Just brewed my first batch ever

Just wanted to post and say I think I've successfully brewed my first extract batch ever! Worked off a Brewer's Best american amber kit and its sitting in the basement fermenting. Only 5 more days till I bottle!

Congrats!

Good job! Now you have to work on figuring out what next to brew.

haha yeah, I've been thinking about that. I want to do either a wit or a tripel next.

Welcome to the obsession. It only gets worse from here!
Remember, more carboys equals more brew days

Yeah, i suppose I'm going to have to pull out the checkbook one of these days and get a few. I've already found myself on this forum more then anywhere else on the net these days.

You know, I've heard a lot about how long to keep the beer in the primary fermenter before either moving it to a carboy or bottling it. Any suggestions? Was sealed in the fermenter at about 10pm last wednesday night (Oct. 5th). I was planning on leaving it in there till this coming saturday (Oct. 15th) and either bottling it or moving it to a secondary if I decide to go get one.

Kit instructions are pretty infamous for being bad - we found it out the hard way. I'd leave it in primary for at least 3 weeks, no real reason for a secondary unless you're adding stuff IMHO. We bottled after 2 weeks on our kit, and its pretty cloudy stuff.

How long after the 2 weeks did you keep it in the bottles?

Millsteg said:

How long after the 2 weeks did you keep it in the bottles?

Click to expand...

We've still got just under a case of it left in bottles and we brewed in late July so a couple months now. Carb levels are perfect, but we did so much wrong on it that its still tastes a little cidery. Its drinkable, but thats about all its got going for it. One of our BMC drinking friends loved it, so I guess thats something, right?

Temperature control is preached by the ones who know on this board, and its STILL underrated. Once we started using a swamp cooler, quality jumped way up.

I started sampling it after the recommended (in the kit I used at least) two weeks in the bottle. But the best bottle was after three weeks so be patient!

Taypo said:

Temperature control is preached by the ones who know on this board, and its STILL underrated. Once we started using a swamp cooler, quality jumped way up.

Click to expand...

What is a swamp cooler?? Does it come with my own little green monster? Haha but seriously

Do a quick search for swamp coolers, you'll get all kinds of threads but its basically a waterproof tub big enough for a carboy (or 2 in our case). Put the primary in, fill the tub with water and add ice bottles a couple times a day as needed to keep temp where the yeast like it. Then drape a wet tshirt over the top of the carboy thats hanging in your cool water, point a fan at it and boom, evaporative cooling. Not as good as a dedicated ferm chamber, but better than nothing.
Just remember that your water temperature is going to be lower than carboy temperature - yeast making the sexy will bring up temps in there by up to 10 degrees.

Taypo said:

yeast making the sexy will bring up temps in there by up to 10 degrees.

Click to expand...

Haha love it