5th Batch Completed!.. A list of questions for you more experienced brewers!

[Zrab11]

Alright. Me and my buddy have brewed and bottled our 5th batch of beer. They have progressively gotten better. But this time when we brewed we wrote down Every step(we usually write down the process. Just not this detailed) and any questions we had while we were brewing and decided to ask this great community. So this will be a long post but I would love to get a few answers to some of the questions I may have. Thanks for reading.

Process:

1. Clean with oxyclean- 15 Gallon Keg brewpot, medal stirring spoon, Glass carboy, Bung,airlock,test tube, Hydrometer, Auto siphon,Temp Probe,scissors, tongs
Q: Should I clean the wort chiller with anything?
Q: Anything else that I should clean?

2. Add 6.5 gallons of water to the brew pot
Q: Should I add less? I liked adding all the water at the beginning and just cooking down to 5 gallons. I usually do 5 gallons at the beginning and then add 1 gallon 1/2 of water at the end to get the carboy to 5 gal.

3. heat water to 160 degrees

4. Take pot off of burner
Q: Should I leave the pot on the burner?

5. Add grains to bag, Tie bag on rod and suspend grains in the water.
Q: Should I move the bag around any?

6. Steep Grains for 30min over no heat
Q: Do I need to maintain 150-155 degrees the Whole time the grains are steeping or is it ok to let it drop below 150?
-I know getting over 170 can be bad for the grains but I didn't know if too low of a temp was bad as well

7. Remove grain bag

8. Add Malt Extract while stirring.
Q: Should we put it back over the burner and turn on the heat. or leave it where it is at? Any certain water temp that it is best to add malt extract to ?

9. turn Burner back on and heat to 212 degrees

10. Once you reach boiling-Follow hop adding schedule.

11. Add hops
Q: Stir while adding hops??

12. Wait 30 min till next hop addition
Q: Do anything during this time? Stir? Or just watch for boil overs and relax?

13. Sanitize Everything with star san.
Q: Do you rinse what you have sanitized at all? There is always a TON of bubbles in the carboy and I don't think that would taste very good in the beer so we always rinse them out? Should we just leave them?
Q: How much star san in a carboy 1/2 oz? 1/4 oz?

14.-16. Add more hops

17. Add the Wort chiller to the last 5 min of the boil
Q: Should we do this? anything we should do to clean the wort chiller before we add it?

18. Cool wort down to 75 degrees. (14 min)

19. Take gravity reading
Q: Take a reading after the wort is cooled down correct?

20. Siphon beer into carboy

21. Add yeast(smack Pak) and shake to aerate for 30 sec.
Q: Should I shake longer? Should I not shake the carboy?

22. Put carboy in temp controlled fermentation chamber.
-Attach temp probe to outside of carboy with 3in of insulation around the probe.
Q: IS this good enough to keep my fermentation chamber at a good temp.

23. 5 days from now add Hops- Dry hopping
Q:Wait for no activity? Or add when their is activity? Does it matter?

24. Heat up priming sugar- Cool it down
Q: how long does it usually take to cool down the priming sugar? Any faster way to cool it? Usually we put it in the freezer and it still takes like 45 min or so to cool to correct temp.


Alright those are the questions I had during brewing. they may all not matter and I am just worrying about things I don't need to worry about but thought I would ask anyway just to make sure I wasn't doing something really dumb or missing a crucial step.

So thanks for any comments you have.

 

[Orthobrewsky]

1. I would clean after brewing and sanitize before. I quickly hose down my chiller after brewing and it seems to stay clean enough that way.

2. It's ideal to boil all the water, but the difference you are talking about wouldn't be big so far as hop utilization or wort darkening. If you add water afterwards, you have to make sure it's sanitary, but you could also have it cold so as to help cool down your wort some more.

3, 4, 5, 6, 7. High temp is good for dissolving what you want from the grains, but just keep it under 170. I think you'd probably do fine heating to almost 170, taking the pot off burner and letting it sit. It could help to move the bag around a little now and then. If it is off the burner, there is no need to suspend the bag; you would just do that to keep it from burning on the bottom if you have the heating element on.

8. I think I'd at least start stirring in the extract while it is off the burner. That is so as not to scorch it. It probably wouldn't be a problem to have the heat on so long as you are stirring diligently and adding slowly, but I would at least see what I could do in a few minutes of stirring it off the heat.

11. No need to stir while adding hops; the boil stirs them nicely.

12. You could get some stuff ready for later if you need to.

13. Don't rinse the Star San, then you have to worry about sanitary rinse water. The amount of Star San in your foam won't affect the pH of your beer and the phosphorous will only serve as yeast nutrient.

17. The boil should sanitize the chiller. I always rinse mine off quickly after removing it from the boil and it stays clean enough that way.

18,19. It should be cooler than 75 for most kinds of beer. Lately, I've been cooling to about 60 or less as it seems to warm up about 5 degrees when transferred to carboy. Upper 60s is a standard recommendation for most ales, but many suggest pitching a tad cooler and letting it warm up.

21. There are different ways to aerate, shaking or rocking is one of them, just be careful. One smack pack, even very fresh, is generally not considered an ideal amount of yeast. Most folks make starters with those. Most of the time I use Fermentis Safale 05 or Safale 04 or Nottingham dry yeast. These are good yeasts and provide plenty of cells for regular gravity beers, with less need for aeration.

22. Yes, experiments have been done with a thermowell to verify that the probe tape on with insulation stays very close to the temp inside of a carboy.

23. Some recommend adding before the activity completely finishes, but most add dry hops later. I'm sure your process is fine. I think it is common just to have the dry hops in there for a week. Some like 3 days, some like 2 weeks.

24. The priming solution should cool off very quickly if thrown into your bottling bucket. It will certainly not be enough liquid to significantly change the temp of your beer, so I wouldn't worry about cooling it so much.

 

[h22lude]

Everything that you use should be cleaned prior to use and sanitized when touching the beer after boil. Wort chiller should be cleaned just like everything else. I clean it right after use when water and a sponge.

The amount of water you add depends on your system. I boil off a lot so I usually have a little over 7 gallons.

When steeping grains you want to keep the water around 160. If the temp dips you can turn the burner on. Just make sure the grains aren't touching the bottom because they can burn. Moving the grains around a little at first is good to get them all wet.

Just like grains, extract can burn so turn off the burner when adding it. You would add extract when water is boiling.

You can stir when adding hops but not really necessary. Just watch for boil overs and if the hops get stuck to the side of your kettle you can push them back into the water.

Starsan is a no rinse sanitizer so don't rinse or dry it. The bubbles are ok. Some even say the yeast like the bubbles. The amount of starsan you use is based on the amount of water you use. I believe it is 1oz per 5 gallons.

Wort chiller needs to be sanitized so either keep it in starsan or put it in 15 minutes before end of boil.

Hydrometers are calibrated at a certain temp and your wort should be at that temp. If it is higher then your reading will be off.

I usually shake until my arms hurt and then shake some more. It is very hard to over aerate when shaking so I say shake for 3 to 5 minutes.

I tape the probe to the side of my buckets and then tape paper towel over that to keep it insulated. As long as it is touching the bucket and insulated from the fridge temp.

Doesn't really matter. I usually wait a week then dry hop.

You can put it in the freezer for a few minutes but the cup or so of hot water will not kill the yeast in 5 gallons of beer so you can just throw it right in the bottling bucket.

 

[Onkel_Udo]

Everything here is great. Just a couple of my own notes:

"Wort chiller needs to be sanitized so either keep it in starsan or put it in 15 minutes before end of boil." I would not put it in 15 minutes before but to each their own. 5 minutes is sufficient or you can put it in directly after your last bitter/flavor hops addition (aroma is usually 1-5 minutes or dry-hopped) if there is one close tot he end of boil.

I use the "splash" method of aeration and have never had a problem. I have a piece of 3/8" ID copper with the end crimped and lots of 1/8" holes driled in it. The open end goes in the tube from the kettle and use a clip (clothes pin in my case) to keep the copper suspeded just inside the neck of the carboy. Wort spraying every which way is plent of aeration).

Finally, if you want clean, fast fermenting beers use a starter for your yeast. It is a 15 minute process to make, requires no new equipment and it can cut two days off your finishing time. I make up multiple pint jars of mini wort at once using 1 lb of DME. When it is time to use one, they are already chilled, smack the pack, leave the jar of wort on the counter to warm to room temp, pour the wort into a 1/2 gal sanitized growler (or even 22 oz beer bottle if you feel brave) followed by the, now very active, yeast and slap on a stopper with and airlock. allow to ferment for two days and pitch at high krausen. One pint is enough for 5 gallons and two is slitghtly under pitcheing for 10 gallons.

 

[woozy]

2. Add 6.5 gallons of water to the brew pot
Q: Should I add less? I liked adding all the water at the beginning and just cooking down to 5 gallons. I usually do 5 gallons at the beginning and then add 1 gallon 1/2 of water at the end to get the carboy to 5 gal.

Entirely up to you. 6.5 boil to 5 gallons is a full boil. Less than 6.5 to less than 5 gallons requiring a top-off is a partial boil. When you do all grains you don't want to do partial boils because you want to use as much water as you can to get the greatest efficiency out of extracting those sugars as you can. With extracts you don't want such a small boil that your wort is half syrup. Anything in between is a choice. Partial boils are easier to cool. Full boils seem more natural.

3. heat water to 160 degrees

4. Take pot off of burner
Q: Should I leave the pot on the burner?

Doesn't matter; no one cares. You don't want to leave the burner on so that it gets hot at the water gets above 170. But if you take it off the burner nothing bad will happen either.

5. Add grains to bag, Tie bag on rod and suspend grains in the water.
Q: Should I move the bag around any?

Yeah, sure, why not? Doesn't really matter. I like like to do this cause it seems right to get the most steeping out. But steeping is all really rough and imprecise.

6. Steep Grains for 30min over no heat
Q: Do I need to maintain 150-155 degrees the Whole time the grains are steeping or is it ok to let it drop below 150?
-I know getting over 170 can be bad for the grains but I didn't know if too low of a temp was bad as well

170+ releases nasty tasting tannins. Cold water takes forever. Basically you are making tea. You can do this with 60 degree water if you are willing to wait a couple of days. You'll get more out of your steeping fastest if you have the water hottest but other than that, there is no other issue.

8. Add Malt Extract while stirring.
Q: Should we put it back over the burner and turn on the heat. or leave it where it is at? Any certain water temp that it is best to add malt extract to ?

You don't need to cook the extract at all and the less time you spend cooking it the less likely you are to get Mailliard reactions (beer turning dark) and the extract "twang" taste. Thus it's best to not add it until the water is boiling. Even better is to add only 1/3 of it when the water is boiling and to add the rest of it at flame-out when you take it off the boilers.

11. Add hops
Q: Stir while adding hops??

Honestly, I never thought about that. I always stir to prevent the contrast in temperatures causing a brief boil over. But stirring to mix the hops I guess isn't nesc. as the boiling water will distribute them just fine. No reason *not* to stir though.

12. Wait 30 min till next hop addition
Q: Do anything during this time? Stir? Or just watch for boil overs and relax?

Nope. Clean your fermenter. Post a snarker posting on HBT. Eat a bagel. It's all good.

13. Sanitize Everything with star san.
Q: Do you rinse what you have sanitized at all? There is always a TON of bubbles in the carboy and I don't think that would taste very good in the beer so we always rinse them out? Should we just leave them?
Q: How much star san in a carboy 1/2 oz? 1/4 oz?

StarSan is a *no-rinse* sanitizer so you do not rinse it. The foam is harmless and taste just wonderful. Leaving the starsan foam on leaves a layer of wet anti-microbial liquid. Rinsing off lets the microbes start gathering all over again. Don *not* rinse. The starsan eventually breaks down and becomes harmless. Actually it adds nutrients to the yeast. (Once it breaks down.)

How much in a carboy? The amount doesn't matter, what matters is that you coat every surface. Pour "a few cups" of solution into the carboy. Slosh it about so that every inch of the interior gets coated and the pour the excess back.

17. Add the Wort chiller to the last 5 min of the boil
Q: Should we do this? anything we should do to clean the wort chiller before we add it?

Like your spoon and your kettle, the wort chiller should be clean. You put the wort chiller into the wort while it is boiling so that you do not need to sanitize it. If you don't put the wort chiller in during the boil (and I don't see why you'd have to nor do I see why you wouldn't) than you will need to sanitize the wort chiller.

19. Take gravity reading
Q: Take a reading after the wort is cooled down correct?

yep.

21. Add yeast(smack Pak) and shake to aerate for 30 sec.
Q: Should I shake longer? Should I not shake the carboy?

This is the one time you should shake your beer. Want to aerate as much as possible. Go nuts. Shake it for as long as you can stand it. (Which for me is about 30 seconds. I *really* should shake it longer but it's exhausting.)

24. Heat up priming sugar- Cool it down
Q: how long does it usually take to cool down the priming sugar? Any faster way to cool it? Usually we put it in the freezer and it still takes like 45 min or so to cool to correct temp.

You don't need to cool down priming sugar.

 

[boydster]

The above is all great info and I won't beat a dead horse by repeating all of the same info. I just want to highlight what woozy said about the Star San. It's a no-rinse sanitizer. Don't fear the foam! When you rinse it, you are risking re-introducing bugs that you just did all that work to remove.

Also, don't just fill your carboy with 5 gallons of Star San and then dump it down the drain when you're done. You can reuse it over several batches (just ask Yooper... she's been using the same bottle of Star San for like 8 years now I think). You only need enough to wet the surface of whatever you are sanitizing. You can use a spray bottle to get some of the smaller things. Or if you make a couple gallons in a bucket, you can dunk things in it. You can pull out just enough to splash around the inside of the carboy and then drain back into the bucket. Seal up the bucket with sanitizer inside at the end of your brew day and store it until you need it again for bottling or your next batch.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Alright. Me and my buddy have brewed and bottled our 5th batch of beer. They have progressively gotten better. But this time when we brewed we wrote down Every step(we usually write down the process. Just not this detailed) and any questions we had while we were brewing and decided to ask this great community. So this will be a long post but I would love to get a few answers to some of the questions I may have. Thanks for reading.

Process:

1. Clean with oxyclean- 15 Gallon Keg brewpot, medal stirring spoon, Glass carboy, Bung,airlock,test tube, Hydrometer, Auto siphon,Temp Probe,scissors, tongs
Q: Should I clean the wort chiller with anything?
No this will get sanitized in the boil. Make sure to stick it in with atleast 15min left.
Q: Anything else that I should clean?
Keep a spray bottle of starsan available to spray/sanitize anything you need at a moments notice. Dont stress take your time.

2. Add 6.5 gallons of water to the brew pot
Q: Should I add less? I liked adding all the water at the beginning and just cooking down to 5 gallons. I usually do 5 gallons at the beginning and then add 1 gallon 1/2 of water at the end to get the carboy to 5 gal.
I assume your doing extract/PM. Using a full boil will always result in a better beer/hop utilization because your not diluting your final product with topup water

3. heat water to 160 degrees

4. Take pot off of burner
Q: Should I leave the pot on the burner?
Not if you can keep that constant temputure. Keeping on the BURNER but flame off will alow you to reheat if the temp drops. Constant temps are most important here.

5. Add grains to bag, Tie bag on rod and suspend grains in the water.
Q: Should I move the bag around any?
Poke it around every 15mintutes, make sure there are no dough balls when you first start the steep also. Good saturation and consistency within the mash is most important. Check multiple spots in your kettle for temp variation.

6. Steep Grains for 30min over no heat
Q: Do I need to maintain 150-155 degrees the Whole time the grains are steeping or is it ok to let it drop below 150?
-I know getting over 170 can be bad for the grains but I didn't know if too low of a temp was bad as well
Keeping a constant temp is ideal but not a problem if it falls 4-5 degrees.

7. Remove grain bag

8. Add Malt Extract while stirring.
Q: Should we put it back over the burner and turn on the heat. or leave it where it is at? Any certain water temp that it is best to add malt extract to ?
I would add 2/3 of your extract wether it be DME OR LME at the end of your boil. This helps to keep color low with less caramelization (when brewing lighter beer) and keeps the extract "twang" to a minimal. Dont like it stick to the bottom either!!
9. turn Burner back on and heat to 212 degrees

10. Once you reach boiling-Follow hop adding schedule.

11. Add hops
Q: Stir while adding hops??
Not necessary but make sure there well incorporating into the wort. The boil will take care of most of the stiring.

12. Wait 30 min till next hop addition
Q: Do anything during this time? Stir? Or just watch for boil overs and relax? Clean up what you can, dump grains clean bags, sanitize FV and get ready for boil overs like you said.

13. Sanitize Everything with star san.
Q: Do you rinse what you have sanitized at all? There is always a TON of bubbles in the carboy and I don't think that would taste very good in the beer so we always rinse them out? Should we just leave them?
Q: How much star san in a carboy 1/2 oz? 1/4 oz?
DONT FEAR THE FOAM!! theres a thread on here, check it out.
Diluted starsan is atcually food for yeast and helps with production in lag phase. I use 7cc per gallon diluted, and then spray the carboy. You save TONS of star san this way.
14.-16. Add more hops

17. Add the Wort chiller to the last 5 min of the boil
Q: Should we do this? anything we should do to clean the wort chiller before we add it?
Make sure you put it in 15min before to avoid infection.

18. Cool wort down to 75 degrees. (14 min)

19. Take gravity reading
Q: Take a reading after the wort is cooled down correct?
Correct measure should be at 70F and adjusted per.
20. Siphon beer into carboy

21. Add yeast(smack Pak) and shake to aerate for 30 sec.
Q: Should I shake longer? Should I not shake the carboy?
Shake as much as you can, it will never reach otimal levels but its better than nothing (i do it aswell, around 2-3min with good shaking)
22. Put carboy in temp controlled fermentation chamber.
-Attach temp probe to outside of carboy with 3in of insulation around the probe.
Q: IS this good enough to keep my fermentation chamber at a good temp.
Sorry cant comment here i swamp cooler in one of those keg bins.

23. 5 days from now add Hops- Dry hopping
Q:Wait for no activity? Or add when their is activity? Does it matter?
Always check gravity, airlock activity IS NOT a measure of fermentation.
Dry hop when you reach terminal gravity, and no longer than 7-10 days. Some say sooner but i havent ha bad experience with up to 10.
24. Heat up priming sugar- Cool it down
Q: how long does it usually take to cool down the priming sugar? Any faster way to cool it? Usually we put it in the freezer and it still takes like 45 min or so to cool to correct temp.
Just dump it in the bottling bucket...5gal of beer will bring it down to temp real fast!


Alright those are the questions I had during brewing. they may all not matter and I am just worrying about things I don't need to worry about but thought I would ask anyway just to make sure I wasn't doing something really dumb or missing a crucial step.

So thanks for any comments you have.

Wrote in my comments on each question!

Good luck
Cheers!