Murphy's Law 3rd batch...

Hey guys I brewed my third batch last night and I think if anything could go wrong, it did. I am definitely RDWHAHB but it would suck if I ruined this one since it is a pretty pricey Aventinus clone.

The mistakes:

- It was taking its sweet time coming to a boil so I covered it and worked on sanitizing something for about 30 seconds and then whammo! Boil over. So i had to take the pot off the heat and have an impromptu stove cleaning.

- After the mess was clean, I brought it back to a boil and then decided it needed more water to replace the lost water and an extra 1/2 # of wheat DME to replace the lost volume. Took 10 minutes to come back to a boil and then of course it wanted to boil over again but I was more careful.

- Finish the boil and dunked the brewpot in the ice and of course it took forever to cool. I wisened up and put water in the ice and then it cooled down too fast.

- I tried to strain it into the carboy but the hop sludge (I used socks) kept clogging the screen in the funnel. I finally poured it into the a sanitized plastic fermenter through a larger strainer and then into the carboy with the rest of the water. I managed to get a few drips of ice water into the wort in the process as well.

- Now the wort was 66 degrees according to the strip on my carboy but it was 4 AM so I pitched my starter and went to bed, I think the temp was closer to 68 by my hydrometer sample anyway.

The good news: I hit the OG of 1.076 right on the nose.

Like I said I'm not overly worried since theres nothing I can do but I was wondering if any of you experts had experienced probs like these and still got a good beer out of it?

Any suggestions?

Obviously I need a larger brewpot (Mine is 16 qt).

Do you guys generally strain the brew into your fermenter or just let the junk settle out in the fermenter?

Sorry for the ramble and thanks for any replies.
Alan W

Nothing you did sounds very bad to me, I'm sure most of us have had similar problems at some point, and I'm sure most will join me in saying RDWHAHB because your beer will most likely come out just fine. If anything, by transferring from pot to bucket and then bucket to carboy, as long as you sanitized properly, you're making things better by further aerating the wort - which is of course important for something with a relatively high OG like you brewed.

I did the whole strainer thing for a few batches and had the same problems. Now, I use a huge (like 18" by 24") nylon mesh bag I got at the LHBS that will fit inside my fermenter bucket and stretch around the rim, so I can just pour the wort in and then lift the bag out, taking most of the hops with it. As for the remaining bits (which are inevitable with pellet hops), that'll settle out in the primary so don't worry about it.

As for boilovers, usually for me these happen for the same reason it sounds like yours happened - not knowing when the wort was going to finally reach a boil. I now use a remote-probe thermometer (like $15 at target) which will sound an alarm when the temp reaches a set point, so I can be warned when I'm a couple degrees below boiling and start paying attention to it, spray bottle in hand.

I am just a noob, but may i recommend two things??

1) Boil outside or in a garage (use a turkey fryer burner, and TRY to do a full boil if possible)

2) Invest in a wort chiller, they are around $45.

I just do a full boil in my garage with a turkey fryer burner and the pot that came with it (around $35 total), that way i don't have to worry about making house messes.

Then i just hook the hose up to a wort chiller, put it the wort, and the whole thing is cool in around 20 minutes.

If you can invest in the $75 total for all this, it gets the mess out of the house (besides cleaning stuff) and in my case, keeps the wife off my case!

While it sounds like you had your hands full your beer should come out fine. There are problems that make you miserable and problems that mess up beer, what you described falls into the first catagory.

It'll probably be your best batch ever and you'll never be able to do it the same again.

Barley-Davidson said:

While it sounds like you had your hands full your beer should come out fine. There are problems that make you miserable and problems that mess up beer, what you described falls into the first catagory.

It'll probably be your best batch ever and you'll never be able to do it the same again.

Click to expand...

Probably so. It's going nuts right now. This is my first wheat of any kind and its nearly to the top of my 6.5 carboy. The bottom looks like a good solid inch of hops sludge.

I'll be thrilled if this one comes anywhere close to the real Aventinus so I can save from buying $3.89 Pints!

Thanks,
Al

It seems that each time I've brewed, I've encountered the same type of nuisances you have. And as far as my first three batches, everything has turned out just fine.

The funniest story was my second batch. I was brewing a stout, and had gotten it into the primary and pitched the yeast. Absolutely flawless brewday, but then I went to put my airlock in the top of the bucket and I managed to push the black rubber on the hole through and into the beer. By the way those don't float.

Well I was so flustered I just said screw it and reached my hand into the wort and searched around for the thing. Got it out, got everything finished.

A month and a half later, its delicious. My best brew so far. Amazing how things like that can go on and not screw everything up.

I would safely venture to say that at least 75% of the people here have had that bad or worse of a brewday. It happens. I know my worst one was topped of by me forgetting to put a poppett valve back into a keg out line and running the pressure straight up to 30 psi. 200f Cherry Vanilla Stout Fountain!!!!! I was pissed as hell, but that is still one of my favorite brews to this day.

It's been said a few times already, but I think you're fine man. Those were minor mistakes that happen to everyone. I would however go with the suggestions of everyone here and invest in a nice turkey fryer. You'll get a larger pot to help avoid boil overs, and you can keep the mess out of your kitchen. =D