First Batch - interesting...

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NOVA Brewer

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Location
Skippack, PA
Howdy, all. I've been lurking for a while, and been thinking about this hobby for the past 6 months or so. After buying a new house, though, I felt bad dropping the cash for the "initial buy-in."

Enter my brother-in-law who got me a starter homebrewing kit for Christmas. :)

It's a Cooper's intro kit, with a big plastic fermenter that is also used for bottling. Came with 3.3lbs of pre-hopped malt extract labelled "lager," some sugar, plastic PET bottles, and drop-in pellets for carbonating the bottles. I ran down to my local homebrew supply store, bought a glass carboy to ferment in (will use the Cooper's plastic as a bottling bucket), some Light DME, and other odds and ends.

Boiled the liquid extract with about 2.5 pounds of the light DME for 60 minutes in about 2 gallons of water. While the was going, I sanitized every other piece of equipment - beer thief, hydrometer, fermenter, funnel, etc.

Following Papazian's guidance, I put 3 gallons of cold water in the carboy, then added the wort. Moving it down to the basement, I prepared to run a cold "bath" in my laundry sink to cool down the fermenter to 70 - 75 degrees. I put the cork and airlock in to keep the proto-beer isolated from bacteria.

I then promptly forgot about it, and went to bed. :eek:

The next morning, sure enough, the wort was 72 degrees. Shrugging off my absent-mindedness, I pitched the yeast and headed off to work. This was at 6:30am.

I came home at 4:30pm, and there were no signs of fermentation. The wort was now 67 degrees down in the cool basement. I lugged it up to the closet in the master bedroom, which was 72 degrees, gave the carboy a few gentle shakes, and let it be. In two hours, there was active fermentation with bubbles out of the airlock every 4 - 5 seconds.

The next morning, it was bubbling away, once every second, with a nice foamy kreusen. I could get a strong whiff of alcohol coming out of the airlock, too.

It's six days later, and there's still a bubble every now and then. I plan on bottling next week, after 14 days.

So, whaddaya think, folks? Will it be palatable?
 
Sounds good, actually! A couple of little things, though- don't expect a "lager". That's a very specific term used to designate cold fermented and cold stored beer that is crisp tasting. You did, however, make ale. I have no idea what kind, but it will be drinkable and probably tasty.

The only thing I can think of that you can do next time is buy UNhopped liquid malt extract and add your own hops. This will allow you to follow your own tastes and make whatever you like. The sky is the limit- you can made red ale, amber ale, pale ale, etc, based on what you want. Then, we can talk about secondary fermenters, if you want.

Welcome to the obsession :D

Lorena
 
lorenae said:
Sounds good, actually! A couple of little things, though- don't expect a "lager". That's a very specific term used to designate cold fermented and cold stored beer that is crisp tasting. You did, however, make ale. I have no idea what kind, but it will be drinkable and probably tasty.

Oh, yeah. I don't have a beer fridge, so I'm not able to lager yet. Thus, no lagers, pilseners, etc. for a little while. I just wanted to provide all the details for you folks.

I also realized that I forgot to prep the dry yeast by boiling it in a little water first. Oh, well. Shouldn't matter too much. Original Gravity was 1.052, so this should be a fairly strong ale.

If this turns out well, I think my next batch will be a porter, or a nice hoppy pale ale. Probably use a Brewer's Best kit for Batch #2.
 
DON'T boil your yeast, ever! You'll kill it. You can boil some water and then cool it to 80 degrees or less, then rehydrate your yeast in it. I don't bother with that- my tap water is ok.

The Brewer's Best kits are very good- I used them when I started, and I had great results. They have every thing you need, and clear directions. The pale ale they have is good!

Lorena
 
I can also say that the Brewer's Best kits are good. I mostly use recipes now, but I'm about to brew my 3rd BB English Pale Ale kit this weekend, because it's good.
 
I don't rehydrate dry yeast at all, and never have. Nor have I ever (knock wood) had a failed fermentation. I just sprinkle the dry yeast on top of the fermenter and seal it up.
 
I started with a BB kit, and wasn't a huge fan of the results. Try ordering a kit from a homebrew shop. Ingredients are probably fresher and you will most likely get a better result. grapeandgranary.com nthomebrew.com are a couple I have used and looked at. I'm sure others can suggest more. Cheers!
 
I personally have had better results with not rehydrating dry yeast also.

BTW when cooling your wort, do so before adding to your fermenter and before adding any top up water. This will cool the wort faster vs trying to cool a larger volume of water near actual fermenting temps. After your water is cool then you can top up and your temps should be kosher to pitch your yeast into.
 
Definitely get a kit/recipe from your Local Home Brew Shop (LHBS.)

Beer made without sugar is almost ALWAYS better than beer made with plain sugar.
 
Nova

I am sure you shook the first batch after pitching your yeast,
you sound like you have done this for years.
But since you didn't actually 'mention' shaking the carbouy for 5 minutes,
I must ask,
'did you shake your carbouy for 5 minutes?
If you did, fine.

A good method of avoiding a 'real bad experiance',
like I had once, is to get a plastic milk crate out from behind the 7-11 convienance store and use them to hold your 5 or 7.5 gallon carbouys.
Skoot them around or make handles to help life them by.
25 -12 oz beer bottles fit perfectly in a milk crate,
and 16- 22oz 'ers'.
They stack 6' high, { like in the corner of my bedroom,}
The square milk crate helps the glass carbouy to stay on an even 90% shake. It keeps the glass off the concrete floor and is safe as well as more efficent. Go steal you a dozen of them.

I was shaking my carbouy and listening to some hot polka tunes about 15 years ago and it happened! I broke 5 gallons of wort in the middle of the kitchen floor at 3:am. It was not funny!
{It were sitting on a doubled over towl.}
A milk crate would have prevented that from happening.
{I sit the milk crate on a towl while shaking the carbouy now,
ie. very safe.}

Another thing that has helped my homebrewing more than anything is to keep my hands clean and sanitized. Soak them in Idophor water and best is to use those clear plastic gloves, and soak them in Idophor and rinse them too, {on your hands}

Take the trash out the day before and mop the floor,
just think clean.
Surface born and air born spoilage micro-organisms will get into your wort and make it taste bad, and my hands...
are how they would get in mine if I would let them.

And... I brew better ale in the morning than late at night,
I am not nearly so drunk then.

Thanks


Luck

Von Messer
 
Also keep in mind that the prehopped extracts should not be boiled. They do not need to be sterilized, they are already boiled, and boiling them will change the flavor (for the worse). BTW, I have a friend that bought that same kit for her husband for father's day. He made the lager just as Cooper's states, without any added extracts, grains or hops, and I have to say, the beer was quite good.
 
Well, it's been bottle conditioning for seven days now. No "bottle bombs," nothing else out of the ordinary.

Cracked one last night, just to get a taste. It's not bad. It's not great, but... meh. I assume my lack of enthusiasm stems from the fact that I used the absolute cheapest ingredients, or perhaps to using the pre-hopped malt extract from my kit. It was only lightly chilled, but due to the low-quality nature of the brew, the flavor may improve if served at near-freezing American mass-market beer temps. :)

I'll start Batch #2 on Tuesday or Wednesday after another trip to my LHBS. I think I'm going to pick up another 5g carboy for a secondary, along with whatever Brewer's Best kit I decide to try. I'm leaning towards a lighter ale (more people like that, easier to give away - I can't drink all this by myself!), but with St. Patty's Day coming, I may try a stout or porter, which appear relatively easy.

Thanks for all the advice and help, guys. I'll keep everyone posted.
 
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