Here goes nothing! First Brew on MLKJ Day! Wish me luck!

[drgonzo2k2]

Well, after reading up on homebrewing for over a year now and taking a class at a local brewery, I am finally ready to dive in head first and brew my first beer this coming Monday. I'll be using today and tomorrow to get everything ready to go, re-read my recipe/instructions, and double checking that everything is all set.

As far as my homework prep goes, in the past year or so I've read a couple of different editions of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing as well as How to Brew and a couple of other how-to books. I took a "new to brew" class at one of our local breweries, and of course I've been lurking in these forums for a while now, so I finally decided to start an account and say hello. I've also been reading the AHA forums and signed up for a year long membership with them last week - looking forward to my first issue of Zymurgy!

My goal was to start off doing extract + partial mash batches and then gradually work my way up to all grain as I got comfortable with my equipment and processes. So I wanted to get equipment that would work now but could also grow with me to avoid a whole other round of big expenses down the line, and I tried to purchase accordingly. I also wanted to try and tackle what had been identified to me as some of the things that would go from making "okay" beer to making "really good" beer right out of the gate, as (not to be beer snobbish) I generally drink pretty good craft beer, so I wanted whatever I make to be good enough to encourage me to continue and not leave me wishing I'd just spent the money on growler fills or something. So, here's a rundown of my equipment highlights if you're interested:

Brew Kettle - I went with the Bayou Classic 10 Gallon Brew Kettle 6-piece set. I liked this as it will allow me to do full boils now with 5 gallon batches and can grow to do larger batches and/or all grain pretty easily. Plus the built in ball-valve, thermometer, bazooka filter, and false bottom were all great features I thought that would come in handy. I ended up shopping around and waiting for holiday deals and was able to pick this up for under $200.

Burner Setup - I went with the King Kooker 30-inch Boil and Fry Jet Cooker. I really liked this as I thought the 105,000 BTU burner would get me boiling quickly and there are lots of positive reviews about turning this into a 3-tier system for all grain quite easily.

Fermenters - I purchased both a 6.5 gallon ale pail with drum tap (primary) and 5 gallon big mouth bubbler (secondary) for fermentation vessels. I've decided for the first several batches to just KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), so I will just be using a primary fermentation, and then I'll move into secondaries when I'm ready or the beer really calls for it. I modified the lid of my ale pail the other night to install a thermowell for temperature monitoring.

Fermentation Chamber - I just finished up my SCT-1000 build project and am ready to connect that to an old 45 bottle wine fridge I'm re-purposing (shelves removed) and a fermentation wrap I purchased from Midwest.

Other equipment I went with included one of the oxygenation kits you hook up to the disposable O2 tanks, an 8" copper immersion wort chiller, and I'll be bottling (at least at first), so I got the bottling bucket, capper, and related accessories. Of course I also got the big containers of both PBW and StarSan to keep everything clean and sanitary, as well as a hydrometer and various thermometers to keep accurate records.

Tomorrow I will be making my first yeast starter in a 2L Erlenmeyer flask so I'm all set to pitch it on Sunday afternoon. I didn't go with a stir plate yet, but that is on my "need to buy soon" list. For my first batch I am going with this organic IPA from my LHBS which I input into Brewer's Friend myself, and I intend to use that software to generally guide me through the process and do all of my record keeping.

Any big gotchas that I missed that anyone could point out or any general comments are greatly welcome. I'll post back here with updates on how the first batch goes!

 

[unionrdr]

Well, the recipe is a partial mash using the 2-row base malt. The kettle looks really nice & will work well for doing a full boil for 5 gallon batches. you'll be including extra wort to account for boil-off anyway. Nice looking burner rig as well. Pretty decent prices for everything.If you're gonna brew monday, I'd get the starter going today. A day or two ago would've been better in my experiences. Starters can take more than 24 hours to finish. Lastly, be patient, don't try to rush things. Take your time & make sure you don't forget anything. Above all, relax!

