Bundle of beginners questions

[ProPyro]

So I've got my first brew bottled and reaching maturity and my second brew fermenting right now. I probably should have stepped forward sooner with my beginners questions, but I guess now's better than never.

The two brews I've made so far are both 1 gallon kits from Brooklyn Brew Shop. The first being "Everyday IPA", and the other is a "Bourbon Dubbel". Both times I had a somewhat difficult time managing the temperature during the mash. The temperature would end up suddenly spiking 30-40 degrees over the recommended temperature and I'd scramble to move the pot and drop the temperature. Was this the right response or is that much of a temperature variation inconsequential?

While I was bottling my first brew I lost suction (and my patience) and ended up sucking on the siphon to get it started again ... I just turned that beer into swamp water, didn't I?

Speaking of my first brew, there's a good 2-3cm of trub sitting on the bottom of each bottle. I was thinking of running my next batch through a coffee filter to catch that and make for something that looks a lot more appetizing. Is the coffee filter a bad idea or am I better off using another method to filter it?

My second brew specified that I strain the mash twice, because I kept slipping and getting mash in the wort I ended up straining it 5 times. What kind of effect am I to expect this to have on my brew?

My grandfather has lots equipment for making wine and I already have an acid based sterilizer I use liberally (either to soak or out of a spray bottle). What other steps should I take if I'm going to use any of his wine equipment, or should I just buy my own stuff to avoid contamination?

I want to step up from 1 gallon growlers and start brewing in carboys. I have a 30L pot we used a lot in the past to make tomato sauce, but it hasn't been used in some years. Would this be a case of thoroughly washing it and letting it sit in sanitizer for a while, or is the pot considered fouled for making beer? If it matters, the pot is aluminum.

My grandfather has about a dozen S-shaped airlocks that have a double chamber for liquid. Is there any disadvantage to using these airlocks over the three piece film canister-ish ones I've seen at my HB shop.

That's all I have for now, thanks for any help you guys can give me.

 

[BrewerBear]

The temperture spikes will not help the end product but it has already happened so let it ride and see what you get.

Loss of suction will not turn it into swamp water,it may allow air which can oxidize the beer,but again it has already happened so just try to make sure it does not happed again.I would recommend an autosiphon.The trub can be reduced with good siphoning.

Clean the aluminum pot good,then do a full boil for about 30 minutes to create a passive oxidation layer and you will be fine.I brew many batches in a aluminum turkey cooker.

 

[ProPyro]

What I meant with the swamp water comment was saliva contamination spoiling the beer while it matured in the bottles.

 

[Kate00]

What I meant with the swamp water comment was saliva contamination spoiling the beer while it matured in the bottles.

It could be a problem but you might get away with it. Ive seen and made some sanitation mistakes that turned out fine. Wait to see what happens before you panic and dump the batch, and snag an auto siphon.

 

[grathan]

30 degrees is a pretty big swing for a mash. You'll get better at regulating the heat as you go. Just stir more and cut the heat faster.

coffee filter might work, but don't try it after fermentation. Oxygen would be bad for the beer.
2-3cm seems like a lot of stuff. What do you have for equipment? Try racking the beer from the fermentor to a bottling bucket and leaving some of the stuff on the bottom behind.

Don't suck on the hose. Get an autosiphon. I would be bet the beer is soured (will taste like green apples), but don't give up on it, you never know..

S-shaped airlocks are fine.

You could strain the mash 50 times with no ill effects.

post a picture, if you can, of both your stuff and your grandfather's stuff.

 

[ProPyro]

What I have that's mine is pretty simple. It's just a bare bones starter kit. Click the details tab under the video.
http://brooklynbrewshop.com/beer-making-kits/everyday-ipa-1-gal-kit

As for my grandfathers stuff, well he's old school and I'll have to take some pictures of his wine set up.

