Just brewed my first beer

Well today I brewed my first beer, it was the Caribou Slobber extract kit from Northern Brewer. When I stopped in the store they didn't have the kit ready made or have instructions but Palmer's How to Brew got me through. I was aiming for a SG of 1.052 but ended with 1.055, don't know how bad this is yet. It can't be to bad since I had airlock activity in 3 hours and 2 bubbles a second at 10 hours. My only concern is it was a hot day here and I couldn't find a cool place to keep it so it started fermenting at 78*, but it is now down to 73* as of my last reading.

I brewed my first batch last Saturday. My temp got a little too high as well.
Good luck with the next one.

If your SG is higher than you'd aimed for, it means you've got more sugar, so your beer might end up with a slightly higher alcohol concentration.

It's my understanding that high 70's is a pretty normal fermenting temperature for an ale.

I don't think you've got any reason to be worried based on the info you've given.

Sounds good to me, I don't open my fermenters at all to sample for fear of contamination. The SG will go down after time. I cannot remember the SG to bottle, that is the place I would make sure to be right. So as not to explode bottles, that is if you bottle. I stopped checking SG years ago, I stopped bottling and keg only.

Well, welcome to homebrewing.
You can use a wet T shirt, and a little water to help cool it, if you need even more a fan will drop it a few more degrees. If it's really hot a rubber maid container with some frozen ice bottles will keep it in the low 70's to mid 60's without too much work.
You really do want to keep the primary fermentation in the best range for your yeast to get the best beer with no unwanted flavors.
Best of luck and just try to be patient.

Kauai_Kahuna said:

Well, welcome to homebrewing.
You can use a wet T shirt, and a little water to help cool it, if you need even more a fan will drop it a few more degrees. If it's really hot a rubber maid container with some frozen ice bottles will keep it in the low 70's to mid 60's without too much work.
You really do want to keep the primary fermentation in the best range for your yeast to get the best beer with no unwanted flavors.
Best of luck and just try to be patient.

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Glad I gave my .0006 cent
Now I see that I can do that fancy low degree fermenting on some of that stuff I figured that I could not do and just went with whatever degree the air conditioner was running at...Thanks for the info Kauai_Kahuna that is cool (pun intended).

thanks for all the feedback, I put a wet towel over it last night per advise from my friend. Just checked it this morning temp is down to 70*. Also Northern brewer didn't have the direction sheet so I don't know what I'm aiming for in my FG reading, are there any websites where I can put the recipe in and have it calculated?

johnsonbrad1 said:

thanks for all the feedback, I put a wet towel over it last night per advise from my friend. Just checked it this morning temp is down to 70*. Also Northern brewer didn't have the direction sheet so I don't know what I'm aiming for in my FG reading, are there any websites where I can put the recipe in and have it calculated?

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According to the scale on my hydrometer, the formula is roughly:

Potential ABV = (SG - 1.000) * 133

To get your estimated % ABV, you calculate the potential ABV with the starting SG and then your current SG, then take the difference. Combined you get:

Estimated ABV = (SG_1 - SG_2) * 133

So if your brew starts at 1.050 and ends at 1.010, you should get (1.050-1.010)*133=5.3, so 5.3% ABV. Roughly.