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Well, the first batch is in the bag... errr, fermenter rather. For the most part I'd say that everything went pretty well. All of the equipment functioned as expected, and the ingredients seemed to be top notch. It wasn't very hard to follow along with the recipe and the notes on Brewer's Friend. I basically ran into 2 issues:

1) Despite having done a test with my wort chiller and my outside utility sink the other night and everything working just fine, today when I went to connect it, the threads on the faucet itself started to come loose from the faucet pipe, and I discovered that it was rusting through. Not really related to brewing so much as just an outdoor faucet with too many years of neglect. Luckily I realized what was happening and managed to stop short of breaking the faucet, and the wort chiller still worked, just at a reduced efficiency. I'll need to replace the outdoor faucet prior to brewing again.

2) I think I got way too much "gunk" from my brew kettle into the fermenter. The kettle I was using had a bazooka filter attached to the ball valve, which I thought would filter most stuff out. That worked really well for the first 2 gallons or so, and then it became so clogged, that I had to give it a good stir to get it flowing again. After that it was drain for a minute or 2, stir, repeat, until I got about 4 1/2 gallons in the fermenter. There was easily another 1/2 gallon or so in the kettle, but try as I might I couldn't get it out as the filter was just too clogged. I ended up topping off with distilled water to get to 5 gallons before pitching my 2L starter.

I took uniondr's advice and got my starter going on Saturday, which I think worked out really well. It was definitely full steam this morning when I took it out to my brewing area. I had no problem getting up to mash temp and maintaining that with the jet burner, and it only took a few minutes getting from mash temp to boiling when the time came. I actually had to turn the jet burner so low it almost went out when I was trying to maintain my boil, so I think next time I'll get it just to a boil and then move it over to the 65,000 BTU burner to maintain.

The immersion chiller worked out really well despite the plumbing problems, and I went from boiling to 70 degrees in just under 20 minutes, with a little stirring every now and then with a sanitized spoon. Once the gunk settled a bit from the sample I took, I got an OG reading of 1.061, and I was shooting for 1.065, so I think that's pretty good for the first attempt.

It's in the fermenter now out in the fermentation chamber in the garage. I've checked on it a few times, and it's hovering right at 70 degrees, so neither the fermwrap or the fridge has had to kick on, but I imagine that will change later tonight as it gets colder.

My biggest concern now is the amount of gunk in the fermenter. I'm not that worried about it, as when I let the sample I took sit for 30 minutes or so it looked just slightly darker than the Racer 5 IPA I had in the glass next to it; however, I am worried a bit about bottling and how to avoid that in the future.

I was thinking I might go ahead and use my auto-siphon to rack off to a secondary before dry hopping just to get it off some of that trub/gunk. Any opinions on that one way or another? If not, I definitely don't think I should use the drum tap on my fermenter to fill my bottling bucket, but maybe siphon off what I can trying not to disturb the gunk. Any thoughts on what else I could do in the future to avoid so much going into the fermenter? I had a false bottom for my kettle, but I didn't use it this time. Maybe try that?

 

[wtaylor3]

I don't filter between my kettle and fermenter, if it is given enough time in primary it'll settle out and then careful siphoning will limit how much makes it to the bottle, my pumpkin ale had a ton of gunk in the fermenter and a bunch even went to bottle, but after three weeks in the bottle and correct pouring a clear glass was easily had.

Congrats on your first brew

 

[hou_me]

Congratulations! Sounds like you're way ahead of where I was when I first started. Best thing to do is leave that puppy alone for awhile and brew another. Good luck!

