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paulster2626

paulster2626

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Alright. Got my brewing kit, got my sanitizer, got my malt extract kits, got my motivation, and most importantly I've got my craft brew to drink while I do all this.

Tomorrow morning marks the first endeavor of the Paulster Brewing Co. (name subject to change). Wish me luck! Although with the amount of stuff I've learned from this site I don't think I'll need much.

(just didn't want first post to be some stupid-ass question or oh-no-what-have-i-done thread - we can leave that for post #2)
 
Best of luck to ya! Way to go on the 1st post I know mine was an epic fail of a question(or so it seemed). What are you brewing up?
 
Good luck! Let us know how it turned out. Don't do what I did on my first catch of beer. I pitched the yeast at about 90 degrees F. I drank the beer because it was my first batch, but it wasn't very good!
 
Best of luck!

Tips for a successful first brew day...

1. Make sure you have everything before you start
2. Set a timer to remind you for hop additions
3. Sanitation, sanitation, sanitation.
4. Don't pitch your yeast until wort is below 80 degrees.
5. Keep your fermentation temperature steady.
6. RDWHACB- Relax, Don't Worry, Have A Commercial Brew (since you don't have any home brews yet)
7. Take pot off burner for extract additions so you don't have a boil over. And keep and eye on it throughout the boil too for the same reason.


Welcome and enjoy. Now go make beer!
 
paulster2626 said:
Alright. Got my brewing kit, got my sanitizer, got my malt extract kits, got my motivation, and most importantly I've got my craft brew to drink while I do all this.

Tomorrow morning marks the first endeavor of the Paulster Brewing Co. (name subject to change). Wish me luck! Although with the amount of stuff I've learned from this site I don't think I'll need much.

(just didn't want first post to be some stupid-ass question or oh-no-what-have-i-done thread - we can leave that for post #2)
Click to expand...

I'll post my response to #2 in advance:

paulster2626 said:
(fake quote)
Yadda yadda yadda.
What is wrong with my beer? How do I fix it?
Click to expand...

Nothing. Just leave it alone. RDWHAHB.
 
NuclearBrewer said:
Welcome and good luck! I bet you'll be preparing for brew #2 shortly (if you haven't already)! :mug:
Click to expand...

I have 2 kits, one is Australian Ale, and one is IPA, both from Cooper's. I'm not expecting great results from such kits, but I'm just trying to dial in the procedure and techniques for cleaning/racking/bottling/etc. before I go balls-out.

We'll see what happens - planning on fermenting first batch, then moving to secondary once complete (yes I bought a hydrometer). At the same time, I'll boil up a new batch to ferment until the first is ready for bottles. Then I wait until they are drinkable, which should give me enough beer to enjoy and assess while I plan my next move.

That's the plan, anyway.
 
Welcome and good luck on your first brew.

I'm by no means a master like some on this board. I've been brewing since the beginning of 2010 and have several brews under my belt. I still consider my self to be a beginner, so here's some beginner tips I can think of.

1 - This is a matter of preference, but I think most agree, skip the secondary and just do a long (3-4 week) primary. You can search the forum for dozens of threads about why you should or shouldn't do it. When I started I did secondaries because that is what you're "supposed" to do, but after the first 3 or 4 I started doing long primaries and never looked back. I use Irish Moss and use a muslin bag over the input of my racking cane to keep most of the trub junk from getting into the fermentor and end up with very good clarity in my brews. Adding gelatin at week 3 seems to help a lot too. Plus if you only primary, you can start your second brew right away without having to wait two weeks to transfer the first one to secondary.

2 - Aerate your wort befor pitching the yeast. Shake the fermentor vigorously for 5 minutes. I used to to some half hearted shaking when I got started, but when I started doing a good long vigorous aeration I had a lot less trouble with stuck fermentations and poor attenuation.

