Couple of questions before first brew

[rcp197]

So I'm getting ready to brew my first batch and have a couple of questions. I have the northern brewer kit. Thanks in advance for any help!

1. Do I new to use chemicals to clean my equipment or can I just use Dawn dish liquid and the sanitize?
2. What's the best way to aerate the wort? Just slosh it around like northern says? Buy a drill attachment like I've seen people use?
3. Should I strain the wort when adding to the fermenter or just dump away? First batch will be caribou slobber.
4. My water is hard, but doesn't taste bad. Should I use it or should I buy bottled?

 

[evrose]

So I'm getting ready to brew my first batch and have a couple of questions. I have the northern brewer kit. Thanks in advance for any help!

1. Do I new to use chemicals to clean my equipment or can I just use Dawn dish liquid and the sanitize?
2. What's the best way to aerate the wort? Just slosh it around like northern says? Buy a drill attachment like I've seen people use?
3. Should I strain the wort when adding to the fermenter or just dump away? First batch will be caribou slobber.
4. My water is hard, but doesn't taste bad. Should I use it or should I buy bottled?

1. StarSan! Don't fear the foam. Dish liquid will clean, but NOT sanitize. Check your LHBS for a bottle of StarSan.

2. The best way is to inject pure O2... but that's pricey. The easiest way is to shake the heck out of it, use a whisk, make a drill attachment, or some other device. Just be sure to sanitize anything that goes in. Aquarium air pumps with a diffusion stone are a nice step up from manually shaking.

3. Staining can be nice to get the crud out and minimize your trub, but it's not necessary. I've tried straining, and frankly, it's a pain. Just dump, but try to keep as much junk out as possible when you pour and accept that you'll loose some volume near the bottom of the kettle.

4. Not sure... someone else can jump in on water chemistry. Sorry.

 

[duboman]

+1 to all of the above and if you drink your water from the tap with no problems you can brew with it.

 

[rcp197]

Thanks for the answers guys. I have star san, I'm just talking about cleaning before sanitization and after brewing. For example, can I clean my primary with dawn and then sanitize? Or do I need a special cleaning agent? Northern brewer sent me a sample pack of pbw. Do I need to use this type of cleaner all the time? I was just planning to use dawn before getting this.

 

[Frodo]

My opinion is use oxyclean to clean your equipment before sanitizing if you need a soap. Oxyclean seems much easier to rinse than dish soap. Regardless make sure you rinse well. Some equip I never actually use soap on because a simple rinse with hot water does the job, which is to get all the particulates etc off the equipment.

edit:
Unless your water tastes bad you really don't need to worry about water chemistry until you are using all grain.

It's difficult to strain out the kettle trub when dumping into the fermenter. There are many ways to try to strain, and it's probably not that worth it. Using whole hops helps a lot. The hop sludge from pellets is really difficult to deal with when trying to strain.

 

[phatspade]

If you use dawn make sure you rinse really good with hot water.

I suggest that you use purified water when brewing, but you dont have to.

 

[CBXBob]

When in doubt on water quality go with store bought spring water, it's not sterile, but is sanitized. It still has minerals, but at safe levels. I went with bottled after about my 5th batch, at .99 cents a gallon, cheap insurance.
Yes, clean with regular dish soap, and sanitize after. I vote Star San.
I bought an aerator, works for s**t. now I just shake the the primary for a minute. You can shake longer, I don't have the patience.
Straining will be a PIA, easier to clear the beer by racking to a secondary after a week or two in primary.
I did NB's Caribou Slobber in April, and can say it gets better with time, didn't carb up quickly, and was slightly bitter at first.
If I was doing that kit today, I would add the LME at flameout, stir for 10 minutes then cool, pitch,etc.
I used the dry yeast option (personal preference) if you went with the liquid, do a starter.
No matter what, don't stress out, it is supposed to be fun, did my 14th batch yesterday, almost stress free

 

[Frodo]

I did NB's Caribou Slobber in April, and can say it gets better with time, didn't carb up quickly, and was slightly bitter at first.
If I was doing that kit today, I would add the LME at flameout, stir for 10 minutes then cool, pitch,etc.

If this is your first batch, best to stick to the directions IMHO. If you start changing your malt extract addition timings, you'll change the hop utilization. For example, adding late additions of extract versus early will cause more hop utilization = more bitter.