Brewing my first beer tomarow.

[Ryanh1801]

Well went and got my kit,pot, and recipe kit today. Have to work all day so i should get started on Sunday. I had a few last min. questions. Im going to just go ahead and do a partial boil. when i take my first gravity test, is it taken after i mix the wort and water or before? I am very worried about sanitation, do i need to boil my other 2 1/2 gallons before i put it in the fermenter to sanitize it? Still not sure what water i am going to use store bought or house, what do you recommend? Also this recipe calls for dry hoping. Do i just need to put the bag in boiling water to sterilize it? Also should i put it in right away like the recipe says or wait until the secondary?

Thanks again.

 

[Orfy]

Im going to just go ahead and do a partial boil. when i take my first gravity test, is it taken after i mix the wort and water or before?

After. And mix it well

I am very worried about sanitation, do i need to boil my other 2 1/2 gallons before i put it in the fermenter to sanitize it?

No but it is good practice and can help drive off some bad flavours but if you water is safe to drink it safe to brew with. If you do boil it then you'll need to cool it.

Still not sure what water i am going to use store bought or house, what do you recommend?

Again if the water is okay to drink it's okay to brew with.

 

[Yooper]

Well went and got my kit,pot, and recipe kit today. Have to work all day so i should get started on Sunday. I had a few last min. questions. Im going to just go ahead and do a partial boil. when i take my first gravity test, is it taken after i mix the wort and water or before? I am very worried about sanitation, do i need to boil my other 2 1/2 gallons before i put it in the fermenter to sanitize it? Still not sure what water i am going to use store bought or house, what do you recommend? Also this recipe calls for dry hoping. Do i just need to put the bag in boiling water to sterilize it? Also should i put it in right away like the recipe says or wait until the secondary?

Thanks again.

You take the s.g. after all the wort is mixed up and cooled before you pitch the yeast. I don't boil my top off water, but some people do. My tap water is safe, and I use it. If your water is iffy, you should use bottled (not distilled) water. I never worried about my dry hopping bag, just squirted some sanitizer on it and filled it and dropped it in. I don't know what you mean about putting it in right away or waiting- I dry hop in secondary but if you post your recipe I can give you some more specific information.

Happy brewing!

 

[Ryanh1801]

You take the s.g. after all the wort is mixed up and cooled before you pitch the yeast. I don't boil my top off water, but some people do. My tap water is safe, and I use it. If your water is iffy, you should use bottled (not distilled) water. I never worried about my dry hopping bag, just squirted some sanitizer on it and filled it and dropped it in. I don't know what you mean about putting it in right away or waiting- I dry hop in secondary but if you post your recipe I can give you some more specific information.

Happy brewing!

Well the recipe, just assumes that you are not going to put in a secondary. So it says after pitching yeast put in the dry hop bag. But i have read alot of people wait until fermentation is done with. This is for a Pale ale. Ill try and get the recipe up tonight, i have to run to work in a little bit so i dont have time to type it up right now.
thanks

 

[Yooper]

Well, I understand now! If you're using a secondary, go ahead and dry hop in the secondary.

 

[Orfy]

Most recipes presume you are happy to produce mediocre beer in the easiest quickest manner.

Some people say Secondaries are not necessary, but they have the experience to decide that for themselves. The majority of brewers seem to think it is of little inconvenience to do and makes better beer.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Alright cool thanks. I figure my beer can use all the help it can get. lol. Im probably going to do the 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, and 3 in the bottle. Im starting to wonder what i got my self into.

 

[Yooper]

Alright cool thanks. I figure my beer can use all the help it can get. lol. Im probably going to do the 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, and 3 in the bottle. Im starting to wonder what i got my self into.

This is definitely an obsession, and can be one of the most satisifying hobbies ever.

 

[Orfy]

Good luck.
No shortage of answers, advice and opinions on here to help.
Brew well and you're beer will love you for it and you'll love your beer.

