1st Brew Day -North Face Nut Brown

[kmanAZ]

Hi everyone. Spent a lot of time reading here before my first brew day. Everything went off pretty well with a few "hiccups".

I received a beginners beer brewing and extract kit for Christmas but didn't have a big pot, so I bought a big brew pot off Craig's list. I'm planning to order a burner from Amazon but decided to do a test boil of 5 gallons on the stove. Big mistake, the heat damaged the stove and countertop and took almost two hours just to get a small boil going. Needless to say, SWMBO lost some of her enthusiasm for beer brewing that day. My friend who bought me the kit just uses as small pot on the stove, and she kept asking why I need to overcomplicate things.

Next I Decided to build a wort chiller. From my experience it would seem buying one is best unless you enjoy building, cause it sure didn't save me any money. And again, SWMBO keeps asking me why I need to spend 3 days in the garage building this thing while my friend just puts his pot in the sink to cool.

Now of course I need a fermentation chamber because the house is 70 deg, which might be a bit warm I think. So I hit craigslist and pick up a 30 bottle wine chiller. "Why can't you just put the bucket in the closet or the garage?" SWMBO asks... "That's what your friend does."

Anyway, brew day went well. Borrowed a turkey burner from a friend. OG was 1.052. Now the waiting....

I have an Ebay aquarium controller on the way, so next project is to find another fermentation chamber. I have my eye on a sanyo from craigslist. Need to build the pipeline.

 

[cybershadow76]

you do not need to boil 5 gallons for extract brewing. Just boil 2-2.5 gallons and add the rest into the primary to get to 5 gallons.

 

[apratsunrthd]

I disagree with the above. You don't need to do a full boil but you have the equipment to do it, so there is simply no reason NOT to.

You have a very nice starting setup that should serve you well. Tell your SWMBO to lock it up. You're starting off right instead of half-cocked. You'll be able to consistently produce excellent beer with the setup you have.

 

[kmanAZ]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm super happy with the wine chiller. It can set a temp between 45 and 65F and the beer temp has been running about 10 degrees below set temp. I've been tweaking the set temp to keep the wort at about 67-68 deg. (the thermometer in the picture reads about 4 deg high). As the fermentation slows I assume the temp difference between set and wort will drop. I'm going on vacation starting tomorrow until Sat evening, so I won't be able to fiddle with it during that time. It will be in the fermenter 4 days by the time I leave, and I can't decide what temperature to set the chiller at while I'm gone. Yeast is Nottingham.

 

[apratsunrthd]

You're correct. Notty seems to take a little longer to finish in my experience so your internal temp will probably still be a little higher than the chiller. That said, it's really not going to hurt anything to put the chiller temp on 65 when you leave. By then, most of the fermentation activity will have completed. Note that many report a better yeast 'cleanup' by actually raising the temp a couple degrees once fermentation is complete. I haven't tried it yet because I ferment 4-5 batches at a time in my chest freezer and my house stays a couple degrees cooler.

 

[kmanAZ]

just bottled last night after three weeks in the fermenter. I had some in a bottle in the fermentation chamber that I was using for gravity readings and last night it had a distinct green apple taste. The beer in the primary didn't have even a hint of green apple, so that made me happy. Tasted great actually. My SG was right on at 1.052 and FG after priming was 1.012. I only ended up with about 44 bottles.