First brew NB Caribou Slobber

I just finished bottling my first brew ever. NB Caribou slobber. Fermented 10 days in primary, and 4 weeks in secondary. I had to try the little bit that was left over. Freaking amazing. Despite all my worries and concerns over how I could have maybe messed things up, I am super happy. If this beer doesn't improve sitting in bottles, I won't care! So excited over my first brew, I just wanted to tell the world!

Nice! Congrats on your first brew!!!

And it WILL get better after a few weeks conditioning. So score 2 for you! Welcome to the addicti..... Hobby, welcome to the hobby!

Congrats! Always nice when the first beer turns out!

Now comes the hard part - waiting for it to carb up while its all nicely packaged and calling your name.

Too funny!!! Same as you i just began the adventures of homebrew and also did it with the NB Caribou Slobber Kit!!!I bottled a week ago and they arent kidding. I havent cracked one open yet but everytime i go check on my fermenter and those beautys are right there in the bottle i just wanna crack one open!!!

Good work!

Seems like Caribou Slobber is a popular first brew!! I am 2 days into the primary fermentation after Santa gifted me a deluxe brew kit from NB for Xmas!

Was a little nervous that I didn't aerate the wort before pitching the yeast. I did pour the wart through a strainer and poured additional water on top to get to 5 gallons so hopefully that helped aerate the beer and hopefully the Slobber is forgiving to that mistake.

Already thinking about cooking up an IPA to take the real estate of the primary carboy once I move the Slobber on to secondary!

So exciting to be brewing again! Can't wait for that first sip!

-Cal

I have about another week before I can crack open a bottle of my Caribou Slobber..going to be a long week....

I will often pull a couple of bottles to the side and keep them very warm to turbo prime. While you normally don't want temperatures too warm during fementation because it leads to off flavors, it's not as critical with the small amount of sugar for priming. I've typically had fully primed bottles in 6-7 days doing it this way. The rest of the beer I do at standard room temp, but this allow me to shave a week or two on a couple of bottles and satisfies my curiosity...

raptorkeeper89 said:

Too funny!!! Same as you i just began the adventures of homebrew and also did it with the NB Caribou Slobber Kit!!!I bottled a week ago and they arent kidding. I havent cracked one open yet but everytime i go check on my fermenter and those beautys are right there in the bottle i just wanna crack one open!!!

Click to expand...

Mine was fully carbed after 1 week in the bottle, so you should chill one and open it up. As a side note, I've "tested" every one of my 5 brews at the 1 week mark...for science.

Can't argue with science

Despite knowing better, I do the same thing and test at 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. How beer ages in the bottle is actually pretty interesting to me. For instance, the milk stout that we bottled a couple weeks ago. At bottling, the dregs tasted amazing. At the 1 week mark, it was mostly flat and cold, but I could see where it was heading. Oddly enough, at the 2 week mark, it went left and I got more of a "green beer" sense off it than I did at the 1 week mark.

huntley said:

Mine was fully carbed after 1 week in the bottle, so you should chill one and open it up. As a side note, I've "tested" every one of my 5 brews at the 1 week mark...for science.

Click to expand...

Well I can't argue with that!!!

Glad to see this turned out well for you. I brewed caribou slobber a couple weeks ago and am excited to keg it to see how it goes. Brewed the NB lakefront fixed gear tonight. That should also be a good one.

Finally cracked open a few bottles...simply awesome. Can't believe my first beer turned out so good. I know it's just a extract kit but I'm really happy with the way this caribou slobber turned out

This is great to hear! I've been researching everything I can before I buy any equipment and decided to start off with the Caribou Slobber when I get my kit next month. It's going to be tough to let it sit for 2-3 weeks in bottles though. I agree that I should sample it along the way, you know, for science.

Cheers

Cool. I really want to try this. As far as testing for science. Is it bad that I tested a 5 day old sample from my fermenter... and kinda liked it?

Congrats on your first brew! I'm a few weeks behind you using the NB Deluxe kit as well. Decided to go with the NB Extra Pale Ale though.

This is for all those that used this kit....did you use dry yeast or liquid? Just curious.

This is my next kit I'm getting...after having my 1st kit being Brewer's Best English Brown Ale...if anyone has done that kit...and this one - which tastes better to you?

I will be brewing Caribou Slobber this weekend....this too will be my first batch ever!
(actually doing 2 batches in one day!) T-Can & Bearcat's Wheaten Beatdown is the other one also.

Kuhndog said:

This is for all those that used this kit....did you use dry yeast or liquid? Just curious.

This is my next kit I'm getting...after having my 1st kit being Brewer's Best English Brown Ale...if anyone has done that kit...and this one - which tastes better to you?

Click to expand...

I used dry.

Kuhndog said:

This is for all those that used this kit....did you use dry yeast or liquid? Just curious.

This is my next kit I'm getting...after having my 1st kit being Brewer's Best English Brown Ale...if anyone has done that kit...and this one - which tastes better to you?

Click to expand...

I used the dry yeast

Only thing I did different is I added Irish moss 15 minutes before the end of my boil.
Primary 10 days
Secondary 4 weeks...that took some patience
Bottles aprox ten days.

The one thing I was thinking of tweaking was having a late LME addition. Would I be fine to add the 1lb DME at the beginning of the 60 min boil, steep my grains and whatnot, then add all 6lbs LME at flameout, maybe 15min to be safe? Or should I split the LME late addition in half?

I think you'll be fine adding the LME at flameout or the last 15 min. I've done this with my last few brews and it definitely gets rid of the twang.