After a 1year, i'm taking the plunge.

bxtzd3 said:

ok, still no physical signs of fermentation. so in the event it doesn't show anything soon, what steps should i take and yeast to use to get it going.

Click to expand...

The only step you want to take is to crack open a brew and forget about the fermenter for a day or two. It won't always bubble (leaky kids are not uncommon) and it might take some time for the yeast to get fully engaged.

Just remember - the yeast are trained professionals. Just let them do their kilobit!

Quick question about top up water..If using tap water should this be boiled first? Then cooled before adding to hot wort?

I really like the idea of having 2 gallons in the freezer..I am assuming you are not "freezing" the gallons, but rather cooling down close to freezing?

sumone said:

+1 to every thing said here!


start the boil with 3 gallons and about 40% of the extract giving in the recipe. I added the second half of the extract at the end of the boil and let it sit for 10 minutes before cooling.

Click to expand...

So does the extract (remaining half) not have to boil?

markley said:

So does the extract (remaining half) not have to boil?

Click to expand...

No. It doesn't. (If you are worried about sanitation, putting the extract into the hot wort is enough to sanitize it. It doesn't need to boil. And for "cooking", it doesn't need any cooking whatsoever. The boil is purely for the purpose of the hops.)

(Likewise putting a wort chiller into hot wort will sanitize it. No need to waste sanitizer on a wort chiller.)

Boiling tap water? I don't but if you have reason to suspect microbes in you water (i.e. your tap water is well water) you should. I don't but others do. But I don't.

Also there's chemicals (chlorine mostly) but that's another story altogether.

And freezing the water to close to freezing... No, it's okay to freeze them if you want. Or you could just keep it close to freezing. Up to you.

ok lads, i looked at the bucket last night, 24 hours after pitching yeast, no bubbles but i also seen that i filled the airlock past the line. i removed the lock and dumped out the overage. while it was out i looked through the hole and there was foam in the bucket. so im guessing its all ok. now i did read the temp strip on the bucket, not broke after all just needed to shine a light on it, and the temp is 66-68 . so a slow start. should i move it to a warmer climate?

holy smokes! just realized i am missing a piece to my three piece airlock. the part that goes over the center tube, piston, so im guessing this may be the culprit and the air is happily leaving the chamber hence no bubbles. dam!

bxtzd3 said:

the temp is 66-68 . so a slow start. should i move it to a warmer climate?

Click to expand...

I would probably move it to a cooler climate. I keep beers fermenting that the very bottom of the ideal range for the first few days, then pretty much let it go where it wants (within reason, up to 65-66 for example) to finish fermentation.

bxtzd3 said:

holy smokes! just realized i am missing a piece to my three piece airlock. the part that goes over the center tube, piston, so im guessing this may be the culprit and the air is happily leaving the chamber hence no bubbles. dam!

Click to expand...

There ya go! Don't move it. 66-68 is really good temperature and for a first batch it's enough to make any homebrewer jealous. (Didn't measure mine but I figure it was in the low to mid 70s. My beer was fine but yours will be better. *if* you don't move it.)

woozy said:

welllll....... okay.

But I'm not convinced. I mean it seems like we're both trying to achieve the same thing (turn two gallons of hot wort into five gallons of cool wort) with the same tools (an ice bath and 3 gallons of ice) and it seems that as long as neither of us do anything *indirect* to our goal it's gotta be that whatever order we do everything it's a zero-sum gain. I mean if one's less efficient than the other then one is losing energy and where is the lost energy going?

At any rate. I've never been able to cool as quickly as you have so you might be right... but I'm sure not wrapping my head around it.

{*mumble... smaller volume... surface area... hrmmmm... volume is proportional to depth as the kettle is cylanderical but surface area is proportional to sides which is proportional to depth *PLUS* the base surface area which is the same for both so ... smaller volume => lesser depth => *more* surface area per volume than the larger volumes ... so smaller volume *does* cool faster because it has more square inches per gallon... and... hmm, maybe...}

Click to expand...

