first ever brew play by play...

Ok, I got my kit last night. Everything looks pretty good, except that a little over a cup of extract leaked out and got all over everything during shipping. It seems to be pretty water soluble, but has the consistency of old tree sap.

I have my 2 buckets sitting filled with Iodosomethingorother solution sterilizing. My yeast (American brewers choice W yeast "Activator" 100 billion cells) (I think I was ripped off, I counted them, and I only had 98 billion) is swelling as I type.

What also kind of stinks is that my ingredient kit came without instructions. But oh well, I likely would not have read them anyway.... Only the hops have me confused. They are labeled "A" and "B." I am going to jump to the conclusion that B is for bittering and A is for aroma, but who knows...

I have 3.5 gals on the stove, and dang, they are boiling already! I just put them on maybe 15 minutes ago. I guess my "maximum output" burner is really that.

ok, more in a sec

I would guess that the lager volume of hops is for bittering. Good luck!

ok, just added my extract, and turned the heat back on. Damn boiling water is hot. Also the extract that acidentally made it onto the floor and the bottom of my shoe (soon to be spread over even more floor) is STICKY.

all kinds of little snotlike particles have precipitated in the amber fluid. they are moving around in what looks like a slow motion rolling boil. I will wait a little before adding the mysterious "B" packet of hops, which by the way is hops pellets, not straight up hops, and looks like what you might try to attract a deer with. not sure if it's called wort yet or not. looks remarkably like puke...

ok the stuff now has lightly undulating dunes and valleys, which I will assume to be a rolling boil. here come the hops. Why is my yeast packet still flat?

Did you pop the bubble in the yeast pack? The dunes and valleys are the krausen. Normal when cooking the beer.

yeast pellets are in. contrary to my expectations, they did not sink to the bottom or allow themselves to be stirred into the wort, but instead immedeately became a sort of pond scum, and refuses th ebe stirred in. HOLY COW what 's with all this Foam????

ok, foam seems to be under control. the pond-scum is still uncooperative, and insists on not being stirred in.

I was mistaken earlier when I thought I had a boil, btw... now it is boiling! I re-set my timer

oh oh, more foam
brb

had to turn the heat down, it was boiling so violently. My yeast is showing signs of life, yay!

can't really describe the smell. Hopefully the beer tastes better than tis smells...

Make sure you keep stirring the beer. You don't want a boil over. It doesn't have to be a very aggressive boil. I take it you just added the hops raw. Did you put them into hop socks? If not, no big deal.

Keep a sharp eye on that thing because boil overs are a real mess. Once I get the boil going I never hardly stir it. The foam and hops seem to slowly go away after a few minutes.

Make sure you watch the time when adding the hops. Without the directions, its hard to say what hops go when. Your first thought sounds good. B for bitter and a for aroma. Aromas usually go in about 5 to 15 minutes before the end of the boil.

the wort has been boiling for 25 minutes now. the green pondscum has been replaced by a light beige sludge, which I can stir in, but it re-gathers after a few seconds. No more foam.

I am expecting the wife to make a comment about the smell. I have the windows open.

not sure about the timing on the Aroma hops either. I am going to add them for the last 5 minutes. I know the song says "dont worry, be hoppy," but if its the hops that I am smelling now, I don't want much of that in the final product...

hey Andyman, I used to live in Aurora!!!! 9110 E Florida. back in the late 90's

CO is the best place on the planet.

starting to wonder how I am going to move a 40 lb boiling mass to my sink for chilling....

Ima gonna be screwed if the handle pops off of my pot or something and soaks my clothes with boiling wort....

am mildly nauseated by the smell...

They always smell stronger than they taste. If you've ever been to a brewry or brew pub, hops are usually the strongest smell. When you are done boiling try to cool the wort down asap, then you can pitch the yeast into the primary fermentor. We can all help out to make sure you have a good first brew.

ahoym8e said:

Ok, I got my kit last night. Everything looks pretty good, except that a little over a cup of extract leaked out and got all over everything during shipping. It seems to be pretty water soluble, but has the consistency of old tree sap.

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Wait till you get a good boil over... you might change your mind about the water solubility issue

That is way far north from me. I'm out by Quincy Res. The smell can't be that bad. Just think, All the store bought beer smells similar when they cook it. The home brewed stuff is just so much better. Just kick back and have a cold one.

Cheyco said:

I would guess that the lager volume of hops is for bittering. Good luck!

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uh... ohoh...

the A was the slightly larger portion of hops. I've been boiling the B hops (slightly smaller portion) for 45 minutes now...

That would be just my luck that the B one os for Aroma and the A one is for Bittering...

I ignored your post earlier because I thought you were saying something about Lager hops (and I am making ale). never dawned on me until a second ago that you meant larger.

well, first batch may be drain-o brau then...

poop

andyman said:

That is way far north from me. I'm out by Quincy Res..

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yeah, I moved there from Cherry Creek to be close to my office. I had a 6 minute commute. It was a beautiful thing... I could see Mount Evans from my aparment balcony.

bummed out about my potential hops confusion...

Darn.... if I had read this earlier, I could have helped.

One of the first kits I did came with hops labeled "A" and "B", too. The directions read as:

Add the hops from packet "A" first.
Add the hops from packet "B" second.
(... and extrapolate this ...)
Add the hops from packet "C" third.
Add the hops from packet "D" fourth.


