Rookie Mistake

[Chase22]

So I bought a British Porter recipe from Austin Homebrew the other day and brewed it up fine. I keep my carboy in the kitchen next to the dishwasher. Well my girlfriend was doing dishes and she dropped a vase on the carboy, which smashed and flooded the kitchen. Yea.

So after a trip to AHB I had a new (bigger) carboy and the porter recipe. This morning I brewed up the batch, cooled it, and pitched the yeast. I was kind of concerned this evening when I got home and noticed that there was no activity in the airlock. I then noticed the full tub of LME sitting on the kitchen counter. I forgot to add it. I boiled water, steeped the specialty grains, and then promptly added hops and started the timer. I completely forgot the extract itself. Rookie mistake.

I just siphoned out ~2 gallons, boiled it, added the LME, cooled it, and returned it to the carboy. I hope I didn't screw it up too bad.

 

[Dan]

JMHO and somebody better in the know will hopefully chime in. I don't think you screwed it up to bad. Probably killed off any yeast in the two gallons of wort you pulled off to mix with the LME during the boil but there should be plenty of healthy yeast in the 3 gallons of wort in the carboy. Oxidation might be a problem if you didn't gently reintroduce the boiled wort into the carboy but if you were careful shouldn't be a problem.

 

[PoppinCaps]

Sounds like you did it right sterility-wise, but the hop utilization will differ depending on the amount of malt in the boil (in this case, none). Might be a different beer, but I bet the yeast were just staring through the glass, waiting for you to dump it in so they could get going.

Wouldn't you want to oxidize the wort at this stage? I would think after boiling, you'd need some more O2 to get the remaining yeast propagating.

 

[Dan]

Wouldn't you want to oxidize the wort at this stage? I would think after boiling, you'd need some more O2 to get the remaining yeast propagating.

You might be right. His beer hadn't been fermenting very long. I remember my first beer I didn't see much activity going on the first day or two, panicked and asked a brew buddy if he ever aerates his beer after a day or two. He said to go for it, I did. I can't say as I remember a problem.

 

[Chase22]

So this morning it is already churning. I like the quote about the yeast staring out longingly through the glass, waiting for some sugar lol

 

[maffewl]

The biggest rookie mistake I see is making your girlfriend think twice now about doing the dishes... get your wort out of the way :cross:

 

[unionrdr]

We have what used to be called a "parlor" in front of the house. I have the computer hutch in here with my fermenter/storage stand to my right. Nice quiet place for my lil yeasties to dine in piece.:rockin:

 

[BierKoning]

It will make beer. Isn't that what's most important?

I'm sure it will taste different than if you followed the directions exactly, but does that really matter? Unless you have an awesome system with amazing consistency you could probably brew the same extract recipe several times and it will taste different each time anyways (close, but different).

RDWHAHB.