 

[ProPyro]

Here are some pictures of my grandfathers equipment that I have available to me.

http://i.imgur.com/26oJzh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jcpknh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZVVIIh.jpg

Some of the equipment is pretty old and well used, so I'm thinking wine remnants would be permanently imbedded in them. There's three glass Carboys in there that I'm pretty sure I'd have free reign on, since the bulk of what my grandfather does is in the demi-johns. Outside that, I'm not sure what's safe to use inthere without risk of cross contamination.

 

[snaps10]

Holy demijohns batman. Your Grandpas stuff is great for a budding brewer.

Learn patience, patience will be your best friend during your brewing career.

As others said, get an autosiphon. They are a godsend.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Try to maintain proper mash temps. When I did stovetop AG I had great results by doing the following. Get the water to your temp + a few degrees to compensate for grain temps, stir the two well. Then cover the pot, and wrap in towels/blankets and leave it be. Yeah, you will probably get a few degrees drop, but I found an old comforter and a snuggie kept temps rather steady. Its just too risky to keep adding heat when mashing.


I will repeat that you do not want to use the coffee filter. To keep down on bottle trub just let it sit an extra week or so before racking off the cake into your bottling container. That or cold crash the fermenter to drop the yeast out of suspension and compact the yeast cake before you bottle. You will get far far less trub that way. I have even managed to get it down to a milimeter in bottles after conditioning by just letting it settle naturally in the fermenter before bottling.

+1 on the racking cane. It makes transferring far easier and helps keep trub transfer down as well. You probably do not have swamp water, beer is rather forgiving, but there is the possibility of some/all of your beers becoming sours.

Overstraining it probably didnt do anything much to it. You are fine there.

Winemaking equipment shares a fair bit of equipment with beermaking. Use it.

For the pot, just make sure it is clean and not oily, then fill with water and boil it for a while. You will notice a dulling, or odd colored haze to it. This is the layer mentioned above. Do not scrub this off. You are fine. My old brewpot was used for many different things and I have yet to grow an arm out of my forehead from drinking my beer.

And last but not least, welcome to the addiction. Soon enough you will be able to relax with your homebrew. Do not get discouraged by the little hiccups that happen along the way as they make you a better brewer when you figure out how to avoid them.

 

[ProPyro]

Thanks a lot for the advice guys. I also was able to try my beer last night.

It wasn't swamp water, though it looked like I dredged it out of a swamp with a bucket. It was drinkable and didn't have any really off flavors.

But it was ridiculously over carbonated, supposedly by adding too much honey to the beer when I was bottling it. If I wasn't careful how I opened the bottle I'd loose 3/4 of it from it foaming out of the bottle.

The beer tasted like it had almost no body to it and very sweet and thin. It still had the citrusy taste I'd expect from an IPA, but nothing else and no real bitterness. I poured the finished beer through a coffee filter to catch the trub, but it looked like there was nothing caught in the filter. Maybe it was sediment that was only forming because of the really high bottle pressure?

http://i.imgur.com/ekBvH.jpg

 

[snaps10]

Take a good bottle opener and slowly release the pressure in each bottle. While watching the beer inside, when you see the foam hit the top, let off the opener. I will hit the bottle with my capper too. Do this 3-4 times with a couple days in between and your carbonation will go down. It'll give your beer a chance to settle. Remember, time is your beer's friend. Also, make sure you're putting the beer in the fridge for a day or two before opening, that'll give the yeast and floaters some time to cold crash and stick to the bottom of the bottle.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Looks kinda like orange juice...

Refrigerate the bottles for at least 24 hours and the cake should settle a little firmer. This can also assist in keeping the bottle from gushing as badly. When pouring go slowly and stop before the silt goes into the glass.

What were your OG/FG's? Yeast is quite a bit smaller than coffee grounds. I do not think the filter will stop much of it, but rather would mix it back into the solution. I am glad its drinkable though.

If you can post the ingredients/your process we can probably better analyze where the lack of bitterness/body came from.

 

[ProPyro]

I wish I could be specific with the ingredients, but it was a premade mix. All I can say with certainty is that it's made with Columbus and Cascade hops. I'm not sure what yeast or what kinds of barley I was using. This is the kit, http://brooklynbrewshop.com/1-gallon-beer-mixes/everyday-ipa-mix .

