First time brew last night. Potential issues?

Started my first brew last night and I'm unsure about some potential issues I may be having. Hopefully someone out there can let me know if I have a real problem or not. Here is the IPA recipe I'm working with and I'll get to the issues after:

- 9 Lbs Pale Malt Extract
- 16 oz Caramel grain - 10L, 20L, and 60L (not sure what those numbers indicated so if someone can tell me that would be great)
- 1.5 oz Columbus Hops (14.0%) - 60 min
- 1.0 oz Cascade Hops - 15 min
- 1.0 oz Columbus Hops - 0 min
- White Labs yeast

and my procedure:

- Added grains to small pot with 3 quarts of water at 165 degrees, removed heat, stirred and covered at 150 degrees, let sit 30 minutes.
- Slowly mixed in malt extract to big pot in 2 gallons of water at 165 degrees while constantly stirring. Removed pot from heat before adding extract.
- strained grain tea into the big pot and let that get to a roaring boil.
- once foaming ceased I began hoping process adding 1.5 oz at beginning, then 1 oz of cascade with 15 min left, then columbus again at 0.
- made sure to dissolve the final hops and remove heat and immediately put pot in ice bath.
- waited until temp reached 65 degrees and strained into fermentation bucket, adding water until it reached 5 gallons and mixed.
- added dry yeast after rehydrating in a cup of water for 20 minutes.
- mixed, inserted blowoff tube and placed end of tube in sanitized glass of water.


Now here are my concerns -

- I have seen some procedures on youtube that insist that the grain tea should brew for an hour over heat instead of 30 minutes starting at 165 degrees and letting it cool down to 150. What would the difference be in the final product?

- while straining the beer into the fermentation bucket, the strainer would completely clog up after about every 2 quarts leaving behind a think poopy goop. I know some clogging is normal but this seemed like an excessive amount of half-dissolved soggy hops. Is this an issue I should be worried about in the future?

- I also am concerned that I may have let wort reduce too much while boiling. I began with around 4 gallons of wort and ended up with around 2.5 gallons. I had to add about 2.5 gallons of water to the fermentation bucket in order to reach 5 gallons making the mixture about 50% water. Is this over diluting the beer?

- It has been about 14 hours since I added the yeast to the fermentation bucket and I am seeing no krausen or bubbles. I mixed the yeast in by gently shaking the bucket. When should krausen begin to appear? Is there any reason why my brew is not releasing those gases?


My final question is about secondary fermentation. I was given two 5 gallon buckets with this kit and assume that the second bucket would be for secondary fermentation. When and how should I transfer the beer into the second bucket and what does this accomplish?

Thanks for the help!

First of all, if you're using a 5gal for your primary, you better get a blowoff on there pretty quick. Otherwise, your new hobby is going to get messy in a hurry.

An hour for steeping grains? Sounds more like partial mash, but I could be wrong. I always go 30 minutes on ours.

Completely normal to clog the strainer with hopschmutz, same thing happens to my funnel. Some folks dont bother straining.

You got a lot of boil off, but nothing to stress about. Next time, start with more water...

You said you used White Labs yeast, but talk about rehydrating dry. White Labs doesnt make dry yeast, unless I missed something. It can take a couple days for fermentation to kick in - what temperature did you pitch at, and what temperature is your carboy at now?

thei3yron said:

- I have seen some procedures on youtube that insist that the grain tea should brew for an hour over heat instead of 30 minutes starting at 165 degrees and letting it cool down to 150. What would the difference be in the final product?

- while straining the beer into the fermentation bucket, the strainer would completely clog up after about every 2 quarts leaving behind a think poopy goop. I know some clogging is normal but this seemed like an excessive amount of half-dissolved soggy hops. Is this an issue I should be worried about in the future?

- I also am concerned that I may have let wort reduce too much while boiling. I began with around 4 gallons of wort and ended up with around 2.5 gallons. I had to add about 2.5 gallons of water to the fermentation bucket in order to reach 5 gallons making the mixture about 50% water. Is this over diluting the beer?

- It has been about 14 hours since I added the yeast to the fermentation bucket and I am seeing no krausen or bubbles. I mixed the yeast in by gently shaking the bucket. When should krausen begin to appear? Is there any reason why my brew is not releasing those gases?


My final question is about secondary fermentation. I was given two 5 gallon buckets with this kit and assume that the second bucket would be for secondary fermentation. When and how should I transfer the beer into the second bucket and what does this accomplish?

