First Brewday is Saturday!

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soccerguy83

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Tested the fermentation chamber last night and she held temp perfectly! I'm starting to get very excited about Saturday brew day! Picked up my 7gal of distilled water last night and will be picking up my yeast starter tonight from the LHBS. I'm planning on using a vial of RVA Yestlabs, haven't decided on what strain though. Anyone have any thoughts? I'm doing the Caribou Slobber from NB and here is the link to the Yeast. Tonight I will also be installing the GFCI outlet in the wall to keep the chamber on GFCI. Tomorrow evening I will be cleaning the kettle, carboy, and misc items.

Here is my "New Guy" thread.
 
I remember how ready I was for my first brewday. A year from now, you won't do anything ahead of time, ha.

As for the yeast... Caribou Slobber is an English brown ale and a strait forward beer (twas my first venture into brewing as well). Don't get fancy with the yeast. I would say to use "RVA 132 Manchester Ale" from that list.

Cheers and good luck!
 
From your very first sentence, sounds like you are off to a great start! Fermentation control is probably one of the most important parts of brewing, so you at least have the tools needed to be covered there!

I've never used RVA yeast (or even heard of them until now), but make sure you are pitching enough cells for your batch. Yeast health is up there with ferm temp on importance.


Check this out if you havent already: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Good luck with your first brew and let us know how it goes!
 
ArrogantDusty said:
I remember how ready I was for my first brewday. A year from now, you won't do anything ahead of time, ha.

As for the yeast... Caribou Slobber is an English brown ale and a strait forward beer (twas my first venture into brewing as well). Don't get fancy with the yeast. I would say to use "RVA 132 Manchester Ale" from that list.

Cheers and good luck!
Click to expand...

Yep I was looking at that one and RVA 103 Pacman as well.
 
kpr121 said:
From your very first sentence, sounds like you are off to a great start! Fermentation control is probably one of the most important parts of brewing, so you at least have the tools needed to be covered there!

I've never used RVA yeast (or even heard of them until now), but make sure you are pitching enough cells for your batch. Yeast health is up there with ferm temp on importance.


Check this out if you havent already: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Good luck with your first brew and let us know how it goes!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comment, in "How to Brew" and on HBT, everything stated was number one thing that can be done to produce good beer is Fermentation Temp. so first thing on my list was a chamber.

Yeah RVA yeastlabs is local to Richmond, Va. I have seen nothing but great things about RVA Yeastlabs, last batch I saw pitched with it was almost had a boil look to it in the fermenter there was so much activity.
 
Cool! I took a look at the RVA website and looks like they claim over 200 billion cells of yeast per package, which is great for most beers! Cant go wrong with either of the two strains you are looking at, but if it were me I would go with Pacman. Then you can look into brewing your second batch (maybe a pale ale or IPA?) and repitching some of the slurry from the first! (SEE EDIT BELOW)

I'm going to have to take a look at ordering from them, would love to get my hands on a couple of those strains! You are local so it may be different, but do you mind me asking how much you would be paying for a vial?

Whats your brew setup? Are you doing full boil or partial and adding top up water?

Edit: Just to clarify, you could repitch any yeast strain... I just suggested pacman because it is a great clean fermenter that alot of people use as a 'house' strain'. Its great in pale ales, IPA, ambers, stouts, porters, etc.
 
kpr121 said:
Cool! I took a look at the RVA website and looks like they claim over 200 billion cells of yeast per package, which is great for most beers! Cant go wrong with either of the two strains you are looking at, but if it were me I would go with Pacman. Then you can look into brewing your second batch (maybe a pale ale or IPA?) and repitching some of the slurry from the first! (SEE EDIT BELOW)

I'm going to have to take a look at ordering from them, would love to get my hands on a couple of those strains! You are local so it may be different, but do you mind me asking how much you would be paying for a vial?

Whats your brew setup? Are you doing full boil or partial and adding top up water?

Edit: Just to clarify, you could repitch any yeast strain... I just suggested pacman because it is a great clean fermenter that alot of people use as a 'house' strain'. Its great in pale ales, IPA, ambers, stouts, porters, etc.
Click to expand...

I think I will be paying about $12 a vial at my LHBS, I'm buying after work tonight so I'll let you know this evening.

My brew set up is a Bayou Classic burner with a 10gal Tall Boy kettle. Will be doing a full boil starting with 6.5gal. Chilling with a 50' 3/8"OD copper rib-cage IC that I built that will hook up to my garden hose. Then will be aerating with either a paint stirrer drill attachment or a wine degasser. After that I will rack to the primary (and take an OG) and pitch. Then will be going into the chest freezer fermentation chamber that I built with the STC set at the mid-low end of whatever yeast I end up using. Won't be transferring to secondary. Wait until she's done (about Mar 1) (after taking a FG) and rack to a ball-lock Corney and put some gas on it.

If you see any flaws in my thoughts or want clarification on any of it, please let me know!
 
Really want to do a late extract addition (cause it really makes sense), but since it's my first brew (and I don't fully understand how to adjust the hop additions accordingly) I think I'm gonna stick to the recipe.
 
