Good day all. Im new to this forum, and glad that I found it. Cant wait to indulge in my new hobby.
Two nights ago I attempted my first homebrew, and I had a few problems. Now I'm impatient and want to know if I ruined my batch.
I was following the first brew recipe in Randy Mosher's book 'Radical
Brewing' and followed the instructions to a 'T'. The recipe is an
'extract-plus-grain'; I used about 700g of dry (UK) Medium Crystal, crushed,
I placed it in a cheese cloth, raised the temperature of 2.5 gallons of
filtered water to just below 200 F, and pulled it out. I then raised the temperature to a boil and used 4oz of Kent Goldings hop plugs, which are ½ oz disks of compressed whole hop cones. I put in ¼ of the hops for 60 min, ¼ for 20 min, and ½ at the end of the boil (aiming for about 27 IBU). I used just shy of 5lb of pale dry unhopped malt extract, and I chilled the wort quickly in a sink full of ice and water (25min or so) and got the temp down to below 80 F. And this is when I had problems.
My pot was so full of hops that no mater how I tried to get the hops and
trub to settle in the middle it was in vain. I tried the swirl technique with the racking cane, but didnt know at the time that I should wait after that for 20 min or so for the stuff to settle. Anyway, the hops were everywhere from top to bottom. Two problems occurred, first off, the book said to fill the sanitized racking
cane and hose with water, with the clip clamped just down from where the
hose joins the cane, but in the open position, and then clip the clamp,
insert the cane into the wort avoiding the trub and pile of hops, and the
other end in the fermenter, and then to unclip the clamp and the wort should
have began to flow. Mine did not flow. I tried several times, but could not
really get the 'unclipped' hose and cane to fill with water. I tried by
placing my finger on the end to create a suction lock and this worked to
hold the water in the hose, but still no flow. The cane was always getting
plugged with the hops. I tried 4 or 5 times, getting frustrated, and then
made a big mistake of trying the old gas siphoning trick of sucking on the
hose to get the flow to start. It did flow for about 10 seconds, then
stopped, plugged again. I couldn't figure out what to do so I sanitized
another pot and a strainer, and poured the wort thru the strainer, and then
racked it into the carboy.
So my questions are. Did I contaminate my brew by trying the suction method
to get it flowing? And, was it a bad idea to strain the hops out of the wort
and then rack it, and why is this not a suggested method to take normally,
as it seemed to make life a lot easier once the hops were out of the way. I
pitched the pack of liquid London ale yeast , and 36 hours later there a thin layer of bubbles on the top of the wort. There doesn't seem to be a lot of action as of yet. Also, because I am new to this and really dont know what Im doing, Im pretty sure I didnt aerate my wort properly. I rolled the carboy around for a few minutes and was wondering if that will be marginally sufficient? And finally, the temperature in the room that I placed the carboy is about 13.5C/56.3F (good ol Canada still working our way out of winter). Should I move it to the main floor where the temp ranges from 15-18C/59-64F?
Thanks for all the advice, and sorry about the long post with too many questions, but Im quite excited.
Cheers,
Rob
Two nights ago I attempted my first homebrew, and I had a few problems. Now I'm impatient and want to know if I ruined my batch.
I was following the first brew recipe in Randy Mosher's book 'Radical
Brewing' and followed the instructions to a 'T'. The recipe is an
'extract-plus-grain'; I used about 700g of dry (UK) Medium Crystal, crushed,
I placed it in a cheese cloth, raised the temperature of 2.5 gallons of
filtered water to just below 200 F, and pulled it out. I then raised the temperature to a boil and used 4oz of Kent Goldings hop plugs, which are ½ oz disks of compressed whole hop cones. I put in ¼ of the hops for 60 min, ¼ for 20 min, and ½ at the end of the boil (aiming for about 27 IBU). I used just shy of 5lb of pale dry unhopped malt extract, and I chilled the wort quickly in a sink full of ice and water (25min or so) and got the temp down to below 80 F. And this is when I had problems.
My pot was so full of hops that no mater how I tried to get the hops and
trub to settle in the middle it was in vain. I tried the swirl technique with the racking cane, but didnt know at the time that I should wait after that for 20 min or so for the stuff to settle. Anyway, the hops were everywhere from top to bottom. Two problems occurred, first off, the book said to fill the sanitized racking
cane and hose with water, with the clip clamped just down from where the
hose joins the cane, but in the open position, and then clip the clamp,
insert the cane into the wort avoiding the trub and pile of hops, and the
other end in the fermenter, and then to unclip the clamp and the wort should
have began to flow. Mine did not flow. I tried several times, but could not
really get the 'unclipped' hose and cane to fill with water. I tried by
placing my finger on the end to create a suction lock and this worked to
hold the water in the hose, but still no flow. The cane was always getting
plugged with the hops. I tried 4 or 5 times, getting frustrated, and then
made a big mistake of trying the old gas siphoning trick of sucking on the
hose to get the flow to start. It did flow for about 10 seconds, then
stopped, plugged again. I couldn't figure out what to do so I sanitized
another pot and a strainer, and poured the wort thru the strainer, and then
racked it into the carboy.
So my questions are. Did I contaminate my brew by trying the suction method
to get it flowing? And, was it a bad idea to strain the hops out of the wort
and then rack it, and why is this not a suggested method to take normally,
as it seemed to make life a lot easier once the hops were out of the way. I
pitched the pack of liquid London ale yeast , and 36 hours later there a thin layer of bubbles on the top of the wort. There doesn't seem to be a lot of action as of yet. Also, because I am new to this and really dont know what Im doing, Im pretty sure I didnt aerate my wort properly. I rolled the carboy around for a few minutes and was wondering if that will be marginally sufficient? And finally, the temperature in the room that I placed the carboy is about 13.5C/56.3F (good ol Canada still working our way out of winter). Should I move it to the main floor where the temp ranges from 15-18C/59-64F?
Thanks for all the advice, and sorry about the long post with too many questions, but Im quite excited.
Cheers,
Rob
