Prepping for my first brew

Hey everyone, I've been hanging around the forums and the chat room for a few days and yesterday I finally went out and got my startup kit. I upgraded to the "Super Deluxe" version of this kit, which also included a glass carboy, The Complete Joy of Home Brewing, a few other trinkets and one of their "connoisseur kits" (I got the porter). Orpheus said if there were hops in the bag then I should get some more help on the forums before trying it, and when I checked last night I noticed it came with dried malt, malt extract, a bag of chocolate malt and hops. I thought at first it was a partial mash, but after looking around a bit at what things are called it looks like that makes it an extract, right?

It's not that I'm that intimidated by it, but I know it's slightly more complicated than what I was expecting so I want to make sure I know anything else I need to before I try it. I was originally going to start tonight but I may wait until tomorrow, depending on how much time I have after work and dinner and so on.

I also compiled a few other questions as I read around last night, mostly because I was checking the book, the forums and a few sites linked in the FAQ and they didn't always agree.

- I'm planning on a week in primary, then 2 weeks in secondary? Then 3 weeks in bottle? Does that sound about right? It's going to be a while and it will pain me to not have anything to show for at least 1.5 months, but I'm a good boy so if that's what it needs then I'll bite the bullet
- When I have the cold water in my fermentation bucket, should I boil it first to sterilize it, or is tap ok? I read the "tap vs bottled" thread and my water is fine, but I'm not sure if I should boil then chill
- When chilling the wort, since I'm pouring it into cold water, does it need to sit in an ice bath for 20 minutes or can it be less?
-How often do I take hydrometer readings? Only when I'm trying to see if I should rack to secondary/bottle, or ~every day?

I'm sure I'll have more questions as the process continues, but I'll try to stop myself for now. I'm the "look, do research, compare arguments on leaping vs bounding then make sure i have the right shoes and shorts before I leap" kinda guy, so if you tell me to do something because it will make a better batch then I'll do it; no point in putting out all this money and effort if I'm going to screw it up, right?

Also, thank you to everyone on the forums and chat... you've all been very friendly and extremely helpful. I can't wait to get a few brews under my belt (literally ) and be able to contribute more!

Sigafoos said:

- I'm planning on a week in primary, then 2 weeks in secondary? Then 3 weeks in bottle? Does that sound about right? It's going to be a while and it will pain me to not have anything to show for at least 1.5 months, but I'm a good boy so if that's what it needs then I'll bite the bullet
- When I have the cold water in my fermentation bucket, should I boil it first to sterilize it, or is tap ok? I read the "tap vs bottled" thread and my water is fine, but I'm not sure if I should boil then chill
- When chilling the wort, since I'm pouring it into cold water, does it need to sit in an ice bath for 20 minutes or can it be less?
-How often do I take hydrometer readings? Only when I'm trying to see if I should rack to secondary/bottle, or ~every day?

Click to expand...

Good on you for doing research beforehand. All too often, people show up here with the typical "I dumped 10 lbs of sugar water into a trash can and added some bread yeast...why does it taste so bad?!" posts...so...yeah

• You can judge your primary time by visual cues. Wait a week, then see what it looks like. If there's no airlock activity and the krausen has fallen after a week, then you can rack to secondary. Otherwise, it never hurts to leave it in primary for longer. 2 weeks in secondary is smart, but not an absolute requirement if you're impatient. Wait a week, take a hydrometer reading. Then take another one several days later. If your SG is unchanged, you're probably okay to bottle. The beer should be carbo'd within a week---you can drink it then, but it might taste weird. It won't be truly ready to drink for another few weeks, but I've had beer after 5 days in bottle that tasted great. So it never hurts to open a test bottle
• What do you mean, "when you have the cold water in your fermentation bucket"? I'm assuming you're starting with an extract batch, so you'll be adding cold water after the fact to top up to 5.5 gals. Given that, I'd recommend either boiling water then chilling it down, or (much more preferable) get some gallon jugs of spring water from the grocery store. Personally, I still use a mix of bottled water and filtered tap water---but if I have to add anything to cooled wort, I just use bottle water. If you use tap water, you're risking infection.
• It needs to sit in an ice bath for however long it takes to cool the wort temp down into the 70's (or 60's, preferably) before pitching the yeast. Whether that's 5 minutes, 20 minutes or 60 minutes, I can't tell you. Trust your thermometer.
• You don't need a hydro reading every day---you're wasting a lot of beer that way, because you shouldn't throw the samples back into the batch due to contamination risks. When you think you're ready to bottle, do as I said above...take two readings a few days apart and look for static SG.

