First brew! A lager and a couple of questions.

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thor22

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Hello everyone , My first brew was a 5 gallon light lager extract kit with wyeast 2035. I have followed all of the temperature ranges. Its been around a week in the primary fermenter and still fermenting. One question, when I transfer the beer to my secondary, can I strain it? (theres still some hops pieces in it) Or is this not a good idea?

I did not make a yeast starter, I didnt know any better. Im still in the dark on why this needs to be done...

I do realize now, I probably should have not picked a lager to start with.:D This is addicting, I have a Kolsch and a Ale kit on the way!

Go easy on my, Ill have some good contributions...:mug:
 
If you're using an auto-siphon you may not have to worry about this. I haven't gotten any of the trub or gunk from my primary into a secondary while using one. Not really sure I'd recommend a strainer at this point. Sanitation risks aside, I can't really think of a way that you could use it without oxidizing your wort (you don't want to do that now). Personally I strain when pouring into my primary. I feel like it aerates the beer more (I can't prove this) and it sure does a fantastic job of reducing the hop trub.

Yeast starters basically just ensures that you have enough yeast for a healthy fermentation. Without enough yeast, you may not high your final gravity. You want to make sure the yeast eat all of the fermentables. Having enough yeasts ensures that they prevail I guess. Someone might have a better description of this or a more educated one. Higher gravity (ales) require more yeast because as the alcohol content rises, the yeast will start dying off.

Anyway, my awful explanations aside, refer to MrMalty's yeast calculator to get an idea of how much yeast you oughta be pitching: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html . It's a great tool for sure.

I haven't done a lager yet, but I would agree with the advice that it's probably not the best starting kit. But hey, if you were able to control the temps and have that kind of patience...then good job jumping on board at brewing level 10.
 
Thanks for the link and your help!

I did stain it while I was dumping from the boil to the fermenting bucket, there was so much of it. I had to stop and unclog the stainer so many times. I got so sick of doing this, I was worried about contaminating the wort with some bad stuff! I gave up... I guess I should of used a cheese cloth or something different. Lesson learned and it resembles beer, besides some hops sediment!
 
The trub (hops, grain and yeast sediment) isn't that big of a deal. If you're using an auto-siphon, they have a little 1" plug at the base that prevents you from sinking the tube too deep into the trub (if at all). If you rack from your fermenter to a bottling bucket, you should be able to do it slowly and carefully enough with an auto-siphon. A good technique that a lot of brewers use is the BIAB technique (boil in a bag), which is to use a large mesh bag (like a paint straining bag) and use it to line the interior of your brew pot, and then dump your ingredients in there. For adjunct grains, just put them in a muslin bag and let them soak in the pot for a half hour or so at 155f with a few swishes and dunks. Then, remove the muslin bags and allow them to drain out, then add the hops pellets directly inside the BIAB bag.

They will expand as you bring the wort to a boil, so keep that in mind. After the boil is finished, simply remove the bag before chilling the batch down to a pitchable temperature. Again, the hops will have expanded and absorbed a lot of wort, so just do it slowly and use a big metal spoon to press out as much wort as you can out of the boil bag. Best part though, since everything remains in the bag, there's no need to filter anything. You just dump out the bags into your kitchen trash can (or compost heap if you're a crunchy type) and then just rinse them out for re-use later on.

Easy peasy, Japaneesy.
 
. For adjunct grains, just put them in a muslin bag and let them soak in the pot for a half hour or so at 155f with a few swishes and dunks. Then, remove the muslin bags and allow them to drain out, then add the hops pellets directly inside the BIAB bag.

They will expand as you bring the wort to a boil, so keep that in mind. After the boil is finished, simply remove the bag before chilling the batch down to a pitchable temperature. Again, the hops will have expanded and absorbed a lot of wort, so just do it slowly and use a big metal spoon to press out as much wort as you can out of the boil bag. Best part though, since everything remains in the bag, there's no need to filter anything. You just dump out the bags into your kitchen trash can (or compost heap if you're a crunchy type) and then just rinse them out for re-use later on.

Easy peasy, Japaneesy.

Good idea, Im new to this, it never crossed my mind to do this.... Thank you!:mug:
 

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