lefty96
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2015
- Messages
- 26
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I brewed my first batch of beer yesterday, it is a 5 gallon batch of Northern Brewer's Caribou Slobber.
In all, I think it went well. Instead of rolling the dice on my tap water, I just got 6 gallons of Ozarka spring water. I did try to do it indoors; we have an electric stove that features a burner that is too hot to really do anything with, but ultimately it wasn't enough so I moved outside to the crawfish cooker. I think the only thing that the belabored start cost me is probably a bit more water loss than if I had just started outside, which I will do from here on out. The crawfish cooker is just the way to go - especially for adjusting temps during hop adds avoiding a boil over. The first addition was quite nearly a boil over, after that the others were fine.
I chilled the wort in the sink w/ ice. I was concerned how long this would take, but swapping out the water 3 times got it down quickly so for now, I'm just going to live w/o a chiller.
I followed the instructions on the yeast packet to rehydrate it and add the the wort and yeast to a big mouth bubbler. After a few hours, I had occasional bubbles. I was a bit concerned about light and the temps dropping too low in the closet so I did wrap the bubbler in a blanket.
As of this morning it looks like satan's 5 gallon rootbeer float and the closet definitely has the aroma of working yeast so I think at least as best as I can tell now, things are going well.
I also was totally ocd on sanitizing and probably sanitized everything twice and just kept a spray bottle full handy and if I thought it might be needing it, I gave it a good misting.
I plan on racking to a 2ndary here in two weeks then bottling a week or two thereafter.
In all, I think it went well. Instead of rolling the dice on my tap water, I just got 6 gallons of Ozarka spring water. I did try to do it indoors; we have an electric stove that features a burner that is too hot to really do anything with, but ultimately it wasn't enough so I moved outside to the crawfish cooker. I think the only thing that the belabored start cost me is probably a bit more water loss than if I had just started outside, which I will do from here on out. The crawfish cooker is just the way to go - especially for adjusting temps during hop adds avoiding a boil over. The first addition was quite nearly a boil over, after that the others were fine.
I chilled the wort in the sink w/ ice. I was concerned how long this would take, but swapping out the water 3 times got it down quickly so for now, I'm just going to live w/o a chiller.
I followed the instructions on the yeast packet to rehydrate it and add the the wort and yeast to a big mouth bubbler. After a few hours, I had occasional bubbles. I was a bit concerned about light and the temps dropping too low in the closet so I did wrap the bubbler in a blanket.
As of this morning it looks like satan's 5 gallon rootbeer float and the closet definitely has the aroma of working yeast so I think at least as best as I can tell now, things are going well.
I also was totally ocd on sanitizing and probably sanitized everything twice and just kept a spray bottle full handy and if I thought it might be needing it, I gave it a good misting.
I plan on racking to a 2ndary here in two weeks then bottling a week or two thereafter.