New guy looking for an equipment check.

Daughter got me a Christmas present and I am pumped to make my first batch. The kit had a 5 gal steel cooking pot, a 5 gal plastic carboy and about a 6 gal plastic bucket with no lid but with a hole near the bottom and a faucet to fit it. Other inclusions are siphon, bottle filler, capper, thermometer, carboy plug, funnel with strainer, airlock, hydrometer, tubes, sanitizers, a kit for making pale ale and an instructional video from Midwest Homebrewing supplies. The kit has no grain, only packages of malt, sugar and yeast.

Q. I don’t want to buy a cooling coil because in a few months the tap water here in Houston probably won’t be enough to cool the wort. For this first batch can I just set the boiling cooking pot in a tub with a few inches of water and add ice? If the ice is zero degrees and the 5 gallons of wort is 212 to get it down to 70 I will need about 10 gal of ice (80 lbs) does that seem right? So I will need a 15-20 gallon tub to do the cooling.

Q. When it is cooled, do I add the yeast to the pot and then pour everything into the carboy using the filtered funnel? Am I right to consider the carboy the fermenter? In the video the expert talked about using a glass carboy, all I have is a plastic one, wondering if it will be okay. When I get the wort in there should I top it off with water?

Q. It seems to me I could just pour the wort straight from the cooking pot into the 6 gallon plastic bucket, if I could find a good lid for it, and let it ferment in there (bypassing the carboy). Then when the beer was ready, just open up the tap on the bottom and fill the bottles. So maybe the carboy is redundant, or supposed to be used for something else?

This is my first post other than introduction. I’m proud to keep it to approximately three to eight questions! Hope to meet all of you one day, this is a great looking forum.

putts

In order:
1) With a 5 gallon pot you will be doing a partial boil usually starting with about 3.5 gal or so and boiling down to 2.5 to 3 gallons, then topping off with a couple gallons. If you chill the top off water then you only need to get your wort partially cooled and the top off water will help bring it down. I used to do an ice bath in my big kitchen sink, I can't remember how much ice was needed but certainly not 80 lbs . Like a bag or two I think.

2) dump your mostly chilled wort into the fermenter, add the top off water, then shake or stir the crap out of it to aerate for several minutes. Then add your yeast.

3) So the midwest kit didn't come with a bucket for primary fermentation? I thought all their kits did. The bucket with the spigot is for bottling, I would not recommend trying to bottle from that as a primary. There will be a big layer of yeast and trub at the bottom that you really don't want to disturb or get in your bottles. Most folks batch prime for bottling which means you put the boiled and cooled sugar in the bottling bucket, rack the beer onto it to mix, them bottle from there. The 5 gallon carboy size is typically for use as a secondary/clearing vessel (for example for longer aging). It will be a little small as a primary for a 5 gallon batch, you might want to go down a little on the batch size or get a cheap bucket at the LHBS or home depot to use as a primary.

Oh, and welcome to the addiction!

Chicky has some good advice.

Cold top off water will cool it down a lot, then a little ice bath to finish it off. Even before I got a chiller I was doing full volume boils (no top off water) and getting down to 60ish with 40 pounds of ice. Use just water first to get down from boiling to around 100, then add fresh cool water and ice.

I'm in houston also. My copper chiller gets me to the 90s or so in the summer, then I pump ice water through it to get it lower.

Get your ice from buccees if you have one close, $1.50 for 20 lb bag. And there is a good homebrew store called defalcos on Stella link and 610 that I shop at.

Happy brewing

Ps: read read read.

Yeah now that I think about it I would do a cold tap water bath to get it down, then drain and add new cold water then add the ice. Uses a lot less ice that way (though my tap water is also pretty cool year round). It's been so long since I haven't had a chiller and I'm getting old so my memory is fading.

