Hikeon3
Well-Known Member
I decided that I love great beer. I also decided that I wanted to make it. So I got the stuff together and tonight I brewed batch 1.
This is how it went.
1. Guy on Craigslist selling equipment for cheap. I jump on it.
1a. Immediately after I head to Home Brew Mart (aka Ballast Point Brewing) and buy a recipe for an American Pale Ale.
2. I go home and make a bucket of bleach and a spray bottle of iodophor/water (low concentration, but I guess that's enough) then thoroughly clean everything and sanitize.
3. I put cracked grains in clean steeping bag and steep in 1.5gal water til near boiling temperature, maybe 165-170F. Sparged with a quart of hot water I microwaved to about 170F.
4. Remove from heat, added liquid extract to pot. Attempted to get pot to a boil but my burner sucks (pot was covered and lid was weighted down as well). So at about 175 added bittering hops. Acheived boil about 10 minutes later.
5. Continued to boil for 50 minutes after that, spraying everything I was going to use to transfer with/to and ferment with liberally. Even my hands got a great iodophor bath about 90 times.
6. 30 seconds before stopping the boil added finishing hops. Stirred quickly. Covered and transferred to ice bath.
7. Waited until about 90 degrees (yes, thermometer was sprayed liberally and air dried) and added to carboy which already had about 2 gallons of chilled water in it. Added 1.5 gallons of room temperature bottle water.
8. Covered carboy with plastic and swished/shook it like mad. Temperature ~70F. Pitched liquid yeast. Gave a little swirl to distribute and popped the airlock on (3 piece, HEAVILY sanitized, tapwater inside)
9. Placed carboy in a large plastic tub with a black t-shirt over it and took it to the garage in a nice shady area. Planning on adding water/ice to tub for ghetto cooling when it gets hot out there.
Anyways. I feel good about it. Definitely felt like I was sanitizing everything all of the time, even when I didn't have to. But a few questions remain.
Question 1: I never strained any of the hops or grain sediment so now there is a large amount of solid on the bottom of my fermenter. Is this going to affect the outcome? I wasn't planning on any secondary fermentation. Maybe a bottling bucket?
Question 2: I have a 3-piece airlock, and wasn't all that familiar with how it was going to function. So after putting it on, I noticed that the outer chamber (the one outside of the central tube) was empty. So I got a small test tube of water and tried to refill it, but as i did so, water started leaking into the fermenter. Praying there was no bacteria in that water, I got the spray bottle and added some of the diluted iodophor to the airlock water. It seems as if the lock only keeps water in the central tube chamber and not in the outer chamber. Is that normal? Or a defect?
Sorry if that wasn't clear. I tried to spell it out clearly.
Anyways. I felt good about the whole process. Made the house smell great and I have high hopes for future endeavors.
Hoping it turns out good. Cheers!
This is how it went.
1. Guy on Craigslist selling equipment for cheap. I jump on it.
1a. Immediately after I head to Home Brew Mart (aka Ballast Point Brewing) and buy a recipe for an American Pale Ale.
2. I go home and make a bucket of bleach and a spray bottle of iodophor/water (low concentration, but I guess that's enough) then thoroughly clean everything and sanitize.
3. I put cracked grains in clean steeping bag and steep in 1.5gal water til near boiling temperature, maybe 165-170F. Sparged with a quart of hot water I microwaved to about 170F.
4. Remove from heat, added liquid extract to pot. Attempted to get pot to a boil but my burner sucks (pot was covered and lid was weighted down as well). So at about 175 added bittering hops. Acheived boil about 10 minutes later.
5. Continued to boil for 50 minutes after that, spraying everything I was going to use to transfer with/to and ferment with liberally. Even my hands got a great iodophor bath about 90 times.
6. 30 seconds before stopping the boil added finishing hops. Stirred quickly. Covered and transferred to ice bath.
7. Waited until about 90 degrees (yes, thermometer was sprayed liberally and air dried) and added to carboy which already had about 2 gallons of chilled water in it. Added 1.5 gallons of room temperature bottle water.
8. Covered carboy with plastic and swished/shook it like mad. Temperature ~70F. Pitched liquid yeast. Gave a little swirl to distribute and popped the airlock on (3 piece, HEAVILY sanitized, tapwater inside)
9. Placed carboy in a large plastic tub with a black t-shirt over it and took it to the garage in a nice shady area. Planning on adding water/ice to tub for ghetto cooling when it gets hot out there.
Anyways. I feel good about it. Definitely felt like I was sanitizing everything all of the time, even when I didn't have to. But a few questions remain.
Question 1: I never strained any of the hops or grain sediment so now there is a large amount of solid on the bottom of my fermenter. Is this going to affect the outcome? I wasn't planning on any secondary fermentation. Maybe a bottling bucket?
Question 2: I have a 3-piece airlock, and wasn't all that familiar with how it was going to function. So after putting it on, I noticed that the outer chamber (the one outside of the central tube) was empty. So I got a small test tube of water and tried to refill it, but as i did so, water started leaking into the fermenter. Praying there was no bacteria in that water, I got the spray bottle and added some of the diluted iodophor to the airlock water. It seems as if the lock only keeps water in the central tube chamber and not in the outer chamber. Is that normal? Or a defect?
Sorry if that wasn't clear. I tried to spell it out clearly.
Anyways. I felt good about the whole process. Made the house smell great and I have high hopes for future endeavors.
Hoping it turns out good. Cheers!