3 - Watch out during the boil, when it starts to get foamy on top the boil is about to happen and depending on how full your kettle is, you may have a messy boilover very quickly if left unattended.

4 - Once in the fermentor, resist the urge to mess with it for at least a week. You should see airlock activity within 48 hours and it may stop as quickly as 12 hours after it starts. Don't bother checking the gravity until at least a week after you pitched the yeast.

5 - Do a quick run through in your head before starting, make sure that everything you need is ready to go and will be easily accessible when you need it.

6 - Don't forget to take a hydrometer reading before putting the wort into the fermentor.
 
paulster2626 said:
I have 2 kits, one is Australian Ale, and one is IPA, both from Cooper's. I'm not expecting great results from such kits, but I'm just trying to dial in the procedure and techniques for cleaning/racking/bottling/etc. before I go balls-out.

We'll see what happens - planning on fermenting first batch, then moving to secondary once complete (yes I bought a hydrometer). At the same time, I'll boil up a new batch to ferment until the first is ready for bottles. Then I wait until they are drinkable, which should give me enough beer to enjoy and assess while I plan my next move.

That's the plan, anyway.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good plan to me, it is pretty much how I started - just with different kits. It may take a few batches to dial in your procedure to where you would like it - a process I'm going through again because I just moved into all-grain brewing. It is not much different, but there are enough changes that I need to get the hang of when I need to do certain steps. Hope you have a fun time brewing!
 
my 2cents....... don't panic. have fun! let us know how it goes.

cheers
 
xxsn0blindxx said:
2 - Aerate your wort befor pitching the yeast. Shake the fermentor vigorously for 5 minutes. I used to to some half hearted shaking when I got started, but when I started doing a good long vigorous aeration I had a lot less trouble with stuck fermentations and poor attenuation.
Click to expand...
Good advice. I always siphon my wort from the kettle into the fermenter. I actually hold the hose about 3-4 feet above the fermenter though, and move it around so it splashes as it goes in. This seems to work pretty good. But then I am also obnoxiously not careful (sloshing around on purpose) for the walk from the kitchen to the room with the fermentation chamber... "taking the beer for a walk" helps to aerate it too...
 
pointerDixie214 said:
Good advice. I always siphon my wort from the kettle into the fermenter. I actually hold the hose about 3-4 feet above the fermenter though, and move it around so it splashes as it goes in. This seems to work pretty good. But then I am also obnoxiously not careful (sloshing around on purpose) for the walk from the kitchen to the room with the fermentation chamber... "taking the beer for a walk" helps to aerate it too...
Click to expand...

Yeah I siphon into a funnel with a screen in the top of my carboy so there is pretty good aeration just from the transfer out of the kettle as well.
 
Only one other piece of advice I'd give you (that I may have missed above) that I wish I'd had before my first brew day:

Ahead of time, when you're not in the thick of things, make yourself a checklist. Include all your cleaning and sanitization tasks. Include any special instructions you may have for steeping grains. Include all your hop additions. If there's anything you have to do, include it in your checklist, and don't let that thing out of your sight on brew day.

My first brew day, I was so excited to get my first batch going. I had assisted with several brew days, so I felt confident I knew what was going on. Brew day went awesome - not a hitch to be seen. However: I realized when my wort was about half transfered into my carboy that I had cleaned the carboy - but I managed to completely forget to sanitize it!!!! Fortunately, I managed to RDWHAHB (had a cornie of brew we brewed at my buddy's place, on hand!) and the brew turned out fine. But if I'd had that checklist, I never would have had to worry!

I've used such a checklist on every subsequent brew day, and it makes things go so much more smoothly, that I really can relax as I'm going through the process.
 
Sounds like you have a solid plan. Just pay attention and remember everything you have learned from HBT and you'll have some great beer in a few weeks. My #1 reminder is sanitation. if you have to ask yourself if something should be sanitized, the answer is always yes. RDWHACB! :mug:
 
So have a good time. When the batch is ready post a pic of your first pint and tell us how awesome it is.
 