I'm pretty sure I messed up on the mash, both mashing in and out because I had a hard time keeping the temperature from spiking and plummeting. The boil seems harder to mess up, since I just tossed in the Columbus hops first, and gradually added Cascade hops as instructed.

And for reference, these are the instructions that I tried to follow. http://brooklynbrewshop.com/directions/Brooklyn Brew Shop - Everyday IPA Instructions.pdf

At the bottling step I dissolved three tablespoons of honey in the water as instructed, would using pasteurized store bought honey have had any impact? I suspect the initial reason for a lot of trub being in the bottles is because we moved the growler from the basement to the kitchen to bottle and that stirred up a lot of crap. The batch fermenting isn't going to be moved till after it's siphoned.

 

[grathan]

all grain kits are a tough way to start out, perhaps try a canned malt recipe? I bet there is plenty of homebrew shops close by to you that sell recipes that aren't all-grain.

I don't see one in your grandpa's stuff, but a hydrometer is also a good investment. It can tell very important stuff like how well your mash did, and how fermented the batch gets.

Instead of bottling with honey try corn sugar(dextrose) on the next batch. It's easier to measure out and the bottles won't get over-carbonated by accidentally adding too much.

 

[ProPyro]

There is a pretty good looking home brew shop within 20 km of my house and another on my route home from work. I'm putting together a shopping list of things to pick up on my next stop.

I figured with all the honey clinging to the measuring spoon I'd have put less in than the required 3 tbsp.

By the way, what are OG/FG's? I'm learning the brewing terms, but I'm not quite getting the abbreviations just yet.

 

[GeorgiaTiger]

OG = Original Gravity meaning the gravity taken before capping the carboy for fermentation. Original gravity is a measure of the fermentable and unfermentable substances in the wort before fermentation. OG gives the brewer an idea of the potential alcoholic strength of the final product. After fermentation when OG is mathematically compared to FG, Final Gravity, the exact alcoholic strength can be determined

FG - Final gravity is a measure of the unfermantable substances remaining in beer after fermentation. When FG is mathematically compared to OG, Original Gravity, the exact alcoholic strength can be determined.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Additionally the FG will let you know about the mouthfeel that the beer is going to be when you drink it. A lower FG will result in a thinner drier beer, where a higher FG will tell you that you have a thicker, usually maltier and sweeter beer.

The OG/FG can be determined best with a hydrometer or refractometer. Since you are saying that you do not have a hydrometer I am assuming you do not know these numbers.

 

[ProPyro]

That is correct Jon. A hydrometer is going to be on my list of goodies to pick up. Hopefully my home brew shop is open for boxing day.

 

[grathan]

Not to confuse you further, but a hydrometer requires quite a bit of liquid to float. You might be able to just stick this in the fermentor, but a lot of people withdraw the liquid out and measaure seperately. Probably not substantial if your brewing larger batches, but a few measurements from a 1 gallon batch can rob you of a good chunk of your beer (you usually wouldn't pour this back into the fermentor. You also might need a way to get some beer into the flask that holds the hydrometer. Perhaps you could tip and pour your fermentor if it's only 1 gallon, or perhaps you could use the autosiphon to fill the flask.

Someone mentioned a refractometer. I like this measuring tool better than a hydrometer mainly because it only requires a drop or two of liquid to take a measurement.

 

[snaps10]

Lots of people just sanitize and drop straight in the fermentor. Personally, drinking the graduated cylinder samples are a great part of brewing to me, but I'm also brewing 12x as much beer.

 

[ProPyro]

I'm pretty sure this will be my last 1 gallon batch. Good to know I can sanitize and drop the hydrometer right in there.

 

[snaps10]

If you're stepping up to bigger batches, pick yourself up a thief. You can measure your gravity right in it. Taste the samples you pull. Not the different flavors and aromas. The sweetness of the the half fermented wort. Pay attention to the changes you see between samples. One of the great parts of brewing IMO. The process from wort to beer is a fascinating ride.