First Batch!

[acfixr]

After finally getting by burner problem solved, getting my brand spanking new aluminum pot "aged", and deciding that being up half the night was what I was going to have to do, I finally put my first batch in my primary and put the airlock on!!!

Hopefully, I have not screwed things up and it will turn out ok. It is a local hbs clone of one of my favorite wheat beers. Fingers crossed, it will turn out just like I like.

But, I several questions.

1. The "hot break" occured about 5 minutes into the boil. (mega amounts of foam, then dies back to nothing) Normal amount of time for that to happen?

2. The kit came with a tub of LME. When I add that, do I need to be stirring it into the hot liquid? ( I was using the spoon to scrape it out of the bucket).

3. After all was said and done, as I was cleaning everything up, I noticed a scorch mark on the inside of my pot. Is that from not stirring in my LME? Will that affect the taste of the final product?

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[Pappers_]

Yes, the scorching is from the extract. One idea is to remove the pot from the heat when adding the extract. Another is to use the late extract addition method, where you only add a pound of the extract at the beginning of the boil and add the remaining with 5 or 10 minutes to go in the boil.

 

[bennyd]

acfixr, I did my first brew the other day and have learned a great deal from this site. One of the things that I read here was to take the pot off of the burner before adding the extract to prevent scorching. After I stirred the heck out of it and made sure it was dissolved really nicely, I put it back on the burner. It didn't take long at all for the boil to continue.

I understand your anxiousness about the beer turning out. I'm going through the same thing now. And since it's yours, I'm sure it will be the most delicious beer that you have ever tasted.

 

[Awfers]

To make the LME flow easier, place it in a pan of hot water (not boiling) for 30 minutes before opening it and adding it to the water in your kettle, it will flow a lot easier and you won't need to scrape the LME out as much, but you will need to stir your kettle as you add it in.

 

[Poolplayer]

It really helps to own one of the many home brewing books out there as they almost always start with some kind of crash course in your first brewing day. It will usually do away with all the technicalities of brewing and just give you the best steps to achieve a great first brewing day. I'm thinking the scorched LME is gonna give ya something to remember in your homebrew but not something you would dump. cheers!!