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sheephrdr

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Looks like I beat the odds, After lots of research/reading I realize I did about 10 things wrong with my first batch (well mabye not that many) but it turned out pretty good, carbanation is good, its clear and tastes like beer. Not too much body but very drinkable :) My first was a coopers IPA and I added a ton of Dextrose like the instructions tell you to hehe. 1 week prim. 1 sec. 2 weeks conditioning.


Anyways thought id post just because.


Secondary: licorice porter (smells fantastic)
 
It's amazing how forgiving beer can be. You'll make mistakes for the rest of your ( brewing ) life. Once you've done it a few times, it's easier to avoid the more obvious ones. Keep going, Bro. It just gets better !
 
Yeah - mistakes are a part of the game. Once you become more experienced, you may decide to refer to them as "experiments." As in, "I meant to do that!"

The universal one seems to be poking the gasket of the pressure valve into the brew tank on your first batch. Did you do that one? I won't way I recommend it but it was a good learning experience for me! :D
 
Ha ha! I didn't poke my first gasket through until batch #3! That's funny, I felt like real dips#@t when I did that! The neighbors could probably hear me swearing three houses down! Good to know I'm not the only one.

I felt the same way as you, sheephrdr, after my first batch. I did so much preparation and there were still a couple things in the brew process that I didn't anticipate and wasn't prepared for. As with you, my first batch was very drinkable but things have much improved since that first learning experience.

AHU
 
Folks are right. I know I was nervous at first. You read literally hundreds of pages on brewing, all with the tag line "it's easy, don't worry, etc." Seems a little contradictory, no? Glad things worked out well!

And remember: software companies like Microsoft don't call them "mistakes." They're "features!"
 
Haaa......do I have a story for the gasket in the wort......My neighbor has been brewing for about 7 months now or so, done maybe 5-7 batches before I had asked him to help me with my first one. He comes over, everything is going smoothly, till we put the lid on the primary. I wasn't exactly sure how the airlock went on, so he says you just push it down into the hole there......and there it goes......the gasket goes to the bottom......so I look at him with a dumb founded look, like what do we do now......he looks at me and says, here, this is what I did when I made this mistake......opens the cover and sticks his hand to the bottom and pulls it out......I could of almost died since I made so many precautions in sterilizing everything to the fullest.....so far that was the best beer I have made yet......he he.....it was a nut brown......then again, only have one other conditioning in bottles which is my Christmas brew.
 
Wow I thought I was only one to have that little gasket fall in.
It was my first brew also. I called my local HBS and they said cover with saran wrap and get another sanitize and put it back into place. I did and everything was fine. I realixe now that you have to slowly push the airlock into place.

My last brew Hefewiezen is setting in bottles now. I can't wait. I ordered the Flat Tire from Midwest and it is due to arrive Saturday, so I will bre Sunday.
This is great.
And thanks for the great advice here. I read every day now.
 
I have yet to make this mistake (aka it'll happen next time). I read all these type of stories before brewing my first batch and so I've always (all 3 batches) put my airlock into the lid before sticking it on the bucket.
 
i think i screw something up everytimei brew. no biggie. that's why i TRY to take detailed notes every time i brew. it helps to eliminate many mistakes.
 
Funny story, GABrewboy. When I poked mine through it was actually still stuck to the bottom of the airlock on the other side of the lid. I use vodka in my airlock and I didn't want the thing to spill through the hole and into the brew while I tried to get the lid off. So I had to hold the airlock with my left hand - keeping it stable enough to not spill - and pry the lid open with my right hand. It's hard enough to get those lids off with two hands!

I like catfish's idea - I think I will put it on the lid prior to putting the lid on the bucket from now on.

AHU
 
I hate all of you new brewers and your drinkable beer. I'm on batch #3 . . . the first two were awful and completely undrinkable. From what I can tell my mistake was steeping the grains at too high of a temperature and then squeezing them . . . thought I was getting the "good stuff" out but was getting the bad stuff. Completely unforgiving and I have rancid piss beer to show for it . . . lots of it!! Don't make that mistake!

