First Brew, fermentation, time, alcohol, and taste questions

Yup, real NOOB here. ... so my question is about what to expect, and if anything in this first brewing evolution is as it should be. I know, don't worry, have a home brew, but since this is my first, I am going to settle on an Old Chub as i write this.

This first brew is a canned Bock mix, but I did a 15 minute boil of some cascade hops before adding the can as I love the hop. On the side, I boiled some cranberries and raisins in water and spiced rum for like, 30 min to kill any alcohol and bacteria on the fruit, then brought the temp down on ice. I pre-mixed the dry yeast in warm water to get it started, cooled the wort, and then brought all of it together along with the higher end malt sugar in the plastic bucket. The idea was to let it ferment with the rum fruit hops for a few days in the bucket, then rack it off to the carboy for another week or so without all the solids. Well, during clean up, I discovered that the floating glass thermometer was broken. Yes, I used it to stir the wort during cooling! The actual bulb was fine, but the glass surround and these tiny metal beads were in the mix! So, I siphoned off the mix to the carboy with at least a half gallon left behind in the plastic which hopefully will have any glass and metal.

The first 36 hours in the carboy were crazy foaming fermentation that blew off the airlock which I replaced with a hose and container of sanitizer. Well, now, after 48 hours, the fermentation has slowed way, way down. I am counting one bubble every 40 - 50 seconds or so. Yesterday it was foaming all over the place.

Room temp is fairly high, between 75-80; I just now opened the vents and turned on the AC to bring the temp down to 70.

I took my first hydrometer reading, 1.020, original was 1.045, which according to my table in Palmer's book "How to Brew" means that I am already at 3.2% alcohol after just under 48 hours.

I of course drank the sample that I pulled for the hydrometer, and it was .. . well, "interesting."

So, questions:

Is such a quick primary fermentation normal?

Did it burn out too quickly? If so, what will happen next?

What can I expect from an alcohol content evolution? Does the alcohol get produced in the early days or later in the fermentation cycle? I plan on 3-4 weeks before bottling. Is there anything I should look for to either move this time up or back? I am shooting for a 6-8% ABV. How can I 'throttle' this?

I know taste evolves over time; I have to assume it gets better of course. What flavors, in these first couple of days, will carry forward?

I know this is a bunch of NOOB stuff, but I am excited as he!! to do this for the first time, much like the first time I rode a bike on my own, or that first time at the Perry Iowa drive in theater with my best friend's sister. Exciting, and the anticipation is such a high!

Take another gravity reading in about 10 days, and then again the next 2 days and if it does not change, it is ready for bottling, or kegging. When you siphoned over from the primary, the glass SHOULD have all settled to the bottom, UNLESS you still had a strong ferment churning the beer. Let it sit in the secondary to finish fermentation, and clearing. The yeast will clean up the cloudyness and make the beer taste cleaner also. Then once the gravity readings are the same for 2-3 days straight, it should be finished.

1. A very active and quick fermentation is very common at warmer temps. So what you experienced is not unusual.

2. The yeast didn't burn out too quickly. The speed in which yeast work is based on the environment you give them. If they are healthy and you give them plenty of sugar to eat in a warm location they will just work as fast as nature will allow. While you saw a good healthy fermentation, the downside is that having it ferment so warm will likely lead to more esters in the finished product.

3. As alcohol is created your gravity goes down. The alcohol production takes place in the early stages when the yeast is undergoing active fermentation. This can be achieved in just a few days, but the yeast aren't done working. Just because they've converted everything they can into alcohol they will still be slowly cleaning up after themselves in your beer and give you a better tasting final product. Let your hydrometer be the guide and test it again in a week.

4. Don't even bother worrying about tastes right now. It's fine to taste your hydro samples and stuff but seriously, trying to judge how the finished product will end up from those samples is a fool's errand. I've had beers that tasted quite bad in the early samples yet turned out to be amazing a month later and I've tasted hydro samples that tasted awesome yet the final beer was just average.

