1st brew disaster?

Hey all first post.

Sept 12 for my B-day got all the supplies needed for home brewing, Sept 14 began my first homebrew.

Going to give you the skinny on what happened and with your expertise/experiences let me know what you think, will the brew turn out ok? FYI it was an "easy" Muntons Pilsner recipe for 5 gallons.

#1 I did not anticipate how much the wort would foam/expand during boiling. I was using a 3 gallon pot with 2 gallons of water in it. Added extract and malt.... It boiled over. Transferred a small amount into another pan, that boiled over. Complete mess, needless to say stopped with the boil. Prob had 15 mins to boil instead of the 45-60 the recipe called for but everything was dissolved w/no chunky solids. Will this be bad?

#2 Recipe said to pour hot wort over 3 gallons of ice to cool. I did this and shortly there after I added the yeast (there were still a bunch of ice cubes in primary fermenter and were for a day or two after). Since making this batch I realize putting in yeast when cold is not optimal, but will this harm the final product?

#3 3-4 days went before I noticed activity in the carboy. Is this a bad sign? Since I noticed the activity in the secondary it has been bubblin' like a champ though so I am optimistic things will be ok.....

What do you think?

Thanks for the time.

GCC :rockin:

I think, despite all the problems, it looks like you've made beer. Maybe not the beer you expected, but beer, any way you look at it!

Order your next kit from Austin Homebrew supply and Follow the instructions. They lay out every step in there and I've never had a problem so far!

Keep reading this forum, and pick yourself up a copy of John Palmer's "How to Brew". Sounds like your beer will be okay...time will tell. Ask lots of questions!

Printed copy is a must I think, but the web version is good for reference, www.howtobrew.com

You should have drinkable beer, but you'll make better stuff in the future.

GCC said:

#1 I did not anticipate how much the wort would foam/expand during boiling. I was using a 3 gallon pot with 2 gallons of water in it. Added extract and malt.... It boiled over.

Click to expand...

Three things will help with this first one:

1. Get a bigger pot (duh)...
2. Move your brew pot off of the burner when you add the extract and then return it after the extract is well blended (this also prevents scorching)...
3. Keep a spray bottle of water handy and spray the foam back down as it rises...

Hope that helps!

-Tripod

KayaBrew said:

Keep reading this forum, and pick yourself up a copy of John Palmer's "How to Brew". Sounds like your beer will be okay...time will tell. Ask lots of questions!

Click to expand...

I agree, keep reading this forum and ask lots of questions, and read a lot too.

I know some guys use Fermcap to keep the foam down, this may help your overboil problem....but I have a 15 gal keggle so I don' worry about boil overs.

As previously mentioned, you need a new brew pot. You can count on having a boil-over pretty much every time with only a 3 gallon pot.

One way you may be able to overcome it with your current volume pot is keep a crate fan right near your boil pot and keep it aimed at the boil. That almost always works for me. Good luck!


I may also be careful using ice to cool your wort. If you make the ice using sanitized (boiled) water and place it in a sanitized ice tray, you probably shouldn't have problems. BUT if you're relying on automatic ice or store-bought ice, the risk of infection increases dramtically. I would suggest, if you're not using full boils, to sanitize some water and place it in a few empty sanitized gallon jug containers. Place the jugs in the freezer and keep them there until they begin to freeze (but not all the way through) and add those to the wort in the fermentor to help drop the temp in place of using ice.

HOWEVER, at the end of the day, people have been brewing beer for 1000 years without paying any attention to modern "sanitation," so I've always been careful, but never paranoid. Welcome to brewing!!!!

Welcome to HBT!

Throw those instructions away!

Try not to get overwhelmed!

I make all my PM batches in a 3 gallon pot - okay, maybe 3.5 to the brim, but it can be done if you're careful. I start the boil with 3 gallons - when it starts to get foamy right at the point before it actually boils (the foamy hot break period) I turn down the burner a little bit and ease it into a boil. Within a minute or two the foam subsides and I can turn it up the rest of the way. I can't turn my back during those 5 minutes or so, but I've only actually had one boil-over in about 50 batches.

And rather than using ice, it would be much more sanitary to use pre-bottled water. Gallon jugs of spring water in the freezer for 3-4 hours ahead of time makes for near ice water, and helps cool the wort very quickly.

I just cooked up my first wort yesturday, i was REALLLLY suprised how much the foam rises up. It's funny how after reading so many warnings about this I was still caught off guard. I didnt boil over, but it came close.