Hello. Newbie needs some help please.

Hello all...I am very glad to have found this forum. I was wondering if anyone might shed some light on my first brew. I will give all the details I can and please forgive me for my mistakes.
OK - Here is the setup:
3gal. glass carboy. Wanted to start small and didnt have room/bottles for 5 gal.

I am brewing a 2g batch of Wheat beer and adding some raspberry flavor at the end. ( yes yes...this is for the wife...so she accepts the new hobby ).
I am bottling it all as I do not have a keg set-up yet.

I cleaned/bleached everything and rinsed well. I boiled a extract can? of what the store gave me....a "mr. beer" can because it was the correct size for the small batch.
I boiled the extract, added the sugar and put it in the glass CB. Air locked it and let her go. Fermenting started about a day later. It bubbled some but not really that hard. How hard should it bubble? The 1st day it bubbled about every 2-3 seconds out of the airlock. 2nd day....hardly any bubbles. Some but only about every 5-10 minutes.
There really isnt any foam on top of the beer....a little but nothing great. I smelled the airlock on top and it smells sweet...not sour or anything.
The beer looks obviously cloudy.....but there are some bubbles around the edge.

Here is the thing thats concerning me:
I put a flash light to it to take a look into the beer. ( This next part is hard to discribe so bear with me) I shinned it down from the outside- side of the CB. There are a group of bubbles on the surface but upagainst the edge....right under the bubbles looks like a golf ball sized mass of liquid wax. It doesnt have real mass to it, it is a liquid but is in the shap of a ball. ah - looks like a lava lamp liquid ball . What is it????????

I know I should get a hydrometer but the guy at the shop advised I dont need one yet. I will pick one up tomorrow but wanted to see if I should put up more supplies if this batch is bad.

How long should this brew be bubbling?fermenting?

Thanks for all your help and any info would be appreciated.

The lump may be sugar. The roundness would come from the heat of the surrounding liquid smoothing the edges during the boil.

Did you boil for long after adding the sugar? Sounds like nothing to worry about. Relax, it will all be good.


Buy a hydrometer. Take a reading after the airlock is showing little or no signs of activity. This can take between 1 day and 7 days depending on the beer.
Take note of the reading. repeat next day.(drink the beer that you use to take the reading - not worth putting back in due to risk of infections - plus it should taste good and give you an idea of how the beer is going to turn out).
If the readings remain constant then you are ready to bottle.

May be worth getting a secondary carboy / bucket. This will allow you to rack the beer leaving the gunk at the bottom (and your sugar lump!). Then you can add the priming sugar to the entire lot at once. More accurate than putting in each bottle at once and faster. The secondary is also using to help the beer clear up but as you are brewing a wheat beer cloudy is best!

does this all make sense?

Thank you Dibby 33. I think your right.....sugar. It has been a few days and it looks like all ferm. is complete. The beer is clearing and looks good. I do believe I wait a total of 2 weeks before bottling right?

Brad3529 said:

Here is the thing thats concerning me:
I put a flash light to it to take a look into the beer. ( This next part is hard to discribe so bear with me)

Click to expand...

Hint of advice: Don't look too closely at your fementing beer if you can help it when first starting out. However, it is an interesting thing fermentation and hard to resist getting up-close-and-personal with the yeasty beasty. Just don't get too excited about all that weird stuff in there. Fermentation can be a scary and mysterious process. Let it do its thing and everything will be all right.

Brad3529 said:

Here is the thing thats concerning me:
I put a flash light to it to take a look into the beer. ( This next part is hard to discribe so bear with me)

Click to expand...

Hint of advice: Don't look too closely at your fementing beer if you can help it when first starting out. However, it is an interesting thing fermentation and hard to resist getting up-close-and-personal with the yeasty beasty. Just don't get too excited about all that weird stuff in there. Fermentation can be a scary and mysterious process. Let it do its thing and everything will be all right.

The "lump" could be pectin from the raspberries I suppose?

treehouse said:

Just don't get too excited about all that weird stuff in there. Fermentation can be a scary and mysterious process.

Click to expand...

Which is exactly why I prefer a bucket as a primary! Leave the yeast to it's ugly business behind some opaque plastic, and a week later when the beer is looking nicer I can rack it into glass. Makes it much easier to relax and not worry.