First 5 Gallon. Some Something or Other

[twomonkeysayoyo]

So after waiting 6 months for delivery of my 8 gallon kettle Christmas present I finally got to cook my first batch that isn't in a LBK. Along with the kettle I was given a can of Coopers Canadian Blonde which is a 1.7kg can of LME and hops and whatever. I don't actually know the vocabulary. The story goes like this:
I drove to Hop City in Atlanta (which I do not live near, but it is nearest Home Brew supply) to fill out the recipe and get some pointers (also fill growlers). The guy behind the grain counter was awesome and after I awkwardly described what I had at home ("some Cooper's kit. Light in color..." he was obviously only vaguely aware of what I might have) he provided some grain, 3lbs DME, 2 oz of hops and some yeast along with sundry hardwares and chemicals.

At home I have:

• 8 gallon kettle with temperometer and ballvalve
• 2x 5 gallon food grade paint buckets
• tubes
• bubblers
• a home made copper wort chiller
• a large plastic tub
• a few bungs, and some screw in spouts and lids.
• star san

A few things of note:

• My stove is awesome. with 20 liters I can heat 1 degree in 30 seconds.
• I sterilized EVERYTHING including the cat.
• when I bought the 5 gallon buckets I was not thinking very clearly
• so I ended up buying some fermcap before brew-day
• picture set: Flickr Pic Set

and on 4-26-2014...
I heated my water to 165F and turned off the gas, inserted my gallon of grain for 30 minutes. Dripped it dry, and raised the temp on the water to boiling. I turned off the heat and I added the 3lbs Briess Golden DME and Coopers Canadian Blonde LME and stirred until there was no more chunks. Brought it back to boiling and added the 1oz Northern Brewer hops and 10 drops of fermcap. Cooked those for 55 minutes added cascade and hydrated the Nottingham yeast, boiled for 5 more minutes and pulled the wort from heat and into the ice-bath. I inserted the wort chiller and 23 minutes later had dropped the 80C required to get the wort to 20C. I dumped the yeast into the wort and the hard poured the wort into the 5 gallon bucket to about 2 inches below the lid, inserted the bung and bubbler and put it in the house to watch it.

I watched it for about a day and put the bucket in the 8 gallon kettle in a dark cabinet. About 3 hours later my wife said "HEY! IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS?!?!" Sure enough the bubbler was full of gunk and foaming out the top. I jumped on here and used the search engine to figure out what to do and, from that advice, implemented a blow-off tube using sterilized water in an old tonic water bottle that I have since upgraded to a milk jug. That's where we sit today.

 

[sleepy_brewer]

The guys at Hop City are pretty good for info. The owner is a cool guy. I work next to the Hop City in Birmingham and all those guys are good sources of info.
Sounds like you did the right thing with the blow off tube...I had to do the same thing this morning with my Caribou Slobber. Smells good already though.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[twomonkeysayoyo]

Definitely surprised by the smell of this! Smells much more rich and high-gravity than I would have expected, almost like the big Belgian 12%'ers. The color in the bucket is so dark, too. I would have expected it to be much lighter given the recipe. Can't wait to try this.

Question:
Should I transfer this to a secondary bucket in a week? My understanding regarding the use of the secondary fermenter has been muddied over the past week of reading.

 

[boydster]

Leave it in primary, there's no reason to transfer this beer. Are you keeping the fermentation temp around 17-18C? Notty can taste kind of funky if fermented at 20+.

 

[twomonkeysayoyo]

Thanks. It's probably closer to 20 than 18. I don't yet have the fermentation temperature control I want/need. I'll see what I can do to drop the temp a bit and thanks for the heads up!

 

[jekeane]

Secondary is really not needed except in a few circumstances such as adding fruits and long storage times. It can clear up some beers but the risk / reward is minimal for most people.

Do you have a bottling bucket? I didn't see that in your list of various sundries. You may want to start thinking about that now. Also as you found out 5g buckets make good secondaries and cleaning buckets but not the best primary so find yourself a 6.5g bucket or carboy. You could probably use one of the 5g as a bottling bucket by installing one of your spigots. Bottling wands are also very helpful. Here is a picture of both. A tip on bottling day would be to bottle over and opened dishwasher for less mess. Put you bottling bucket on the counter above the dishwasher so your drips land on the open door.

