First Time brewer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Brew_4iT

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2011
Messages
457
Reaction score
6
Location
Manchester
Ok, I am still learning a lot, and learned quite a bit from this forum. Using multiple sources for researching and being on a budget I came up with this recipe and directions thus far. Some things will probably need tweeking especially for the fermentation process. I don't want to have to wait months on end for my brew... but I don't want to drink an immature beer either. I don't know if using honey should be in my recipe for a first brew because I read it takes longer for fermenting. Anyways, this is my procedure thus far (haven't boughten supplies yet)

Add grains Cold to water 3 gallons (Belgian Pilsen Malt, Honey malt)
alternate pot of water heat up to loosen honey and malt extract
bring to boil for 25 min at 155 deg
take out bag and bring the wort to a boil
Add Malt extract (really needed, some Briess or cooper's kind?)
about ten minutes foam will disappear
After I will add “Wheat Dry Malt DME”
shortly after add hops, “Crystal Pellet Hops 1oz”
Set for hour, don't cover remove hops on sides,
15 minutes prior to finish, add “BrewVint Yeast Fuel”
10 minutes prior to finish I'll add an additional bit of “Hop Dust Magic”
chill, make sure not under 140 deg,
Stir in half honey (clover honey? 0.5 lb) let steep 10 min
Sterilize all equipment
Test the gravity and temperature, compensate with more honey and/or cold water
airrate the wort, either mix vigorously or shake in fermenter
I'll then add yeast (White Labs Belgian Style Ale Blend WLP575)
Let ferment for a week in plastic primary


Now this is an area I'm not sure what's best to do....

I have 3 coor's mini draft kegs That I was planning on doing the secondary fermenting in originally adding 3-4 tablesppons of honey then put them both in a fridge for a couple weeks. Or maybe fridging it and releasing a co2 cartridge would carb them up good? (depending on fridge space might have to leave one in a dark cool place)

But Seeing how I'm also going to get a carboy with my kit for my secondary I'm thinking to just let it age longer in that maybe one to two weeks, test with hydrometer then transfer to bottling/kegging
 
Let it sit in the primary for at least 10 days or longer. You should be testing every other day after visible signs of fermentation slow down to see when it has reached final gravity.

At that point it's safe to bottle/keg or feel free to let it sit for up to another few weeks to a month or until you feel like it's ready.

For carbing I would just use sugar. It's cheaper and very effective. You could use either corn sugar or regular table sugar. It won't matter either way.

Many people (myself included) find little to no benefit to using a secondary unless adding fruits or some other additive, or freeing up a yeast cake for a fresh brew. Hope this helps.
 
Would it be ok that long in the primary with the sediment and other such yeast byproducts? Interesting I thought that professionally it is preferred to use a secondary. I heard different things like the yeast actually does clean up after itself or something or other, but that would make sense because I wouldn't want to subject the brew to too much oxygen either.
 
Modern brew science has shown that autolysis doesn't really occur as fast or as severely as once thought. This is in part due to the better quality and fresher yeast available to us today. I, and many others, have had beer sit in primary for months with no ill effects.

Transferring to secondary does increase the risk of oxygenation, probably more risk than benefit honestly which is why many of us have stopped using a secondary.

Also note that no fermentation should occur in a secondary. It should be complete before you ever rack it over. I would assume pros use commercial filtration instead of secondaries now for clarification.
 
Back
Top