So, after a hiatus from brewing (moving, cost, space) I finally decided to find a homebrew shop in Charlotte and buy myself a partial kit. Belligerent SOB. I'm going to track the progress of this brew, but my last two brews didn't go so well.. (infection, maybe... over-carb'd bottle bombs) Perhaps by posting my progress on here I can find flaws in my system as I am a new homebrewer, kind of..,
So, on the 23rd I used some WLP001 and made an 800ml yeast starter for this aggressive, large brew.. So this didn't go so well, it exploded on me, twice. I measured out 113 grams of light dme on my Dillon precision scale, boiled for 10 minutes, diluted to 800ml with boiled water, pitched one vile of wlp001 and shook like crazy.. put it in the cabinet to keep the light out but occasionally swirled it. Next morning went to check on it and my cabinet was full of yeasty wort, I was running late so I left it only to return from work and the aluminum foil blew off and stuck to the top inside of my cabinet.. lesson learned.
So here comes the 24th.. I gave the yeast starter 24 hours to do its job before pitching. I completely sanitized my kitchen, equipment and whatnot while following the instructions provided from the LHBS with minor modifications to boil time and hop addition time. Everything went well except a tiny boil over during the last 2 minutes of boiling.. Go figure.. Cooled the wort down in an ice bath (opted not to use my wort chiller), cleaned and sanitized the 6 gallon carboy. Took a wort sample, 1.074 OG, good.. Everything was at 73 degrees exact; the wort, the boiled top off water, and the yeast starter.. It was perfect when I pitched into the carboy. (Wasn't really sure what the weird discoloration was forming on the sides of the carboy, they slowly made they're way to the bottom and settled. I'm assuming left over hop and grain sediment?)
(gotta keep the light out somehow, perfect carboy cover)
So I put the carboy in my new wine cooler fridge with a blow off tube.. and left for the weekend.. Big mistake. I forgot to set the temp before I left. The fermenter warmed to about 78 - 80 degrees or so over the weekend, it now rest at a cool 68 but I'm worried I damaged the flavor of the beer. Oh yea, it also foamed over, out of my blow off 1000ml Erlenmeyer flask, and all over the inside of the fridge. What a mess.
(mini beer!, you can clearly see how much yeast was lost during foam over, the blow off container made its own yeast cake)
All in all it was a fun, relaxing brew day, hopefully no mistakes were made but fermentation took off. It has finally calmed down now, and I'm trying to decide if a secondary is worth the hassle. I'm leaning towards yes with the amount of apparent residue in the carboy after pitching.
So, on the 23rd I used some WLP001 and made an 800ml yeast starter for this aggressive, large brew.. So this didn't go so well, it exploded on me, twice. I measured out 113 grams of light dme on my Dillon precision scale, boiled for 10 minutes, diluted to 800ml with boiled water, pitched one vile of wlp001 and shook like crazy.. put it in the cabinet to keep the light out but occasionally swirled it. Next morning went to check on it and my cabinet was full of yeasty wort, I was running late so I left it only to return from work and the aluminum foil blew off and stuck to the top inside of my cabinet.. lesson learned.
So here comes the 24th.. I gave the yeast starter 24 hours to do its job before pitching. I completely sanitized my kitchen, equipment and whatnot while following the instructions provided from the LHBS with minor modifications to boil time and hop addition time. Everything went well except a tiny boil over during the last 2 minutes of boiling.. Go figure.. Cooled the wort down in an ice bath (opted not to use my wort chiller), cleaned and sanitized the 6 gallon carboy. Took a wort sample, 1.074 OG, good.. Everything was at 73 degrees exact; the wort, the boiled top off water, and the yeast starter.. It was perfect when I pitched into the carboy. (Wasn't really sure what the weird discoloration was forming on the sides of the carboy, they slowly made they're way to the bottom and settled. I'm assuming left over hop and grain sediment?)
(gotta keep the light out somehow, perfect carboy cover)
So I put the carboy in my new wine cooler fridge with a blow off tube.. and left for the weekend.. Big mistake. I forgot to set the temp before I left. The fermenter warmed to about 78 - 80 degrees or so over the weekend, it now rest at a cool 68 but I'm worried I damaged the flavor of the beer. Oh yea, it also foamed over, out of my blow off 1000ml Erlenmeyer flask, and all over the inside of the fridge. What a mess.
(mini beer!, you can clearly see how much yeast was lost during foam over, the blow off container made its own yeast cake)
All in all it was a fun, relaxing brew day, hopefully no mistakes were made but fermentation took off. It has finally calmed down now, and I'm trying to decide if a secondary is worth the hassle. I'm leaning towards yes with the amount of apparent residue in the carboy after pitching.