 

[boydster]

Congrats on your first batch with the new equipment A cheap and easy way to control the temp is with a swamp cooler - you can use one of the rope tote buckets from walmart to put your fermenter in, fill it up with water, and use ice to maintain the temp you want. Freezing water in 2L bottles, you can have a couple in the freezer and a couple in the water bath, then just rotate the out as-needed. Long term, maybe look into a fridge and a controller like an STC-1000 - that will give you very accurate control over temps.

 

[twomonkeysayoyo]

Secondary is really not needed except in a few circumstances such as adding fruits and long storage times. It can clear up some beers but the risk / reward is minimal for most people.

Do you have a bottling bucket? I didn't see that in your list of various sundries. You may want to start thinking about that now. Also as you found out 5g buckets make good secondaries and cleaning buckets but not the best primary so find yourself a 6.5g bucket or carboy. You could probably use one of the 5g as a bottling bucket by installing one of your spigots. Bottling wands are also very helpful. Here is a picture of both. A tip on bottling day would be to bottle over and opened dishwasher for less mess. Put you bottling bucket on the counter above the dishwasher so your drips land on the open door.

In my mind the secondary was a bottling bucket so that is definitely what the 5 gallons will become. My questions would be why use a different bucket for bottling than the fermenter? And how do I get the beer from the fermenter into the bottling bucket?

I have no idea what the answer to the first question would be, but my assumption for how to get the beer into the bottling bucket would be to do it very softly via a tube from the spigot on the fermenter trying not to agitate it much. Once full add your priming sugars from the priming sugar mixture you use and then fill bottles.

 

[boydster]

To get the beer from my fermenter into a bottling bucket, I use an autosiphon. I add the priming sugar solution to the bucket first, then when I siphon the beer, I curl the bottom of the tubing at the end of the siphon around the bottom of the bottling bucket - that way, when the beer starts flowing, it makes a gentle swirl that mixes in the priming sugar.

The reason to use a separate bottling bucket is to prevent the trub from being disturbed and mixed back into the beer. You'll have a cake of yeast and trub that is compacted at the bottom of the fermenter, and by transferring to the bottling bucket, you ensure all of that stuff stays behind and you get clear beer into your bottles. Imagine trying to stir in priming sugar in the primary - some of that trub would end up getting mixed in, and as you got near the end of filling your bottles, even more trub would start making its way into bottles.

 

[jekeane]

as boydster said, when you move your beer into your bottling bucket you are leaving a lot of the junk behind (yeast cake, trub layer, spent hops etc...) so that is one reason. Also generally you place your priming sugar solution into your bottling bucket before hand and the movement swirls the sugar into your beer before bottling. This is an autosiphon from northern brewer http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/auto-siphon-5-16.html I used their link because they also have a how to video on the same page.

edit: I just watched the video and it is for racking to secondary but same idea... its actually not detailed and has some beatnick playing the same 4 chords over and over rather than explaining the process so here is a better video... http://youtu.be/3wrV-BPFJ2Y

 

[boydster]

This is an autosiphon from northern brewer http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/auto-siphon-5-16.html I used their link because they also have a how to video on the same page.

Funny, I linked to the same site, but the 1/2" siphon. I like the folks at NB, they have treated me well so far.

 

[twomonkeysayoyo]

its actually not detailed and has some beatnick playing the same 4 chords over and over rather than explaining the process so here is a better video... http://youtu.be/3wrV-BPFJ2Y

I LOL'd. Thanks. Ok, so I totally understand why the bottling bucket and how to get the beer in there. Thanks. I will probably not use a siphon but gravity this first go-round. I'm definitely hitting HopCity Saturday for that bottling rod thingy.

 

[boydster]

Just be careful not to splash or aerate while transferring. You don't want to oxidize your beer. If you have a length of tubing that you can run between the spigot and the bottom of the bottling bucket, you can probably make that work.

 

[jekeane]

When you get a chance to get the auto siphon you'll love it. That and a bottling wand are probably my two favorite tools so far. Good Luck!

 

[twomonkeysayoyo]

Ok. Got the Bottling wand and siphon and did, indeed, love them. Got the batch bottled
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11727278@N02/sets/72157644240515368/

Smells good and ~5.5%.