Hello Folks

My first post! I live in Louisiana and just bottled by first batch of beer, as well as starting my second batch. My first batch is an Exract Amber Ale which I got in a kit from some random place on the interwebz before I started to do some real research. Now I have a mini-mash Fat fire in my primary. Despite doing what I figure is 5 different mistakes It appears to be fermenting away! Look forward to posting about new batches soon!

Nice one bud. What's the 5 mistakes you made?

nickybhoy said:

Nice one bud. What's the 5 mistakes you made?

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1.) Ran out of sanitizer so I ended up using vodka for the airlock and for its sanitation.
2.) I forgot to preheat my cooler before using it to stepp.. The temp was down to 146 when the timer went off
3.) My stove is not a good fit for brewing beer, its small and electric. I had to use a lid to the pot to get it to boil. I read somewhere that is not a good thing? Moving to an outdoor setup.
4.) My strainer was too small and awkward to use with the cooler. Working on making a manifold which I can also siphon from as I do not have a value.
5.) I forgot to take a SG reading before I topped off in the carboy, leading to inaccurate readings several times.

This picture is about 14-15 hours after the batch went into the carboy.


Krausen starting to form.

To me it sounds like No mistakes to harm your beer from what I understand placing a lid while brewing can cause you to get a boil over when you remove it I could be wrong. I use vodka as Well in my air locks so your good. Looks like your off to a good Start I have a Scottish 80 in my primary at the moment

Boiling with the lid off allows any DMS from mashing to escape. But I used to boil with the lid cracked and never had any DMS present in my beers. Believe me, if you have DMS in your beer, you will know it!

High surface tension causes boil overs, constant stirring or having a small fan blow across the surface of the boiling wort will prevent boiling over.

You didn't make any mistakes that will harm your beer. I use a glass top electric range to brew, starting the heat once I start the run off into the kettle gets it to a boil quickly. Get yourself a "wort-hog". It's a stainless steel flexible tube that sits in the bottom of your cooler mash tun and attaches to the spigot. They are designed for the igloo coolers, but will also work with a rectangle one. It makes life a lot easier.

Your vodka is a great sanitizer but it is a bit expensive for general use. You use with the airlock was a good idea. I usually use plain water in my airlocks and haven't yet had a problem with contamination.

If your mash temperature was close when you mashed in don't worry about it. Most of the conversion would have occurred quite quickly if your grains were crushed well.

You can make up a much bigger strainer that fits right in your cooler from a piece of sheer curtain material known as Swiss Voile. You can have it custom sewn or just drape it over the edges. When your mash is done, pull the strainer with all the grains out and let it drain, empty the wort from the cooler, drop the bag of grains back in for the sparge step and repeat. You can squeeze extra wort out of the grains too if you wish but you are likely to overshoot the pre-boil amount and have to boil down more or put more into the fermenter. Do a search on this forum for BIAB as this is a similar process that simple avoids the use of the cooler.

The beers looking good bud. Now you play the waiting game!

nickybhoy said:

The beers looking good bud. Now you play the waiting game!

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Thanks!

Everything is still looking good with my partial mash:

36 Hours


48 Hours