First Batch

[roadtodenali]

Hey All -

New to the forum and did a lot of reading on here as I prepared so I just wanted to post a quick thank you and an update on the progress. Seems like its going pretty well.

I did 5 gallon batch with a Big River Brown Ale extract kit from Midwest. The boil went according to plan. I did add little Irish moss to the end of the boil. I didn’t use hop bag on this batch but will in the future. I had one little boil over when I added the first hops. Apparently adding them slowly is advisable.
I had activity in the airlock within 24 hours and although I know its not the end all / be all, I have to admit it made me feel good to see it. I had it in my basement at first however after a real cold spell the temp dipped to about 59 ambient and 62 on the fermenter down there so I moved it into a closet in my office. With the registers and doors closed it stayed 65 ambient and 65-67 on the fermenter. I left it for 7 days and just racked to a carboy for secondary today. The krausen was gone but I had a nice 2-3 inch ring around the inside of the bucket. Snagged a taste after testing the gravity and it tastes pretty good. It looked VERY brown in the fermenter.

I started at 1.064 (target was 1.067) and ended at 1.016 (target was 1.017). So my abv target was 6.6 and I think I’m at 6.3% if I did the math correctly.

Great experience so far and I can definitely say I’m hooked.

Thanks for the help and You should see me around.

 

[JeffD1]

Welcome aboard and congrats on your first brew! Sounds like it was a good one!

It actually sounds perfect that you started off fermentation on the colder end and ended on the warmer end. Generally its a good idea to warm the beer up after the 2/3 of the fermentation is complete. This encourages the yeast to finish up and convert more sugar, and after the first couple days you don't have to worry about getting off flavors because of high temperatures.

Also, I don't know how you decided when to rack to secondary, but don't just go by number of days. Take a gravity reading to make sure it is completely done fermenting. The best thing to do is take a reading, wait 3 days and then take another reading. If the gravity didn't change, fermentation is done and you can rack to secondary. There is also a huge debate about whether or not secondary is necessary (I very rarely use a secondary).

Hope this helps. Happy brewing.

 

[roadtodenali]

Welcome aboard and congrats on your first brew! Sounds like it was a good one!

It actually sounds perfect that you started off fermentation on the colder end and ended on the warmer end. Generally its a good idea to warm the beer up after the 2/3 of the fermentation is complete. This encourages the yeast to finish up and convert more sugar, and after the first couple days you don't have to worry about getting off flavors because of high temperatures.

Also, I don't know how you decided when to rack to secondary, but don't just go by number of days. Take a gravity reading to make sure it is completely done fermenting. The best thing to do is take a reading, wait 3 days and then take another reading. If the gravity didn't change, fermentation is done and you can rack to secondary. There is also a huge debate about whether or not secondary is necessary (I very rarely use a secondary).

Hope this helps. Happy brewing.

Thanks. This is good info.

I did take gravity readings on day 6 and day 7 and there was no change. In hindsight I guess the fermentation is pretty slow at that point if its present so Ill stretch the time out between readings next time.

I did read A TON on the secondary debate but ultimately I decided there is only one real way to form an opinion and that is to do a bunch of batches myself both ways.

 

[Cyclman]

Congrats on the first batch, get the next one going soon, they dissapear very quickly!