Thanks for the help!

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1. No, you're fine! You did a "steep"- that is, using grains for color and flavor, and 20 minutes (or longer like you did for 30 minutes) is just fine. You only go longer (the 60 minutes) when you are mashing grains. That's when you use grains to make the extract, so to speak. That's when starches from the grain are converted into fermentable sugars. That doesn't apply to this recipe, or any other extract recipe with steeping grains, so don't worry!

2. I don't strain, but you can if you want. You'll get some hoppy gloop, that's for sure. But don't worry about it. If you don't remove it from the wort, it will all fall to the bottom of the fermenter with the "trub" at the end anyway. I've seen a few guys buy a big mesh bag from the homebrew store, and sanitize it and line their bucket fermenter with it. Then pour all the wort into it, and just lift that out- essentially straining their wort that way. It doesn't matter, though!

3. It doesn't matter when you add the water, before the boil or after. I mean, there is 9 pounds of extract in 5 gallons of wort. That is the case whether you add more water before or after the boil. The sugars are in there, and don't go anywhere. That said, you may find that starting with more at the beginning may give you a lighter colored beer in the end, and a "fresher" taste. Or, you could add the bulk of the extract at the end of the boil and boil more liquid with your "grain tea" at the beginning. That's preferable to me, rather than putting all 9 pounds of extract in the 2.5 gallons of water at the beginning. The wort will be less carmelized, and lighter colored as a result, with less of a cooked extract taste.

4. Don't bother transferring to another bucket. There is no advantage to it, as you still have the wide headspace of a bucket. Just keep it where it is, for about 2-3 weeks, and then rack (siphon) it to the bottling bucket.

A higher mashing temp will result in a less fermentable beer and you will potentially get a lower ABV. Longer at a lower temp gives a more fermentable wort.

your straining issue is not a problem. I wold suggest getting an auto siphon and doing the whirlpool method.

topping off to 5 gallons is not an issue. i do it all the time. as long as the recipe is designed for 5 gallons your fine.

an airlock is not a fermentation indicator its a pressure release valve. its not uncommon to not see any airlock activity when fermenting in a bucket. i would suggest just turning around and walking away. i know its hard but its the best advice. if you want put your good ear up to the side of the bucket. if you hear a hissing sound you know your have fermentation.

secondary fermentation and a secondary fermenter are two different things. secondary fermentation happens at the same time and continues after primary fermentation. a secondary fermenter is a completely optional step and is typically used for adding dry hops or fruit to your brew. if you are going to use a secondary fermenter you should rack your beer to it once you have verified that fermentation is over. use your hydrometer to determine this. again i would suggest using an auto siphon for this. much easier than the typical racking cain that comes with most kits. make sure the outlet hose is flat on the bottom of the secondary when you start racking and remains under the surface of the beer as the process continues.

First of all, this community is awesome! Thanks for the quick replies.

I can't remember what yeast I used other than the fact that it was a dry yeast from Belgium. The home brew store that the kit came from must have recommended it for the recipe.

I pitched the yeast at about 70 degrees (I hope that's right. Didn't think it mattered other than the fact that it was cooled down).

Yooper, I read something about adding half the extract before and half after but when I was brewing I just followed my directions. When you say adding the bulk of the extract at the end of the boil do you mean after adding the hops? I would think that the extract wouldn't dissolve completely if adding it right before removing the pot from heat. Maybe I'm wrong?

What Yooper means is adding the second half about 10-15 minutes before the end of the boil. The boiling action and your mixing will take care of mixing the extract in. Also you may want to take the pot off the heat when you add the extract to prevent scorching.

TipsyDragon said:

What Yooper means is adding the second half about 10-15 minutes before the end of the boil. The boiling action and your mixing will take care of mixing the extract in. Also you may want to take the pot off the heat when you add the extract to prevent scorching.

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Yes, you can do that.

I've found that I've been happier at adding the extract, particularly liquid extract, at flameout. The reason is that adding the extract tends to stop the boil, and if you're adding hops at the 15 minute mark, it can be a conundrum. I've found that adding the bulk of the extract at flame out solves all the problems- doesn't stop the boil during the timing for the hops, and it's still plenty hot enough to sanitize/pasteurize the extract. The flame is off, so you don't scorch the extract, but it's still boiling hot so you don't have to worry about sanitation.

extremely good points i didn't consider