1st beer brew underway today

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beekeeperman

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Took about 3 hours in all but have a 5 gallon batch of irish red ale kit in the bucket
ready for the bubbling to start.
Overall it went good , got to the local brewstore for sanitation stuff this morning and got everything post boil sanitised and pre boil cleaned good.
SG was right on per kit data and the the 2 1/2 gal.wort chill only took about 20 mins with
ice water and adding some chilled spring water to the wort also. Is that cool ?
Anyhow wort temp was 65 when i pitched the hydrated yeasties into the bucket.
Wow what a busy afternoon with it all but happy things are finally undeway.
Sucking down some Shipyard ale (store bought ) to celebrate the big day !
Learned everything i know about it right here , Thanks everyone !:mug:
 
Congrats and welcome to the best hobby on earth. I was in your same sport about 2 years ago and now have several brews under my belt. Went through bottling and now kegging .

Congrats again and best wishes
 
Awesome! Congrats on the brew and welcome to the hobby!

My first beers were some 1 gallon batches then I quickly went to 5 gallon extract then all grain. I started in January and have 11 5 gallon batches under my belt. It's an addiction!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Thanks everyone , it is exciting .
What ferment temp should i try to maintain for this Irish red ale ?
Its 60* in the basement and 70 on the 1st floor.
 
You want the BEER temperature to remain around 63-65° F. Note that fermentation produces its own heat, so once it kicks off, the beer can be up to 10° F warmer than the surrounding air. That is, if the room is 70° F, the beer could be as hot as 80° F, which is bad news. However, 60° might be a tad too cold to let it get going.

If it were me, and I didn't have any other temperature control options, I would start it in the 70°F environment, and then as soon as I saw any fermentation activity at all (around the 12-24 hour mark), I'd move it to the 60° F environment. A week later, I'd move it back to the 70° environment to finish up.
 
You want the BEER temperature to remain around 63-65° F. Note that fermentation produces its own heat, so once it kicks off, the beer can be up to 10° F warmer than the surrounding air. That is, if the room is 70° F, the beer could be as hot as 80° F, which is bad news. However, 60° might be a tad too cold to let it get going.

If it were me, and I didn't have any other temperature control options, I would start it in the 70°F environment, and then as soon as I saw any fermentation activity at all (around the 12-24 hour mark), I'd move it to the 60° F environment. A week later, I'd move it back to the 70° environment to finish up.

Thanks for the help !
 
Almost 24 hrs since pitching the yeast and pressure is building in the airlock.
The water in one side of the airlock has been almost all pushed to the other side.

Let the bubbling begin ! wooohoooo
 
And so it has. Gave the bucket a little josling and the airlock started bubbling right away.
Ok big relief for a newbe to see the airlock burping finally.
So is this something i want to rack into a secondary fermenter like a carboy after
the initial fermentation subsides ?
Getting conflicting info on this . Some say maybe better to just bottle it from the primary . If i will get better tasting and looking beer with bottling from a secondary then that is what i want.

thanks for any input ahead of time
 
Secondary isn't usually needed. Let it sit for 2 weeks, check gravity and transfer to bottling bucket when SG is consistent. Have a batch of Irish red that's cold crashing now and will bottle this weekend.

Welcome to your new obsession. Patience is key, but difficult with the first batches.

Cheers!
 
1st batch update.
It's been 2 weeks and have had 2 FG readings of 1.016 in the last 3 days.
Picked up a 72 qt round plastic container and have started cold crashing the brew as we speak. Liquid and ice up to 3 gal mark on primary fermenter, temp dropping fast.
I hope this cold crash strategy is worth the water and ice.
 
1st batch is now bottled but...... didn't remember to add the corn sugar
till the bottling bucket was 1/2 full. Think it will be all right or should i start listening for bottle bombs, prepare for liquid and glass disaster ?
 
Did you just dump the sugar solution into the bucket or did you give it a very gentle slow stir?
 
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