Noobie Questions...tell me right or wrong.

[kylelp]

Hello All,

I am new to brewing and would like some feed back on my current process (if you agree or don't agree) and some help.

I lay out a clean towel on the counter. In my primary fermenter, I pour in my water and StarSan. This is my bucket I use to clean the rest of my stuff, stir spoon, brushes, hydrometer, etc. After the StarSan, they are placed on the towel. I pour out my primary of StarSan after using the sponge to gently scrub the sides. I then rinse it out with a little water. Is this process okay or incorrect? From here I will get my pot (I cleaned it with starsan), make my wort, cool it then add it to the fermenter plus water.

I mainly ask because I made a wine 1.5 years ago (I got the recipe off of a wine website that used Welch's grape juice and a few other things). It didn't taste too good then and doesn't taste good now. Fastforward to the near future I spent more money on a nice beer kit and other items. I tried to make this apple cider recipe I got off of homebrewtalk and it does not taste good either. Both the previously made wine and the cider have a very similar bad taste that I can't really describe. I am not sure why they have this similar taste but I think maybe somewhere my process may be wrong.

This leads to my next question, how important is temperature control? I currently just leave it on the floor in my extra bedroom. I do have a wheat beer I put in an ice chest with water in the bottom of to help with temp. control. Do you have an thoughts or ideas on this? Could lack of temperature control lead to the wine and cider having similar bad tastes? If it is how do I control temperature with out buying fancy stuff.

Thank You, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jekeane]

The only problem I see with that process is you could possibly scratch your fermenter and have the chance for getting bacteria in the scratches. I would think this is a minor risk at best.

Temperature control is super important for beer and cider and is all based on the range for a given yeast. If a yeast has a range of 60-70 and you are fermenting at room temperature of say 65 that means during your most active part of fermentation your beer is in the 70-75 range. This will cause some minor to significant off flavors depending on the yeast strain.

What is the flavor that you are tasting?

Are you using tap water with chlorine or chloramines in it?

 

[dkeller12]

Hello All,

I am new to brewing and would like some feed back on my current process (if you agree or don't agree) and some help.

I lay out a clean towel on the counter. In my primary fermenter, I pour in my water and StarSan. This is my bucket I use to clean the rest of my stuff, stir spoon, brushes, hydrometer, etc. After the StarSan, they are placed on the towel. I pour out my primary of StarSan after using the sponge to gently scrub the sides. I then rinse it out with a little water. Is this process okay or incorrect? From here I will get my pot (I cleaned it with starsan), make my wort, cool it then add it to the fermenter plus water.

I mainly ask because I made a wine 1.5 years ago (I got the recipe off of a wine website that used Welch's grape juice and a few other things). It didn't taste too good then and doesn't taste good now. Fastforward to the near future I spent more money on a nice beer kit and other items. I tried to make this apple cider recipe I got off of homebrewtalk and it does not taste good either. Both the previously made wine and the cider have a very similar bad taste that I can't really describe. I am not sure why they have this similar taste but I think maybe somewhere my process may be wrong.

This leads to my next question, how important is temperature control? I currently just leave it on the floor in my extra bedroom. I do have a wheat beer I put in an ice chest with water in the bottom of to help with temp. control. Do you have an thoughts or ideas on this? Could lack of temperature control lead to the wine and cider having similar bad tastes? If it is how do I control temperature with out buying fancy stuff.

Thank You, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

StarSan is not a cleaner, it is a no rinse sanitizer. When you say you use the bucket of StarSan to clean your other equipment, I would say you shouldn't be cleaning with StarSan. To clean you should try and get some PBW and clean all your equipment with that first, then sanitize.

You also mention that you rinse the bucket after draining the StarSan, this defeats the purpose of the sanitizer. Wet your cleaned equipment with StarSan, drain it and that is it.

You also don't need to sanitize your brew pot since the boiling wort will take care of that. Sanitization if really important post boil, since the boil will kill everything. Your brew pot should be clean but sanitizing is not necessary. Sanitizing is absolutely necessary post boil.

Temperature control is one of the most important factors that will improve your beer considerably. Beer fermented too warm with yeast that likes cooler temps will have some harsh flavors that mostly won't age out. Look up swamp cooler, son of a fermentation chamber or get a cool brewing bag (I have 2 an love them). Once your sanitation and temp control are done properly, you will be brewing good, if not great beer.

Good luck!

 

[Rhumbline]

The only thing I'll add is that your towel isn't sanitized, I keep a container of sanitizer and just keep all of the items in it during the operation.

 

[dkeller12]

The only thing I'll add is that your towel isn't sanitized, I keep a container of sanitizer and just keep all of the items in it during the operation.

Totally agree. Ditch the towel it could add bacteria that you don't want.