at this point...especially after adding the first hops. That way if it gets close to a boil over, which can happen very fast, I can either throw a bit of water on the foam or break it up with the whisk.

Or is it spelled WISK? Meh...

fezzman said:

Or is it spelled WISK? Meh...

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whhhhisk, like cool whhhhhip. everything tastes better with cool whhhhip...

3 gallon boil.

I like your plan of attack...I am going to go with that. Thanks!

kingmatt said:

whhhhisk, like cool whhhhhip. everything tastes better with cool whhhhip...

Click to expand...

Will Whhhheaton uses a whhhhisk to whhhhip his cool whhhhip...

On the topic of fermenter placement, if it is practical to put your fermenter up high enough that you'll be able to siphon out of it when the time comes, I'd do it. It saves you having to lift a big heavy bucket up later.

If it isn't practical, don't worry. When you do move it, do so carefully and gently. You'll want to do this because it is heavy, you don't want to kick up the yeast any more than you have to, and you don't want to slosh the beer and introduce oxygen. After you move it, give it a while to settle down. Again, if it is practical to move it the day before you transfer to your bottling bucket, great. If not, move it and then start getting ready to bottle.

As far as hops bag goes, I used a bag for my last batch, and although it cut down on the amount of trub, there was still a significant amount of fine particles in the wort. I think it was worth it, as I was able to get a lot more wort out of the pot this time.

Sorry for the long post....I am an engineer and by nature quite anal retentive.......

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I think it is good to figure this sort of stuff out before hand, that way you don't have to stress out about the decision in the middle of the process. I find it much more relaxing if I have a procedure to follow. RDWHAHB!

I use a fine mesh bag for both specialty grains AND hops...and my hops are pellets, too. During the boil, I make sure I dip the hops bag in the wort several times...kind of like steeping a tea bag...and I've had no problems with hop utilization that I know.

glenn514

kingmatt said:

whhhhisk, like cool whhhhhip. everything tastes better with cool whhhhip...

Click to expand...

GREAT Family Guy reference! LOL!!


mgortel - think about fermentation temperatures - how cool is your basement? What is the temp range of your selected yeast? (fermentation will add 4-8 degrees F to your ambient)

Basement is holding for last week atr around 63 F.

Winter it is much cooler...like low 50's....so maybe Lager in the winter?

Yeast lists 59-75 F for range...so I am dead nuts in the middle. Even with an extra 8 F on top of 63 F...still in the range....

Whata think...sound ok?

BTW....Im in the process now....boiling water baby! Got my laptop out in garage with me :cross:

As I sit here at work I am quite jealous.

The temps sound good to me. I wish basements were an option 'round Florida.

If you need help, I can virtually stir the pot for ya.

Well hell then ...come on over! haha

I got some cold Guiness that I am indulging in while I brew!

mgortel said:

Well hell then ...come on over! haha

I got some cold Guiness that I am indulging in while I brew!

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Nice. Drink faster though. I want to read some funny mistake stories later. :fro: j/k

I'm finally outta work for the day. Enjoy the rest of your first brewing session.

SHould I be "dunking" my dry grains in the muslin bag....or just let it set for the 30 minutes??

mgortel said:

SHould I be "dunking" my dry grains in the muslin bag....or just let it set for the 30 minutes??

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Not sure what you mean. Steeped specialty grains should be happy to just sit in the water. Some people use big binder clips to clip the bag to the side of the pot so the bag doesn't fall in...(Just make sure, if you do this, that the bag is tied, and the end of the bag doesn't hang down into the flame/onto your burner!)

Yes....I am steeping...was just wondering if I should e lifting bag up and down likde a tea bag.....sounds like just letting it sit there is the right thing to do?

mgortel said:

Yes....I am steeping...was just wondering if I should e lifting bag up and down likde a tea bag.....sounds like just letting it sit there is the right thing to do?

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I don't think there is any advantage from swishing the bag around like a tea bag. Also, in case you aren't aware, you don't want to try to 'squeeze' water out of the grains when you are done steeping. Pull the bag out, let it drip naturally.

Getting ready to pull bag out...THANKS for the DONT SQUEEZE advice....! Just in time

Have fun! And take it easy on the Guinness until the boil's done!

Rolling now man!

OK...so I got the boil goinmg with the malt....almost boiled over in the very beginning...but I stirred it an ddropped the heat...and no boilover.......happened i nfirst couple minutes.

No foam or boilover look right now...I thought it would be like 15 minutes for hot brealk....seems like it happened already....

Any comments?

Every brew's different. It'll happen when it happens.

Easiest way to combat boilovers: Spray bottle of water.

i wish i had live advice when I was doin my first brew... genius!:rockin:

Yeah this is good stuff...its like having you guys with me...but not drinking my commercial beer....hahah.....dont get me wrong...I appreciate the advice and would gladly share my beer with you guys if you were here! LOL

Anyway, I have a full case of Guiness Draught waiting for me...I will be "forced" to drink it along with another case before my first batch is done....since I need the bottles...

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is it ok to use Guiness Draught bottles? what about the widget?

Gtrfrk182 said:

is it ok to use Guiness Draught bottles? what about the widget?

