First time home brewer with a couple questions...

Hey everyone, great site and great forum. I have a few questions. Last
thursday i brewed my first batch, an american pale ale from a kit I bought
online.

- While cooling the wort, on maybe two occasions, I accidentally allowed
water from the ice bath to drip off my arm into the cooling wort. This
is something I will be more careful about next time, but I was wondering
what are the chances this has a serious adverse effect on my brew? Is
it more of a situation where there is a possibility that it will effect
it, but the chances are good that it won't?

- I bought a 6 gallon secondary better-bottle carboy for secondary
fermenting, and afterwards read that the secondary fermenter should be 5
gallons for a 5 gallon batch to minimize the amount of oxygen. Right
now my batch is in a 6 gallon bucket going through primary fermentation.
Here is my question:

-After primary fermentation has completed, am I better off allowing
the brew to sit in the same bucket for a few more days without racking
to the secondary carboy, or can I rack it to the secondary carboy and
allow it to sit in there with hopes of a clearer beer with little
oxidation?


Thanks for your help in advance. I am excited about this first attempt,
and am already looking for good Dry Stout recipes to try next.

jzal8 said:

- While cooling the wort, on maybe two occasions, I accidentally allowed water from the ice bath to drip off my arm into the cooling wort. This is something I will be more careful about next time, but I was wondering what are the chances this has a serious adverse effect on my brew? Is it more of a situation where there is a possibility that it will effect it, but the chances are good that it won't?

Click to expand...

Chances are you will be fine. I had my immersion chiller pour a couple litres of water into my kettle once and that beer was fine too.

jzal8 said:

-After primary fermentation has completed, am I better off allowing the brew to sit in the same bucket for a few more days without racking to the secondary carboy, or can I rack it to the secondary carboy and allow it to sit in there with hopes of a clearer beer with little
oxidation?

Click to expand...

The smaller headspace would be optimal but in reality the beer will off-gas CO2 when you rack it which will displace the oxygen. You will be fine using that better bottle for your secondary. If you choose you could even go 2-3 weeks in the primary and then directly into your bottling bucket.

jzal8 said:

Hey everyone, great site and great forum. I have a few questions. Last
thursday i brewed my first batch, an american pale ale from a kit I bought
online.

- While cooling the wort, on maybe two occasions, I accidentally allowed
water from the ice bath to drip off my arm into the cooling wort.

Click to expand...

Odds are excellent that it will be just fine

- I bought a 6 gallon secondary better-bottle carboy for secondary
fermenting, and afterwards read that the secondary fermenter should be 5
gallons for a 5 gallon batch to minimize the amount of oxygen. Right
now my batch is in a 6 gallon bucket going through primary fermentation.

Click to expand...

You'll be fine. As mentioned above, the beer will offgas CO2 and if not completely purge the headspace, at least form a layer that covers the beer.

Here is my question:

-After primary fermentation has completed, am I better off allowing
the brew to sit in the same bucket for a few more days without racking
to the secondary carboy, or can I rack it to the secondary carboy and
allow it to sit in there with hopes of a clearer beer with little
oxidation?

Click to expand...

You will get varying opinons on racking to secondary, and both sides have valid points. I tend to use a bright tank (secondary or clearing vessel) for my brews, but I'm sure I'd be fine just leaving it in primary for the lenghts of time it sits before kegging. Problems don't start with long contact time with focculated yeast and trub until a month or more, and most folks have bottled or kegged by then (unless it's a huge beer or something)

Ok great, you have been very helpful. I have one more question. As of today I am getting one bubble a minute popping through the airlock. Is it safe to say that it is time to take a hydrometer reading from the primary at this point?

I would be patient and give it at least a full week in primary before I took a sample. Once fermentation is complete the yeast will clean up after themselves and you need to give them some time to do that. Racking to secondary too early will stop that process.

bradsul said:

I would be patient and give it at least a full week in primary before I took a sample. Once fermentation is complete the yeast will clean up after themselves and you need to give them some time to do that. Racking to secondary too early will stop that process.

Click to expand...

Alright great, I'll wait a couple more days before doing anything. Thanks for the advice.