 

[Rookie]

Good luck. If your first batch doesn't out award winning don't give up. I think that I brew pretty good beer now, but my first few batches are better not mentioned.

 

[Ryanh1801]

here is the recipe. please let me know how you think this will be.
6.50 Briess Gollden light LME
.5 pale 2 row malt
.5 lbs carapils Malt
.5 Crystal 40 L malt

Hops
.5 oz Perle at 60 min
1 Cascade at 30 min
.5 " " at 15 min
.5 " " at 0 min
1. oz cascade dry hop

1 Whirlfloc tablet
yeast US 56 (Dry)

OG 1.045-1.060
FG 1.010- 1.015
Im guessing should make for around a 5% beer?

 

[Buford]

With those ingredients, you can expect about a 1.054 OG, estimated alcohol 5.2% if this is a 5 gallon batch.

Are you mashing or steeping the grains? 2-row needs to be mashed to convert the starches to sugar; the other two grains can be steeped. 1/2 lb of base malt sounds low to me for a partial mash (not sure if that small of an amount will really add that much character although using any amount of grains will add some complexity to a mostly-extract beer), but then again I just finished brewing a partial mash with 6.5 lbs of base malts in it so my experience is a little colored.

Personally, I would forgo the 2-row in this recipe and just steep the other grains to make it easier. This would drop the OG to 1.051, estimated alcohol 5.0%. That's just what I would do, though.

As written it looks like an APA, but the IBUs may be a little low to meet the style guidelines (although your hop utilization is dependant on how much wort you're boiling). It'd still be decent beer, though. Nothing says you have to meet the guidelines if you're not doing it for competition, I just try to stick to them in my recipes in case I do want to submit one that turns out well.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Well they just mixed all the steeping grains in one bag, It says to put it in the water and bring to 155-160 for 30 min. Also i bought some one step, thinking it was a sanitizer but i have read it is not. Do i need to go ahead and buy some bleach and use this? Thanks again guys, I can not tell yall how much this forum has helped me with information. :rockin: :rockin: :rockin:

 

[Buford]

I wouldn't use bleach, the one-step should be fine. I know people who use nothing else and their beer comes out okay. Don't rinse it off, that defeats the purpose of using it.

According to the instructions you would be doing a mini-mash. The temp range given is the right temps for starch conversion, I'd try to stay around 154-156. I'd say to use near two quarts of water for this because you have 1.5 lbs of grain and after it has steeped for 30-45 minutes slowly pour almost three gallons of 170 degree water over your bag to rinse the sugars from the grains. This should give you enough volume to do the boil unless you want to do a full boil. You will need to add top-up water in the fermenter to hit 5 gallons if you start with the amounts I mention.

To get better hop utilization, add half of the extract at the beginning of the boil and add the other half at the end of the boil after heat is off; wait 10-15 minutes before beginning to cool the wort to pasteurize the extract addition. If you do this and use the amount of water I mention above, according to my calcs you will be just within the APA style for IBUs. This is how I did the three mostly-extract beers I made.

Since you are doing a mini-mash your OG is going to be partially determined by your conversion efficiency. 1.054 is the calculated value for 5 gallons at 75% efficiency, but even at 60% it's 1.053. If it's off by a couple points don't sweat it.

 

[Ryanh1801]

So far so good. Got about 30 min. left on it.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Well i think i did some good. (I hope) Only trouble i had was getting my sterial water to around 75. Only thing i forgot to do was use my strainer when pouring the wort into the bucket, but i kept pretty much all the gunk out. Now i guess ill just wait and see. Deffintly need to get a propane take though. Also while in the bucket, it does not need to be in a dark place does it? oh and my OG is 1.055.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Guess i aerated enough, just started getting bubble, and in under 8 hours. I can already tell the wait is going to be bad.

 

[Buford]

I don't even bother straining the wort when going to the primary. I did on my first batch and it was a pain in the butt, and I've seen no problem with just dumping the hops and cold break in the fermenter. The beer gets racked off of it when I go to secondary a week later anyway.