Good luck!

Sounds like a good kit, Sig!

I was worried it might instruct you to add sugar or something, as some of the crappier kits do that.

Your 1-2-3 weeks in primary, secondary, and then bottles is spot on!

When I brewed extract, I did exactly what you said. I added 2 gallons of cold tap water to my carboy and put the boiling wort into it. I never had any problems using plain old tap water, as many people here do.

I take a hydrometer reading right before I add the yeast, and at the point of bottling. I'm comfortable enough with the process, I can tell when fermentation is over. If you're nervous, 3 days before you bottle take a reading on the 1st day and 3rd day. If there's no change, you're ready!

Good luck and let us know if you need anything else!

First, good luck, you'll do great it seems, based on your thoroughness. From my own experience, I find these things helpful on brewday cause I'm kinda slow

1. I still keep a checklist handy which covers step-by-step what I am going to do, even though I know the process well. It looks kinda like this:
1. prep starter
2. sanitize EVERYTHING
3. start mash/grain steeping
etc, etc, etc.


2. I set out things ahead of time in an organized way (hop pellets, various bowls, kettles, etc that I will need, hydrometer, thermometers, all that stuff)

I find having all materials right in my kitchen (where I brew) ahead of time helps me stay on track. And the list really helps me. Keeps me from forgetting a hops addition or forgetting to sanitize my fermenter!

That's all I got to say cause I have a lot to learn myself. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm cautiously optimistic about the batch, knowing that as long as I sanitize the crap out of it and follow directions things should be fine, but also not getting overconfident. I want to brew it tonight, just because I'm impatient, so hopefully I can get home, make/eat dinner quickly and get to sanitizing

My general plan once I bottle is to try one every week and see how it's progressing... after 2-3 weeks I'll hopefully be able to start drinking them in earnest! I know you're supposed to chill them to stop the fermentation, so while I'm here I'll just ask: does that mean I need to refrigerate them all or they'll keep carbonating until they spoil or become bottle bombs? I'm not sure SWMBO would like all that space taken up in our fridge...

Good luck - I'm sure you'll be fine. The only thing I would add to that kit is an autosiphon. You don't NEED one, but they're really nice to have.

Sigafoos said:

I know you're supposed to chill them to stop the fermentation, so while I'm here I'll just ask: does that mean I need to refrigerate them all or they'll keep carbonating until they spoil or become bottle bombs? I'm not sure SWMBO would like all that space taken up in our fridge...

Click to expand...

Your fermentation will stop when all the sugar is used up in the bottles. By then you should be properly carbed. If you sample one and it's overcarbed, you should refrigerate them all to keep them from going any further, otherwise, store them warm if you like.

Nope after you bottle you can just let them hang out in room temp until you put a few in the fridge to drink....don't worry about it. As long as you take your hydro samples and you add the right amount of priming sugar (which I'm sure came with your kit) then you're good to go.

Oh, one last thing.....after you move this one to secondary or bottle BREW ANOTHER! Nothing like having a few going at the same time....

Good Luck, I'm sure you'll be fine!

Alright, good to hear about the storage. I'm probably going to go to my LHBS to get bottles, and then I can surreptitiously pick up a hefe kit After that I think I'll try the ubiquitous EdWort Apfelwein for the beer-hating SWMBO.

I think I may need to brew tonight come hell or high water just so I can get over the anticipation!

Since it is your first brew and you'll be anxious to taste it, you could skip the secondary and bottle after 7-10 days in the primary. Then give it a few weeks in the bottle and crack one open.

Personally I would boil tap water first and then make sure to aerate really well. My tap water is fine but I still use bottled for ease of use.

I have found that it takes a min. of 20 minutes in an ice bath even when adding to cold water. You might be able to speed this up a bit if you use chilled water rather than room temp water.

I take hydro readings right before I pitch the yeast, when I rack to secondary, and when I bottle (unless I am worried about something in which case I might take an extra one somewhere along the process).
General rule of thumb is to mess with your beer as little as possible (it being your first brew this will be hard and you will worry about everything, try to relax as much as possible though).

