1st batch brewed - now questions

First batch - Bascom Brown Ale - Everything went well but did not have the massive boil over I have heard about. Stirred the pot regularly. I was told to put a lid of a smaller pot on the bottom to avoid burning.

However - all that seemed to do was trap stuff below it - the question is - is SOME burning on the bottom a normal thing?

Or are you guys pouring out your wort from a clean pot????

1 more question. Still waiting for fermentation to commence (it's only been 1 hour). Using a 6 gallon carboy is just using an air lock ok (instead of that big think hose in a pot deal).

thanks

SOME burning is ok....it's just part of extract brewing in my world....Better pots with thicker bottoms help.

Fermentation....Give it till morning at least.

Blowoff Tube....If you need it, You'll wish you had one....if not...You'll be fine.

I use airlocks and have started using fermcap. I had too many cleanups. With wheats, I will still use a hose. I would swithch to hoses if you plan to not use fermcap. CLean-up sucks.

When I do beers with wheat in them, I always use a hose. My wit made me glad that I decided to buy the stuff to make it, but my wheat-blonde developed only the smallest krausen, and after then second day, I removed it because I had it in a cooler next to my bed and it was keeping me up at night. If it wasn't a wheat beer, chances are, you won't get a crazy clogged blowoff, but it's always a possibility.

have never used a blow off tube, but have never done a wheat. wheat is next in line though, think it might be time to invest.

i use an airlock and a little burning at the bottom is ok

I never used an airlock because I never seemed to have this "blow off" issue...until I made a wheat. My airlock looked like it was about to burst at the seems and it took me forever to clean the aftermath off of it.

Hoosierbrewer said:

I use airlocks and have started using fermcap. I had too many cleanups. With wheats, I will still use a hose. I would swithch to hoses if you plan to not use fermcap. CLean-up sucks.

Click to expand...

I agree with the above blow-off tube sentiment normally. But I brewed some Bascom brown 5 weeks ago and held my primary fermentation in a 6 gallon carboy with an airlock. I used wyeast 1098 (London) and had no problems with the fermentation being too vigorous.

I used 3/4c of the priming sugar that came with the kit a la Palmer's recommendation. The kit actually came with around one cup. You may want to use the full amount of priming sugar that came with the kit. I have had mine in bottles for 2 weeks at 70-77 degrees and the beers are still flat as hell. Good tasting, but flat as hell.

Interesting noisy123. I'll make sure of the sugar at the end.

I did not have any big boil over - did you?? Also as of this morning, 10 hours after pitching the yeast - I have very little action in the fermentor.

I have records of EVERYTHING though. Not really worried - the only thing that I was worried about is the wyeast 1098 (London) was in the package for 5 hours - took a little longer then I anticipated.

I have more questions in another post!

I've been brewing for a while- I've never had a big boilover. Maybe my pot is big enough, or maybe I watch closer than others, but I wouldn't expect a boil over unless I was putting 4.5 gallons in a 5 gallon pot. I use a barely big enough 30 quart pot, though, so I usually only put 6 gallons in it. I add the hops after the "hot break" so things have settled down a bit.

Grinder12000 said:

Interesting noisy123. I'll make sure of the sugar at the end.

I did not have any big boil over - did you?? Also as of this morning, 10 hours after pitching the yeast - I have very little action in the fermentor.

I have records of EVERYTHING though. Not really worried - the only thing that I was worried about is the wyeast 1098 (London) was in the package for 5 hours - took a little longer then I anticipated.

I have more questions in another post!

Click to expand...

I did not see any boil over. I was using a stainless steel 4 gallon pot with a clad-aluminum bottom. I was also a little crazy about stirring given that this was my first brew. If anything I think I was promoting hot-side aeration by stirring too much.

I also noticed the 1098 took a while for vigorous fermentation to start (28 hours). I used the same strain on an amber ale, but this time I used a starter and I had full kraesen within 3 hourse. I am sold on pitching huge quantities of yeast. I followed the Palmer's directions here with excellent results:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter6-5.html

Cheers,
Adam

I dont think you have to worry about HSA until the boil is finished(but am not sure)the act of boiling should prevent any aeration. Stirring breaks up the foam and reduces the chance of boilover. something I recently started doing(last 2 batches) was boiling with several SS close nipples in the bottom of the pot to act as nucleic sites and reduce the bubble size. I'm still trying to determine if this is helping reduce the boil foam.
My LHBS owner who has been brewing for 20 years says that as the foam forms he scoops it out with a strainer and has never had boil over problems. I'm not to sure of this idea though because although the foam has a lot of protein in it I worry that it also has fermentable sugars in it that we want to keep.

Grinder12000 said:

First batch - Bascom Brown Ale - Everything went well but did not have the massive boil over I have heard about. Stirred the pot regularly. I was told to put a lid of a smaller pot on the bottom to avoid burning.

Click to expand...

However - all that seemed to do was trap stuff below it - the question is - is SOME burning on the bottom a normal thing?[/url]

I burnt some LME on the bottom of a pot recently. Beer is doing some bottle conditioning now, so I can't say whether it will have any negative impact.

What I do (and forgot to do in the batch I mentioned above) is:
a) Turn OFF the heat before pouring in the LME.
b) Stir the hell out of it and do not turn the heat back on until I can pull the spoon out and see no more LME syrup on it.
c) Only put in about 50-70% of the LME (I do a 3 gallon boil) and the remainder at the end of the boil (right after killing the heat)

1 more question. Still waiting for fermentation to commence (it's only been 1 hour).

Click to expand...

Give it 24 hours. Give it 48 hours before you start getting concerned. Give it 72 hours before you panic.

Using a 6 gallon carboy is just using an air lock ok (instead of that big think hose in a pot deal).

Click to expand...

6 gallon carboy may not be enough room. I've come home to a Krausen covered floor with my 6.5 gallon carboy. At 6 gallons I'd definitely have a blowoff tube.

beerthirty said:

I dont think you have to worry about HSA until the boil is finished(but am not sure)the act of boiling should prevent any aeration. Stirring breaks up the foam and reduces the chance of boilover. something I recently started doing(last 2 batches) was boiling with several SS close nipples in the bottom of the pot to act as nucleic sites and reduce the bubble size. I'm still trying to determine if this is helping reduce the boil foam.

Click to expand...

I think you are right. I believe Palmer points out that the enzyme responsible for HSA is denatured past 170 F. So there is a danger of HSA (if there is a danger) during the mash and after the boil.