Brewing my Second beer some time this week--advice?

[Bildo]

I'm brewing a wheat beer this week, and my research tells me I should probably use a blow off tube of some sort. If I can find a container big enough to hold water and my bucket I'll use that to keep it warm with an aquarium heater. I am going to leave it in the primary for 3 weeks before bottling. What can I expect when I'm making a wheat beer? Can I mix up some one step sanitizer into a spray bottle and use that to re-sanitize things as needed?

 

[maida7]

What is the question? Do not have the blow off go into the tub with the aquarium heater. It will make a terrible mess.

If your using the German hefe yeast then you will most definitely need a blow off. That yeast foams like crazy.

I don't know about one step. I use star san and with that you can spray it on and it works very quickly. However the mixed spray loses effectiveness over time. It's probably no good after a few weeks.

 

[Bildo]

Well you've pretty much told me what I needed to know. If brewing wheat beer is a whole lot different, as far as how it reacts. I need to find a way to keep it warm, I've got a heat belt but it says not to keep it on for more than 7 days.

 

[maida7]

What is the air temp where the fermenter will be?

You don't want it too warm and the fermenter will produce it's own heat.

Do you have a thermometer on the fermenter? You want that to read 60F when you pitch the yeast and rise to 66F over the first 3 days. Then keep it steady at 66F-70F for the remainder of fermentation. It should finish in 10-14 days total and be ready to bottle. Start drinking it 2-3 weeks after it goes in the bottles. You want to drink this beer fresh as it does not age well.

 

[Bildo]

The room is about 50F, some times 45F. The belt worked fine on the last batch, I just don't know about leaving it on for 2 weeks.

 

[maida7]

yeah that's cold. I'd try the aquarium heater and the water. Put some bleach in the water to keep things fresh. Put the blow off into another container like a jug or bucket.

Some folks use a small fountain pump to recirculate the water in the tub with the heater. Do a search on aquarium heaters and I bet you will find some good info.

 

[Bildo]

Yeah I have an old heater for a 125 gallon system laying around, I figured I'd put a thermometer in a tub and see how warm the water gets.