2 Questions from First Time (Hopefully just paranoia)

[Ale to the Chief]

First I want to thank you guys who have been answering my virgin brewer questions on here. I've honestly gotten better information from reading this site than from the books I bought on home-brewing.

My first batch is now one week into the primary and everything went real smooth except for 2 things that are concerning me. One was during the boil. I read alot about the hot break and boil overs so I was real careful with that but it never ended up rising up or foaming or coming anywhere near boiling over. I was boiling it real hard too. Can this happen sometimes or did I somehow manager to miss the hot break?

The other question... now that its been in the primary for a week and all airlock bubbling stopped a couple days ago I decided to take a peek in at it. It smelled great but I had no foam or "white stuff" at the top like I heard there is supposed to be...just some floating hops and hops stuck to the side. Could something be wrong?

Thanks again...

 

[Yooper]

It all sounds perfect! You might not get much hot break with extract beers, so don't worry about that. Your boil sounds just fine!

And you get a big krausen during active fermentation, usually. After the fermentation starts to slow, the krausen falls back into the beer, usually leaving a big tell-tale ring of crud a little higher than your beer level.

So, on both counts, it sounds perfect!

 

[ohiobrewtus]

Agreed. It sounds like you did things properly.

What you were expecting to see is called krausen, and if airlock activity had been stopped for a couple of days by the time that you snuck a peek, the krausen could very well have fallen already.

Enjoy your beer, and get another batch going ASAP!

 

[Ale to the Chief]

Thanks for the reassurances. You guys are awesome. Now i just cant wait to drink it (but will).

Those hops floating on top....how do I keep those from getting into my bottles? Will they eventually sink down too or do I need to strain them out or something?

 

[jmiracle]

Thanks for the reassurances. You guys are awesome. Now i just cant wait to drink it (but will).

Those hops floating on top....how do I keep those from getting into my bottles? Will they eventually sink down too or do I need to strain them out or something?

If you use a racking cane to siphon you should be fine, next time try to leave that stuff in the brewpot using various methods (I usually pour through a strainer but I might try whirlpooling, I've heard good things).

 

[Yooper]

When you rack it to the bottling bucket, you'll keep the tip of the racking cane just above the crud on the bottom to avoid all the trub, and you'll just avoid most of those floaters. Sometimes they sink, sometimes not. That's one reason it's good to wait at least a couple of weeks before bottling- most of the stuff settles out with time.

Your racking cane should have a tip on it to help prevent stuff from entering the tube. If I do alot of dryhopping, sometimes I use a sanitized paint strainer mesh bag over it, but not usually.

 

[Joker]

Sounds like everything is going great, and everyone has covered all the questions with the same response I would have given. So I will just say congrats on the brew and if you think this part was fun, wait til you get to drink it and share it with friends.