Seems like you got a great plan! I wish I was that ready for my first brew!! This may be unnecessary to state but make sure anything on the cold side (after you start chilling) is sanitized. You can just put your immersion chiller in the brewpot with about 15 minutes left in the boil to sanitize that.

You could definitely do a late extract addition if you feel like it, there’s lots of debate on whether it affects the hops utilization or not. If you don’t mind the chance of a little more bitter flavor, then follow the hop schedule as described and let it ride!
 
Yep, didn't mention it as I figured it went without saying. Will be cleaning everything Friday night then sanitizing along the way Sat morning. Thanks for the mention though as it never hurts to remind new guys like myself!

Gah, now you have me wanting to do a late addition haha!
 
Brewday went really well, I'll post more tomorrow. Had a tough time keeping temps up in the pot so had too keep a lid on it, so I didn't get the boil off that I was expecting so my OG was about 0.008 too low.

All in all had a great day, very tired now though haha.
 
The day started around 10 am with sanitizing my gear (had cleaned it the night before) and getting everything set up and organized. Around 11:30 my buddy came over and we started getting everything started around noon.

We put 6.5 gal of distilled water in the kettle and lit the burner. It took several tries to get it lit as it kept vapor locking for some odd reason. Once lit, we added the specialty grains to steep for 20 mins. After the grains had steeped for 20 mins, they were removed and allowed to drip dry.

I took almost an hour and a half to get up to a boil. We ended up having to put a lid on it to get it to boil. As it was a little windy and only about 41 degrees out yesterday it was putting the bayou burner to it’s limits.

Once boiling, my buddy kept me from adding the 60min hops before the hot break, which was a good thing haha. Went through all the hop additions with no problems. We did have to keep lifting the lid every 45-60 sec to keep from having a boil over.

At five minutes left in the boil, I put in my 50’ 3/8”OD rib-cage chiller. At flameout I hooked up the chiller and started the timer. With 47F tap water and 41F air temp., the chiller was able to cool the wort from boiling to 69F in 13 mins. There was no stirring, just slight agitation by lifting the chiller up and down a couple times twice over the course of the chill.

Aeration was accomplished by using a drill with a paint stirrer. Ran it for about thirty seconds forward, then about 30 seconds backwards and there was a ton of foam!

The wort was then transferred to my 6 gal carboy and the RVA Yeastlabs Pacman was pitched. The carboy was transferred to the fermentation chamber and blow-off tube was attached. The fermentation chamber was set for 18.5C which is just below the mid-point range for the yeast. The temp probe was attached to the side of the carboy and insulated with a couple inches of foam.

This morning I checked on it at 7:00am and we have active fermentation and I actually will need to change the bowl the blow-off tube is in! RVA Yeastlabs is almost like cheating haha!
 
Two nights ago, I took out the blowoff and airlocked it. Will now be waiting another 3 weeks in primary prior to kegging! Can't wait to get it into the keg to taste!

I have read about increasing the fermentation chamber temp for the last three weeks, thoughts?

Also, thinking about bottling a bit of this in 22oz bottles. Is there a way to calculate priming sugar needed on a per bottle amount?
 
soccerguy83 said:
Two nights ago, I took out the blowoff and airlocked it. Will now be waiting another 3 weeks in primary prior to kegging! Can't wait to get it into the keg to taste!

I have read about increasing the fermentation chamber temp for the last three weeks, thoughts?

Also, thinking about bottling a bit of this in 22oz bottles. Is there a way to calculate priming sugar needed on a per bottle amount?
Click to expand...

Yea, increasing the temp as ferment winds down is a great way to help the yeast clean up and churn through those last couple gravity points. In lagers they call it a Diacetyl (sp?) Rest, and its meant to help the yeast get rid of off flavors produced from the colder ferment and yeast stains. Not a problem in ales, but I think you still get some benefits.

Beers also condition faster at higher temps so it will be ready to drink quicker. I’d imagine with that great of ferment you could go to keg sooner if you wanted, but it doesn’t hurt to wait the 3 weeks.

As far as bottling a few 22 oz’ers, might I suggest looking into the BM counter pressure bottle filler, do a search (heres a video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwIbFQcHYyo[/ame]). This is for bottling after you’ve already kegged and pressurized your beer.

If your talking about bottling a couple pre-keg, best thing to use is probably those muntons or cooper carb tabs, basically pre-measured sugar pills that you drop into each bottle. Saves the hassle of trying to calculate how much priming sugar you have.
 
Thanks for the info! Yes I was thinking about bottling a few prior to kegging for some cellering/ giving away. The tabs sound like a great option, was just trying to figure out how I could use some of this priming sugar I already have.
 
I was going to ask if you made a starter, but given that pic it sure looks like you made your yeast happy! Hope the rest of your fermentation goes smoothly. I've done Caribou Slobber twice - once with the Danstar dried yeast and another time I made it with harvested WYeast 1098. The second batch was way better - the best brown I've had. Sounds like you really planned well. The only thing you MIGHT want to consider is getting a new burner. Sounds like it took a long time to get to a boil. I can get my 6.5 gallons to a boil in 30 or less in 15 degree weather with the DarkStar Burner. FYI - NB has an offer now if you spend $150, you get that burner for free. Congrats on the first (of many) brew days!
 
