So I brewed my first batch of beer on Sunday. I bought a Brewers Best kit (with the 5 gal secondary carboy) from a local shop as well as the English Pale Ale ingredients kit.
It went well enough. The biggest issue I had was that I had a boil-over. I was worried about this so I used Fermcap, but I think I put it in too early because I was able to boil over a 33 quart turkey fryer pot with a 3 gallon boil. I'll definitely be more careful next time! If nothing else, this was a good justification to the wife as to why I wanted to use a turkey fryer on the porch instead of doing it in the kitchen.
I'm meeting my family at the end of the month for a wedding. I wanted to have some homebrew to take and share, so I may rush things a bit for this batch. As much as I want to try out that glass carboy and do a secondary (even if it isn't completelty necessary), I'm thinking about doing 2 weeks in the primary fermentation bucket, a cold crash, then bottle it. That will give me 2 weeks in the bottle before I take a 6-pack to share. I know it will still be a bit "green" at this point, but it should at least be drinkable, right? I'll let the rest of the bottles condition for a few more weeks after I get back.
My biggest concern was fermentation temperature. We keep our A/C set to 80 during the day, 76 at night for most of the year and anything colder becomes cost prohibitive very quickly. I built a make-shift swamp cooler out of a cooler full of water, an old undershirt covering the bucket and wicking the water up, and a box fan. It's keeping everything at around 73 according the the stick-on thermometer on the bucket. Not ideal, but better than nothing. There's only so much I can do with the humid air here.
I've decided to keep records of my brewing online since I was asked by multiple family members. As such, more info and pictures are here: http://www.dotybrew.com
It went well enough. The biggest issue I had was that I had a boil-over. I was worried about this so I used Fermcap, but I think I put it in too early because I was able to boil over a 33 quart turkey fryer pot with a 3 gallon boil. I'll definitely be more careful next time! If nothing else, this was a good justification to the wife as to why I wanted to use a turkey fryer on the porch instead of doing it in the kitchen.
I'm meeting my family at the end of the month for a wedding. I wanted to have some homebrew to take and share, so I may rush things a bit for this batch. As much as I want to try out that glass carboy and do a secondary (even if it isn't completelty necessary), I'm thinking about doing 2 weeks in the primary fermentation bucket, a cold crash, then bottle it. That will give me 2 weeks in the bottle before I take a 6-pack to share. I know it will still be a bit "green" at this point, but it should at least be drinkable, right? I'll let the rest of the bottles condition for a few more weeks after I get back.
My biggest concern was fermentation temperature. We keep our A/C set to 80 during the day, 76 at night for most of the year and anything colder becomes cost prohibitive very quickly. I built a make-shift swamp cooler out of a cooler full of water, an old undershirt covering the bucket and wicking the water up, and a box fan. It's keeping everything at around 73 according the the stick-on thermometer on the bucket. Not ideal, but better than nothing. There's only so much I can do with the humid air here.
I've decided to keep records of my brewing online since I was asked by multiple family members. As such, more info and pictures are here: http://www.dotybrew.com