It'll still be beer, so don't worry. It just will be different than intended (less bitter).

I can totally understand your thinking A was for aroma and B was for bittering. In this case, your knowledge of hops actually worked against you.

-walker

just added the mystery "A" hops. They seem to smell a little better than the other...

wish me luck moving my pot to the sink...

Just keep going. The Hops might not have that big of a impact. They might have been quite similar. You won't know unless you go all the way to bottling.

the worst thing that can happen is that the beer is little less bitter than indended.

you're good... keep going!

-walker

moved pot without incident. my sink is smaller than expected. the wort pot is melting pounds and pounds of ice at lightning speeds. Will be reduced to using freezer packs (the things for your cooler) to keep the water around the pot cold.

I remember reading somewhere to not take the lid off the wortpot to stir and accelerate cooling. Hope I remember that right...

i always take the lid off and stir it.

This from the hoptech website (they sent the ingredients kit):

Uses pale malt extract and Liberty hops.

doesn't say anything about 2 kinds of hops. the amounts were no more than 15% different in volume. maybe there is hope yet...

You will have to open the pot to transfer to the primary. I use a wort cooler and open the lid to stir the beer. Don't worry about it. Unless you stick your hands or utensils or other stuff in the beer, you'll be fine. Use your best judgement on temp, unless you have a good therm. 70' is a good nuetral temp to pitch yeast.

Walker said:

i always take the lid off and stir it.

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well, ok then. My long stirring spoon is soaking in the iodosomething dilute before I stir.

The ice is all gone, and freezer block thingies are in there. My kids "boo boo bunny" cold-packs are next....

Don't get it to cold. Stir the beer and go from there. Did you live by Utah park?

hmmm interesting....

I looked at the instructions, and it seems I dump the wort to my bottling bucket first, let the precipitate settle for an hour or two, and then run it into my fermenting bucket (a d pitch my yeast). that's kind of cool: I wont have all the trub sitting around in my primary.

hmmm, I better see what my yeast is up to...


I am stirring my wort with my sanitized stirring spoon, btw. Hopefully it works out. The wort is cooling much more rapidly.

The rest is simple. If you have any problems just ask. Relax! Have a homebrew.

wort is transferred to settling tank (with great bravado, as I understand areation is key at this stage), and I topped it off with bottled spring water to make 5 gals.

I am going to lose some when I put the wort in the fermenting container, but since some of the extract had spilled during shipping I think a slightly smaller batch might be just what the doctor ordered.

meh, guess I have to clean my pot now...

Clean up is always fun. if you use your stirring spoon to aerate the wort that helps. pitch the yeast and your set.

Alright, the wort has settled, been transferred to the fermenting container, the yeast pitched, airlock filled... OG right at 1.040

one little tiny splash ricocheted off the back of my hand and into the fermenting bucket as I was trying to keep trub out. Hopefully that doesn't spoil it for me.

now I just need to wait.

oh, and yeast smells AWESOME! Wort smells like ass. I wish wort smelled like yeast.

ahoym8e said:

oh, and yeast smells AWESOME! Wort smells like ass. I wish wort smelled like yeast.

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Agreed

Has SWMBO gone shopping yet? Mine was gagging on the way out!

When I racked to the secondary the smell was pure beer!

well, it's about 16 hrs after I pitched my yeast, and the whole concoction is roiling up a storm, my airlock happily bubbling away. that makes me feel good!

I accidentally overfilled the airlock a little and got a wee bit of tapwater in the wort, but hopefully I'll be lucky and there is no contamination.

It's been a couple of days now, and the airlock is still bubbling happily. my fermentation closet smells pretty. Lately it smells like bananas when I sniff at the airlock. Yesterday it smelled better; More like beer and less like bananas, but I hear that the banana smell is pretty standard.

My fermentation closet has stayed right around 70, due to a cold snap down here, so that was a pleasant surprise.

More as it develops.

ahoym8e said:

Alright, the wort has settled, been transferred to the fermentin. container, the yeast pitched, airlock filled... OG right at 1.040

one little tiny splash ricocheted off the back of my hand and into the fermenting bucket as I was trying to keep trub out. Hopefully that doesn't spoil it for me.

now I just need to wait.

oh, and yeast smells AWESOME! Wort smells like ass. I wish wort smelled like yeast.

Click to expand...

I had to stick my entire arm in my wert to get the air seal that fell in!

Sounds like whoever supplied your kit sucks. Spilled LME in shipping, hops not labeled well, and no instructions—that just sucks. Next time try More Beer. http://www.morebeer.com/

Quality of staff and kits are great. Free shipping on orders over $59. I order two kits at a time for free shipping.

Good luck!

ok it is now day 4 of my ferment, and the bubbling of the airlock has all but stopped. The smells coming from the airlock are not really banana-ey anymore, and much more beer-like. temp has stayed right around 70-72 for the whole fermentation. I have high hopes for this first batch ever. I wonder if I could pitch some more wort on my yeast when I drain my fermenter to the bottling bucket...

: ponders:

I think a Red beer of some sort should be next. more malt, less hops. ooh, or maybe a wheat, but I think I need to use different yeast for that, don't I...?