bernerbrau
Well-Known Member
All right, let's see your first post, or early posts you're particularly fond, proud, or even ashamed of!
Here's how:
1. Search -> Advanced Search.
2. Put your user name in "Search by User Name".
3. In the bottom left, "Show results as" Posts, and search "Last Posting Date", and "In Ascending Order".
4. Click "Search Now".
5. Go to the post and click "Quote", and copy the BBCode.
6. Come back here and paste it.
Here's mine, close to a year and a half ago:
Here's how:
1. Search -> Advanced Search.
2. Put your user name in "Search by User Name".
3. In the bottom left, "Show results as" Posts, and search "Last Posting Date", and "In Ascending Order".
4. Click "Search Now".
5. Go to the post and click "Quote", and copy the BBCode.
6. Come back here and paste it.
Here's mine, close to a year and a half ago:
Two weeks ago I started my first ever batch of homebrew beer. I used a 5-gallon aluminum brewkettle and a 5-gallon water jug from Big Lots for fermentation, drilling a hole in the cap and sticking the airlock through for a snug fit.
I used 6 pounds of Briess Golden Light dry malt extract, 1 oz Palisade pellet hops for bittering and 1 oz whole Pacific Hallertau hops for finishing, 15 minutes before chilling the wort.
I used an American Ale yeast that I prepped with 1tbs of the malt after 15 minutes of hydration, and I pitched the yeast after adding the chilled wort to about a gallon of water in the fermenter.
At first I was concerned because the wort didn't appear to do anything so I went to bed, but after about two and a half hours my whole apartment had an extremely sharp malt smell in the air (making it difficult to sleep), and when I checked on it in the morning there was a nice frothy head to the wort and some active bubbling, plus a real yeasty/hoppy smell in the guest bathroom where I'm doing the fermentation.
I used no-rinse cleansers and sanitizers from the homebrew supply store and I heat-sterilized all glass bowls for yeast prep at 340F for an hour. I tried to keep everything as sterile as possible.
However, while chilling the wort I accidentally splashed some sink water into the pot, so I am a bit worried about contamination. Another issue was the wort preparation ended up making a lot less liquid than I originally anticipated, only about 3 gallons, and I am a tad worried about oxygen exposure since I left the prepped yeast in an open bowl for over an hour.
Last night I completed the rack to secondary after one week primary fermentation. I bought a 5gal glass carboy as was suggested and used the no-rinse sanitizer again. There was a bit of foam left over after pouring out the sanitizer even though I gave it over an hour to dry, so I used some preboiled water and tried to rinse it out anyway. Even so there was some foam left but I decided to start the rack anyway; I just hope the yeast are OK.
During the rack there was a wonderful beer aroma; I was tempted to taste the beer but I decided not to jinx it. It took me a few tries to get the siphon going and I used preboiled, chilled water for the starter, but I may have touched the preboiled water with my skin while fumbling with the siphon hose.
After racking I topped off with the remaining preboiled water to get my volume up, then I did the dry hop with one ounce of whole glacier hops. It was a tad messy getting the hops into the carboy so I ended up pushing them in by hand. I've read that the yeast are healthy enough at this point and whole hops are sufficiently hardy that there's little risk of contamination now but I'm still a bit tentative. I'm also a bit concerned that I won't get maximum hop exposure because some of the leaves are just floating dry on top of the beer.
To clean up, I washed out the primary with preboiled water and filled four sanitized mason jars with the flocculated yeast, which I should be able to use as a starter for future batches. I then scrubbed out the primary with a wire brush and used a mild bleach solution with hot water which I will leave overnight to sanitize it. I have a 6.5gal glass carboy for future primaries so I will probably retire the 5gal plastic bottle. I'm soaking all other unused tools in no-rinse cleanser to try and remove residue.
I covered the secondary with a towel to prevent light exposure and I will make it a point to stay out of the guest bathroom for the next two weeks. I will use 3/4c corn sugar for conditioning and I have oxygen-blocking bottle caps and two cases of 22-oz brown bottles.
Then this morning, I realized that I have not been filling the airlock with water! I'm not sure what I was thinking just sticking it in the top there and hoping it would keep oxygen out. So now I'm really concerned I've botched my entire first batch. I have an extra airlock on-hand so I boiled it today before work and swapped it out (with water inside) after quickly cooling it off in the freezer.
I plan to leave the beer in secondary for two weeks, at which point I will condition with 3/4c of corn sugar and transfer to bottles.
All in all I'm somewhat happy so far (the real beer smell was exciting!) but I'm reluctant to call it a success because of the improper airlock usage, sanitizer foam and potential contamination. But time will tell!
I kept a video log of it so when I get that edited together I will post a link here. Meanwhile, do any seasoned beer vets who like reading long-winded homebrew logs have any tips for later in the process, or future batches?