Well I think it all went well. Santized the bejeezus out of everything and now I wait for fermentation to begin, and end.

Only thing is OG reading says I only have a potential ABV of 3% - kinda sucks, but I don't care as long as end up with something drinkable for the first batch.
 
paulster2626 said:
Well I think it all went well. Santized the bejeezus out of everything and now I wait for fermentation to begin, and end.

Only thing is OG reading says I only have a potential ABV of 3% - kinda sucks, but I don't care as long as end up with something drinkable for the first batch.
Click to expand...

3%? What was your OG? And what temperature did you measure at with your hydrometer?
 
Also keep in mind, if you brewed with extract and did only a partial boil (topping off in the fermenter) it's very common to not mix the wort and top off water well enough and get some pretty erroneous readings. It's a safe bet you were within a couple points of wherever your kit listed the OG would be - it's very hard to miss OG with extract.
 
Just relax and enjoy the process. Your first few brew days will seem kind of hectic and you'll have several moments where you think you've ruined your beer. As you get your process down it will get easier and your brewing days will get shorter. I will leave you with two pieces of advice. First, never attempt more than one new technique per brew day. My biggest source of frustration in the beginning was that I always attempted every new technique that I had read in this forum throughout the week on my Saturday brew day. Second, if you don't at least occasionally have an epic fail at some point in your brew days then you are obviously not drinking enough beer when you brew.
 
Well, just transferred the Australian ale to secondary. Gave it a taste and my buddy and I were surprised at how good it was. There's a tiny bit of carbonation in there, and it's a good smooth beer. Not bad for some warm crap that's just sitting in my basement.
Now just finished boiling up a new batch of IPA. Stirred it up reallly good this time and i have a much better OG of 1.038. Just pitched the yeast, and I've officially got a pipeline going! I'll bottle the first batch next week, then keep the pipe going. Next step is to move from wort kits and make something a little more advanced. I'd like to try a wheat beer followed by a stout for the Christmas season.

Beer is awesome. Wish I found this hobby earlier. Combines three of my favorite things - cooking, beer, and hanging out in my basement. Cheers!
 
Well the balls-out process has begun. Picked up a full 8 gallon kettle, and ingredients for two more batches. Going to do a smoked porter and american wheat.

First batch is clearing up nicely in the carboy. Second IPA is doing who-knows-what inside the fermenter, I'm not peeking this time. Going to bottle this up on Sunday and then... more waiting. Geez I just want to have a beer.

iglun9.jpg
 
Looks great! Way to start cranking out the brew. You'll have your beer soon enough. After that you will have more beer than your poor liver can handle :drunk:
 
So last night it dawned on me that the 2kg of different sugars that the LHBS sold me (corn sugar and a coopers enhancer) may have not been for priming after all, rather to add to the wort during the boil. Now I'm going to have some weak-ass beer. At least I added some turbinado sugar to the second batch to boost up the ABV% a little bit, but I've got questions:

This first batch looks like it's only going to have a 3.3% ABV. Perhaps the wort wasn't mixed well when I took the OG reading, but I think I mixed it up pretty good as I was trying to aerate it. It's been sitting in secondary for a week now, and I was planning on bottling it on Sunday.
Can I use the Cooper's brew enhancer as priming sugar? As far as I can tell this stuff is just an overpriced blend of sugars anyway. 5oz of the stuff should do it, right?
Will it be worth it to age this batch for a while longer to get more flavour out of it? I took a grav. reading last night to make sure it's good for the bottles and drank the sample. It already tastes okay, but more like mass-produced coors light than beer. I guess I'll have to go by my original goal of just ending up with something drinkable rather than super-high quality... If there's anything I can do at this point to give it a bit of a boost in the flavour department, I'm all ears.

Oh and just FYI, I'm very relaxed about this already so I am in no way freaking out. But I could go for a craft brew right now anyway - is 9:04 too early?
 
