Just cracked my first brew...

Hey everyone, Im sitting in front of my very first homebrew of my very first batch.
An ale which is supposed to replicate a dutch light lager. -heineken knockoff

~~~Timeline~~~
10/16 brewed
10/21 racked to secondary (oops- a little early, noob mistake)
-wait a month:rockin: -
11/19 bottled (came out with fourty-three 12oz bottles)
11/27 taste day!

PIC! http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/438/beerst3.jpg

PFFFFT!, sounded good.
SIGHT is phenominal,"I made that?:rockin: " It had a fat head on top that seemed to come out of thin air as i slowly poured it, like an over pumped keg. Could it already be carbonating too much? the head slowly subsides as I type.
It is not too clear but thats expected as I forgot to add the irish moss and gypsum.
SMELL is where things are a little uh-oh. smells a lot like when I cracked the fermenter on a few of my previous brews and stuck my head inside. theres a sort of stinging in the back of my throat/septum if I take a deep wiff.
MOUTH FEEL is similar to other beers, a little on the flat/small bubbles side (despite a vigorous foam head?). I guess I need to wait a couple weeks for more carb, then toss them in the fridge.
TASTE is similar to smell. Its either an astringency, its too "green", or its damn good homebrew, my pallate lacks the experience to tell. If someone with some experience would help me pinpoint the taste that would be great.

Overall it tasted like beer but i wouldnt call it a mighty good beer. Im pretty damn proud of myself and pumped that I have 3 more batches following this one.
Thanks for listening! have a good one!

yes yes yes- Its like ****ing crack isnt it!

Mine was a light pale ale and I cannot stop thinking about going home and drinking it!

and it's only been bottled 8 days! don't drink them all and don't put them in the fridge yet, see how it tastes in 3 weeks!

DeathBrewer said:

and it's only been bottled 8 days! don't drink them all and don't put them in the fridge yet, see how it tastes in 3 weeks!

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+1 Letting them sit is the hardest part of this hobby

Don't judge it after 8 days bottled. I never cracked bottles before 10 days. It won't be fully carbonated yet, which means residual sugars are throwing off the taste...

Brewing is an excercise in patience from waiting for the boil to waiting for it to carb. Congrats on the first brew success.

Yep, you probably have a little sugar and a whole lot of yeast messing around with the flavors and aromas of that beer. Give it a couple more weeks. If you like it now, you'll probably love it later!

Congratulations!


TL

I'm so jealous of you, I just made my wort today and now have it in the primary. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, I will see some bubbles in my airlock. About the Irish moss. How many experienced hb's on here use it for clarity? I just can't wait a month and a half to taste what i made.

tuckferrorists said:

I'm so jealous of you, I just made my wort today and now have it in the primary. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, I will see some bubbles in my airlock. About the Irish moss. How many experienced hb's on here use it for clarity? I just can't wait a month and a half to taste what i made.

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I can't answer on the irish moss (yet) but I have a brewers best porter in secondary right now that I augmented a bit and it tasted AWESOME when I racked it and took the hydrometer reading.
You're gonna love it.

nb

1. how did you augment it

2. how would it taste good from the secondary?

It's interesting to me that you've brewed some other batches already.

My first batch is about 10 days in the bottle and I'm planning to taste it tomorrow.
I wanted to go all the way through this to give myself feedback on what to do in the next batch I'm doing in a couple of weeks.

Having never done it before I thought I might need to see how the finished product is before batch #2.

tuckferrorists said:

1. how did you augment it

2. how would it taste good from the secondary?

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I augmented it by adding some quick oats to the steep and by adding some really good vanilla to the wort. Minor changes, I know, but I wanted the changes to be small the first time I augmented a recipe. Since then I've kinda gone overboard, but my first one tasted so good after only 10 days in the bottle I had to keep on learning and reading and brewing.
I tasted the sample I used for the hydrometer reading right before I put it in secondary and it had darned good flavor for being so green. I can't wait till it's aged a few months.

Now I'm thinking about cracking one of mine tonight.....must........wait.....

stevecaaster said:

Hey everyone, Im sitting in front of my very first homebrew of my very first batch.

<SNIP>

SMELL is where things are a little uh-oh. smells a lot like when I cracked the fermenter on a few of my previous brews and stuck my head inside. theres a sort of stinging in the back of my throat/septum if I take a deep wiff.

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Really exciting, isn't it, to know that you have made beer yourself!

My advice to you: patience. Whatever you do, don't drink all of them in the next 2 weeks. Use all the self-control you can muster up and put aside at least a sixpack of bottles and forget-- I mean it-- forget about them, for, oh, say 3 months. Then come back and try one. You will likely have two reactions, the first being "OMG this is awesome!" followed very quickly by "holy sh*t, I can't believe I only have 6 bottles of this stuff left!"

One of homebrewing's dirty little secrets: your beer really takes longer than two weeks in bottles to be good. If they told people that in the beginning, though, no one would ever start brewing. Of course you can drink it when it's green, but it tends to get way, way better with time.

Congrats, though on your first successful batch!

Honestly, my first batch, after 2 weeks tasted like, bleh, after another 2 weeks (4 weeks total) it was like liquid gold!!!

As others have said: waiting is the hardest part of this hobby.

Good job on the first brew!

when people say put the beer away for a few months, would it be OK to leave them out of refridgeration for that long? I always thought you were supposed to toss them into the fridge after a certain amount of time so they stop carbonating. i guess after 3 weeks or so its as carbonated as it is going to get tho?

I just drew off a pint from my 350th gallon brewed this year...I'm still a little giddy every time I take that first smell...sip that first sip...get that first buzz.

stevecaaster said:

when people say put the beer away for a few months, would it be OK to leave them out of refridgeration for that long? I always thought you were supposed to toss them into the fridge after a certain amount of time so they stop carbonating. i guess after 3 weeks or so its as carbonated as it is going to get tho?

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If the bottles were properly primed, storing then at cool-room temperature is fine. If there was too much sugar (residual from the wort or priming), then putting them in the fridge will stall the beer from over carbonating.

By the way, if your bottles are still carbonating - which I understand they are - then the cloudiness likely comes from yeast in suspension, carbonating your beer. When they've eaten up the priming sugar, they'll fall to the bottom and your beer will be a whole lot clearer.

It'll also start losing that yeast-working taste you recognised from the fermenters.

Give it time.

Sounds like it will be good, I couldn't wait the full time on my first batch ended up drinking it all before it was fully aged, it was an english bitter and was kinda fruity but ended up pretty good. Its hard to wait.

Primary: Samuel Adams Boston Ale Clone
Primary: Yoopers Fat Tire Clone
Secondary: Nothing
Secondary: Nothing
Bottled: Bavarian Lager, APA, Hard Cider
Drinking: APA
On Deck: Double Chocolate Stout