First Batch

[AndyRN]

I have now tried several bottles of my first batch of an extract kit w/ grains.

It's an Autumn Amber Ale from Midwest supplies.

I enjoy the flavors. It's not overly hoppy or bitter, what I would expect from a good brown ale. No off flavors or lingering aftertaste. Very happy.

OG: 1.044 FG: 1.012 so ABV should be about 4.2%

Used Wyeast headwaters ale.

City tap water.

Fermented at around 65F

2 week primary then bottle condition for 2 weeks.




Things I learned: I had made a wort chiller but I thought I would try it without...never again. It takes forever to get down to temp. I have since made two more batches of caribou slobber that are fermenting and I used my homemade wort chiller and I love it. I hooked up the wort chiller to a little $15 submersible pump, fill the sink with a lot of ice and water and let it run.

I did not oxygenate this batch like I should have, and there was barely any bubbling in the airlock, but the gravities came out. The batches of caribou I have going I shook like crazy to oxygenate and I almost had a blowout.

As a side, the first batch of Caribou Slobber I started on 11-6-14 and I am still getting fairly good bubbling out of the airlock. I haven't checked a gravity on it yet, I want to wait another week or two. I also used bottled water for these two batches. They had a great sale on spring water so it only cost $3 for 5gals. Just to see if I could tell any difference.

I got a beverage cooler for cheap that I am going to try and convert to a kegerator. I will do a build a long with that and post when I am done. I would not have started kegging so early in my brewing endeavor had this cooler not fallen in my lap.

 

[12thHoleBrewer]

Congratulations! It's very satisfying to go through all the work and end up with a beer that you actually like. Good observations regarding work chiller, etc. For oxygenating the beer, I use a Brewers paddle that has holes on the end. I prefer that to shaking the Bucket or carboy. I do about 100 strokes and really try to get the paddle deep into the bucket which seems to introduce a lot of oxygen.

 

[AndyRN]

This is the wyeast guy talking about oxygenation. Very informative. There are actually a few good videos about wyeast on youtube that have been pretty decent.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75gpehf_6Gk[/ame]

 

[kombat]

Congrats! Glad it's working out for you, be prepared to become obsessed with brewing. Just a minor correction on your terminology:

I did not oxygenate this batch like I should have, ... The batches of caribou I have going I shook like crazy to oxygenate

"Oxygenation" is with pure oxygen, using a tank and an oxygenation stone (a small stainless steel cylinder with thousands of tiny holes in it). What you're describing is "aeration," which is mixing plain old air (which still has plenty of oxygen) into the beer.

The maximum concentration of oxygen you can achieve with shaking/splashing is about 8 ppm, which is perfect for brewing. With an oxygen tank and an oxygenation stone, you can get much higher than that - in fact there's such thing as too much.

Sorry to nitpick, just wanted to correct a minor misunderstanding.