As the others have mentioned - the 5 gallon carboy you have is usually intended as a secondary fermentor (meaning, after your beer spends some time in a 'primary fermentor' you could then move it to the secondary fermentor for additional fermenting time). Typically, most homebrewers use a 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket (or carboy) for primary fermentation. This allow enough headspace in the bucket for a 5 gallon batch so that it fermentation doesn't blow the lid off and cause a big sticky mess.

It sounds to me that it would be worth your while to pick up a 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket with a lid that has a hole in the top to insert an airlock with a rubber bung. You can do your fermenting in that, and then it's optional whether you want to transfer (rack) the beer to your 5 gallon carboy after some time.

1. Check the "Carboy" it may in fact be a 6.5 in carboy.
2. Boil about 2.5 gallons. Once its chilled to about 100 degrees dump in your chilled spring water. You'll be below 80 degrees and it will be pitchable.
3. You can bottle it about 3 weeks later.

Welcome to your new addiction....

Go with what's been said... check your plastic carboy -- it may, in fact, be 6.5 gallons. I have a hard time telling my 6 gallon plastic carboy from my 5 gallon one. They are almost identical. Look on the bottom, it'll probably have the volume stamped on there. Oh, and one very important thing -- do not go by airlock activity to determine when your beer is done -- wait about 3 weeks then take several consecutive hydrometer readings over several days. Once you have three days with identical readings, it's done.

You are all correct, the carboy is actually 6 gals. And yes I see now, since the boil will only be 2.5 - 3 gals, the extra water will do a lot of the cooling for me. Looks like my plastic carboy is no one's first choice for a primary, but it will do?

I will have the house to myself Tuesday so that is spud date. Temps will be 40's and 50's, will that be okay for fermenting in the garage?

tom

puttster said:

You are all correct, the carboy is actually 6 gals. And yes I see now, since the boil will only be 2.5 - 3 gals, the extra water will do a lot of the cooling for me. Looks like my plastic carboy is no one's first choice for a primary, but it will do?

I will have the house to myself Tuesday so that is spud date. Temps will be 40's and 50's, will that be okay for fermenting in the garage?

tom

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Actually, the carboy is fine for your primary. Some folks prefer to use a bucket, but I use a plastic carboy (i.e. "Better Bottle") myself.
As for the fermentation temp, that's too low. It really should be in the low 60's for most yeast. Do you have a spare room in the house that you can put the fermenter in? Doesn't have to get up too high, as the fermenting yeast will create heat, so a little on the cool side would be better (high 50's to low 60's ambient) would be perfect.

40s seems low for fermentation to me. I would try to find a place around 65 ambient.

Newsman said:

Actually, the carboy is fine for your primary. Some folks prefer to use a bucket, but I use a plastic carboy (i.e. "Better Bottle") myself.
As for the fermentation temp, that's too low. It really should be in the low 60's for most yeast. Do you have a spare room in the house that you can put the fermenter in? Doesn't have to get up too high, as the fermenting yeast will create heat, so a little on the cool side would be better (high 50's to low 60's ambient) would be perfect.

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+1. Plastic carboys are fine and I've used them for many yrs as well as buckets and a conical - all make good beer. We were more worried about the size being too small for primary but at 6+ gal you should be good to go. I'd still google blow off tube as that's never a bad idea.
As Newsman points out your garage temps are more in the lager range but too cool for an ale, you're going to risk putting the yeast to sleep. So low 60's and stable is best.

chickypad said:

2) dump your mostly chilled wort into the fermenter, add the top off water, then shake or stir the crap out of it to aerate for several minutes. Then add your yeast.

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So you aerate before you pitch not after?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

Aerate prior to pitching the yeast. No stirring required. Seal fermenter. Wait for beer.

I have a few pieces I am still not sure how to use.

A sticky sided "Perometer" with a 36-78 scale. I already have a digital clip thermometer.

A hydrometer that came in an non see-through case, how should I use it?

A three piece plastic airlock.

Jar of PBW powder.

Strange two-lid bottle of Star San.

puttster said:

I have a few pieces I am still not sure how to use.

