First Home Brew!!

So my first attempt at home brew is a Double IPA from BSG Handcraft. Brew day was 1/31/18 and went well, OG was spot on, dry hopped 3 days after per recipe, and it’s now 7 days after I dry hopped which is the max days per the recipe. Bubbling in the air lock subsided about a wk ago but was crazy at first. I was going to leave in the glass carboy as my primary and only fermenter and bottle today if the FG was within range, but I’ve read a lot lately about leaving in longer and secondary fermentation!! Today would be 2 1/2 wks since brew day which per the recipe is accurate, but I was wondering what others thought of this? Thanks a lot.

 

Most people don’t recommend secondary these days unless you are adding fruit or aging for a very long period (e.g., months or a year). Just another opportunity to infect or oxidize your beer when you transfer it.

Best method to determine if fermentation is finished is to take a hydrometer reading and then take another in a day or two. If they are the same, go ahead and bottle. When I bottled sometimes I was lazy and just waited at least three weeks and for normal beers it was safe to assume it was finished. For higher OG beers a little longer might be needed.

 

Ok great. I’ve also read to shake the fermenter a bit to stir up the remaining yeast in order to finish cleaning it up prior to being completed. Any thoughts on that as well? Thank you.

 

I’ve heard of that too. I’ve only tried it when I felt like a fermentation was “stuck” (or hasn’t reached expected FG but specific gravity isn’t dropping with time). For 95% of my brews it hasn’t been necessary to shake the fermenter after fermentation is going.

 

Awesome. I just be patient then. Thank you very much.

 

I've never seen that one. Let it ride for 2 weeks and maybe cold crash for 2-4 days and bottle. The yeast don't need much from you if you've treated them right.

 

Patience is hard when you don’t have a pipeline going, but once you have finished product and beer fermenting at the same time it makes it easier to wait.

I’d recommend browsing the beginners beer brewing forum on this site. Tons of great info is there that will help you avoid learning things the hard way!

#1 recommendation is to find some way to minimize temperature swings. At first I used a big tub filled with water in which I put the fermenter. It helps avoid temperature swings in the fermenter by having more thermal mass. You can also use a chest freezer with a temperature controller for more precise control but there is more of an investment needed. The tub of water cost me something like $5 at Walmart and made a huge difference in quality of beer.

 

Ok. What’s the proper way to cold crash??

 

Cold crashing is reducing the temperature of the beer in the fermenter to close to freezing. Goal is to get yeast and other suspended stuff to settle to the bottom of the fermenter. Then before you bottle you transfer the beer to your bottling bucket (with priming sugar) and try to avoid disturbing the yeast cake. Most people use a refrigerator or freezer to do this. It should result in clearer beer and also less sediment in your bottles after carbonation. If you do it you might want to change airlocks because air is going to get sucked into the fermenter when you drop the temp. I usually use a S type airlock filled with starsan so that the liquid in the airlock isn’t sucked in and so that the air is sanitized. Some people go to great lengths to avoid getting air in the fermenter, such as attaching a CO2 filled balloon to your airlock. But that’s probably not something you’d want to do on the first attempt.

On the topic of sediment - if you haven’t poured a homebrew before, most people try to leave maybe an ounce or so in the bottle to avoid getting the sediment in your glass of beer. The sediment will reduce your clarity and also can cause yeast farts, which can be pretty rancid. My crazy brother likes to drink the sediment in order to drive his wife and kids crazy with the odor. But most normal people would prefer to avoid it.

 

One more edit - if you don’t have a way to cold crash I wouldn’t sweat it. You’ll probably do a mini cold crash on each bottle before drinking. You’ll want to chill the carbonated bottles before drinking to get to drinking temp and also to get CO2 into better solution in the beer. You’ll probably have more sediment in the bottles than if you cold crash in the fermenter, but i felt like there was more variation in sediment for different yeast strains than cold crashing vs not. Others may disagree with this suggestion but that’s part of the fun of it all!

 

So my DIPA tastes good and def hoppy, but th clarity isn’t there at all. It has the color but I want better clarity next time. Any suggestions on why it may not be as clear and what to do better next time. Thank you all.

 

If you cold crashed and left the last 1/4” of beer in the bottle when pouring into a glass like suggested above and still have poor clarity, I have two thoughts:

1. Use whirlfloc or Irish moss 15 min before flameout on your next brew. This allows suspended proteins to drop to the bottom of the kettle and leads to a clearer beer.

2. It’s a DIPA, which by definition should not be completely clear like many other golden/amber beers. Dry hopping imparts a bit of a haze naturally.

 

Ok awesome. I’ll try that. Thanks a lot.

 

Ok... So my Pilsner is done and kegged. It tasted great and color is pretty good, but the FG was 1.006 and should be about 1.040-1.060 which is a whole point off. Any ideas on why this is

 

I’m missing something. 1.006 sounds like a great FG to me. 1.040-1.060 sounds like an OG. Typo?

 

Sorry my bad. That was a FG for something else. The recommended FG for the Pilsner was 1.012-1.016, mine being 1.006 which puts it at a low ABV of like 2.5 which seems low.

 

Quite the opposite - it’s higher ABV! Well done

ABV is calculated with your OG and FG in mind. The lower the FG goes, the more sugar is converted to co2 and ethanol, thus more alcohol.

What was your OG?

 

The OG was 1.060.

 

Showing 7.09% ABV

https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/

 

Yea I guess so. That’s great. Thank you very much.

 

So my fiancé, who now loves brewing as much as I do, suggests that we try to perfect one style of beer before moving on to another style in order to improve consistency and the overall end results. I was planning on trying a different style each time to get a more broad understanding of each style of beer hopefully. Does anyone have any input or recommendations on this from their own experience when they first began to brew. We r def hooked, so no matter what we r gonna constantly brew and feed our thirsty friends. Thank you.

 

A happy marriage is (slightly) more important than beer. You can't win this, friend. Maybe a compromise? Alternate choosing the beer for each batch? Might be nice to have a reliable house beer on hand while you try all sorts of other recipes. You are so fortunate that your fiance shares your interest. Congratulations and good luck!

 

My recommendation is to move up the wedding day. She’s a keeper!

All joking aside my best advise for you is to control fermentation temperature. An old freezer and a cheap inkbird temp controller is a great start. You can go in all sorts of directions with regards to equipment.

What I’ve learned along the way is

Control fermentation
Treat your yeast with care.
Limit or better yet eliminate exposure to air post fermentation.
Keg over bottling except for special beers you want to bottle age.
Make sure you develop great cleaning and sanitation practices.
Buy a mill so you can control your grain crush.
Learn to develop and create your own recipes.
Learn your system and know what your efficiencies are and improve them until you can repeat things the same way every time.
Don’t go crazy buying hot side gear until you know what size batches you want, that may take some time.
Buy used gear whenever possible, it’ll save you a ton of cash.
Join a brew club and read as much as you can.
Take really good notes.

Making beer can be simple or complex. Your equipment can be simple or complex. I have friends with very simple equipment that make great beers and a few friends that have thousands of dollars worth of equipment and make crappy beer. It’s not the money invested that makes a great brewer it’s attention to detail and constant process improvements.

I had to laugh at this thread, you’ve jumped into the deep end quickly .

 

Haha. Thanks for the laugh as well. I’m def hooked on brewing, and yes she’s a keeper

 

Brew what you like to drink. Most people like only a few styles anyways

More carboys; they're cheap.

 

No more carboys. They r too much a pain to clean. I think I’m gonna try the “Big Mouth Bubbler” style fermenter.