questions about my just finished debut brew.

Just finished making my first brew. I think everything went ok. A couple of issues I thought Id ask questions about in retrospect.

It is an IPA (Waterford IPA) from the sample recipes in Beersmith. 5 gallons 60 min boil. Single mash (2 x 10 gallon coolers)

Issues:
1: It was windy, so I opted to boil in the kitchen instead of on the burner outside. The kitchen stove is pretty good, but I have a 15 gallon SS pot and I struggled to get a good 'rolling boil', it was boiling, but not vigorously. Will this / how will this affect the brew?
2: When I siphoned from the kettle to the carboy I sucked up all the hop (pellets) as well, is this correct?
3: I forgot to take a gravity reading after the boil, preboil was 1.052...is this a problem?

Thanks!

Tom.

Congratulations on your first! Pretty ballsy to do your first as an AG but more power to you!

1) If you got it boiling you should be fine. Some argue that a strong rolling boil yields "cleaner" beer and there is something to that... but don't worry yourself over it. RDWHAHB!!
I'm assuming you started the countdown from 60 (or 90) minutes when the wort actually began to boil (and more importantly, is that when you added you bittering hops)

2) You'll be fine. Some people just dump it right in. I personally use a stainless steel strainer and catch as much as I can (some of the gunk will always get through when using pellet hops)

3) What were your pre-boil and post-boil volumes? I think it's easy to calculate your OG based on that.

Just make sure to keep it in the primary for 3-4 weeks before racking to secondary (though that's not necessary unless you're dry hopping) or bottling/kegging.

Good luck and welcome to the addiction that is homebrewing!

Thanks, that puts my mind at ease. How long before I should see stuff happening in the carboy? Im away for the weekend, so I hope nothing goes wrong before Sunday evening...
I was going to leave it in the carboy for 10 days then bottle it. Will that be ok? Or is that why I need the hydrometer reading?

That is definitely why you need a hydrometer; you should never bottle until your final gravity is the same over the course of 3-5 days. And your kit (or whatever instructions you may have found) will say 10 days but you really want to give it at least 3 weeks. The yeast are still going to be very busy (even after the air lock stops bubbling, yes) cleaning up after the mess they made during fermentation. Trust me, forget about it for a while and you won't regret it. Make another batch in the meantime!


And you should likely see activity 24-72 hours after pitching the yeast. How big is the batch and in what size container is it in? Is it 5 gallons in a 5.5 gallon carboy? Because if so you really need a blow-off tube (do a search for it on homebrewtalk.) If you have ample headspace to let the krausen (foam) raise during fermentation then an airlock will be just fine.

Reno_eNVy_446 said:

That is definitely why you need a hydrometer; you should never bottle until your final gravity is the same over the course of 3-5 days. And your kit (or whatever instructions you may have found) will say 10 days but you really want to give it at least 3 weeks. The yeast are still going to be very busy (even after the air lock stops bubbling, yes) cleaning up after the mess they made during fermentation. Trust me, forget about it for a while and you won't regret it. Make another batch in the meantime!


And you should likely see activity 24-72 hours after pitching the yeast. How big is the batch and in what size container is it in? Is it 5 gallons in a 5.5 gallon carboy? Because if so you really need a blow-off tube (do a search for it on homebrewtalk.) If you have ample headspace to let the krausen (foam) raise during fermentation then an airlock will be just fine.

Click to expand...

Thanks,
I have a hydrometer, I just forgot to take a reading before putting the wort into the carboy.
I have a 5 gallon batch in a 6.5 gallon carboy. I went away for the weekend and it looked pretty muchthe same when I got back, except there was a grubby high tide mark about 2 inches above the beer, so I guess it got foamy while I was away. There is about a bubble every 5 seconds coming through the airlock. Im just going to leave it 2 weeks or so then bottle it.

tomlivings said:

There is about a bubble every 5 seconds coming through the airlock. Im just going to leave it 2 weeks or so then bottle it.

Click to expand...

Perfect! Do exactly that and report back with results.

Cheers!

It all sounds great - did you take note of your fermentation temps? That will be important in future brews as well.