jaytizzle
Well-Known Member
Okay,
So I'm new here. I just started home brewing and I figured this would be a good place to come for help. For my first brew, I picked up a Brewer's Best Kölsch kit. I followed all of the instructions pretty well. It was a lot of fun to put this thing together.
Now for the meat and potatoes. I went into the fermenter (6.5 gallon glass carboy) a little high, my OG was 1.050 with a target of 1.042 to 1.046. I got a little antsy and added a bit more water to the fermenter before sealing it up and didn't take an OG reading. I figure I went in somewhere around 1.048.
Everything went swimmingly thereafter. Within about 20 hours there was a lot of activity in the carboy. A thick head had formed on top of the liquid (I understand this is called krausen?). The airlock was bubbling away and it appeared that there was a lot of activity in the brew, almost like someone was stirring it!
I'm sitting at about 48 hours in primary now and when I got home from work today I noticed that there was very little activity and the head had collapsed. Being my nosy self, I pulled the carboy out, pulled out a sample (made sure to sterilize with star san first!), and took a gravity reading. It came out to 1.016. I have a target FG of 1.010 to 1.013. Also, I grabbed a taste of the mix from the hydrometer vessel. It really tasted great considering it was a flat and warm beer!
So what should I do from here? I'm thinking I'll leave it sit for at least a few more days. Maybe on Thursday or Friday I can siphon it over to a 5 gallon carboy for secondary/clarification. Thoughts?
Any help is greatly appreciated for this newbie!!!
Thank you,
JT
So I'm new here. I just started home brewing and I figured this would be a good place to come for help. For my first brew, I picked up a Brewer's Best Kölsch kit. I followed all of the instructions pretty well. It was a lot of fun to put this thing together.
Now for the meat and potatoes. I went into the fermenter (6.5 gallon glass carboy) a little high, my OG was 1.050 with a target of 1.042 to 1.046. I got a little antsy and added a bit more water to the fermenter before sealing it up and didn't take an OG reading. I figure I went in somewhere around 1.048.
Everything went swimmingly thereafter. Within about 20 hours there was a lot of activity in the carboy. A thick head had formed on top of the liquid (I understand this is called krausen?). The airlock was bubbling away and it appeared that there was a lot of activity in the brew, almost like someone was stirring it!
I'm sitting at about 48 hours in primary now and when I got home from work today I noticed that there was very little activity and the head had collapsed. Being my nosy self, I pulled the carboy out, pulled out a sample (made sure to sterilize with star san first!), and took a gravity reading. It came out to 1.016. I have a target FG of 1.010 to 1.013. Also, I grabbed a taste of the mix from the hydrometer vessel. It really tasted great considering it was a flat and warm beer!
So what should I do from here? I'm thinking I'll leave it sit for at least a few more days. Maybe on Thursday or Friday I can siphon it over to a 5 gallon carboy for secondary/clarification. Thoughts?
Any help is greatly appreciated for this newbie!!!
Thank you,
JT