My first brew

The ingredients - grain, hops, yeast, and malt extract


Steeping the grains


Stirring in the malt extract


Stirring to a boil

Full boil


Amarillo hops


Sanitizing the chiller


Chilling the wort

Into the fermentor


The fermentor's home for the next week


The final unfermented product

looks great, congrats on your first brew

jgohean said:

The fermentor's home for the next week

Click to expand...

I hope your airlock doesn't clog, or you're going to have a seriously angry SWMBO on your hands!

Looks like you did a great job, congrats on your first brew.

Yeah, that would end very badly for me, she's already not too happy about the sulfer/rotten egg smell filling the closet and stinking up our coats. Is clogging a common occurrence? There's 3+ inches of head space.

Edited per

If you don't want to brew in the closet you can keep the cardboard boxes that the carboys ship in and put that over your fermentor. Keeps the light off and any funk from invading your clothes.

some beers can have kraussen 6+ inches thick. I'm going to go with a tube attached to my airlock and going into another bucket/bottle of water from now on. Looks like you did a nice job. what recipe was it? Amber Ale?

Having it in the closet is nice though for containing the rotten egg smell - I might put the box over in the closet though. Thanks for the suggestion!

It was an Amber Ale (American amber all from AHS). I guess I did something right if you were able to determine the type.

Well I based it off the color of the unfermented wort and the yeast you used. should be right tasty.

Update:

I've put the bucket in a water bath to bring the temperature down (ambient closet temp was around 77)

Checked the FG for the first time on day 4 - it's at 1.014 - right on the money, according to the recipe. Tasted it - it was good, like a really flat and warm Fat Tire.

Should I go ahead and rack to the secondary or give it a couple days?

personally I would wait a few more days and take a couple more readings to make sure it stays the same. I don't even go to a secondary anymore unless adding fruit or it needs to ferment for a really long time. Mine just sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks.

Also I like to prop my fermenters up so it is sitting at am angle. That way the trub goes towards one corner so you can siphon from the other corner and get as much clean beer as possible.