feeling good, hoping for the best...

just finished brewing my first batch of beer. i used an Irish Red Ale beginners kit from Midwest Supplies. the OG was at about 1.038 and now its sitting in my closet at about 65 degress for 2 weeks (no secondary fermenter).

a couple of comments on the process. Midwest supplies you with a muslin bag for the grains. when i was thru steeping the grains, instead of throwing out the bag with the grains like they recommended, i emptied the grains and reused the bag for the hops (bittering for 30 minutes, aroma for the last 2). it took a little time to cool off. i used 5 gallons of 'spring water' from meijers. 3 bucks for clean unmetalized water sounds good to me. and i found to use one of the empty gallon jugs to hold my floating thermometer between using it. my house smells like tea and i'm left feeling pretty good about the whole process.

after reviewing the process with my roommate, you really only need a fermenter for each batch of beer you make (and a buttload of bottles)... so he is going to buy a fermenter and beginner kit and start one up as well. hopefully nature will take its course and i'll be enjoying some nice beer in a few weeks.

one last question about bottling. when do you chill the bottled beer? i hear a lot of talk about storing bottled beer in a dark warm place so that the bottles can carbonate with the priming sugar. how long after this step can you stick the bottles in the fridge and enjoy your spoils? thanks in advance.

EDIT: I renamed this thread as my first brew thread because i will likely have a lot of questions on it... and instead of making a new thread for each quesiton... i will just repost them on this thread... hope you all can help!

The carbonation is usually done in about a week, but the beer will be awesome in three weeks.

Welcome to the light.

I've had it done in a week with corn sugar, but I've also had it take 3 weeks when I was using DME to carb.

I let my bottled beer at room temp(70F this time of year)for two weeks for carbonation. Then I move them to the basement(60F) to stall the carbonation, and but some in the fridge to enjoy. After about a week there will be some carbonation so sample...sample all along the way from the very beginning.

its been almost 48 hours now since i put the beer in the primary fermenter. the first 24 hours saw a lot of activity in the airlock. but now it has become dormant. little to no activity. as i've been typing this thread i have yet to see it bubble once. am i able to open the lid without it being oxidized to see if there's anything going on down there? am i at the right temperature? i'm currently at 68 degrees. what might be happening, and what is the solution?

Don't open the lid. Here's what you'd see (probably): a lot of chunky goo floating around on top of your beer. A ring of the same around the edge. And 5ish gallons of pre-beer.
If you must have a gander, pull the air lock and look through the little hole. Be careful not to push the gasket through when you're putting the airlock back.
Give it a couple more days before you rack it or longer if you're going straight to bottles.

catfish said:

Don't open the lid. Here's what you'd see (probably): a lot of chunky goo floating around on top of your beer. A ring of the same around the edge. And 5ish gallons of pre-beer.
If you must have a gander, pull the air lock and look through the little hole. Be careful not to push the gasket through when you're putting the airlock back.
Give it a couple more days before you rack it or longer if you're going straight to bottles.

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mmk, i'm just kinda concerned that i haven't seen any bubbles in the last 24 hours. i feel that the problem could be under-oxygenated beer. the temperature was right, and my book says that if the wort didn't have enough oxygen that fermentation could quit altogether. is there a way to cure this problem?

deranged_hermit said:

its been almost 48 hours now since i put the beer in the primary fermenter. the first 24 hours saw a lot of activity in the airlock. but now it has become dormant. little to no activity. as i've been typing this thread i have yet to see it bubble once. am i able to open the lid without it being oxidized to see if there's anything going on down there? am i at the right temperature? i'm currently at 68 degrees. what might be happening, and what is the solution?

Click to expand...

If you just have to, go ahead and pop the lid...there should be enough CO2 sitting on top to prevent oxygenation...just try not to shake it at all. Likely you just had a fast ferment. Like catfish said, you should either see a little foam still on the top, or at least a ring around the bucket just above the wort showing where the foam has been. Assuming you do see the ring, my advice would be to close the lid and leave it for another three to five days (if you're going to use a secondary), or another 10-12 days if not.

El Pistolero said:

If you just have to, go ahead and pop the lid...there should be enough CO2 sitting on top to prevent oxygenation...just try not to shake it at all. Likely you just had a fast ferment. Like catfish said, you should either see a little foam still on the top, or at least a ring around the bucket just above the wort showing where the foam has been. Assuming you do see the ring, my advice would be to close the lid and leave it for another three to five days (if you're going to use a secondary), or another 10-12 days if not.

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my fermenter has a spigot... and i drained a little into my cylinder tube for a hydrometer test (dont know if this was a good way to take a reading or not). and it was at 1.018 last night... that's a difference from 1.038 that it was at originally. its not quite 35 percent of what it should be at, but it is close. the book i has says to try and rouse up the yeast with a sanitized spoon if you have stuck fermentation. however i have heard a couple times now to not open the lid if i dont have to. so i guess i'll just let it sit for the time being until it was originally scheduled to be done. hoping that patience makes the difference.

You could have a leaky lid gasket. It would bubble when the ferment was full speed, but once it slows, the lesser amount of gas can leak through the gasket, not the bubbler. Check the SG agian in a couple days.

Re:Re:frigeration, I've been drinking my brown rye at room temp, about 65f. I'd start 'sampling' about 4 days after bottling- it will only get better with age...

deranged_hermit said:

my fermenter has a spigot... and i drained a little into my cylinder tube for a hydrometer test (dont know if this was a good way to take a reading or not). and it was at 1.018 last night... that's a difference from 1.038 that it was at originally. its not quite 35 percent of what it should be at, but it is close. the book i has says to try and rouse up the yeast with a sanitized spoon if you have stuck fermentation. however i have heard a couple times now to not open the lid if i dont have to. so i guess i'll just let it sit for the time being until it was originally scheduled to be done. hoping that patience makes the difference.

Click to expand...

If you went from 1.038 to 1.018 in 48 hours, then your fermentation is definately not stuck...just leave it be for another 10-12 days then bottle it. Patience will make a difference.

I agree with Pistolero. The major part of the ferment is done and just needs to set a little longer to reach your FG. One thing that I have learned about brewing beer is patience is your best friend Give it a few more days and then take another reading.