I would agree, the burner might not be adequate for windy cold weather brewing! My buddy has a darkstar that I might borrow if the next brewday is in the cold!

Thanks for all the nice comments! No I didn't make a starter, just pitched the yeast straight into the fermenter, every batch I have seen using RVA yeastlabs looks just like mine, this stuff is super healthy at the time of purchase!

Starting today I'm raising the temp in my chamber by 0.2C each day to get me to the upper limit of my yeasts temp range by the time it's ready to keg, promoting them to clean up after themselves.
 
Just got my keg, gas line, beer line, QD's, and new o-rings. My CO2 tank comes in today from Scott. The beer has been in primary 21 days this Sat.

Talk me out of kegging this stuff this weekend!!
 
Can I cold crash in the process of taking my two FG readings? The concern is that if the yeast isn't done then I will have to bring it back up to temp to get them going again.
 
If you are counting on those two FG readings to determine whether your beer is done or not, then no you dont want to cold crash.

However, this beer has been fermenting for 21 days now. It is 99.9999% certainly done. Not to mention that awesome take-off the yeast had. If I were you I would take a single SG reading, if your close to where the recipe FG is targeted, give it a taste, then go ahead and cold crash and get that baby kegged!

You have way more patience than I did when I first started. Which is a GREAT thing!
 
Well took my first FG and it was 1.007! At the moment it's a 4.73% ABV beer, a very light sessionable brown ale. Tastes good, will be much better with some gas on it. I may bump up the volumes of CO2 to account for the light flavor. Something on the lines of a pale ale CO2 volume.

Will retest the SG Saturday and if it's still 1.007, then I will cold crash and keg mid week.

I didn't taste any creamed corn flavor, which is really good, I was a bit concerned as I had to keep the lid on the boil.

Overall not a bad first brew!
 
It's not going any lower than that, you don't have to worry about measuring again. Put it in the cold crasher and it'll be ready to drink a couple days sooner!
 
It does have a bit of an off flavor, I'm hoping that's a combo of no gas and been a bit green yet. I don't even know how to describe it, it's not cooked vegetables, not buttery, not fruity. Oh well we will just wait haha.

Re: My patience. I think it helped that I did a TON of reading prior to my first brew day. I knew what to expect and what the typical "newbie" mistakes were. Most were centered around fermentation and lack of patience. So I built a fermentation chamber and set a timeline for my first beer. I am rushing my timeline just a hair but nothing that sitting in a Keg won't cure. Fermentation temps were spot on. So I'm hoping that the beer is still just a bit green and will come together in the end.
 
kpr121 said:
Btw color looks greats!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I can't help but think how good it would have been if it had concentrated down just a hair more on the boil haha! But if that is the worst of my mistakes on my first brew, I will be more than happy!!:mug::ban:
 
Last night I kegged my first batch.

This process started last Thrus when I bought my used keg from the LHBS. I rinsed it twice with hot water, took the posts off and replaced the o-rings. I then mixed up a batch of PBW in the keg and let it do it’s magic over the next couple days. On Sunday I began cold crashing my beer. Monday night I rinsed the keg twice with hot water again and left it filled with water. All of this brings me to last night.

Last night, I dumped the water out of the keg and filled it with three gallons of warm water and Starsan. I let it sit for 5 minutes then put the lid on and flipped it for 5 mins. I hooked up the CO2 and under 2psi I pushed Starsan out into the beer line to sanitize. After that I auto syphoned the Starsan out into my bottling bucket for 5 mins. Then I filled 5 22oz bottles and 2 12oz bottles out of the spigot to get that sanitized. Next I auto syphoned out of the bottling bucket into the bucket with my bottles and placed my caps in a glass with Starsan.

I was finally ready to Keg! I brought my carboy in from the fermentation chamber in the garage to the kitchen where I was working. This caused a bit of the yeast cake to come back into solution but not enough for me to worry about it. I syphoned out of the carboy into the keg until I was almost done with the carboy, I let the last little bit go into the bottling bucket (was less than I was expecting). I sanitized the keg lid again, put the lid on, and added a couple pounds of CO2.

I took my bottling bucket and filled a single 22oz and the 2 12oz bottles. To these I added the appropriate carbonation tabs and capped.

After bottling, I took the keg out to the fermentation chamber and put it under 20psi. It will stay at this pressure for at least 24 hours then I will lower it down to serving pressure of 12psi.

Then came the task of cleaning everything! I’m looking forward to trying the beer on Sunday!
 
Tried it last night and the front end is very good, still needs a bit more carbonation as the head retention just isn't there yet. The back end though has some weird off flavor, I don't think it is the "extract twinge" it's more of a "skunky" kind of flavor yet it may be DMS showing through, cooked vegetables maybe. I'm not sure when DMS comes through; on the front or back end.

All in all though, it is drinkable, and very sessionable down at 4.73% abv! I'm more than pleased that its a drinkable first batch and that I didn't screw anything up royally haha!

Now I just need to get my keezer built to free up my fermentation chamber for the next batch!
 

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