MrTink76
Member
Hi! Just thought I would share my first batch experience for everyone's viewing pleasure.
I got my True Brew K1 kit, 2 cases of bottles, 5 gallon kettle and a Brewer's Best Weizenbier kit from my wife for Christmas. Brewing day was Saturday, December 26th, 2009!
I picked up 7 gallons of drinking water from Safeway and got straight to work. I sanitized everything judiciously with the C brite that came with the kit. I brought 2.5 gallons of water to a rolling boil on the stove. It took over an hour to come to a boil, but it finally did, and followed the rest of the kit instructions to the letter.
I transferred the kettle to the sink and immersed it in an ice bath. I brought the temp down to about 70 degrees F in about 15 minutes or so. I poured the cooled wort into the fermenter without any straining.
FIRST THOUGHT FOR NEXT TIME: I will strain the crap out during the pour.
I topped the fermenter off to 5 gallons with the drinking water poured from about shoulder height to aerate it really well. Then I stirred and splashed the heck out of it and made sure everything was well mixed with my sanitized spoon that came with the kit.
I checked the original gravity with the hydrometer and it was 1.051 after adjusting for temperature. Almost right on target from the recipe kit.
Yeast time: I opened my pack of yeast that came with the kit and sprinkled it in the fermenter. I let it sit about 10 minutes and then I stirred it in well. I sealed it up in the fermenter and put my airlock on.
FIRST (and fortunately the only) PROBLEM: I pressed the airlock in rather than twist it in, so lo and behold, the grommet popped out and fell into my fermenter! I spent about 5 minutes fishing around with the spoon and I finally retreived it. I put it back on and TWISTED the airlock in. Hehe ... could've been much worse, eh? At least I learned something there. Twist, don't push.
My airlock was bubbling away by the next morning. I let it do its thing. On day January 1st, 2010 I opened it up to the glorious smell of beer. Took a sample with a sanitized turkey baster and checked my SG. It was 1.011! Super! I tasted the beer from my testing jar. It was pretty good, albeit what I assume everyone describes as green. I resealed the fermenter and checked the SG again on January 2nd, 2010. It was still 1.011 so I got ready to bottle. By the way, my closet that I fermented in (and my beer of course) stayed a nice 65-68 degrees F the whole time!
I sanitized all my bottles in the C brite in my sink and then on top of that ran it through a dishwasher cycle with no soap or jet dry and let it run with the heated dry cycle. May be a bit overkill, but whatever. I also sanitized all my equipment and the bottling bucket as well.
I boiled up the water and dissolved the priming sugar as the kit instructed me to do. I poured it gently into the bottling bucket. I filled my racking cane and siphon tubing with water and started the siphon into a jug until the beer was flowing and then continued racking into the bottling bucket. I was pleased to see that the racking cane worked exactly as it was supposed to and didn't transfer hardly any sediment to my bottling bucket!
I gently stirred the beer with the priming solution for about a minute (no splashing) as the kit instructed me to do. I attached the tubing from my racking cane to the spigot and attached the Fermtech bottle device or whatever it was called and opened the spigot. I got all the air out of the tubing by dispensing it into a small jar and filled my bottles. With the exception of the occasional overfill, everything went as well as expected!
I capped all the bottles with sanitized caps from the kit and then printed and applied my labels. The Weizenbier is currently conditioning in my pantry! I can't wait to crack one open in another week or so!
The label that I made is below! The website that generated it is awsome. Oh, and Calix Meus Inebrians is Latin for "My cup makes me drunk" -- funny huh? :cross:
I got my True Brew K1 kit, 2 cases of bottles, 5 gallon kettle and a Brewer's Best Weizenbier kit from my wife for Christmas. Brewing day was Saturday, December 26th, 2009!
I picked up 7 gallons of drinking water from Safeway and got straight to work. I sanitized everything judiciously with the C brite that came with the kit. I brought 2.5 gallons of water to a rolling boil on the stove. It took over an hour to come to a boil, but it finally did, and followed the rest of the kit instructions to the letter.
I transferred the kettle to the sink and immersed it in an ice bath. I brought the temp down to about 70 degrees F in about 15 minutes or so. I poured the cooled wort into the fermenter without any straining.
FIRST THOUGHT FOR NEXT TIME: I will strain the crap out during the pour.
I topped the fermenter off to 5 gallons with the drinking water poured from about shoulder height to aerate it really well. Then I stirred and splashed the heck out of it and made sure everything was well mixed with my sanitized spoon that came with the kit.
I checked the original gravity with the hydrometer and it was 1.051 after adjusting for temperature. Almost right on target from the recipe kit.
Yeast time: I opened my pack of yeast that came with the kit and sprinkled it in the fermenter. I let it sit about 10 minutes and then I stirred it in well. I sealed it up in the fermenter and put my airlock on.
FIRST (and fortunately the only) PROBLEM: I pressed the airlock in rather than twist it in, so lo and behold, the grommet popped out and fell into my fermenter! I spent about 5 minutes fishing around with the spoon and I finally retreived it. I put it back on and TWISTED the airlock in. Hehe ... could've been much worse, eh? At least I learned something there. Twist, don't push.
My airlock was bubbling away by the next morning. I let it do its thing. On day January 1st, 2010 I opened it up to the glorious smell of beer. Took a sample with a sanitized turkey baster and checked my SG. It was 1.011! Super! I tasted the beer from my testing jar. It was pretty good, albeit what I assume everyone describes as green. I resealed the fermenter and checked the SG again on January 2nd, 2010. It was still 1.011 so I got ready to bottle. By the way, my closet that I fermented in (and my beer of course) stayed a nice 65-68 degrees F the whole time!
I sanitized all my bottles in the C brite in my sink and then on top of that ran it through a dishwasher cycle with no soap or jet dry and let it run with the heated dry cycle. May be a bit overkill, but whatever. I also sanitized all my equipment and the bottling bucket as well.
I boiled up the water and dissolved the priming sugar as the kit instructed me to do. I poured it gently into the bottling bucket. I filled my racking cane and siphon tubing with water and started the siphon into a jug until the beer was flowing and then continued racking into the bottling bucket. I was pleased to see that the racking cane worked exactly as it was supposed to and didn't transfer hardly any sediment to my bottling bucket!
I gently stirred the beer with the priming solution for about a minute (no splashing) as the kit instructed me to do. I attached the tubing from my racking cane to the spigot and attached the Fermtech bottle device or whatever it was called and opened the spigot. I got all the air out of the tubing by dispensing it into a small jar and filled my bottles. With the exception of the occasional overfill, everything went as well as expected!
I capped all the bottles with sanitized caps from the kit and then printed and applied my labels. The Weizenbier is currently conditioning in my pantry! I can't wait to crack one open in another week or so!
The label that I made is below! The website that generated it is awsome. Oh, and Calix Meus Inebrians is Latin for "My cup makes me drunk" -- funny huh? :cross:
