First Brew - Honey Wheat

[coopernatural]

Hey all,

I thought I would document my first homebrew attempt with some friends last night. I have a question or two but I'll get to those soon.

We started with some of our local shop's recommended ingredients.



• Honey Wheat Dry Malt Extract
• Bittering hops
• Irish Moss (clarifier)
• Finishing hops
• Granulated brewing honey

We began the boil in our 16-qt kettle. Definitely want to get an upgraded 8 gallon kettle to do full boils in the future. Our small 4-gallon turned into Mordor as it spilled over twice causing us novice's a cleaning fiasco, but we managed.



After boiling for an hour, we put the kettle into a cold bath to get it down to 70F. We set the kettle down into the water and it chilled bizarrely fast. Probably less than a minute or two. It's a very thin pot, but is that normal? The wort temp reading we got was 60F which I have read is alright.

I came back after we pitched the yeast and the bucket was hot. This was an hour or two after we had closed up the fermenter. Is this normal? It felt really REALLY warm. Since it was warm, I am second guessing whether my 60F chilled wort was an accurate reading.

Overall, it was a fun night of brewing, and I'll post back in a week on the fermenting process, and eventually how the bottles turn out.

 

[freisste]

Did you move the thermometer around in the pot or leave it clipped to the edge?

You likely had a reading of the temperature of the wort that was touching the edge.

Normally we tell the new guys to relax when it comes to seeing "signs" of fermentation. If this isn't bubbling in 36 hours, crack it open and look it krausen. No krausen, get bak to the LHBS and get more yeast. There is a solid chance that you cooked 200 billion of your best friends if you pitched as quickly as you say you did.

 

[freisste]

BTW, totally fixable if you cooked them, you just need 200 billion MORE of your NEW best friends.

I promise you will be drinking a bottle of this beer in 6 weeks or less.

 

[coopernatural]

Okay, that must have been the case. In retrospect, getting it that "cold" that fast probably isn't likely, so my friend and I must have gotten a reading from the outside.

I'm going to give it a few more days, but as a rule of thumb, can I add TOO much yeast to a batch? I'm worried if I have a late blooming batch and pour in more yeast, that it'll have too much all together.

 

[freisste]

It's possible. My understanding is the negative results of OVERpitching are much less than the negative effects of UNDERpitching.

 

[coopernatural]

update: I went to my LHBS and got more wheat beer yeast. I came home and opened my ferm bucket, only to found no krausen at all, so it appears that my hot wort killed off the first yeast.

I pitched the new yeast at 2:00pm this afternoon, and am proud to officially see my first bubbling at 1:30am, 11 hours later.

How long does the bubbling typically last?

 

[freisste]

Depends on a lot of factors. Leave it alone for at least two weeks.