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My first batch of beer is ready today (hooray!). It's a Coffee Oatmeal Stout. The instructions say to drink at 55F. If I take it out of the fridge, how long do I wait until it comes up to 55? It's about 65 in my house.

I'm bottling today. I just realized I may be lacking some equipment. The beer is in a 6.5 gallon carboy right now. I have an auto-sipon and 6 foot piece of 3/8" tubing to transfer it to a bottling bucket, where I'll add the boiled sugar and a bit of cold-pressed coffee. I also have a...

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but just to clarify, when you all are saying "wash", do you mean scrubbing with a bottle brush? Or are you just letting the bottles soak in the cleaner? Also, re: dishwasher. So you're saying I can just put the bottles through the normal wash cycle without any soap...

Thanks. One thing I don't have is a bottle brush. When you say "clean them with Straight-A", do you mean soak them in it or clean them with a brush?

I have new bottles I bought from the LHBS for bottling this weekend. Is it necessary to clean them first, or can I just sanitize? I have Straight-A cleaner, Iodophor sanitizer, and a high-pressure bottle washing attachment that connects to my faucet. I believe my dishwasher also has a...

Yep. Not sure why I got a bit confused there. What about the thermometer? Should that be dunked in the sanitizer each time between uses as the wort is chilling? Or would it be easier just to stick a floating thermometer in there and leave it?

I'm pretty clear on the pre-brew sanitation procedures, but after my first brew day yesterday I have some questions about sanitation throughout the whole process. There are some pieces of equipment that I used several times. One is a quick-read thermometer. I took multiple temp readings of...

Yes, I will get an IC and I'm kicking myself for ignoring my friend's recommendation to get one. Well, I didn't ignore him exactly, but I didn't want to spend another $65 after already spending $200+ on equipment and ingredients. It's not so much the thinness of the mash that I was worried...

Well, my first batch has been in the carboy for about 18 hours. The airlock is bubbling and a nice krausen is forming on top. First, I want to thank everyone here again for their support and encouragement. I posted many questions leading up to brew day, and two "emergency" questions...

How do you pump ice water from a bath into an IC? I thought they were connected to the faucet.

In my harried state I didn't think of this. Of course you're right. What I should have done is decanted the liquid right after bringing it out of the fridge, and left the yeast cake with a little bit of wort. It would have warmed up very quickly, as you say. Live and learn!

Yep, next time it's a wort chiller for me. This is my first batch so I didn't spring for it, but I kinda wish I would have.

Well, it's been 35 minutes and it's down to 100. I've changed the water 3 times, and have stirred several times as well. The ice bottles are now mostly water, with some small amount of ice. Guess I don't have much choice now but to keep changing the water and wait.

I just finished the boil on my first batch (partial mash). Had the sink full of water and several frozen water bottles, ice packs, ice cubes. After 10 minutes the temp is still at 156. At this rate I don't think I'm going to get down to 70 in 30 minutes. The frozen water bottles are almost...

Thanks everyone. I'll put it on the porch wrapped in a dark t-shirt. Sounds like it will be fine.

Okay, not urgent in the big picture sense. It's just a batch of beer. But... I'm doing a PM batch and am currently heating up my strike water for the mash. I made a yeast starter a few days ago, refrigerated it last night, and took it out of the fridge at 6:00 this morning to bring it to...

Actually it was in the fridge overnight, and I just took it out prior to taking the pic. That's as settled as it will get. I do plan to decant the wort and just pitch the slurry. I made a large starter because it's a pretty big beer (1.067). I used Mr. Malty's pitch rate calc to get the proportions.

So here's the starter after 3.5 days. Brew day is today. Does it look like it turned out? I guess I was expecting a thicker yeast cake at the bottom. The proportions were 270g of DME and 2.7 liters of water.

Actually, it just occurred to me that I do have a regular square cooler. Since I'm using a grain bag, I wouldn't need any false bottom or method of scooping out the mash. Could I use this? I guess the only concern is how the wort would pour out of a square cooler. Could be messy!

Hmmm. Doesn't sound ideal. If I have to buy anything new, I might as well buy a 5-gallon igloo cooler. Problem is I need one pronto! They're easy to find online but I've been having a hard time finding one locally. Any ideas?