Beginner here, first batch tonight: advice??

First off, I am a new member and this is my first post. Im sure there have been hundreds of new member/beginning batch posts, so thanks in advance for any advice. I am brewing my first batch tonight which is a abita turbodog mock kit. We will be using a 10 gallon stainless kettle on a propane burner. we will be brewing a full batch of five gallons. Any advice as far as sanitizing the kettle itself? and does anyone have any advice as far as switching over to a glass carboy after the brew is done. For the first brew we are probably just going to stick to the primary and forgoe the secondary for simplicity sakes. Bad or good idea? As far as sanitation goes, i realize that one germ on anything can ruin an entire batch of beer. Once again thanks in advance!!!

No real reason to sanitize the boil kettle, as far as I know.

You don't need to secondary, just leave it in primary.

Not sure what you're asking about the carboy, though. If you're asking how to get the wort in there, most people use a siphon hose. If you don't have that, I don't see why a sterilized funnel wouldn't work.

Good luck!

TurboYeast said:

First off, I am a new member and this is my first post. Im sure there have been hundreds of new member/beginning batch posts, so thanks in advance for any advice. I am brewing my first batch tonight which is a abita turbodog mock kit. We will be using a 10 gallon stainless kettle on a propane burner. we will be brewing a full batch of five gallons. Any advice as far as sanitizing the kettle itself? and does anyone have any advice as far as switching over to a glass carboy after the brew is done. For the first brew we are probably just going to stick to the primary and forgoe the secondary for simplicity sakes. Bad or good idea? As far as sanitation goes, i realize that one germ on anything can ruin an entire batch of beer. Once again thanks in advance!!!

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Zero reason to sanitize the kettle if you actually generate a boil. The high temp will kill any bacteria.

If you are using a carboy as a primary, make sure it's fully sanitized and make sure your wort is cooled below 80 degrees before transferring. Otherwise, you may temp-shock your carboy and end up with wort all over the floor and a shattered carboy. Also, if you are doing a full 5 gallon batch, you will want AT LEAST a 6.5 g carboy, otherwise you'll end up with a mess.

It's perfectly fine to not use a secondary and just leave the beer in the primary.

On a side note, two things:

1) get your second batch ready to go b/c you'll hate waiting
2) make sure you start with more than 5 g of water, as you'll lose a decent amount due to boil off (pretty simply concept).

Thanks so much for the advice!!! you guys are answering alot of questions!!

I agree, no need to sanitize the boil kettle as the above posters have stated, I boil off 1.5 gallons per hour in my system, so make sure you start with enough water, don't put a lid on the kettle while it is boiling.

How will you be cooling the wort down to pitching temps? do you have an immersion chiller? or will you be using a cold water bath to cool? You need to chill down the wort before racking to the carboy, also make sure you aerate while transferring to give the yeast the needed oxygen to reproduce and start fermenting.

yeah as far as aerating the yeast i was going to swirl it around and get some action going on in there when syphoning into the car boy. and for cooling down, i dont have any sort of chiller. being as it is 30 degrees outside, i firgure just letting it sit out there for an hour or so would get it at 80 or below. Time is not of the essence tonight. is that a bad method?

My newbie lesson is get lots more water than you think you'll need.
I had to get more from the store because my tap water went milky white with starsan. I was already at 50/50 mix with RO water for the first brew.

If you use a funnel to transfer, get the widest and tallest you can find. Also quite a lot of people have deformed an auto-siphon in hot liquid.

I love glass carboys. I have 6 of them.

I have decided to be a member of the "secondary only when required" camp. So far so good.

If you don't have a wort chiller, I would recommend NOT doing a full boil. Chilling 5 gal or hot wort in a water bath can take a while. I would recommend doing about 3 gal boil. Have another 3 gal chilling in the freezer before you start. Add the super cold water to the carboy first, then siphon the hot wort into that. The hot plus cold will get a lot closer to pitching temps. Your hop utilization will be lower due to the partial boil, but it will still be beer.

TurboYeast said:

i realize that one germ on anything can ruin an entire batch of beer.

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Wrong.

Sanitize, not Sterilize.

No need to sterilize it, but if it is a brand new brew pot you do want to wash it before 1st use since most new pots have a light covering of machine oil. Wash it with mild unsented warm soapy water and rinse it several times then you could even boil some water in it for half an hour (then pour it out) for a test run and further cleaning and curing if it is aluminum.

Air even at 30 degrees isn't going to be a very efficient way to cool down from a boil. If you can use a water or ice bath that will cool it much faster.

TurboYeast said:

yeah as far as aerating the yeast i was going to swirl it around and get some action going on in there when syphoning into the car boy. and for cooling down, i dont have any sort of chiller. being as it is 30 degrees outside, i firgure just letting it sit out there for an hour or so would get it at 80 or below. Time is not of the essence tonight. is that a bad method?

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Just make sure to keep the kettle covered to keep the nasties out while it cools down. next step for you would be to buy or build an immersion chiller so you can effectively cool that wort down quickly to pitching temps.

When I transfer to the carboy I use a section of plastic tube with holes drilled in it to pull in air as the wort goes into the carboy. simple and effective, Here is the link to where I got the idea.

how would you go about using an icebath if you do not have a chiller of any sorts??