BluBruShack said:
Looks great! Way to start cranking out the brew. You'll have your beer soon enough. After that you will have more beer than your poor liver can handle :drunk:
Click to expand...

Hah thanks - friends are already wise to my plans. Apparently I'm going to have a NHL kick-off (puck-drop?) party in early October, and I'll be supplying the beer.
 
Welcome to the addiction... err.. hobby!

I did the Coopers wheat for one of my first brews, came out pretty good.

Not gonna mention who my favorite "local" hockey team is, you'll just laugh.
 
GreenDragon said:
Welcome to the addiction... err.. hobby!

I did the Coopers wheat for one of my first brews, came out pretty good.

Not gonna mention who my favorite "local" hockey team is, you'll just laugh.
Click to expand...

The Kansas City Coyotes???

I'm a Leaf fan - I have no right to laugh at anyone.
 
Nah I bleed blue, St. Louis Blues! This is the year we make the playoffs! (Of course I've said that like the past 10 years and no luck yet... but this season really is the season!!)

Edit: If the Coyotes actually make it to KC I'll prolly adopt them.
 
Hey on your 3.3% ABV I think that sounds about right. I am still new to the hobby but I thought i remember somewhere reading that the priming sugar from bottling brings ABV up by .5% putting you at your 3.8% Please correct me if im wrong.
On the other side of things its nice to see some die hard fans :) I see and hear so many people changing thier "fav" teams every year. Ive been cheering on the Capitals for 15 years now. Moved to the mid west and all we have is the Avalanche... So Go Caps!
 
Bottled up the first batch today - got 54 bottles of goodness. Primed with 5oz cane sugar, hope it works out! Put a few in clear bottles so I can see it:

23tkras.jpg
 
GreenDragon said:
Nah I bleed blue, St. Louis Blues! This is the year we make the playoffs! (Of course I've said that like the past 10 years and no luck yet... but this season really is the season!!)

Edit: If the Coyotes actually make it to KC I'll prolly adopt them.
Click to expand...

Well, at least you didn't say the Wichita Thunder. ;)

Oh, and "hey" from another Wichita brewer. :mug:
 
Hey! I love the Thunder..they're just not NHL. They may not win as many games as they could but they almost always win the fights and that's what really matters in minor league hockey!
 
And last night it was time to try a more advanced technique using my newly-purchased gigantic pot!

Never knew how amazing hops smelled - I cannot stop sniffing them, it's like crack.
Here is me getting ready to brew a porter using the brewer's best kit. I added 8oz of maple syrup as a kicker near the end of the boil.

2a5ymfp.jpg
 
paulster2626 said:
Never knew how amazing hops smelled - I cannot stop sniffing them, it's like crack.
Click to expand...

If you have dogs be very careful. They are attracted to the smell also but if they eat too many hops it can kill them. I always take the trash out right after I'm done brewing so the pups don't eat them.
 
Well after 48 hours of no activity or any sign of fermentation in the porter, I decided to panic. Figured I pitched the yeast when the wort was still too hot and killed the bastards, so went to the LHBS to pick up another package.

Last night before bed I dissolved some corn sugar in a little water, and re-hydrated the yeast that way. Once they started to foam up a bit and smell like bread, I dumped the mix in to the wort.

This morning, fermenting like crazy. Good news, didn't want to lose this batch!
 
It's done! First batch is carbed up nicely, and tastes, well, rewarding. A little bland though - I know I made a mistake in not adding some extra sugars durin the boil. All good though - I'm just happy I made something not awful, and no bombs!

Maybe it's just 'green' still? Will it get more flavorful with time?
 
Maybe it's just 'green' still? Will it get more flavorful with time?[/QUOTE said:
It is entirely possible. Many beers improve for months. So try not to drink it all before it gets a chance to age a little!
Click to expand...
 

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