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I would guess that there is no problem using guinness bottles if you can get the widget out. I remember the first time one of my friends bought a 6 pack of guinness, when he emptied that first bottle and found the widget, he was like, wtf is that? Of course, then we had to get it out of the bottle to see what it was!

Gtrfrk182 said:

is it ok to use Guiness Draught bottles? what about the widget?

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I was wondering about that and was going to say something... not sure I'd want to go through the hassle of pulling widgets out, if there is a reasonable way that is. You've got to get them out though, they probably would pose a nightmare for sanitation.

You might just have to buy more beer (not G. Draught) for the bottles!

i actually just took a look at an old guiness bottle in the garage and it seems all you need is some tweezers to get the widget out, it has thin plastic "wings" that keep it in the bottle

mgortel said:

Yeah this is good stuff...its like having you guys with me...but not drinking my commercial beer....hahah.....dont get me wrong...I appreciate the advice and would gladly share my beer with you guys if you were here! LOL

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So? Everything went fine for the end of the process?

Congrats for your first homebrew session!

Yeah, I love Guinness bottles. Just turn 'em upside down and pull out the widget with needle nose pliers.

The label says something less than 12 ounces, but they'll hold 12 without the widget.

Yesterday i used a 5 gallon paint strainer bag. I simply put it over the top of a bucket before i poured the wort from the kettle. I caught a ton of hops.

To aerate i simply pour the wort from one bucket to another bucket a few times. My fermentation usually starts around 12-18 hours. I've been using Safale US-05 and the ambient temp is usually 17-19C.

I did however get a fridgemate yesterday to convert my chest freezer to a fermentation vessel. Just need to wire it up!

Hey everyone.....Saturday morning update on my brew session!

Everything seemed to go without any major hitches.....I had several neighbors over "helping" as they were quite interested.....

Anyway....the only "issue" I had was that my SG seemed a bit low at an adjusted sg of around 1.038 and the kit listed that it should be 1.042-1.046.......but I suppose that is not anything to worry about...?

I did syphon from the brew pot to the fermenter to minimize the solids in the fermenter.....worked good until the end when the syphon clogged.....cleared the clog with sterilized water outside the brew pot.....restarted and clogged almost immediately.....there was more wort in the brew pot than I wanted to leave. So I tried straining it through funnel with screen.......clogged immediately as people on here said it would.....mahybe I try the paint striainer thing next time.

I pitched the yeast last nite around 7-8 PM I think....hahah....forgot from all the guiness....

This morning I checked on my batch in the basement at 8AM...temperature is at 63F....and my airlock is bubbling...about every 30 seconds right now! woo hoo I suppose that the rate of bubbling should pick up and be faster?

So now the waiting game.

On the Guiness I did do a search and lots of people use them...just tilt updside down and pull widget out with needle nose.....I already have 19 botteles Ihad a little help from neighbors drinking them last nite)

Thanks again everyone....it was cool having real time assistance from you all on my first batch!

The low SG can be caused by not mixing the topping water with the wort well enough. A lot of extract brewer have this problem, do not worry about it . I mean, if your distribution of topping water isn't uniform in the wort, your sample might have had a higher concentration of water than the average wort.

Your airlock might be bubbling faster soon, but I would suggest not to gauge your fermentation based on your bubbling. The best way to gauge your fermentation is to use a hydrometer... You can use the bubbling from your airlock as an approximate tool, but keep this in mind. Before bottling, do a hydrometer reading. Anyhow, the bubbling rate can vary from one batch to another and from one yeast strain to another. The last time I used WLP400 (White labs Belgian White), I had a slow, steady fermentation with low-rate bubbling for about 3 weeks-3 weeks and a half. While with WLP004, it was very different (3-4 days of high rate bubbling).

Update....WOW! Airlock is bubbling around 50 times per minute! It is about 36 hours after I pitched yeast. Temperatrure is at 61 F.

Another Update:

72 hours after pitching yeast.....temperature of bucket (temp strip on side) is down to 59-60 F.....was 63 F in basement when I pitched it on friday....we 've had a cold spell here in PA .....and basement temp has actually dropped to 58F.

Anyway...it is a Ale yeast of course......airlock is bubbling around 8-9 times per minute.

I assume this is fine....I will be leaving in fermenter for 3 weeks anyway....and of course checking the SG to verify fermentation is done.

Just want to verify....the cooler temperature is not a problem?? This kit recommended 64-75 F temperature for fermentation although the yeast package was like 52-75 F range (Nottingham)

Thanks!

It's better to try to keep it at a constant temperature for the first few days of fermentation. So if it's easy to keep it at 63 for a few days, that's better than trying to warm it up a few degrees and then having it cool back down because you can't keep it at the higher trmperature.

The fermentation temperature will make s difference in the beer, but as I said, it's better to keep it constant.

I had the same situation recently, on my first brew too. The basement started getting a little cold and i noticed fermentation lagging a little. I brought it upstairs and let it finish it out. My basement was around 63F whereas upstairs was around 70F.

I don't think the temperature you're at will do anything devastating other than take it longer to finish. You may want to consider moving it upstairs, but be careful when moving a full 5gal bucket.

oh and props from a fellow engineer!