Noob notes-- a month in review

Thought I'd pass on some experiences from my first month of home brewing...This post fueled by rum and cokes instead of home brews for reasons that will become obvious below...

Batch 1: Munton's Highland Heavy kit, Christmas gift from SWMBO along with plastic bucket kit. she's a keeper!

Sanitizer: clorox&water solution. Chose this mainly be because I could get started without a trip to my LHBS which is not all that local.

Method: followed kit instructions, since the LME was prehopped did not do a boil per se, boiled plain water then mixed all extract and water in fermenter. Of the 5 gal batch, 2 gallons were boiled, the remainder added cold from tap in the fermenter. Have a question about this at end of the post...

Insertion of airlock: reminded me of prom night. Shaking too much to hit The target. Pushed too hard, airlock grommet into the wort. Minor panic attack, but after sinking to the level of my training, improvised with a rubber band wrapped around The airlock stem. Not pretty but wedged it in there.

Cooling wort: comedy of errors, cue Benny Hill theme. Did not prepare any kind of ice bath , did not sufficient ice in house for said bath, being a noob i have no, and am slightly afraid of, wort chiller...ended up making space inside my chest freezer and putting fermenter in there until stickon themo. Indicated a temperature I could actually see, think around 78 deg.. F. "cold crash" took only 60 minutes.

O.g. Measurement: let's say 1.042. You'll have to trust me.

the windup, and the pitch: pitched the little dry yeast packet from the kit into the 78 deg. Wort. The kit made me do it.

Fermenter placement: in basement, on workbench next to lamp I am fixing for SWMBOs mom. Reflect upon photos of homebrew caves from this forum and feel simultaneously inadequate yet "keepin it real"

Religious monitoring of fermenter: no bubble activity for first 24 hours. Read , re-read, and transcribe Revvy's posts on fermenter activity for faith & guidance. Gave it the shake & swirl. And lo..bubbles.

Channel HBT zen: left fermenter alone, but noted temp. And airlock activity daily. Temp ended up stabilizing 64-66 deg. took gravity reading. Around 1.020. Tell myself I made a session beer, and feel proud that I'm above those just hazing big alcohol beers.

Bottling: purely on basis that fermentation "should be done" in a week, racked to bottling bucket,

Oh no, forgot priming sugar. In panic, grab ancient bottle of store bought simple syrup from fridge. Measure out correct amount by weight, and add to bottling bucket.

then Bottle using beer bottles, soda bottles, baby bottles, anything I can find, as I don't really realize how much beer 5 gallons is. While bottling, I make sure to avoid use of the bottling wand that came with my kit, and glug it straight into tHe bottles from the bucket spigot. Lots of foam and oxygen in the bottles.

Capping: no problems I can actually remember. However, after all is done I realize my finger is bleeding. No idea.

Bottle condition: after 1 week, I sneak a boTtle to see what a young beer tastes like. To my surprise it is not great, but drinkable. Can tell the low alcohol, ESP compared to my usual tastes, which run to the higher ABVs. I notice a slight sour note I the aroma and taste, but it is light.

In subsequent days, I sample more bottles, and it seems the souring is worse. Look up possible causes, and thinking it is some bacterial thing, likely acetobacter. (Palmer text)

And now, the question. I blame the souring on the following, in order of "worst sanitizing /process mistake"
1. Simple syrup primer
2. Churning / foaming while bottling
3. Poor use of Clorox sanitizer
3. Use of water direct from tap to make up the 5 gallons.
Any opinions?

undaunted, batch 2 is in fermenter now, actually my own simple extract based recipe. Stay tuned for noob notes #2. I've switched to star San for this batch, and did a partial boil, but still made up my final fermenter volume straight from tap.

I'm really loving the process and learning how to do all this, and really appreciate the forum.
Thanks
Beerluvva

Great notes! I enjoyed reading it - all too familiar. Sounds like you are well on your way to mastering the hobby. From your post, persistence seems to be clearly on your side and that will pay off quickly.

Things got easier and patience was easier after I established a pipeline with two or three brews in various stages. I brew one every two or three weeks and then bottle or transfer on the other weeks.

Awesome notes. Getting better comes from learning from your mistakes.

Did I read correctly that you bottled afte a week?

Ive found that alot of this is preparation be prepared and it will go a lot smoother

Nice notes, fun to read.
1st: Patience grasshopper. leave beer in fermenter for 3 weeks
2nd: foaming/splashing at bottling. Use bottle wand and check out Revvys bottling sticky.
3rd: you already fixed this... Starsan! Get spray bottle and wet everything that touches your beer after boil.
4th: check your water report. If they use cloromine then get campden tablets to treat water. Made huge difference for my beer.

5th and most important RDWHAHB

stevehardt said:

Awesome notes. Getting better comes from learning from your mistakes.

Did I read correctly that you bottled afte a week?

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It was about a week and a half...

Thanks to all for the encouragement & feedback, my 2nd batch is a week plus in, so i'll leave it go a few more.

In the meantime, queuing up ingredients for batch 3!

I think for guys like me, there should be RDGBACB (relax dude go buy a craft brew).

beerluvva said:

Insertion of airlock: reminded me of prom night.

