Hello,
This is my first post and first attempt at home brewing. Just wanted to post a couple of thoughts and questions and get some input from people on if/where I went wrong.
The wifey and I tried the Brewers Best Witbier extract kit. I did my best to sanitize everything but I'm still concerned about germs. (I think this hobby may end up giving me OCD!)
My main concerns are as follows:
The wort was much darker than I would have guessed. Does the yeast and fermentation lighten up the brew?
When it came time to go from boil to fermenter, we had trouble getting the auto-siphon to pull up the wort (seemed too thick). I remembered in the instructions that we were supposed to add water to bring the wort up to 5 gallons, so I added the water to the boil pot and the siphon worked just fine. It wasn't until afterwards, that I remembered I wasn't supposed to add the water until I got to the fermenter. Oops. Is that a big problem?
No visible signs of fermentation yet (almost 48 hours). Is that a problem?
Finally, and mot importantly the OG was a little too high. I think we came in at 1.051 or 1.052. I didn't know how to correct that problem so I left it as is. Is that just going to make my beer have more alcohol? Should I have added more water?
Thanks to everyone for any assistance!
This is my first post and first attempt at home brewing. Just wanted to post a couple of thoughts and questions and get some input from people on if/where I went wrong.
The wifey and I tried the Brewers Best Witbier extract kit. I did my best to sanitize everything but I'm still concerned about germs. (I think this hobby may end up giving me OCD!)
My main concerns are as follows:
The wort was much darker than I would have guessed. Does the yeast and fermentation lighten up the brew?
When it came time to go from boil to fermenter, we had trouble getting the auto-siphon to pull up the wort (seemed too thick). I remembered in the instructions that we were supposed to add water to bring the wort up to 5 gallons, so I added the water to the boil pot and the siphon worked just fine. It wasn't until afterwards, that I remembered I wasn't supposed to add the water until I got to the fermenter. Oops. Is that a big problem?
No visible signs of fermentation yet (almost 48 hours). Is that a problem?
Finally, and mot importantly the OG was a little too high. I think we came in at 1.051 or 1.052. I didn't know how to correct that problem so I left it as is. Is that just going to make my beer have more alcohol? Should I have added more water?
Thanks to everyone for any assistance!