So at this stage, I do not think beer is forgiving at all. So to those of you whose beer has turned out, I begrudgingly raise an envy-filled glass of store bought beer (since my homemade is a failure) and salute you for succeeding where I have failed. :mad:
 
Hang in there rhino...you'll get better with practice, and your bad beer will get better with age. :)
 
I have been very lucky. All of my brews, mistakes and all, have turned out well. I give all my credit to Jeffery at my LHBS. I have had him on the phone almost every time trying to find a way out of my mistakes.
 
Rhino, the only thing I can recommend (having made some crap beers and some awesome beers) is that there are no shortcuts. The process, as you've read it, is as efficient as it can be. Be creative with recipes, but don't skip or alter any steps. There's 8,000 years of experience behind those steps. Don't go cheap with sanitation, it's your best friend.

And, as for recipes, be creative, but not too creative. Find a recipe online that people support, brew it, and then consider how to change it, but use baby steps.

When I made my first beer, I considered some of the steps too trivial and I skipped them. That beer was crap (and, BTW, I did the gasket-through-the-lid thing and was elbow deep looking for it). When I made my second beer, I paid a little more attention, but I was too excited and kept checking it and sampling it. The result = crap. The third beer? Mega-Crap because I got too creative with the recipe (I'm hoping that time will heal it, but 6 months have barely helped). Fourth beer? Decent, but not fantastic. Beers 5, 6 and 7 are phenomenal. Beer 8 has a week more in the secondary and it's showing nothing but promise. Beer 9 will be started soon. It's a variation on Beer 6 and I'm really looking forward to it.
 
hang in there rhino. good beer is out there, we promise. cheesefood's right. there are no short cuts. have a good brew day plan, don't get into a rush, and take your time.

stick with it!
 
Thanks guys, I must admit that I'm more than frustrated. I'm a somewhat intelligent guy and took great care to do it right, but have a few obstacles I need to get through.

First of all, I need to start making starters. I don't know why my instructions don't tell me to. I just found out 2 minutes ago that I'm on my 3rd stalled fermentation, and I wanted to throw my glass carboy out the window. I don't have a thermostat in my apartment, so the temperature drops at night shut off my yeast, and combined with a lower yeast cell count (since I don't use a starter), I have too high of a FG. I just got off the phone with my local brewshop and apparently I need to put my buckets of beer in a water bath to help regulate the temp.

To salvage this brew, I'm going to pitch additional dry yeast. I'm also going to siphon into the secondary, and back into the primary on top of the trub to try and stir up some yeast cells and jumpstart more fermentation.

I've spent at least $300 so far, spent several days worth of effort in total, and have yet to crack a drinkable brew! I'm running out of steam for this hobby.

But I'll stop whining now. Thank you for the encouragement. Hopefully I'll stick with it! It makes more sense to spend another $100 on equipment and brewkits and to spend a few more days of effort to get over this hurdle than it does to walk away without ever "going the distance," so I'm sure I'll get through it.
 
Too late now that you bought the belt, but I was thinking that perhaps you could put the beer in a small room like a closet or bathroom with a self-regulating electric heater. They're pretty cheap - you could just figure out which setting provides the temp that you're looking for.

Why are you required to do a yeast starter? That is, have you tried liquid yeast smack packs? That's all I've used so far and they are very easy.

AHU
 
A guy at my brewshop gave me an idea I think I'm going to use . . . waterbath with an aquarium heater. The heater has a thermostat and will keep the water bath at a constant temperature, thus keeping the wort at a constant temp.

The brew belt heats the wort right up, but overheats easily. I'm glad I own it, but the waterbath should regulate the temperature far better.
 
Sounds like a rather ingenious plan. As long as you don't over tax the heater, it sounds like it would work pretty well.
 
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