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LOL made me chuckle. I wasn't so lucky my prom night but I could imagine.

Sounds like everyone here at some point or another!

I'd say to save one of those soured bottles and crack it in a year or so when you've got a lot more batches under your belt and your procedures a lot more *ahem* normalized. You'll be proud of yourself.

I still have a 3 bottles of my first homebrew. They're probably like a port wine that's been left in the sun by now. I'll crack them one day

grem135 said:

Nice notes, fun to read.
1st: Patience grasshopper. leave beer in fermenter for 3 weeks
2nd: foaming/splashing at bottling. Use bottle wand and check out Revvys bottling sticky.
3rd: you already fixed this... Starsan! Get spray bottle and wet everything that touches your beer after boil.
4th: check your water report. If they use cloromine then get campden tablets to treat water. Made huge difference for my beer.

5th and most important RDWHAHB

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^^ This.

And to answer your question, if indeed there was an infection, my guess would be the simple syrup. You're not likely to get an infection from tap water ... And the bleach may have been used improperly, but its a small chance.

BeboThoughts said:

Sounds like everyone here at some point or another!

I'd say to save one of those soured bottles and crack it in a year or so when you've got a lot more batches under your belt and your procedures a lot more *ahem* normalized. You'll be proud of yourself.

I still have a 3 bottles of my first homebrew. They're probably like a port wine that's been left in the sun by now. I'll crack them one day

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I did save one away...thought I'd keep one of every batch done this year, then at the end of the year, compare them and see how the long bottle conditioning affected them.

masterfool101 said:

And to answer your question, if indeed there was an infection, my guess would be the simple syrup. You're not likely to get an infection from tap water ... And the bleach may have been used improperly, but its a small chance.

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thanks, the syrup was my #1 suspect too, that was a panic decision...I had started the siphon into the bottling bucket, had maybe a 1/2 gal in there and realized I forgot the priming.

beerluvva said:

I did save one away...thought I'd keep one of every batch done this year, then at the end of the year, compare them and see how the long bottle conditioning affected them.

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I do this now, I bottle 1 22oz bottle from every batch and plan to revisit them after about a year.

Everything is getting better since that first batch. To my fellow noobs: keep at it !

have done three batches since. I am playing with hop schedules and steeping times, so I don't list them out.

Batch 2
3 lbs Muntons Dark DME
1/2 lb Crystal 60
60 min boil
1 oz. Simcoe hops
3 gal @ 1.050 O.G.
Wyeast British Ale II smack pack

Batch 3
3 lbs Muntons Light DME
1/2 lb Crystal 60
60 min boil
1 oz. Hallertau & 1 oz. Perle hops
3 gal @ 1.046 O.G.
Wyeast American Ale 1056 smack pack

Batch 4
same as Batch 2, except I used a single step starter made from yeast slurry from batch 2.

What I've learned:

1. use StarSan, and a spray bottle. it really frees you up to be able to sanitize stuff more on-the-fly.

2. learn to make starters. I am pretty sure that batches 2 and 3, while very drinkable, suffer from under-pitched yeast, based on off-flavors I have read about for this. Batch 4, using a starter, seems to really be taking off much quicker than the others, and more aggressively.

Actually, I've come to believe that noobs should "train" by making starters first, as opposed to full on beers. Simpler, smaller volumes, gets you thinking about yeast sooner...

Anyway, very pleased to write this as I drink a glass of batch 2. Although I couldn't find "batch 2" in the BJCP style guide.

Tested gravity for batch 3 today, tastes pretty good, will bottle that in a week I'd guess.

I can relate to your first batch experience. I started right off with 10 gal. all grain. (pretty ballsy right?)

Anyway it took me 1 year to get from conception to first brew day, cobbling together a system like I wanted the way I wanted takes time on my budget.

Meanwhile I'd brewed several good batches in my head and on paper to make sure my system was gonna be top notch first brew, every brew.

1st real brew day:
Things seemed great until the boil. Water wasn't calculated right, ended up with a 7 gallon batch instead of ten. Next, wort chiller plugged up. Took 24hrs to cool to pitching temps. Still I kept the faith and ended up with very drinkable beer. Not the best by far but it got drank.

I kept good notes on that brew and my next batch was fantastic! Excellent reviews from all I shared it with. Of course I did do some mods on my system to compensate.

Winter/weather is the only thing hampering my next brew, and it's getting to me. But I should be able to do it in a month or so.

I did keg mine, and was up to snuff on that end at least.

Bottom line of this post: I almost tossed that first batch down the driveway,... but all the reading I'd done here told me to follow it through. Glad I did! it was higher ABV than I figured, and a little off in the taste, but that's all I can gripe about.

pb --- everybody started as a new brewer.

Ouch. Yeah it's like learning to drive a car. Eventually all of the steps become second nature. My first brew was underwatered, infected (I thought PBW was sanitizer), and bottled too early. I had about 4 people take a sip and say it wasn't their favorite and then just pour it down the drain when I wasn't looking. Of course my thoughts at the time were "pfhhhh they don't know good beer"

plumber_bob said:

I can relate to your first batch experience. I started right off with 10 gal. all grain. (pretty ballsy right?)

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To say the least!