Newbie mistake?

Hello all,

Over the weekend I tried my hands on this recipe https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/paulaner-style-hefe-weizen-32811/ and made a mistake only to realise it was too late to undo. Basically after two days of fermentation...

What went wrong was when my wort came to a rolling boil I went ahead and added in my hops and i also put the lid on for the next 1 hour.

guys, please tell me that putting my lid on will not ruin this batch. i was looking forward to it and what hardship should i prepare for when its time to drink it?

On my first batch of IPA I put the lid on and took it off various times as I continually (and obsessively) measured my wort's temperature. I was trying to maintain it around 190F and 200F during the boil. The beer turned out wonderful.

For my second batch of Kölsch, I put the lid on my stock pot just once for about five minutes of my boil to raise the temp up some. It's fermenting now, so we'll see how it turns out.

I have read different articles with some saying capping it is okay, and others saying it isn't. With my experience (or lackthereof) it seems like it won't wreck a batch to use/not use a lid...but I'm sure someone with more experience may say differently.

We don't use a lid because we want things to boil off. I cant imagine that is going to ruin your batch though. After it ferments out taste it. Its not the final flavor, but you can get a feel of where its heading. Relax I'm sure you'll be fine. If you don't like it at bottling time bottle it anyways. then try it in a month. Most of the time (if its not infected of starting to oxidize) the beer starts to come around.

Since this was using extract you will not have any problems. If and when you go to all grain you must leave the lid off so the dms can boil off. Make sure you are fermenting in the low 60s and you should have a great beer.

beerman0001 said:

Since this was using extract you will not have any problems. If and when you go to all grain you must leave the lid off so the dms can boil off. Make sure you are fermenting in the low 60s and you should have a great beer.

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Thanks guys and keeping it on the low of 60 is going to be pretty hard since its summer here.

schia said:

Thanks guys and keeping it on the low of 60 is going to be pretty hard since its summer here.

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Look into a swamp cooler to help keep the temps down. Basically it is a tub of water, some ice, and a t-shirt.

The fermentor sits in the tub of water, the ice keeps the water cold (which in turns keeps the wort colder. An old T-Shirt put over the fermentor just touching the water in the tub will help with a bit of additional cooling if needed as it wicks up some of the cool water and evaporates.

Do a quick search, and you will find some great examples of how it works.

I remember brewing at around 98f and some turned out great while others are just not worth mentioning.

thanks for the tip though.