Hello from South Dakota

I began brewing my first batch a week ago from today. I couple weeks before that, I watched a video on the history channel about the history of beer. I got extrememly excited. I learned how easy it really was, and how I could go extremely advanced with the same kit. So far, I've nearly read all of Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing, 3rd Ed., except for some of the recipies.

About 3 years ago, I began trying other beers than BL, Miller, and Coors. I began to learn there was beer to enjoy, and not just drink. Since then, I've tried many 'real' beers. I feel that us in the US, and maybe even more here in the 'midwest' part of the US, are truely deprived of good beer choices.

Right now, I have a Cooper's IPA in the primary (in the kit, I got a plastic bucket, and a carboy, but used the carboy as the primary). I plan to bottle on Monday.

Next, we're doing a batch of wine for the wife (hoping to give them away as Christmas presents if they turn out good).

After that, I have a Coopers European Lager to try. I have to aquire some more bottles by then, though!

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Things I've done during this first batch:

My wife helped me out (she's an awesome wife!), and we sanitized everything, except for the container that she prepped the yeast in.

Didn't realize we were allowed to cool the wort after it came off the stove. (I hadn't read much of the Papazian book by then.) So, it went right into the carboy, and was too warm for a long time....

It's been between 73 and 77 degrees sitting in the carboy during fermentation, instead of at 70... and, I hope this isn't a big enough variation to make the yeasts mad. ;-)

Maybe I'm worrying too much!!!



I'm extremely excited to get started with this life-long hobby!

Six hours after pitching the yeast, I saw foam in the airlock, so I added an blow-off. I'm glad I did! I had about 2/5th of a gallon of blow-off.

Then, about 24 hours after that, it subsided, so I put the airlock back on (after it was sanitized again). On Monday, the bubbles were ~50 seconds apart already. I hope that's not a bad thing. But, on Wednesday, they were still about 50 sec apart. I got scared because there was such a drastic difference from over-flowing, so slowly bubbling in such a short amount of time. But, I'm still learning...

If its fermenting then you will wind up with beer. It may not be the best ever or it may be fantastic but you will have made beer. thats almost as important as making fire

welcome.

Oh, and I didn't read until just a couple days ago that the liquid in the blow-off container should be sanitizing solution? -- And also the liquid in the airlock? -- I just used good sink water for both of these...

not a big deal?

I've been using the same purified water in my airlocks as I do for my wort boils and primary top-offs. Those 2.5 gallon jugs that you can get at any store work well. As always, the standard answer for everything in this hobby is "Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home..." RDWHAHB.

(personal note: enjoying the recent snow dump?)

kP

So far, it hasn't hit us out east as hard as it sounds like it hit you guys. It still has my wife scared enough that we'll probably be staying home for our 3 day weekend off instead of heading somewhere (and taking advantage of the $2 gas)!

Yeah, we had something like 3 feet. Unbelievable. After hours of shoveling we finally decided that we HAD to get out of the house tonight to get dinner somewhere else. Apparently I-90 had tons of abandoned cars since Thurs. I've been up here for a little over 2 years and that was the worst I've seen. Glad to hear you guys didn't get schwacked as bad. (I did get to enjoy my 1st keg of Cooper's 'Draught' while stranded)