-ben

 

[unionrdr]

I do biab, so no kettle filters or anything. I use a large, dual layer fine mesh strainer to pour the chilled wort through into primary. It also aerates the wort. This gets all but the poofy stuff from grain & hop gunk out. This leaves me with about 3/8" of gunk compacted at the bottom of primary come bottling time.You can secondary if you want for dry hopping, but I do it in primary. The yeast & trub will compact down to a lower level by racking time, so that'll help.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'll take the general advice and just relax, wait and see how it's looking in a couple of weeks when I take my first SG reading, and then most likely go ahead and dry hop right in the fermenter for another week or so. At that point, once I've reached FG and allowed it to cold crash for a couple of days, I'll either use the drum tap to try and suck out some of the trub into a different bucket before hitting the bottling bucket or try to use the auto-siphon to get a good suction going right above the trub.

Also, I'm happy to report that as of this morning it is definitely alive! I went out there, and despite it being all of 45 degrees here this morning, it's nice and cozy in the fermentation chamber at a steady 70 degrees, and it is just bubbling away!

One question though, I notice the sanitizer solution in the airlock is now a bit cloudy and there's a small bit of white particles (very similar to what was at the bottom of my yeast starter when I'd go to shake it) gathered inside the airlock at the bottom. I figure that's just a little over zealous krausen, but wondering if I should clean, refill, and re-attach the airlock or just let it be?

 

[unionrdr]

A little bit of small particles won't hurt it as long as the liquid is up to level. When they get gunked up bad, they could plug up & cause a mess. Then they need to be cleaned, re-sanitized & installed.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Thanks, uniondr; you're quickly becoming my personal brewing guru here, appreciate it! I'll just let it be and keep a check on it to make sure it doesn't plug up.

 

[unionrdr]

Thanks! As long as it isn't covered in gunk it'll be fine. a few particles won't hurt.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Well, 8 days later and so far so good...

Since the fermentation chamber is in the garage, I've not had a constant watch on it, but every time I go out there, I saw bubbles in the airlock or some other positive sign of fermentation, so that was encouraging. It even bubbled out from the lid of the ale pail a couple of times, but I posted another thread about that, and as I thought, RDWHAHB, clean it up, spray some star-san to prevent mold/infection, and move along.

Today I went out and removed the airlock, covered the stopper with some sanitized aluminum foil, and removed the lid to take a SG reading. Unfortunately I discovered that my pail opening tool I got from Home Depot didn't fit on the ail pail, so I just made sure to wash my hands and then use them to open the lid after spraying all around it with star-san. Used the wine thief to take a few pulls, and ended up hitting the recipe's stated 1.015 OG. Of course my SG was 1.061 instead of the 1.065 it called for so I'm not sure what that'll mean for the finished product. Sprayed everything with Star-San again, covered it back up, put a fresh airlock on, and now it's back in the chamber.

I figure I'll take another reading on next Monday (14 days) and if it's the same, I'll go ahead and dryhop for another 7 days, before elevating the front of the bucket (to move the sediment at the bottom away from the spigot) and cold crash for 2-3 days to try and clear it up some more. After that I'll transfer to my bottling bucket and give that a go!

It's still a little cloudy, but nowhere near as bad as I thought it'd be after seeing what went into the fermenter, and the couple of tasters I took are clearing up quite nicely with a layer of sediment on the bottom after some time in the fridge, and tasting quite nice too.

 

[Maxkling]

Did you measure air temperature or wort fermentation temperature?

If air temp was 70 your wort could have been up to 10 degree warmer. Fermentation causes heat, the plastic pale does a good job of keeping that heat in. If you notice a warm flavor or green apple taste, that might lead to too warm fermentation temps.

 

[drgonzo2k2]

Did you measure air temperature or wort fermentation temperature?

If air temp was 70 your wort could have been up to 10 degree warmer. Fermentation causes heat, the plastic pale does a good job of keeping that heat in. If you notice a warm flavor or green apple taste, that might lead to too warm fermentation temps.

Wort temperature. I have a stopper thermowell that I added to the lid of my ale pail, dead center. The temp probe is connected to an SCT-1000 which controls a fermwrap and mini fridge.

The WLP001 said 68-73, so I chose 70 since it was smack dab in the middle.