Brew No 2 - Not sure what to expect

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4JBrew

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So, I brewed my first ever beer in November and was very happy with the results. This go around, I made some beginner mistakes that I DIDN'T make the first time!!

I started with a Midwest Supplies Hank's Hefeweizen that I wanted to add some local honey to. I purchased a 6 gal glass carboy after brewing my first batch in a bucket and depriving myself of watching the fermentation! I had everything all planned out, and decided to take this on today.


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I took the grains that came with the kit to the Local HB shop to have them crushed.


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I had sterilized my eq and got all my ingredients staged for the brew.


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I placed the crushed grains in the bag after temp hit 155.

Meanwhile, I have the LME a hot water bath to loosen it up.
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After adding the LME and DME, I brought the wort up to a boil again. I started to add the pellet hops and that's when disaster struck! I had a big 'ol boil over.

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What a mess!! Just as bad as everyone has described. I am using way too small of a kettle. I should have known better!!! New kettle WILL be purchased before the next brew. I must admit that I am a little worried about what I may have lost in the boil over.....hops?.....I decided to relax and continue to make my homebrew.


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After 55 minutes I added the lb of local honey and boiled for 5 mins. I then placed the wort in an ice bath and brought the temp down to <80f.

Using a funnel I poured the wort into my glass carboy and topped off with some bottled water. I then made my next rookie mistake (another mistake I didn't make the first time!!)...... I pitched the yeast and forgot to take a hydrometer reading before putting the carboy in the basement with the blow off tube. So much for an OG reading!!

I must say, I am upset with myself over the mistakes I made and worried that brew number 2 will not be as good as my first one. Only time will tell.



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Look like you've got a nice neat setup.

In all likelihood you've lost a bit of the initial hop addition (assuming you had one), this will reduce the bitterness factor (IBU's) of the finished beer. By how much, who knows..
To be fair though you may end up with a fantastic beer anyway so just chalk that one down to experience.

If you have an auto-siphon, you could draw a bit to take a measurement if you're desperate. Personally I'd leave it be and just enjoy your mystery abv beer when it's done.

You could also input your recipe grain bill into brewing software if you use it to calculate the approx OG it would have given. (Very ball park though given you may not know evaporation rate and efficiency of your steeped grain)
 
Boil overs happen :) but you ended up with Beer!

I wouldn't worry about the OG reading, most of time unless something drastic goes wrong, like getting your volumes completely wrong, the OG will be in the ball park of the recipe.
 
Here's some eye candy! My darn time lapse setup died at about 3:30 in the AM, so I didn't get the whole bottom to top rise. Started at about 9:30 PM.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY1-VjU373w"]http://www.youtube.com//watch?v=WY1-VjU373w?[/ame]
 
Yes. Just bring up a seperate tab with the video. Then go to the lil window top left on the browser & copy the address in said window. Then come back here to the reply window,& click on the lil blue globe with the chain link across it. This brings up a window to "paste" the link into. Post the link to your reply in the window,& look to see if "HTTP://" is repeated twice. If it is,deleat one set of them in the two places it can be seen in the raw link. It should work when pasted.
 
26 hours in the fermenter.

Going strong!:rockin:
 
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Yes. Just bring up a seperate tab with the video. Then go to the lil window top left on the browser & copy the address in said window. Then come back here to the reply window,& click on the lil blue globe with the chain link across it. This brings up a window to "paste" the link into. Post the link to your reply in the window,& look to see if "HTTP://" is repeated twice. If it is,deleat one set of them in the two places it can be seen in the raw link. It should work when pasted.

Thank you! I thought that was it, but apparently I couldn't embed videos from Flickr. Had to upload to YouTube, and then those clips show up fine.
 
That time lapse video is really cool. You gotta do another one and make sure you get the whole rise in there. Truly fascinating.
 
lawle102,

Will do! I was so mad when I woke up and saw the camera was dead, but I should have known better! I think I've got a better solution for my next brew (Oatmeal Stout). I'm right there with you on the fascination aspect. I keep watching it! lol!
:cross:
 
I noticed some dry yeast stuck to the inside of the carboy neck. Will this be a problem?

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unionrdr - Thx!

I do have quite a bit of Krausen "crust" that is stuck to the side of the carboy just above the beer line. When I transport the carboy upstairs, I'm sure there will be some splashing and I'm afraid that "crust" will fall back into the beer. Is that going to be a problem? When I rack to the bottling bucket, I'll probably let it sit in there for 10 minutes or so before I start bottling in case I rack over any of that crud into the bottling bucket. What do you think?
 
Took a gravity reading today. Sitting at 1.010, right where it should be. Bottling on schedule for Saturday.

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So, I bottled up Brew 02 today. I must say, it seems quite a bit darker than I expected. This was a Midwest Supplies Hanks Hefeweizen. The color is supposed to be on the light end of the spectrum. My only change to the recipe was the addition of about a lb of honey. Didn't think it would affect the color that much. You think that's the reason for the darker beer?

FG: 1.011

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