RelaX ~ if it's wrecked you will make another! So, now that you're relaxed.. the odds are extremely high that you will make great beer!

Make sure your wort is cooled before you pitch
Primary only...... three weeks... Don't peak!!!!! if it's bubbling within 24 hrs, you makin' beer..
relax... relax... relax... it's hard to mess up beer

TurboYeast said:

how would you go about using an icebath if you do not have a chiller of any sorts??

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That's where things get interesting. The larger your pot, the harder it is going to be to find someplace to put it. If your pot is small enough to fit in your sink, you may do well to put some water in your sink, put your kettle in, then toss ice into the sink (as much as it will hold.)

If it won't fit in your sink, you'll need to come up with some container it will fit in (a cooler, big plastic tote, one of those big laundry tubs, big laundry sink? bathtub?) Of course, a bathtub can suck because you need a lot of water and a lot of ice to fill it to a reasonable volume...

Seriously, though, if you've got a hardware store nearby, you may want to look into making an IC. That's what I did, after spending forever trying to cool down my first partial boil batch in my tub.

its a ten gallon stainless steel pot that we paid a pretty good amount for. I think the best option here is to set it outside in some sort of very large container filled with ice water.

I'm at the point of needing an IC (immersion chiller) as well. Just priced 1/2" x 50' of copper tubing, a few 90 deg elbows, straight sections and hose connections... and a wee bit of soldering and an IC ready to go. Otherwise you run the risk of breaking your carboy if the liquid is not cooled, and messing up the wort if you splash/oxidize it when it is still hot. I estimated about $40 Cdn all-in if I solder myself.

B

use laundry room tub if p[ossible.

al;so for first batch don't beleive the LHBS when they tell you it will only take 3 hrs. if you're as nervous as I was it will take 5-6 hrs including clean up

sounds like you have the right frame of miind on sanitiation

It will cool in an ice bath but take some amount of time. Keep adding ice to keep the water frigid.

B

TurboYeast said:

how would you go about using an icebath if you do not have a chiller of any sorts??

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You need a brewer's bible, something like "How to Brew" by Palmer or "The Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian. It's nice to ask questions online, but you need to acquire some of the basic knowledge on your own.

The assumption that you can do a full 5 gallon boil and cool it in an hour just because it's cold out implies that you might be making poor decisions on more then one step of the process.

+1 HtB - I'm learning tonnes from this book.

B

birvine said:

I'm at the point of needing an IC (immersion chiller) as well. Just priced 1/2" x 50' of copper tubing, a few 90 deg elbows, straight sections and hose connections... and a wee bit of soldering and an IC ready to go. Otherwise you run the risk of breaking your carboy if the liquid is not cooled, and messing up the wort if you splash/oxidize it when it is still hot. I estimated about $40 Cdn all-in if I solder myself.

B

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Forget the elbows, straight sections, and soldering. I made mine out of just soft copper tubing, a washing machine hose, some plastic tubing, and 2 hose clamps.

ongreystreet said:

You need a brewer's bible, something like "How to Brew" by Palmer or "The Joy of Homebrewing" by Charlie Papazian. It's nice to ask questions online, but you need to acquire some of the basic knowledge on your own.

The assumption that you can do a full 5 gallon boil and cool it in an hour just because it's cold out implies that you might be making poor decisions on more then one step of the process.

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Agreed. This was indispensable to me. For a modest investment in time reading one of these books, you'll not only know what, but "why."

I know someone else said to 'not cover your pot while boiling.' I agree in general that is good, but if you are going to let your pot sit for a bit, you need a sanatized cover for it for then. I usually do that by putting my lid on loosely and letting the steam of the boil sanatize it, but you can use starsan or idophor.

Since you don't have a chiller, I strongly recomend a sanatized lid, even more if you are going outside with it. While there is probably less airborn bacteria, there is greater chance for particle (tree branches, leaves, stray dog, etc) contamination.

I also agree your sink or bathtub would be better to cool it in, water is about 1000 times as dense as air, so it has at least that much more capacity to take away heat. If you use the water in freezer method, you need to have cleaned water for that - boiled and put in sterilized container, or fresh from the store in sealed containers. If you still want to go outside, get a tub of some kind that can holdyour kettle and fill it with water before you start brewing "Why?" you ask? because it will cool to about 32 or 35 while you are getting your boil going and help remove that temp faster than outside air alone, if you just put it outside, it might not be cool enough to pitch for 5 or 6 hours, air heat transfer is wickedly slow. I know I had a must that was to warm and needed to cool for like 5 hours, granted the inside was at 80, but the must started at like 95, so it was 5 hours for about 15F

Sterilize v Sanitize. These 2 words have specific meanings and one basically said all or almost all are killed and the other says enough are killed. In brewing we sanitize trying to get enoughed killed so that the yeast have the upper hand (by like 1000 to 1). Why don't we sterilize everything well because it costs to much. Sterilizers cost more (stricter standard) and are harder to use costing more time. As the pot gets sterilzed by the boil eventually, no need to treat it before hand, just everything that will come in contact with cool (below 150-160F) wort.

I keep a container of mixed up sanitizer and hit my hands and tools all the time over and over again during the boil and make.

Thanks for the help everyone!!! Ive been writing all of this down in my notes! I will let everyone know how it goes tomorrow.....