Newbie from Lexington

Well as you could guess from the Forum and this thread's Title, I am a neophyte to the brewing world. But I figured the only way to meet fellow brewers was to post.

So. As it stands I have the following goodies:
5 gal "Ale Pail" + lid 3pc airlock
6.5 gal carbouy + 2 "nipple" top +3pc airlock + stoppers for each nipple.
DIY "el cheepo" PEX tubing immersion cooler ($5 for PEX tubing and barb fittings vs $50+ for copper tubing alone)
Turkey "Burner" - fryer burner and Al. pot (soon to be upgraded to SS pot)
Triple scale Hygro. + 2pc test flask
Two plastic racking canes + misc tubing
Bottling wand
big a$$ spoon
2 cases of flip tops
infusion bags

As far as process goes well I'm at the end of week one on the secondary fermentation of the following recipe:

Recipe: Belgian Wit
Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: Wyeast 3944
Yeast Starter: No
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.00
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU: 14
Boiling Time (Minutes): 30
Color: 4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 Days at ~72
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 Days at~72

Ingredients and Directions:
6.6 pounds of Coopers Wheat Malt Extract (boil 10mins)
1lb wheat malt (steep 30mins)
1lb of clear Belgian candi sugar or .78 lb of corn sugar
.5 ounces of bitter orange peel (boil for 2 min)
1 ounces of tettnanger hops @ 4.2% (boil for 10 min)
1 ounces of styrian golding hops @ 4.4% (boil for 30min)
.75 ounces of coriander seed (boil for 2 min)
1 pkg of Wyeast 3944 (Activator pack)
0.75 cups of corn sugar (priming)


The color is much darker than 4* since LME used.

So "what's up?" you ask. Well, I think that I might have had a "stuck" fermentation, due to temperature (68F constant, 72F recommended for yeast), during primary fermentation. My secondary seems plenty active, though. I'm just hoping I didn't get a "bug." We'll see tonight with a hygro reading. I may have to delay a bit before bottling depending on the result. However, if the hygro is good, I think I will be priming and bottling tonight.

But I wanted to do the intro thing. And see if there were any others in the Lexington area.

Welcome! Sounds like you've made a great start. I don't know about homebrewers in the Lexington area, but you might find some.

Again, Welcome!

I actually live in Lexington. I don't know too many other people in this town that are into brewing, but I know that there is a group called BOCK (Brewers of Central Kentucky) I've never gone to a meeting but have seen stuff on the internet. I've only been brewing for about a year so I'm not a genious at this, but if you want to chat just pm me.

Update - Hygro looked good and beer tasted like beer, only flat and a little "immature" (I guess that is the best description, high ester taste). Hopefully it'll mellow out.

I had a DOH moment. For some reason I thought that I had larger bottles, than the ones I bought. So, I was short on bottles. Looks like I'll have to swing by the store and get more.

glorifiedbusdriver - good to know there are others in the area. Maybe we can get together sometime and swap a bottle. But I'll need a couple of weeks to finish conditioning the current batch. I did a quick Google on BOCK and I found their site. http://hbd.org/bock/
I'll have to look more into it, thanks.