Help out a first-timer

Hi guys. Really great forum you've got here. Glad to be a part of it now.

My brother and I have been talking about starting to brew for a long time and we finally made the plunge a little over two weeks ago. We got a basic kit (plus a few extras) from an online homebrew store and bought one of their ingredient kits to make an extra-hoppy IPA for our first homebrew.

It's in bottles now (we racked it Sunday evening) and I have a few questions.

The biggest one is the transferring from the fermenting bucket to the bottling bucket. We used extract and hop pellets and poured our beer through a really fine strainer (one of the extras we purchased up front) so there wasn't much "stuff" other than liquid in the fermenting bucket. My brother wanted to just pour the beer through the strainer again from the fermenting bucket into the bottling bucket. After reading on here for a while, I was under the impression that the beer had to be siphoned from the fermenting bucket into the bottling bucket.

I let him do it his way. We dumped our priming sugar into the bottom of the bottling bucket, poured in the beer, gave it a little stir to make sure the sugar was mixed and then just proceeded to bottle. Was this a really bad idea? Would it have been much better to siphon the beer from one bucket to the other?

Unrelated to that, how long should an IPA generally sit in a bottle before it's good to drink? I'm thinking two weeks, but would it be better to wait longer?

Also, since I am brand new on here, is it cool to talk about various homebrew supply companies? I didn't mention the one we used (it seemed pretty impressive to me) because I wasn't sure if it was cool to mention other websites on your forum. I know some message boards are kinda touchy about that sort of thing.

Thanks in advance guys!

Short answer, you were right and brother was wrong. You must transfer the fermented beer "quietly," ie, with a siphon to avoid introducing oxygen. Oxygen will make your beer taste like wet cardboard an pouring through a strainer is a very efficient way to introduce lots of oxygen.

It'll take a while for that flavor to develop, so drink up fast!

Anyway, chalk it up to a learning experience, don't get discouraged, keep brewing, keep reading HBT, and happy brewing.

Ditto what JonM said. It's an IPA, so you'll want to drink it fresh anyway.

As for the time in the bottle, the general rule is 3 weeks at 70 degrees for proper conditioning. It takes a while for carbonic acid to properly dissolve. Try one after a week - you'll notice a harsh bite and it'll be really fizzy - taste that once and you'll see why you need to wait. 2 weeks will be ok, and 3 weeks even better.

Definitely cool to talk about various homebrew supply companies. In fact, there's tons of comments and reviews already on here - check 'em out via the search function. HBT is a discussion forum, not a shop, so there's no conflict of interest there.

Oxygen will make your beer taste like wet cardboard an pouring through a strainer is a very efficient way to introduce lots of oxygen.

It'll take a while for that flavor to develop, so drink up fast!

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Since it is your first batch and two of you brewed it, you most likely will drink it all up before the bad flavor sets in.

This forum is a fantastic resource. Read all that you can about brewing. Use the search function if you have a question, because most questions come up frequently. If you don't find an answer you will get a good one from the many members here.

Most of all, enjoy the hobby/addiction and welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the responses guys.

This is one time when I wish I was wrong. Oh well, live and learn. So how long do I have until the "wet cardboard" taste sets in?

unionrdr said:

I'd say between 2 & 3 weeks. Longer will def get that flavor.

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Hmmm... is that 2-3 weeks from the time it went in the bottle, or 2-3 weeks after it has finished bottle conditioning?

Just wait and see. Like someone said above, the hops are a plus here. In fact way back when i did my first batch, the guy at my LHBS recommended a hoppy IPA for that exact reason. My many mistakes, if they did produce off-flavors, were nicely hidden.

Anyway, on the bright side, you have an empty fermenter! Time for another batch! Cheers!

We're talking two brothers here. That beer will be gone before it has a chance to get carbed!