Finally got around to brewing that American Pale Ale last night. Extract with specialty grains from a local homebrew supply store.
Things were going along fine, and I was being extremely careful about sanitizing everything coming near the beer until literally the very last step. I transfered the wort to my 6.5 gallon carboy, pitched the yeast, and aerated well. But then when I tried to add the airlock, the $%^@ing thing kept popping out.
Now I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I kept pushing in and it kept popping out. And I kept re-dipping everything into my sanitizing solution (starsan and water) since I didn't want to infect the batch.
At one point, I said f it and took a paper towel (a new paper towel, at least) and wiped the inside of the neck of the carboy and the bottom of the stopper since I thought for some reason the wetness of the carboy neck was causing it to somehow reject my stopper (hopefully Bounty pre-sanitizes their paper towels....).
Anyway, about 5-10 minutes later, I finally tried my 6.5 stopper instead of the two 7's I'd been using all along, convinced it would just fall through since it was too small.
Of course, it fit like a charm, and a quick google showed me I should have been using the 6.5 all along.
Whoops. Rookie mistake.
Think I messed this batch up? I'm worried about my hands and paper towels being around the carboy neck, yeast I just pitched, and stopper so much. I did wash my hands previously, and they were in and out of the sanitizing solution frequently. But they were also in my ice bath a bunch previously which obviously wasn't sanitized. Plus, let's face it I'm a guy and a bit foul in general
I'm being a bit paranoid. I have the carboy in a cooler area of my apartment now away from light and it appears to be at ideal temps. No bubbling in the airlock yet, but it's only been about 8 hours. Hopefully it's going by the time I get home from work...
Things were going along fine, and I was being extremely careful about sanitizing everything coming near the beer until literally the very last step. I transfered the wort to my 6.5 gallon carboy, pitched the yeast, and aerated well. But then when I tried to add the airlock, the $%^@ing thing kept popping out.
Now I'm a bit slow on the uptake, but I kept pushing in and it kept popping out. And I kept re-dipping everything into my sanitizing solution (starsan and water) since I didn't want to infect the batch.
At one point, I said f it and took a paper towel (a new paper towel, at least) and wiped the inside of the neck of the carboy and the bottom of the stopper since I thought for some reason the wetness of the carboy neck was causing it to somehow reject my stopper (hopefully Bounty pre-sanitizes their paper towels....).
Anyway, about 5-10 minutes later, I finally tried my 6.5 stopper instead of the two 7's I'd been using all along, convinced it would just fall through since it was too small.
Of course, it fit like a charm, and a quick google showed me I should have been using the 6.5 all along.
Whoops. Rookie mistake.
Think I messed this batch up? I'm worried about my hands and paper towels being around the carboy neck, yeast I just pitched, and stopper so much. I did wash my hands previously, and they were in and out of the sanitizing solution frequently. But they were also in my ice bath a bunch previously which obviously wasn't sanitized. Plus, let's face it I'm a guy and a bit foul in general
I'm being a bit paranoid. I have the carboy in a cooler area of my apartment now away from light and it appears to be at ideal temps. No bubbling in the airlock yet, but it's only been about 8 hours. Hopefully it's going by the time I get home from work...
