timp84
Member
Hi everybody, I'm a completely new home brewer. This is my first batch, and since I'm basically flying blind on the process, I'm hoping that you fine folks have the time (and patience) to answer a few questions you've probably heard a million times... and offer me any advice you may have. I've done searching, but come up with few answers to my specific questions. I've always wanted to get into home brewing. When I was a kid, I used to help my dad by capping his bottles... I'm now 26 and I finally bit the bullet and spent a couple hundred bucks to get set up to brew.
I'm using a Midwest Supplies 2-stage starter kit. First brew is a brown ale extract kit from Northern Brewer called Caribou Slobber (supposed to be a Moose Drool clone, which I've never had).
I doubt I messed up the boil process. I pitched my dry (Danstar Windsor Ale) yeast after cooling the wort to 90 degrees, moving it to my primary, and then adding water to get to 5 gallons. I forgot to temp it before pitching, but it was in the 70's, I'm sure. Pitched yeast by sprinkling on top, then whisking in. I did aerate with a (sanitized) whisk before pitching yeast, but perhaps not well enough. not sure. Starting Gravity was 1.040. After 2 days, the gravity was reading 1.020. It is day 3 and gravity has not changed at all. There IS a ring of film around the bucket above the beer, but foam is gone was by 24 hours after brewing actually. Just seems weird to me that so much progress would be made so fast, only to level off immediately... temp today was 61 degrees, so I moved it to a warmer location. day 2 it was 63 degrees. day 1 was 71 degrees.
Anyway, questions:
1) am I just being too impatient? should I not be checking on it and fiddling with it and checking gravity so often?
2) in order to take readings and such, I need to pull the lid off of the Ale Pail for about a minute. I've just recently started seeing folks saying that it's pretty bad for your beer to keep opening the container. is this really an issue, and if so, why?
3) when pitching dry yeast, is it better to do so the way I did? or should it be reconstituted beforehand?
4) at what point should I consider moving the beer over to the secondary? and, are there any additions that I need to make to the beer once I move it over? The reason I ask is because I'm not sure I understand why moving it to a secondary furthers the process once the gravity has leveled out...
5) could the fact that my temperatures fell below 65 have slowed the fermentation to what I'm seeing?
6) does anyone have any experience working with restaurant grade Quat-Sanitizer for brewing? How does it work out?
7) has the fact that I've been using that powder cleaner stuff as a sanitizer screwed me? I've just read tonight that it sucks and shouldn't be trusted. Quat is easy for me to get my hands on (I'm a chef by trade) so if it works, I can switch straight over to that.
I've read on here that it actually takes a lot to really screw up a batch of beer, so that puts my mind at ease about this batch, mostly... I'm just hoping that some of you who know more about this than me (and I'm sure that would be 99% of you) could give me a hand and school me a bit.
Thanks very much, everyone. This looks like a fine community, and I think you'll probably see me pretty often.
I'm using a Midwest Supplies 2-stage starter kit. First brew is a brown ale extract kit from Northern Brewer called Caribou Slobber (supposed to be a Moose Drool clone, which I've never had).
I doubt I messed up the boil process. I pitched my dry (Danstar Windsor Ale) yeast after cooling the wort to 90 degrees, moving it to my primary, and then adding water to get to 5 gallons. I forgot to temp it before pitching, but it was in the 70's, I'm sure. Pitched yeast by sprinkling on top, then whisking in. I did aerate with a (sanitized) whisk before pitching yeast, but perhaps not well enough. not sure. Starting Gravity was 1.040. After 2 days, the gravity was reading 1.020. It is day 3 and gravity has not changed at all. There IS a ring of film around the bucket above the beer, but foam is gone was by 24 hours after brewing actually. Just seems weird to me that so much progress would be made so fast, only to level off immediately... temp today was 61 degrees, so I moved it to a warmer location. day 2 it was 63 degrees. day 1 was 71 degrees.
Anyway, questions:
1) am I just being too impatient? should I not be checking on it and fiddling with it and checking gravity so often?
2) in order to take readings and such, I need to pull the lid off of the Ale Pail for about a minute. I've just recently started seeing folks saying that it's pretty bad for your beer to keep opening the container. is this really an issue, and if so, why?
3) when pitching dry yeast, is it better to do so the way I did? or should it be reconstituted beforehand?
4) at what point should I consider moving the beer over to the secondary? and, are there any additions that I need to make to the beer once I move it over? The reason I ask is because I'm not sure I understand why moving it to a secondary furthers the process once the gravity has leveled out...
5) could the fact that my temperatures fell below 65 have slowed the fermentation to what I'm seeing?
6) does anyone have any experience working with restaurant grade Quat-Sanitizer for brewing? How does it work out?
7) has the fact that I've been using that powder cleaner stuff as a sanitizer screwed me? I've just read tonight that it sucks and shouldn't be trusted. Quat is easy for me to get my hands on (I'm a chef by trade) so if it works, I can switch straight over to that.
I've read on here that it actually takes a lot to really screw up a batch of beer, so that puts my mind at ease about this batch, mostly... I'm just hoping that some of you who know more about this than me (and I'm sure that would be 99% of you) could give me a hand and school me a bit.
Thanks very much, everyone. This looks like a fine community, and I think you'll probably see me pretty often.