A sticky sided "Perometer" with a 36-78 scale. I already have a digital clip thermometer.

A hydrometer that came in an non see-through case, how should I use it?

A three piece plastic airlock.

Jar of PBW powder.

Strange two-lid bottle of Star San.

Click to expand...

In order:
1) Stick it onto the side of your fermenter so you can see what the fermentation temp is. Beer likes to be in the mid-60's, generally, when fermenting. Otherwise you tend to get off flavors and such.

2) Take it out of the case and put it in a tube of your wort or beer to get the gravity of the liquid.

3)Put the body of the airlock in the hole on top of your fermenter (if it's a carboy there should be a big rubber stopper with a hole drilled into it -- stick the end of the airlock in there) then pour water or vodka or something like that in the top of the airlock and then put the little "thimble" upside down over the tube inside the airlock and then put the cap on that.

4) PBW: Mix it up to clean up your fermenter. Some folks like to mix up a batch and leave it in the carboy overnight to get it really clean. Or you can just mix it up, pour it in, shake the heck out of it and dump it then rinse well.

5) Star San is no-rinse sanitizer. The bottle has a built-in measuring section where you just squeeze the concentrated sanitizer in there, and then dump it in a bucket or whatever and then mix up it up with water according to the directions. You don't need a full 5 gallons to sanitize your carboy. One gallon would be more than sufficient, just shake it up really well.

Thanks newsman. PBW and StarSan are supposed to do the same thing? One liquid, one powder?

No, PBW is a cleaner. Star san is a sanitizer that you apply to a clean item just before using it. Everything post-boil that touches the wort or beer should be sanitized.

Edit: also as Newsman pointed out PBW should be rinsed well with warm water. Do not rinse star san.

Thanks for expanding on that for me, Chickypad! I should have explained that PBW is cleanser.

Got it. Kit came with a sprayer. So I would mix up a batch of sanitizer in it and spray down the bottling jug just before using it. The carboy has to be a shake & rinse job. Siphon, too?

Am I correct that the 60-90 minute boiling of the LME and DME is to kill botulism spores? It is not to convert grain starch to sugar, that is what the extract mostly is already?

Regards the wort cooling, I see no one suggests just add ice to the hot pot. Is that for sanitary reasons or for taste?

ok a couple things of importance here.

1. Better bottles are NOT heat safe so do not use hot water over 140.
2. When you mix star san, use distilled water and mix a gallon up at a time, then fill the squirt bottle. It will keep for months and months. It's not super expensive but why waste it either. A small bottle will last your for years.
3. PDW is also re-usable. I tpyically use OXY-clean for my cleaning it's cheaper and basically the same thing as PDW. I save my PDW for kettle/kegs and overnight soaks of fermenters after a batch,

Use spring or filtered water for your brewing so as to avoid chlorine. Plus if you put the spring water in the fridge it will get you to pitching temperature very easily. Just cool your wort in the sink, filled with water and ice to 100 degrees. Mixing it with the extra water to make it five gallons will easily have it at pitching temps.

Ice is not sanitary.

I always star san my lid and keep the pot covered while I am cooling it down once I get below 140.

You boil for 60 minutes mostly because of hops, but also because the half life of dms (Creamed corn flavor is 40 minutes) so doing this removes 70% or so of the dms.

Temp control is something you'll eventually want to tackle but other than keeping it warm enough I wouldn't worry about it for your first batch.

Your priorities this time are:

1. Having a great time.
2. learning about your equipment.
3. making sure you follow the directions
4. Begin your addiction

Come up with a good procedure from the beginning, walk yourself through it...Once you've got a solid basic framework of what to do, then then you can start moving into refinements and improving your craft.

One thing -- a lot of folks here say you should wait until about 15 minutes before the end of the boil to put in your LME, as it has a tendency to caramelize and darken during the boil. To be honest, I don't know this first-hand, so I'm just going by what the "experts" here say.