So I buckled down and did it last night! As I said in the chat room, roughly five thousand things went wrong but I'm assuming that's to be expected

My sanitation could have been much better... some of my ice bath water got around the lid and so on so I suppose I can only hope nothing bad happens. Something about sit back, relax, something something right?

The biggest problem was that my stick on thermometer doesn't seem to work. After 90 minutes it still wasn't registering so I felt it with my hand and it was slightly colder than room temp, so I pitched and then carried it to the basement (another thing to change... it was shaken a bit when I carried it down, and then the Rubbermaid tub I had water in nearly gave me a hernia).

Overall though I think -- and by that I mean hope -- it went fairly well. Again, I couldn't have done it without everyone's help!

One last question: I have a digital meat thermometer... could I use that to take the temperature, and if so how?

I took a few pictures (in my defense, the ice bath pic was taken before I went to the store for more ) and put them on my flickr page. So far there aren't any bubbles, but it had only been 9-10 hours... we'll see how things are going in a week

Relax. Everything will be fine, and you definately will learn from this experience.

EDIT
oops! I guess I should have read the second page before I answered your question! Congrats!

What was your boil volume? From your picture, it looks like you have a rather small amount of thick liquid in the pot.

I put in a gallon of water, then topped it off to 5 after boiling. It's what my directions said to do; it may have looked that way because of the angle or because I was using an inordinately large pot.

Sigafoos said:

I put in a gallon of water, then topped it off to 5 after boiling. It's what my directions said to do; it may have looked that way because of the angle or because I was using an inordinately large pot.

Click to expand...

I suppose following the directions is the best way to go. I usually have about a 3.5 gallon boil. Seems like scorching the extract would be easy with such a concentrated wort. It would also inhibit hop utilization.

I'm sure you're fine though. Above all don't worry...worrying is the only sure-fire way to screw up a beer!

Dan,

I hope you didn't brew in your lovely white wedding suit!

Congrats!

Now is the hardest time.... the wait!!!

It sounds like you made beer, though.
Relax for a few weeks and drink some elses
homebrew. (RFAFWADSEH)

BlindLemonLars said:

Seems like scorching the extract would be easy with such a concentrated wort. It would also inhibit hop utilization.

I'm sure you're fine though. Above all don't worry...worrying is the only sure-fire way to screw up a beer!

Click to expand...

I routinely boil with 1.5 to 2 gallon boils with no scorching issues; as long as you turn off the heat when adding extract and stir it in well, scorching should not be a problem. As for hop utilization, you just have to adjust the hop additions to account for the higher gravity wort.

Congrats on brew #1..

I suffer from the early sample urge .. after I bottle, I begin taking samples after say 1 week ... "Hmm ..good carbonation...taste is alright...

I wait 1 more week ... "WOW! So much more profile ... less yeast - I can drink this stuff!"

3 more weeks - " I can't believe this ! I want to make 20 cases of this !"

Welcome to the hobby - we are all learning here and all helping as we are able.

Haha yeah I'll be sampling weekly for "testing purposes" once it's bottled

I'm still kinda curious -- don't want to say "worried"! -- about the temperature. I checked the airlock, as I hadn't seen any activity (there were a few bubbles this last time) and my stick on thermometer was finally kinda showing a reading. The last 3 numbers had a gray background on them, so if it's to be believed then it's at 77. I find this kinda hard to believe since it's in my basement, covered, in a fairly cool tub of water in Buffalo. If it's not damn hard to keep it at temp, it should be fine. Like I said, I have a digital meat thermometer... would this be usable or should I head to my LHBS?

If your meat thermometer reads that low it will work. You'll probably have to pull a sample out of you primary (which will be a pain if you don't have a wine thief or turkey baster.)

Wouldn't trust the stick on thermometer much.

Took a hydrometer reading tonight (down to 1.017 from 1.048, which falls into the final reading of 1.016 +/- 2) and did my solemn duty of tasting the batch. My god, it tasted like beer!

After a few sips, though, I noticed it seemed overly sweet. It's only been in for a week, so will this go away? I know fruity tastes can come from overheating, and I still don't have a thermometer to read from, but it didn't really taste like fruit.

Either way, if it can only get better then I say