Brewed first batch up yesterday!!!!!

Hey guys, what's up?? Well you've probably seen me ask a few questions here before. Well yesterday a good friend of mine and I brewed up our first batch!! We brewed the Big River Brown Ale.

Overall we did a great job for our first brew. Everything was kept sanitized, boiled a correct times, etc. I did have a few little problems during the end. First, I didn't notice until I was cooling the wort that the thermometer that I have starts at 100, not 50 or so. That kind of sucked, we had to guess when to throw in the wort to the primary (I only cooled 2.5 gallons, another 2.5 gallons was in primary already.)

Before that I had an embarrassing thing happen. I had the 2.5 gallons of water in the primary sitting there while we boiled, and I forgot to put on the lid. Well sure enough when the wort was chilling, we looked in there and what do you know: A little gnat flew in there!!! It was a very small little bug, and we sanitized a stirring spoon and fished him out. I really didn't have time to sanitize the bucket again, bring that water to another boil and dump it back in. So I'm really hoping the gnat didn't ruin the batch.

Besides those little errors, everything else went awesome!!! The airlock started to bubble only 1 or 2 hours after we pitched the yeast!! Now it is fermenting vigorously at about 2 bubbles a second!! So hopefully everything will go okay from here on out and in 6 weeks we'll have an awesome brew to drink!!!

Thanks for all the help!

Sounds great.....Dont forget its gonna generate some heat during primary fermentation keep the temp at 68 if you can. Its already hot as hell down here in the houston area......Good Luck!

Nexus555 said:

Well you've probably seen me ask a few questions here before. Well yesterday a good friend of mine and I brewed up our first batch!! We brewed the Big River Brown Ale.
...I forgot to put on the lid. Well sure enough when the wort was chilling, we looked in there and what do you know: A little gnat flew in there!!! It was a very small little bug, and we sanitized a stirring spoon and fished him out. ...I'm really hoping the gnat didn't ruin the batch.

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Sounds like a new brew...Black Knat Ale...

Congratulations on your first.

Now, the only mistake you can make now is to sit still. Get busy thinking about your next brew. It'll be a lot easier to set aside your first brew and ignore it for a few weeks if you're busy brewing your next batch, or two, or three...

Oh yes, I will most likely brew every 3 weeks, to keep a good steady stockpile available. The first few brews I do, I'll probably end up giving away half. So every 3 weeks actually won't be too bad.

Right now unfortunately it's fermenting at around 76 degrees. I have my air condition on 65 and it still only cools it to 76. It's okay though, the fermentation is going smooth, with a lot of bubbles being produce. Good active fermentation!!

The whole temperature thing will be taken care of in 1-2 days. I bought a new refrigerator last week, and my old one is out on my porch. I just bleached cleaned the old one, and set it on the warmest temperature. Do you think this would be better and more adequate for the temperature? It's going to take a day to stabilize the temperature, and I have an indoor/outdoor thermometer in there to read the temps. If it's a bit warm on the warmest setting, I'll just click it up or down a few notches, and this should be suitable for fermenting my beers from here on out.

Do you think this older refrigerator could be used as a lager fermenting spot as well? If I bought a thermostat to make it get colder? Or would a refrigerator not be sufficient enough? Would I need a freezer with thermostat?

Alright guys, besides these little errors and such, I think it will be fine. The wort hasn't been over 80 degrees with the yeast yet, and it's a stable 76-77 degrees at all time. Hopefully in 6 weeks I'll have some delicious Brown Ale!!

Congrats man! Welcome to the addiction. You say it will be once every three weeks, but your gonna get that itch the weekend after a brew, next thing you know, you are brewing every 2 weeks... or twice every two weeks... just wait, it'll happen

What should I do? Since I turned on my old fridge, even at the highest setting it's 46 degrees in there. I can't keep my air conditoner on 65 degrees for 6 weeks, or I will have a $250 ++ electric bill!

Am I just going to have to invest in a thermostat for the fridge?