My First Brew!

Well after reading The Complete joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian, watch brewing TV all 71 ep. twice! and some other people on You tube! I ordered my starter kit from Northern Brewer. My first brew was an American Wheat Beer extract kit! Before brew day I did a dry run of what I was going to do. Talking and mentally picturing each step! On brew day, From start to finish took me four and half hours. Boil over on the hot break was the only thing that almost got away from me! I loved it! It was so much fun,I think I am going to like this beer making thing. Bottling day was a little harder,to me I really needed another person to help.Today I get to open a beer to see how they are coming along! My last OG test before bottling the beer tasted good! A little hoppy! But I know that will mellow out with time. I took good notes and I"m keeping records of temperatures everyday where my bottled beer is resting. I hit my SG @ 1.044 and my FG @ 1.010 for three day in a row before I bottled!

Posit!

Welcome to the forums !

Let us know how it tastes.

With practice bottling will become easier. It usually takes me a little over an hour from getting the equipment out to having everything cleaned up and put away but I have bottled well over a thousand bottles now.

Congrats and welcome to the world of home brewing. Be very careful though, it's addicting!!!!

BTW, did you use a bottle filling wand?

WOW! the beer taste awesome!!! Head retention was almost none! I like the taste! you can taste more of the wheat now! The hoppiness is starting a mellow a little! I was going to take a picture but forgot until the beer was all gone! Ooopps! I bottle it on the Jan. 7th,and opened it yesterday the 12th!
jflongo~ yes I used a filling wand. that worked great! I just need to find a way to hold the wand when I cap what I filled, I filled 6 bottles at a time,just need to figure how to hold the filling wand while I put the caps on. Any ideas out there? Having two people at that time would of made a good assembly line. I just might put one more in the frig get cool down and take some pictures.

Posit!

miketobias01 said:

WOW! the beer taste awesome!!! Head retention was almost none! I like the taste! you can taste more of the wheat now! The hoppiness is starting a mellow a little! I was going to take a picture but forgot until the beer was all gone! Ooopps! I bottle it on the Jan. 7th,and opened it yesterday the 12th!
jflongo~ yes I used a filling wand. that worked great! I just need to find a way to hold the wand when I cap what I filled, I filled 6 bottles at a time,just need to figure how to hold the filling wand while I put the caps on. Any ideas out there? Having two people at that time would of made a good assembly line. I just might put one more in the frig get cool down and take some pictures.

Posit!

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If I am understanding you, your saying less than one week in bottles? That is most likely not enough time. It usually takes about 2 weeks to properly bottle condition, and at lower temps it can take up to 3. I still struggle with being patient my self but we must be strong haha

Good luck and welcome to the addiction.

miketobias01 said:

WOW! the beer taste awesome!!! Head retention was almost none! I like the taste! you can taste more of the wheat now! The hoppiness is starting a mellow a little! I was going to take a picture but forgot until the beer was all gone! Ooopps! I bottle it on the Jan. 7th,and opened it yesterday the 12th!
jflongo~ yes I used a filling wand. that worked great! I just need to find a way to hold the wand when I cap what I filled, I filled 6 bottles at a time,just need to figure how to hold the filling wand while I put the caps on. Any ideas out there? Having two people at that time would of made a good assembly line. I just might put one more in the frig get cool down and take some pictures.

Posit!

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SO EXCITED YOU ARE!

Just look at all those exclamation points.
Can't blame you. I'm damn near just as excited after drinking my 4th bottle (not all tonight) of my first SMaSH beer. Summit/vienna IPA. :rockin:
KISS at it's finest.

Next time you bottle try and attach your bottling wand directly up to your bottling bucket using about 2 inches of tubing. Then you can put the bucket on your kitchen counter above your dishwasher leave the washer open so it catches any spills and then instead of having someone hold the wand it will just hang there and you bring the bottle to the wand instead of bringing the wand to the bottle. Check out the pic.

geim32 said:

Next time you bottle try and attach your bottling wand directly up to your bottling bucket using about 2 inches of tubing. Then you can put the bucket on your kitchen counter above your dishwasher leave the washer open so it catches any spills and then instead of having someone hold the wand it will just hang there and you bring the bottle to the wand instead of bringing the wand to the bottle. Check out the pic.

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+1

This is the best way to go. I just put a bucket at my feet to catch the drops though instead of dishwasher door. Then you can just sit in a chair, empties on the left, and place them full on the counter on the right. Best decision I ever made for bottling - teaching swmbo to operate the capper. She is usually a good sport about it, but when she refuses I just find a friend who likes beer. A few free bottles to take home with him for the help usually convinces someone.

yes I know it was going to take 2 to 3 weeks. I just wanted to see how its coming along. I am gong to open another one today to get pictures up here.

Posit:rockin:

Here are some pictures of brew day.


Posit

Ok, I opened another beer. I poured the beer into the glass very quickly. Head was good and creamy and very hoppy smelling and tasting.Now I have to wait at least 2 more weeks.

Posit

Here is my American Wheat Beer Recipe from BrewMate free program.

Posit

Sorry could not get it to post

The beer is better then most of the big beer makers out there! to bad it takes so long from start to finish to get to drink the beer! I had one person on the block try the beer and wanted to pay me. He said it was better then any of the beers he has bought in the stores! So the next beer well be the Dead Ringer IPA by Northern Brewer, we are looking 6 weeks to drink time!!

Posit :rockin: