A wonderful first taste of my first brew.

[sayteller]

I bottled my very first home brew last night, which also gave me the chance to taste it. I will say it tasted very close to what I am going for. It tasted a little green and obviously no carbonation, but other than that it was good. There were some very slight fruity notes that I hope will balance out with a good 3 week sit in the bottle.

Before all this wonderful tasting it had been 8 days in the primary for my Amber Ale. I decided to pop the top and take a look and hydrometer reading. Here is were I was slightly conflicted. There was still a krausen on the top of the wort but I went ahead and took a gravity reading and it came out to 1.016. Pretty much spot on. (OG was 1.050)

I went ahead and bottled anyway with priming sugars, should I not have done this? Should I have waited for the krausen to fall back first?

 

[beerkrump]

Wait. Patience is always rewarded. If there is ever a question concerning beer after the yeast are in it, and the choices for answers are:

A) Do it now.
B) Do it later.

Choose B.

 

[sayteller]

Ya, I understand patients is key. Trust me, I was more than willing to wait on it, I am in no rush (other than I want to drink it) but I thought you always go with the gravity reading. The only sure fire way to tell is by taking hydrometer readings, or so i thought.

 

[MIbrew]

The only sure fire way to tell is by taking hydrometer readings, or so i thought.

Although I don't claim to be an expert, I completely agree with this statement. If your FG was within limits of your recipe, then I would say you are ok. Had visible fermentation stopped in your airlock? Visible fermentation can not judge if you are done or not, but that coupled with a hydrometer reading will increase confidence 2 fold.

When I did my first homebrew I left it in the primary for 5 days, took a reading, thought it was a little high and waited 5 more days. After that 5 days the reading I took was the same, so I didn't worry too much about exploding bottles. I still ended up putting my bottles in a giant rubbermaid, though.

If it's your first homebrew and you don't explode any bottles, you will love the taste no matter what anyone says. At least I was that way.

 

[sayteller]

Although I don't claim to be an expert, I completely agree with this statement. If your FG was within limits of your recipe, then I would say you are ok. Had visible fermentation stopped in your airlock? Visible fermentation can not judge if you are done or not, but that coupled with a hydrometer reading will increase confidence 2 fold.

When I did my first homebrew I left it in the primary for 5 days, took a reading, thought it was a little high and waited 5 more days. After that 5 days the reading I took was the same, so I didn't worry too much about exploding bottles. I still ended up putting my bottles in a giant rubbermaid, though.

If it's your first homebrew and you don't explode any bottles, you will love the taste no matter what anyone says. At least I was that way.

My airlock was still bubbling approx every 30-40 seconds apart. But again, I know you are not suppose to go by the airlock for fermentation in the least bit so I ignored it.

LOL. I too put all my bottles in a giant rubbermaid container. Nice move! I dont think I will explode any but I guess only time will tell now.

 

[beerkrump]

Yeastie beasties have many jobs to complete before your beer is done. The last one, before they go to sleep, is clean up. During the sedimentation phase, yeast will gather chemicals needed when they reawaken. A stable hydrometer reading a couple days apart from each other can give you confidence that the fermentation phase of yeasts' life cycle is complete, but to get the most from your brew you should let the yeast finish up.

 

[sayteller]

Yeastie beasties have many jobs to complete before your beer is done. The last one, before they go to sleep, is clean up. During the sedimentation phase, yeast will gather chemicals needed when they reawaken. A stable hydrometer reading a couple days apart from each other can give you confidence that the fermentation phase of yeasts' life cycle is complete, but to get the most from your brew you should let the yeast finish up.

well, considering Ive already bottled I guess I wont be getting 100% from my first brew.

 

[beerkrump]

They still do some clean up in the bottle. It is just that there are less of them doing the work.

A lot of us have made the same mistakes and are more than eager to spread around our experience. That's the beauty of this forum.

If you keep brewing, eventually you will get your pipeline full and the urge to rush the process lessens greatly.