First attempt at beer

I received the rest of my ingredients today, and started brewing right away at about 4:00pm, finished about 9:00. Decided to forgo the starter, hopeuflly the yeasties can handle my little 3+ gallon wort. Overall I'd say it was pretty successful, some minor hang ups including, being a few degrees below my mash temp, and having to add an additional quart for my mash to heat it up.

Somehow I managed to get my sparge right at 169, pretty much winging it. Then I boiled for an extra 10 minutes to account for the extra water(seen in the accompanying baby pot below).

By far the most difficult part was getting a siphon started. My 3/8in tubing did not fit perfectly with my racking cane, which caused it to lose suction. Probably made 15 attempts getting small portions of wort each time . refilled tube with StarSan mix every time . . . . you better bet I am going to purchase an autosiphon in the next 24 hours though. Tweaked my recipe last night, and I came out 3 points high on my OG at 1.064, so I consider that a great success.

Here's hoping all that siphoning didn't introduce any nasties .

Weighing out the grain.


Whoops, too much wort for my tiny 5 gallon.


Hangin' with his secondary buddies, fingers crossed for something that tastes like a porter.


Sorry, trying to get photobucket to cooperate with this forum. Ok, I'm using the IMG tags, whats going on here.

I think you need to have a given number of posts before you can post pictures..



Sounds like a good time.

When you get the auto-siphon, be sure to pick up a length of 1/4" hose. Put the end of the hose in boiling water to soften it so you can squeeze it on the end of the racking cane. With 3/8" I would have to pump several times and would lose the siphon every few minutes.

pnj said:

I think you need to have a given number of posts before you can post pictures..


Sounds like a good time.

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Ah, thanks for the heads up

Congratulations!

I think with only a 3 gallon wort you are correct. Starter prob wasn't necessary.

I flubbed the temps a bit on my first attempt at mashing as well. I think it is a learning curve. My cooler lost a bit more temp than I had anticipated as well. If you came out heavy on the gravity you did good though.

What were you siphoning? The wort into the carboy? If so, I just toss a funnel in the top and pour on in, helps oxygenate at the same time.

Why does he need to have a given number of posts before he can post pictures? I think it's awesome that he included pictures.

Looking at that picture, does anyone else think there might be a problem having the blowoff jug above the BB? If there was suckback into the BB (temperature change, flexing the BB due to moving or tilting it, etc.) and it was enough to get a siphon started, the whole contents of the blowoff jug would go right into the BB. Or am I just paranoid?

Good observation, but I think he's safe. Although I would probably lower the blow off jug, or raise the BB a bit.

There will be positive pressure in the BB, so there shouldn't be any suck back. Aside from the tube being above the water level in the blow off jug. Plus there is ample head space in the BB.

I would think the chances are slim, but for as much work as it is to make beer I would probably raise or lower them some if possible.

DeafSmith said:

Looking at that picture, does anyone else think there might be a problem having the blowoff jug above the BB? If there was suckback into the BB (temperature change, flexing the BB due to moving or tilting it, etc.) and it was enough to get a siphon started, the whole contents of the blowoff jug would go right into the BB. Or am I just paranoid?

Click to expand...

Nope, not paranoid, I went to check on it about half an hour later, and water had started to go up the tube(moved from kitchen to cool basement), pulled the hose out and about an ounce of starsan solution ended up in my fermenter, doh. :cross: Lowered it after that. I'm learning how these fluids work, slowly, but I'm learning .

Yeah, I was siphoning into the carboy.... hmmm, giant funnel, sounds even better!

Edit: just checked on it, bubbling in the blowoff 14 hours later .

My Funnel look something like this



An important part associated with transferring to the carboy, is aeration. Have you ever tasted boiler water? It has a flat taste, which is because it looses a lot of the oxygen. Our Yeasty buddies need the Oxygen, so that's why we either splash it around a bit or some even inject O2 with a tank.

Yep, I stopped siphoning half way through(which was painful because I had actually gotten it going!) to shake the crap out of the wort for a few minutes, hopefully aerated enough.