My first non-Mr. Beer 5 gallon brew—Disaster?

Hello All,

I just did a 5 gallon red ale kit by Brewer's Best tonight. I went out and bought a 6 gallon fermenter today and was kind of excited to try it. I wasn't quite ready but went ahead anyhow. Here's what happened.

I needed to boil 2.5 gallons and thought my pot was big enough but it wasn't. So I did a split boil 5 quarts in each. The split boil seemed to work out ok.

I discovered my thermometer was broken so I had to guess at the temp for the steeping grain. I'm almost positive it was too hot (over 170 degrees) most of the time. I was concerned so I yanked it out after 15 minutes which was 5 minutes early.

Cooling was where I had my biggest and perhaps fatal error. I cooled the two pots in my double sink. I filled each side with cold water and when I put the first pot in it submerged long enough for about a pint or two of the cold water to get in. The second pot cooled fine.

I dumped the 2.5 gallons of wort into the fermenter which I had put 2.5 gallons of cold water in. I aerated, pitched the yeast, aerated again and sealed it up.

I noticed in the bottom of one of the pans that some of the extract had burned on - not much though.

So I guess what I am wondering is the odds for success in this batch. The sink/tap water that got in the wort was cold and clean and I used the same tap water for the fermenter anyhow. I just hope the sink didn't contain nasties that infected it. The wort was just off the boil so it was HOT. I'm thinking that might help.

Thanks for any comments on this. I am going to be better prepared next time!

As long as it ferments, it will be beer. Your next one will be better, I'm sure.

You should get your 5 Gallon pot (min) and thermometer before the next batch tough. They are essential.

Cheers and RDWHAHB

Kitchen sink drain has an incredible amount of bacteria in it... Curious to see how this turns out.

microbrewswhoo said:

Kitchen sink drain has an incredible amount of bacteria in it... Curious to see how this turns out.

Click to expand...

The sink drain should have nothing to due with the brew as none of the wort came in contact w/the drain.

No need for a 5 gallon pot if you are using extract and grains. I use a 3 gallon pot w/2.5 gallons of water for the steeping. Of course it's pretty full when the extract is added, but still no boil over. fingers crossed for the future.

My biggest concern is that you pitched the yeast too hot, since it's hard to cool off hot wort to pitching temperatures without using an ice bath or wort cooler. The critical temperature time for yeast is from the time you first pitch it, you want to keep the temperature within the optimal range as soon as possible. Pitching too hot will produce too much Diacetyl, more than the yeast will ever be able to clean up after fermentation.

You should still make beer, if you don't see any fermentation in the next 48 hours you may need to pitch new yeast since it may have been too warm when you did it the first time.

We've all made mistakes. Welcome to the hobby and RDWHAHB.

it should be fine. like the others said, get a bigger pot and a good thermometer, and if your not ready to get a wort chiller then atleast use some ice in the sink. actually do a search here on how to cool wort, there are several ways to do it with out a chiller. the tap water shouldn't be an issue. the sink water that accidentally got in could be bad, but will probably be ok. the steeping grains are for color and flavor, since you used extract there should be enough fermentables. may get some tannins from the grains if it was much over 170, but w/e you should be fine. congrats on your first 5 gallons, next time should be easier since you know what to expect and what to improve.

Well, I guess it all depends if the pint or two of water that got into your wort is infected or not. At this point just continue the fermentation and bottling process as normal and it will probably be fine.

As far as a bigger pot, I got a 5.25 gallon canning pot off of Amazon for a mere $20. It's not the greatest brewpot, but I can easily do a 3.5-gal boil in it, probably even 4-gal or even a little more if I'm feeling brave. The only real major flaw is that it's super-thin, which means you can easily burn your extract if you are not careful (which you already did on this batch anyway, so RDWHAHB). I did that exactly one time (with no noticeable ill effects, BTW) and since then I've just been careful to turn off the heat before adding the extract and stir constantly while I am pouring it in. Haven't had a problem with that since.

As others have said, most of those mistakes are no big deal beginner mistakes. The water is a little scary, since it sounds like that was sink water (i.e. not fresh from the tap, it had been sitting in your sink) but beer is resilient stuff so there's a pretty good chance you'll get away with it anyway.

This will probably not be an award-winning beer. But if you give it long enough in the fermenter (2-3 weeks) and condition it in the bottles long enough (3 weeks), I doubt you'll be disappointed in the results.

Thanks everyone for all the responses! I feel a bit better about it now.

I was worried about the pitching temp too. It was probably a bit warm so right away I put it out on the porch for 3 hours to bring the temp down. It was in the low 60s outside.

I think 3 gallon pot is what I'm going to go for. All grain seems far off to me right now. I like working with the extract. It's just enough work to make it fun but it's not too much to make it drudgery. I want to try dry extract next and see how that compares.

I woke up to the smell of brew today - it was bubbling like crazy. It's tapered off quite a bit. Now the waiting... :fro: