First brew successful! NB Caribou Slobber

So far 1 week and 2 days bottle conditioning. Probably the best brown ale I have had! Going to have another test and week 2 and week 3. Probably fully ready at week 3 I'm guessing. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1505266790.161560.jpg

 

Congrats and welcome to your new addiction! Caribou Slobber was my first.

 

I'd estimate that the beer will continue to improve for at least a couple months, maybe still improving a little by 6 months so don't drink it all too soon.

 

Caribou Slobber does age well. This one was bottled mid April.You'll need to brew CS at least once a month to have some to age.

 

Gets better even by the week early on. Didn't do CS until my 4th or 5th brew. Wasn't impressed with the first bottle I tried at about the same point as your taste, but even a week or so later it was noticably better. I'm trying to space them out, but will have to make some more soon since I'm still a 1-gallon brewer.

Congrats!

 

I....can't....stop....drinking it. Good thing I got 45 bottles out of this first brew.

 

Start brewing with the harvested yeast. It will be 7 weeks before another is ready to even sample a young one. 7 weeks!

 

dude that's one of my favorites and last time i brew it, i let them sit for about 1 months after bottling and took about 2 months to drink them all, so the last bottles i drank were almost 3 months old and they just were awesome!!! :rockin: the next time i brew this i'll let them sit for about 3 months before opening the first bottle.

 

I'm pretty new, what's the difference?

 

Brewing costs less if you harvest yeast from the fermentor or from an extra large starter.

 

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1505515695.965608.jpg

My home brew label! I really went head first into this thing!

 

How much yeast should you harvest in order to have a good solid starter? Do you siphon right from the trub layer?

 

Rule of thumb for saving yeast cake from the fermenter to do another batch is 1/4 of the cake. Using the whole yeast cake is overpitching and gets you a quick start and quick finish. I've not done it much but I never had a problem with using the entire cake. YMMV

 

Thanks! So you just swirl your cake after racking and siphon 1/4 of it?

 

I just swirl the fermentor and pour into one or two pint canning jars. The fermentor can be swirled and then given a 5 to 10 minute rest for the heavier hops to settle before pouring left over beer and yeast. Yeast stores best under the beer rather than water.

Some good reading in this thread.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=579350