Yooper is very correct in his statement.
It's not as much about surface area as it is difference of temps and quantity of volumes. Try the ice bath to 100 and mix with 2.5g freezer water method and you'll be amazed. Sometimes I would fall to mid fifties in mid winter in Florida using this method on accident.
Now getting all 5g of my AG batches down in temp is proving to be a pain in FL with 85 degree ground water...

pollock said:

Yooper is very correct in his statement.
It's not as much about surface area as it is difference of temps and quantity of volumes. Try the ice bath to 100 and mix with 2.5g freezer water method and you'll be amazed. Sometimes I would fall to mid fifties in mid winter in Florida using this method on accident.
Now getting all 5g of my AG batches down in temp is proving to be a pain in FL with 85 degree ground water...

Click to expand...

We're off topic so I figured I'd stop talking about it.

I was willing to be wrong but I wanted an explanation because it was counter intuitive. I sat down and did the math and finally figured it out.

I'm not sure it's so much volume difference as that hotter items lose more total heat in the same time as a cooler item as friesste pointed out. My problem was determining if that extra heat loss as it cools is actually great than larger heat loss of adding the ice first. I did the math. It was.

Case 1: ice first. 2-gallons 212 goes to 5-gallons 104 [That's a big difference! It was hard for me to accept that this might not be desirable]. Which is 40 above room tempature. Cool it for 20 minutes and drops 80% to 8 above room temp. = 72 degrees.
Case 2: ice last 212 is 148 above room temperature. Cool it for 20 minutes and drops 80% to 30 above room temp = 94. mix ice 2 gallons 94 goes to 5 gallons of 57 degrees.

So, yes, Yooper and Friesste were right.

I think what I didn't take into account was the ice-drop of 108 degrees by adding the ice first isn't actually "abandoned" in the second. Cooling by 40 degrees with ice is a lot less than cooling by 108 degrees by ice, true. But the missing 60 degrees (and more) was account for in the air cooling.

But still. Very counter intuitive.

====
And it's lack of faith. I know that if I get it to 90 ice will drop it to the 60s. But when I'm in the kitchen it seems all but impossible that I'll *ever* get to to 90. It's 212 and hot so I drop the ice in and *imediately* it gets down to 110. Wahoo! Now I just got to beat it down to 80 and surely beating 110 to 80 seems much easier than beating 212 to 90.

But apparently it's not. It's not at all.

my babys at work. it smells and tastes like flat sam adams summer wheat. very happy. i do now understand green tasting beer. the hydrometer kept sticking to the sides no matter how many times i spun it. im guessing it will boost up in abv after another week its been in for 4 days.

Yup give it time to work and the SG will start getting to where you want it. And as for the hydrometer sticking to the cylinder, I pretty much gave up on the cylinder and I just make sure that my hydrometer is super sanitized and drop it in the bucket. Now if I'm using a carboy, I have to use the cylinder, but dropping it in the bucket works way better.

Congrats on the first batch! You will now dive into the brewers biggest challenge - patience

For me,wearing trifocals,reading at sharp angles (as in hydrometer in bucket) won't work. Especially if any krausen is present. Here's a neat lil cheapy NB has to fit the tube the hydrometer comes in to stabilize it; http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/brewing-equipment/testing-measuring/foam-hydrometer-stand-ring-blue.html
I think that may help solve our tube leveling issues...

Ok update. After a week and three days, my gravity reading is 1.010, final should be 1.016. And it appears my abv is I'm guessing 2%. It should be 4.5%. Now I took a reading with plain water and it was between .99- 1.000. So does all this sound right? Thanks in advance.

.099 to 1.000 is about where it should be in water at like 66F. Here's the Cooper's ABV formula I use- (OG-FG)/7.46 + .5 = ABV%

Bottled and resting.