BrotherGnargalzious
Member
Hi everyone.
I'm new to brewing and have a few questions about my first beer. I did a Belgian Blonde kit from Dry Dock and everything seems to have gone correctly. I've read the Joy Of Homebrewing maybe 3 x's now and I followed every direction I could to the letter. I cleaned and sanitized all surfaces and everything that touched the beer. Steeped the specialty grains (in a grain bag) in my 16 quart stainless steel pot, then added the LME, candy sugar, and hop pellets (also in a bag) and boiled for 60 mins, adding the other hops at the required times.
After the boil I took out the bags and because I have no wort chiller, stuck my covered pot in an ice bath with rock salt in my sink and sprayed cold water on the outside of the pot. This only brought the temp down to about 170 after 30 mins or so. That's when I decided go with Plan B, Papazian's method of adding the hot wort to cool water directly in the fermenter, in my case, a plastic Better Brew bucket. My water was Walmart bought filtered 3 ways so no worries about contamination. Once I had it filled to 5 gallons with the wort and cold water it was down to 82 or so. I knew I had to bring it down to at least under 80 to pitch my yeast (SafBrew T-58, dry, which I rehydrated in water that had been boiled and cooled to about 70). I added a few handfuls (sanitized hands) of brand new out of the bag clean store bought ice, which brought the temp down to about 75, and pitched my yeast. I didn't take an OG because I was kind of freaking out and just wanted to get the yeast in there.
Everything seemed to go fine. It began to vigourously bubble in the airlock about 6.5 hours later, and that lasted about 24 hours. Then it stopped and hasn't made a peep since. I know that I'm not supposed worry, and should go off of gravity readings, but I'm wondering if the beer got too cold or something? I live in Colorado and Fall just began today and the last couple days it was raining and hot, and then went to raining and cold. The room the fermenter was in got down to maybe 65 one night. Could this have screwed me?!! Or am I just just paranoid, need to relax, not worry, and have a homebrew?
Thanks for your help!
I'm new to brewing and have a few questions about my first beer. I did a Belgian Blonde kit from Dry Dock and everything seems to have gone correctly. I've read the Joy Of Homebrewing maybe 3 x's now and I followed every direction I could to the letter. I cleaned and sanitized all surfaces and everything that touched the beer. Steeped the specialty grains (in a grain bag) in my 16 quart stainless steel pot, then added the LME, candy sugar, and hop pellets (also in a bag) and boiled for 60 mins, adding the other hops at the required times.
After the boil I took out the bags and because I have no wort chiller, stuck my covered pot in an ice bath with rock salt in my sink and sprayed cold water on the outside of the pot. This only brought the temp down to about 170 after 30 mins or so. That's when I decided go with Plan B, Papazian's method of adding the hot wort to cool water directly in the fermenter, in my case, a plastic Better Brew bucket. My water was Walmart bought filtered 3 ways so no worries about contamination. Once I had it filled to 5 gallons with the wort and cold water it was down to 82 or so. I knew I had to bring it down to at least under 80 to pitch my yeast (SafBrew T-58, dry, which I rehydrated in water that had been boiled and cooled to about 70). I added a few handfuls (sanitized hands) of brand new out of the bag clean store bought ice, which brought the temp down to about 75, and pitched my yeast. I didn't take an OG because I was kind of freaking out and just wanted to get the yeast in there.
Everything seemed to go fine. It began to vigourously bubble in the airlock about 6.5 hours later, and that lasted about 24 hours. Then it stopped and hasn't made a peep since. I know that I'm not supposed worry, and should go off of gravity readings, but I'm wondering if the beer got too cold or something? I live in Colorado and Fall just began today and the last couple days it was raining and hot, and then went to raining and cold. The room the fermenter was in got down to maybe 65 one night. Could this have screwed me?!! Or am I just just paranoid, need to relax, not worry, and have a homebrew?
Thanks for your help!