1st Brew Ever

[BlackAle1]

I have been perusing the forums for a few hours now, and I decided I would add my own little "did I ruin it" as it looks like all first timers do.

Details:

Brewing a Black Lager from a brewer's best kit, but due to it being Arizona and not wanting to pay to cool my house to lager levels I decided to brew as an ale.

I am using a SafeAle US56 american ale yeast.

The first night I bought a true brew beginner's kit that came with bottling bucket and fermenting bucket along with a pot and some of the other essentials.

I opened the boxes and began cleaning and sanitizing. I had cleaned every item along with the entire surface are of my kitchen and I just started boiling the water for the wort.

After reading "how to brew" I decided to start the yeast at the same time as boiling the water.

Right as I was about to add the hot water/sugar mixture to the yeast I spun around and CRAAACK! yeast and broken glass all over the floor.

I decided after some choice words to call it a night and return to MLHBS to get more yeast. They lamented by clutziness and gave me another packet saying that there was no need to pre-start that type of yeast.

Later that day me and my two brothers started up again after re-sanitizing everything. We made it through the entire process fairly quickly and everything was going well until it came time to cool the wort. We had filled a tub with ice water about 20 minutes before we were to cool when we realized that all of the ice in the tub had melted... (it's getting hot here). So we ran to the store and picked up some Ice and made do with cooling it in the sink.

I'm a little worried because it did spend about 45-60 minutes in the cooling stage and I was only able to get it down to about 67 degrees F.

I put it into the fermenter and topped with the yeast. My only concern now is that my house fluctuates depending on time of day between 70 degrees and 80 degrees. I'm concerned that this will be too hot and develop into that fruity flavor which is not what I'm looking for in a black ale.

It has now been almost exactly 24 hours and the airlock is bubbling about once every 1-2 seconds. Before I put the lid on yesterday I checked the gravity and it seemed to me like it was right at 1.051 which was right on target.

PS a little vodka spilled into the wort when I was putting the lid on

I know I was long winded , but and advice or opinion would be excellent.

 

[mikebiewer]

Sounds like things went fairly well for you! Aside from the previous night.

An hour to cool down isn't ideal, but it will be just fine.

Your main concern is keeping that ferment temperature stable as possible. Do you have anywhere, especially a closet, that you could put it in? Temperatures won't change as much in closets.

There are a few methods for keeping it cool but most of them require a little bit a time to setup.

My best advice, at this point, for your budget and probably your time is to get a big plastic tub, and fill it with water. Put your fermenter in there. Try to make sure the temps are close to each other so you don't inadvertently change the temp.

This will help keep it cool and not fluctuate as much. Try to keep it under 70 degrees. If its already over that, your probably going to have those fruity esters regardless of what you do.

If it gets real hot while your fermenting, use the same advice as above, but throw a wet towel around the part that is sticking out of the water, leaving some of the towel in the water. Place a fan in an area to blow on the towel. This will help exchange some heat off of it and keep it cool.

Another way would be to put ice or frozen bottles of water in the tub of water.

I personally don't like using these methods because you can't really maintain a temp without a bit of fuss. There are just to many variables. However, I'm assuming you don't want to go out and buy a fridge or an air conditioner just for your beer.

Let me know if that helps!

Can't wait to hear about your first taste!

 

[DrinkinSurfer]

Yeah the easiest thing to do to maintain temp is to make the brew a bath. I use a $12 20 gallon trash can from home depot. Fill it up with water almost up the the 5 gallon mark. My air temperature stays between 80-85, so in order to maintain the high 60s in the beer I add 2-3 frozen 16 oz bottles of water 2-3 times a day. Temperature is important, but don't loose your hair over it. I like to brew Belgians in the heat because they are very temperature tolerant and get some good flavors on the warmer end with the right yeast.
And don't worry about the vodka.
It'll turn out well.

 

[bafroom]

Yeah the easiest thing to do to maintain temp is to make the brew a bath. I use a $12 20 gallon trash can from home depot. Fill it up with water almost up the the 5 gallon mark. My air temperature stays between 80-85, so in order to maintain the high 60s in the beer I add 2-3 frozen 16 oz bottles of water 2-3 times a day. Temperature is important, but don't loose your hair over it. I like to brew Belgians in the heat because they are very temperature tolerant and get some good flavors on the warmer end with the right yeast.
And don't worry about the vodka.
It'll turn out well.

i do the same thing with a rubbermaid tote and frozen 2 liters (i can fit 2 pails in there that way). i could never get the swamp cooler (less water and covering your fermenter w/ a towel w/ a fan on it) to cool enough. i don't know what yeast you used, but i do know (from unfortunate, REPEATED, experience) that temps 70 + and notty do not mix.
the other thing to remember is that even if you have your house at 70, your fermenter is up to 10 deg hotter inside (during active fermentation), and it's the temp inside the fermenter that you're really worried about, not ambient. however, in a water bath, you can assume the temp inside your fermenter is only 1 degree warmer, if any.

 

[beerman1957]

I also live in Arizona (Sierra Vista) and it is HOT here now. I do think your beer will be okay.

I now advocate adding purified ice (heretic) to the batch at the end of boil. If the ice is purified or even CLEAN, it is not going to cause an issue.

My wort is about 5 gallons (or little less) and when the final boil is done, I just pour on the ice (8 lbs= 1 Gal) directly into the wort. From 210-120F in 6 seconds. Literally cuts 20 minutes off my time to chill the beer.

I then use the traditional Jamil chiller to chill the rest. I have an expensive pump system for my wort chiller.

I also advocate making a frezer-ator for fermentation. I made one for under $200 with a freezer from Salvation Army and a $50 controller.

Lastly, a towel around the fermenter is good here until June. Then monsoon comes and they just won't work. Evaporative chillers work only to about 20% Rel Hum.

DISCLAIMER: Adding ice may cause beer infections. But no worse than adding tap water IMHO.

 

[BlackAle1]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I think I am going to employ the towel and bathtub method to regulate the temperature. I eventually do want to get more equipment, but I am still feeling my way around the process. hopefully everything will be ok.

 

[beerman1957]

We all can relate! I was so worried about EVERYTHING. Turns out that it is not that hard. Of course, you do want to practice good technique, but it isn't an operating room suite.