Critique?? First wort!

After spending weeks looking and comparing various starter kids from various vendors, I stumbled across a complete kit on craigslist. Glass carboy, buckets, stainless brew pot, bottles, ingredients and all the small stuff. $100! Exactly what I was looking for. Came home yesterday and laid it all out. Excited to apply the knowledge I had gained from DAYS of reading.

Boiled my first wort today and I think it's a success! I bought a new, but 2nd hand kit. It contained (almost) everything except directions. Using "The Complete Joy of HB" book, homebrewtalk.com and this website Illustrated Beer Brewing Primer - German Pilsner Partial Mash I've managed to muddle through.

After reading a LOT, I felt I had a grasp on the processes. Looking for any pointers from those of you with experience. Here is what I did:
Canadian Ale kit.

Sanitized EVERYTHING. Twice! Once with bleach and then with idophor.

0000 hours: Prepared yeast starter. 2 cups water boiled with tbs. extract 20 minutes and cooled to 85. Windsor yeast. Covered and airlocked.

0850: Began steeping grains. Water was 160 when I started. After grains were in, temp dropped to 156.

0940: Brought temp up to 170 and then removed grains. Used additional boiling water to rinse grains into wort water.

1000: Added liquid malt extract and malto-dextrin kicker. Cranked the heat up and started stirring.

1013: Full rolling boil. Heat reduced slightly to prevent boilover.

1015: Hops added. Full boil timing started.

1035: Re hydrated Irish Moss in small amount of wort.

1105: Finishing hops added.

1110: Irish Moss added.

1120: Removed from heat. Pot placed on first step of pool to cool. I figured 24,000 gallons of 50 degree water would work well. Lid was on from end of boil and only removed once to check temp.

1230: OOPS! 70 degree wort. I let it cool a little too long. Directions on the yeast said to pitch at 86-92 degrees. My starter was going strong so I was hoping this would not cause problems. Racked and pitched yeast. SG was 1.03 if I was reading it correctly. Realized after the fact I should have looked for a "Hydrometer Reading for Dummies" site before I started!

1245: Yeast pitched, blow off tube on and aquarium pump on.

1320: Air pump off/out. All is quiet. Carboy sitting wrapped in the corner.

1600: Nothing

1800: About 1 1/2 inch of krausen and a big bubble a second out of the blow tube.:rockin:

It is all looking like it's going to work!!!!!!

When fermentation is done, I'll rack to a bottling bucket. Add gelatin. Add priming sugar and bottle.

Should I cold condition for a day prior to adding priming sugar?

Suggestions? Feel free to critique!

Thanks.

Everything looks like it went pretty smooth for you! Congrats!!

Two things I'm wondering about. Why did you re-hydrate the Irish Moss? Now, I've only used this once (use Whirlfloc now), but I didn't re-hydrate it. Maybe someone can correct me, and I doubt it will have any negative influence on the beer, but I guess I'm just curious as to why you did it.

Secondly, what type of beer was this? I'm curious because the OG seems low (but I'm a bit of a noob myself and don't really know for sure). I know you said you don't have the directions for the kit, but even if you get ~ 75% attenuation, you're only looking at a 2.8% ABV beer.

However, congrats again on getting through it! It's a great feeling huh?

You did great on your first batch! All that reading will pay off nicely in a few weeks.

70° is a perfect temperature to pitch yeast so that "mistake" was a good one.

Hydrating Irish moss is how you are suppose to use it. I usually don't but you are correct on that one.

Did you use top off water? That would account for the low gravity. It's really hard to get wort and water to mix thoroughly so inaccurate readings are very normal.

I've never used or needed to use gelatin so I can't comment on that. You might be going a bit over board with Irish moss, gelatin, and cold conditioning. Just leave your brew for a few weeks in primary and it should be clean and clear.

On bottling day, boil up your priming sugar with a couple cups of water, add to bucket and rack your beer. Wait 3 weeks for carbonation and enjoy!

Welcome to HBT!

Yes. I used about a gallon of top off water. Should I have mixed it prior to pulling the sample? I didn't think about that.

I was planning on using the gelatin simply because it was included. Is there any reason NOT to use it?

Nurmey said:

Did you use top off water? That would account for the low gravity. It's really hard to get wort and water to mix thoroughly so inaccurate readings are very normal.

Click to expand...

Great procedure, I'd just comment that you should have one of those small hepa filters in line when you are using the aquarium pump to aerate the wort. I've also read something about 1 minute of shaking the carboy = 30 minutes of aeration with a pump, so you could probably save yourself the trouble by just shaking.

There is absolutely no reason not to use gelatin! I was only commenting because usually it's Irish moss or gelatin or cold crashing. I bet you get some really clear beer on your first go.

Well done! I also suspect that your low reading (if it was indeed lower than your target og) was because of density stratification between the wort and the top-off water. I have had this happen to me before, and as long as you are not mashing for a lot of your sugar, you have nothing to worry about. In terms of hitting your OG, brewing with extract is as reliable as making kool-aid (if you put it in, it's in). And of course there's nothing wrong with using the gelatin, go for it. I get very clear beer by using Irish moss and letting my fermenter sit someplace cool (low 50s) for a couple weeks before I bottle-- on your next brew maybe don't use the gelatin and see if you notice a difference, it will save you money in the long run not to have to buy the gelatin for every brew (actually I only even use irish moss for light-colored brews that I have some desire of seeing through... i.e. not for wheats or darks).

"When fermentation is done, I'll rack to a bottling bucket. Add gelatin. Add priming sugar and bottle."

If you decide to use the gelatin add it before racking off to the bottling bucket. You don't want to add gelatin to the bottled beer.

How come you are supposed to rehydrate the irish moss? I used some in my current brew(new castle clone) and I just put it in the boil when it said to ( I think it was at 15 or 20 minutes)

Col224 said:

How come you are supposed to rehydrate the irish moss? I used some in my current brew(new castle clone) and I just put it in the boil when it said to ( I think it was at 15 or 20 minutes)

Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I did too. I'm curious about that one.

i don't know why but i remember reading that it works better when you rehydrate the irish moss