Did the mercury from the broken thermometer get into your beer? If so, you might want to consider dumping the batch. I've dropped some strange things in wort and not worried about it, but mercury is poison. The good news is that surprisingly it isn't as bad to injest it and the amount of mercury in a thermometer is small, but is it worth the risk?

Thanks for the excellent feedback, I will be patent and let the yeast do its thing. Frankr, the actual thermometer did not break, only the test-tube like thing it sits in to float. I am more concerned at the very quick fermentation but am going to take the advice and let it alone for another week before taking another SG reading.

SpaceportBP said:

Thanks for the excellent feedback, I will be patent and let the yeast do its thing. Frankr, the actual thermometer did not break, only the test-tube like thing it sits in to float. I am more concerned at the very quick fermentation but am going to take the advice and let it alone for another week before taking another SG reading.

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In that case you are fine. The first couple of days after fermentation starts are usually very active, then everything seems to die down. The yeast will continue to do their thing even though it seems like nothing is going on compared to the "explosive" phase. I would just leave it until you are ready to bottle, then take a final reading. You've done all your work; sit back and let the yeast do theirs.

frankr said:

Did the mercury from the broken thermometer get into your beer? If so, you might want to consider dumping the batch. I've dropped some strange things in wort and not worried about it, but mercury is poison. The good news is that surprisingly it isn't as bad to injest it and the amount of mercury in a thermometer is small, but is it worth the risk?

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You should not be able to buy mercury thermometers anymore. Most modern liquid thermometers are alcohol-based, not mercury.

If you think you have had mercury exposure, call Poison Control. If you have an old mercury thermometer, don't throw it away but instead take it to a facility to be recycled/reclaimed properly... the facilities vary by state but they do exist and there should be no charge to take INTACT thermometers off your hands.

Broken mercury thermometers = very bad juju (from a legal/EPA standpoint).

IMO you might want rig a cheesecloth strainer at the end of your siphon tube when you rack to your bottling bucket to make sure you minimize the possibility of drinking glass. And with an OG of 1.045 I would guess you are going to get about 4.5% ABV out of your brew. I just did a Belgian with an OG of 1.063 and it came out to 6.7%, just to give you some reference. I would just be careful with the broken glass and not worry about hitting a high ABV on this.

Congrats on your first brew. Love the Oskar Blues products - I keep a case of Dale's on hand...

Sounds like a normal brew day - we all have things that can and do go wrong. Like was said earlier, try to get a handle on temperature control. If your room is 70F, your beer is 74F to 78F. Most ale yeasts are best from 62F to 68F, so work on a way to get that fermenter colder.

A bathtub of cool water, with some frozen ice bottles exchanged a couple times per day works - or you can go fancy and build a fermenting chamber - a refrigerator with a temperature controller or a styrofoam box to hold ice and your fermenter - lots of things out there...

Thanks, all, for the great feedback. I do believe the glass will not be a problem, but will filter as suggested just to be sure. In looking back, the initial 48 hours of fermentation was done at too high a temperature (75-80). I have since dropped the room temp down and will take on the ice bath idea as well.

The next batch will be better temperature controlled. I have a small refrigerator that is not used; not sure if it can maintain such a relatively warm temp though. I will do some searches on the forum to see what is possible - I know this has already been done!

On another note, I just upgraded my membership, as I am in this for the long haul, and look forward to learning as much as I can in these months before launching my own business and of course continuing well after.

SpaceportBP said:

Thanks, all, for the great feedback. I do believe the glass will not be a problem, but will filter as suggested just to be sure. In looking back, the initial 48 hours of fermentation was done at too high a temperature (75-80). I have since dropped the room temp down and will take on the ice bath idea as well.

The next batch will be better temperature controlled. I have a small refrigerator that is not used; not sure if it can maintain such a relatively warm temp though. I will do some searches on the forum to see what is possible - I know this has already been done!

On another note, I just upgraded my membership, as I am in this for the long haul, and look forward to learning as much as I can in these months before launching my own business and of course continuing well after.

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I've read a lot of the Palmer book and a few others but I can easily say that I learned just as much on this site. Hearing practical, first hand advice from people who've done it has been awesome, and helped me churn out some pretty decent beers already :rockin: