First Brew after thoughts.

Hello.

So I finished brewing my wort at bout 11pm last night. It went well suppose. This morning the airlock was bubbling away so I must have done something right.

To get me started in the hobby i purchased a Brewers Best Starter kit with buckets and hoses and such from my local store. I also purchased a 5 gal glass carboy so i can second ferment.

I choose to do the American Micro Pale Ale kit- was told it was good for beginners.
I feel the kit was a good start - grain to steep, extract malt and bittering and finishing hops.

OG was lower than the instructions said it would be (1.050 - 1.055)
I got 1.043

Few thoughts.

1. 4 gallons of water takes a bit of time to boil, and even longer to cool - must make wort chiller.

2. What to do with equipment after it is sanitized??? having it lay around doesn't seem right. - must buy 5 gal bucket to keep filled with sanitizer to keep stuff in while brewing.

Can i store my racking cane and hoses in sanitizer would this hurt anything?

3. Need a thermometer which goes above 110 - Had to guess on the steeping temp.

Questions????

Haven't found a straight answer on this one. Is it alright if the wort is aerated during cooling, and when being transfered to the primary?? you want it aerated for the yeast right?
I know after it is pitched there should be as little aeration or agitation.

Is there anything i can do with the trub, save it for a yeast starter or something?

Should i be concerned that the OG was not high enough?
Would adding sugar at that point make a difference?

You WANT to have your wort aerated prior to pitching your yeast. Lots of guys will tell you to even shake up your primary a little after the wort has been added, but the process of dumping the wort into the primary is usually enough. After the fermentation has started however, you want to make sure to keep any movement of the beer to a minimum.

Depends on your sanitizer, but I don't see why it would hurt anything. That being said, I dont really see the point as it take only a minute or two to sanitize a a single piece of equipment.

Did you adjust your gravity due to temperature? Even so, I wouldn't be too worried about it, you may just end up with a slightly lower ABV. I would not add any sugar at this point. Although it would increase ABV, it would probably screw up the flavor of the beer.

As for harvesting yeast, search around the forums, there is tons of stuff around here about it and its a pretty easy way to save cash.

Ogdenenator said:

Should i be concerned that the OG was not high enough?
Would adding sugar at that point make a difference?

Click to expand...

Don't do it man...

Parker36 said:

Did you adjust your gravity due to temperature?

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Yup...If your gravity reading was 1.043 at 104 degrees your corrected Gravity is actually 1.050

I set out a few sheets of aluminum foil (on the already clean counters) to put sanitized equipment on. Learned the trick from my uncle who taught me to homebrew. He worked as a microbiologist in R&D for Miller for 15 years. Seems to work.

I did account for temp

it was 1.041 at 82 right before i pitched the yeast
I adjusted it .002 to get 1.043

thanks for the response, im sure it will turn out ok.

Ogdenenator said:

I did account for temp

it was 1.041 at 82 right before i pitched the yeast
I adjusted it .002 to get 1.043

thanks for the response, im sure it will turn out ok.

Click to expand...

since you only boiled 4 gallons of water, im assuming you used some top off water. sometimes if that is not mixed in well enough with the wort, that will account for lower gravity readings.

I often dunk a couple cooling racks (from baking) in my 5 gallon bucket of sanitizer and use those racks for holind sanitized equipment. That allows me to drip dry equipment.

You don't need to store any equipment in sanitizer when you aren't using. For your racking cane and tubing, just make sure they are clean when you are through with them. Since I have a bucket of sanitizer around, I often give them a quick soak in the sanitizer and then fling them dry before putting them away. I always make sure they are clean before I use them, and I also sanitize.


TL