All right, batch one of my new life is bubbling. The juice is at 66 degrees and the airlock gives me one "blip" per second, how does it look?



Here are the questions that came up during the brew:

Should I have put the hops pellets in one of the provided bags (one about the size of a sock, the other larger)?
When you put the lid on the pot it boils over (not a question, really )
After adding DME instructions say boil 15 minutes. Is that 15 after coming back to a boil?
Do the bottles need to be from non-twist-off caps or will my big red capper work on any type?

Thanks for all the support so far.

Looks beautiful!
for questions:
- to use bags or not is a preference. I use a hop spider when doing an IPA or something with a lot of hops, for other batches without a ton of hops I just toss them in. If using a bag I would want them loose.
- If using grain you shouldn't boil with the lid on anyway, a compound called DMS is produced when the wort is hot and needs to boil off so as not to produce cooked corn off flavors. With extract I don't think it applies but if you move up to partial mash/all grain it could become a problem.
- Are you talking about the late addition for the DME, i.e. you add a small portion at the beginning of the boil and the rest with 15 min or less to go? I think folks bring it back to a boil and restart the timer (maybe some extract brewers can chime in). Or you can just add at flameout.
- Twist offs may not cap properly.

edit: if you're not already doing it you probably should cover the carboy with a t-shirt or towel. Light is bad for beer.

I'll go put a towel on is asap.

While on the equipment, I practiced with the big red capper on a bottle of Red Stripe and it seemed to work. Then I popped the top and red capped it again and it seemed to work again.

Now, I know the caps are not that expensive but is there some inherent reason those things can't be reused and reused until they split in half?

Also a sterilization question: I sterilized the funnel but when I poured the wort into the fermenter it jammed up the filter. So I had to scrape the mess out with fingers, rinse the funnel out with tap water and pour again. Repeat, repeat, etc. How do folks manage this transfer?

I'm in the group that doesn't filter and just pours everything in. It will all settle out and compact down in the fermenter. You may want to filter if you're going to harvest yeast though.

puttster said:

I'll go put a towel on is asap.

While on the equipment, I practiced with the big red capper on a bottle of Red Stripe and it seemed to work. Then I popped the top and red capped it again and it seemed to work again.

Now, I know the caps are not that expensive but is there some inherent reason those things can't be reused and reused until they split in half?

Also a sterilization question: I sterilized the funnel but when I poured the wort into the fermenter it jammed up the filter. So I had to scrape the mess out with fingers, rinse the funnel out with tap water and pour again. Repeat, repeat, etc. How do folks manage this transfer?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't reuse caps. There is a chance you won't get a proper seal and it won't carbonate properly. Caps are way to cheap to risk it.

Those filters that go in the filter are very small. I use a big, fine mesh strainer and still have to empty hops material at least once during the transfer. Many people don't filter the debris at all and make just as good beer.

So the grit was mostly hops? Next time I will put them in the bag and maybe cut down on the plugging.

chick & tx- just wondering where the mechanical reason tor an unsuccessful reseal might be, or if anyone (other than the company selling caps) has some hard information or experience on reusing caps.

Right now the room temp is 71 and the liquid temp is 66 or so. Instructions say 64-72, so I am ok but this disparity seems strange to me, is it strange?

I am making American Cream Ale. What can I expect in taste? Something like Budweiser but a little bitterer? Is there a beer out there I can get to compare mine to? What change would occur if I pushed ithe fermenter back in the closet (3 degrees cooler) or into the attic (runs down around 60-65)?

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/6/

You can research your different styles using the website above.

Also if you have a siphon you may want to consider syphoning from the boil kettle to the carboy rather then trying to use the funnel.

I suddenly realized I only have six empty beer bottles! Give me some ideas where I can get fifty more in two days!

rally the troops and start drinkin!
you can also try a local bar

Or you can go BUY empty bottles from your LHBS. But it's probably more fun to buy full bottles and empty 'em.

Can I use my twist off cap bottles? I don't think I can finish enough boutique bottles in time. What about water bottles?

.

What part of town are you in? You can buy empty bottles at any Local Home Brew Store. (LHBS) DeFalcos is at Stella Link and 610 South not far from Reliant Stadium. There is also one in Humble, The Woodlands and I think Tomball. There are probably more that I don't know of.

If you're anywhere near Humble/Kingwood or the Galleria, I could probably loan you some. I just made my first batch this week as well, so we could trade notes on the experience. But I've been collecting bottles for years in anticipation of starting this hobby.

Shoot me a PM if you want to try and get togther.

Oh, and I forgot to say, I think the answer is no on the plastic bottles, unless they are a particular type that are made for home brewing. Definitely not clear water bottles.

Heres a link to DeFalcos web site. They list pretty much everything they sell, so it's a great reference.

http://www.defalcos.com/virtuemart.html?page=shop.browse&category_id=39

Ouch! 12 oz bottles are $16 a case, so almost half the cost of the ones that are full of yummy beer. Don't buy them. Get in touch with me and we'll figure something out.

TxBigHops said:

What part of town are you in? You can buy empty bottles at any Local Home Brew Store. (LHBS) DeFalcos is at Stella Link and 610 South not far from Reliant Stadium. There is also one in Humble, The Woodlands and I think Tomball. There are probably more that I don't know of.

If you're anywhere near Humble/Kingwood or the Galleria, I could probably loan you some. I just made my first batch this week as well, so we could trade notes on the experience. But I've been collecting bottles for years in anticipation of starting this hobby.

Shoot me a PM if you want to try and get togther.

Click to expand...

Good Planning on your part, Tx! Yesterday I tried restaurants, pubs and liquor stores and saw a definite reluctance to help. My daughter may have a lead on some non-twist offs, and though expensive I do like the 22 oz at DeFalcos. I live in Montrose so that would be a last resort. If nothing pans out I will PM you, thanks for the offer.

How long can I keep the beer in the fermenter after it quits bubbling? A week, maybe?

Tom

puttster said:

Good Planning on your part, Tx! Yesterday I tried restaurants, pubs and liquor stores and saw a definite reluctance to help. My daughter may have a lead on some non-twist offs, and though expensive I do like the 22 oz at DeFalcos. I live in Montrose so that would be a last resort. If nothing pans out I will PM you, thanks for the offer.

How long can I keep the beer in the fermenter after it quits bubbling? A week, maybe?

Tom

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You can leave it longer than a week. 2-3 weeks would even be fine.

Also, soda bottles will work. But keep the clear ones in the dark.

puttster said:

How long can I keep the beer in the fermenter after it quits bubbling? A week, maybe?

Tom

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was another thing I was going to mention. As I've learned over the years I've been studying on this forum, the instructions that come with kits are usually not to be followed regarding fermentation times. 5-7 days may be long enough to make beer, but it's not long enough to make really good beer. Longer time in the fermentor is almost always better. Did you take a gravity reading right before you pitched your yeast? One general rule of thumb that I picked up here is if the OG is under 1.050, ferment at least 10-14 days, or more. If over 1.050 minimum 2-3 weeks, or more. Longer is almost always better for the basic recipes us beginners are using. It gives the beer more time to let the yeast do it's job of cleaning up. Your beer will continue to get clearer and it will clean up some off flavors.

You can get some really good beer in those 22 oz bombers at Specs or HEB. I stress again, don't buy bottles. You can accumulate those over time. I'm happy to throw a couple cases of empties in the trunk. I drive right past Montrose on my way home from work every day.

When I cooled down the wort I took a hydro and it was 1.050. Just now (six days later) I took a sample from the fermenter and it was 1.010. Seems to be on track. If I leave the beer in the fermenter for two more weeks will the yeast keep working and the alcohol % will increase?

I did test the product and I was not too impressed. Maybe it will improve with ageing, I hope so.

Puttster