First brew - didn't work out

[Will95gt]

Ok... I just had a taste of my very first brew!!!

...but it wasn't good

Here's the process I used to brew/ferment (i made a 2 gallon batch):


STEP 1:
Brought 1/3 gallon of water close to a boil

STEP 2:
Mixed in 1.25 cups of corn sugar and then stirred in 1/3 litre of unhopped dry malt extract

STEP 3:
Mixed well and heated until just under a boil. Then I added half an ounce of simcoe hop pellets

STEP 4:
I Put the pot in the sink of cold water to quickly cool down the solution

STEP 5:
Added wort to my fermenting container with another 1 and 2/3 gallons of water (which i've adapted an airlock too) and allow fermentation to begin.

then I added about half a teaspoon (3.5 or so grams) of beer yeast

STEP 6:
The co2 release rate in the ferment lock increased to about 1 bubble each 4 seconds.

after two days the bubbling stopped

STEP 7:
So then I opened up the tap on the bottom of my fermenting bin and used a small strainer to get the chunks of hops out

STEP 8:
I then put about a half of a teaspoon in each bottle (17 oz bottles) and filled them with the lightly filtered beer

STEP 9:
I shook 'em up and threw em in the fridge to get cold

STEP 10:
Drank one...

It didn't taste like it was that alcoholic and it also didn't keep a whole lot of carbonation... it also tasted kind of bland but had a pretty potent smell.

Here's a few pics of my setup:

 

[teu1003]

its hard to know where to begin ... there is virtually nothing here that resembles brewing procedure, especially since you didnt put times in.

i would strongly recommend that you abandon these "techniques", purchase ANY elementary brew book (even the WORST one can get you straight on a simple extract batch), get some proper equipment and begin again.

you cannot make beer you'll want to drink using the steps you outlined. tear it down, spend a little money on proper equipment, and read, read, read.

if this were april 1st instead of november 1st, i'd swear you were having us on.

 

[moger777]

allright, 2 days is not enough to ferment. You want atleast a week. Also, you don't just add the sugar, shake up and throw in the fridge at bottling time. You have to let it carbonate at room temperature for at least a week. I'd go to www.howtobrew.com and read up on how to do a 5 gallon batch. Chances are things will go well if you follow all the instructions for extract brewing.

 

[Tankard]

if this were april 1st instead of november 1st, i'd swear you were having us on.

Yeah man, that's what I thought to. I honestly thought this was a joke.

Will95gt, you really need to get the book "How to Brew" by John Palmer. You need proper equipment and you need to learn the process. The book is very good at telling you what you need and how to go about the process.

Looking at your "beer" in that plastic bottle makes me wanna throw up. It seriously looks disgusting. Beer is not supposed to look like that.

 

[Ó Flannagáin]

http://www.howtobrew.com <---- read this, you will make good beer.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Holly ****.... Please do some reading.

 

[Whiskey]

The only question I have is where did you get the steps to brew beer in this manner?

 

[Beerrific]

http://www.howtobrew.com <---- read this, you will make good beer.

http://www.howtobrew.com

 

[mdd134]

You have come to the right place for help. The techniques that you described are a poor way to brew. We all want to make better beer. We are only advising you differently so you can make beer that you will enjoy.


Now with that out of the way I would invest in some equipment, it will make it a lot easier. If you have a local home brew shop you could purchase a complete kit for normally fewer than 100 bucks

Also you will need to do some more reading, and if you do not understand the steps you can ask questions on the beginners beer forum


:rockin:

 

[Radarbrew]

OK you have the desire for better beer, Now just invest a little time and some cash for the equipment. Don't waste the money on the ingrediants if you're just gonna throw it out.

 

[Cheesefood]

No bay leaves?

Pfft.

Seriously, we want to help you. Let's start from the begining. Take a look at NorthernBrewer.com, AustinHomeBrew.com and others and order whichever kit you can afford.

 

[Blaine]

Ditto.........Ditto.........Ditto........

Mate with all due respect. Forget everything you think you know about brewing and start again. Better still before you start again try reading How To Brew by John J. Palmer, Then start again. That book is kind of like the bible around here.

 

[Will95gt]

OMG!!! You guys actually care about me enough to give me advice!

The other two sites I've been asking for help just said "yeah your steps seem about right". I just read everything on the "howtobrew.com" site.

It seems, after reading, that I can probably brew with the tools and equipment I have... I just need to properly apply everything and my ingredients. But like that one guy said, whyrisk it and waste money on ingrediants; so i'll probably head to walmart and try to find a better fermentation bin, a thermometer and also a stainless steal strainer to reduce the amount of hops that will be floating around.

To sum it up, my former mistakes were these:

-Didn't boil the wort NEAR long enough
-Propably didn't sterilize properly (I used a heavy degreaser but it was scented)
-Didn't properly regulate temperature
-The container I used to ferment wasn't up to par


Any other recommendations of the top of your head?

 

[PseudoChef]

Any other recommendations of the top of your head?

Don't drink beer that's two days old?

Seriously, find a local homebrew shop. Ask the guys there for advice. Buy real brewing supplies, not items from Wal-Mart.

To carbonate: let the beer (in bottles) sit at room temperature (~70 degrees or so) for 3 weeks or so.

 

[Tankard]

Will, sorry for sounding harsh in my original reply, I also want to help you in any way I can... The more beer brewers we have out there, the more relatable I'll be to people.

I've never actually brewed a pure extract kit, since I started with partial mash brewing, but either one is perfect for beginners. The kit you chose is good enough to make good beer, even though I wouldn't have chosen a "light" kit. Coopers is a high quality extract kit from everything I've read.

Your biggest problem right now is equipment. I do not believe you have everything you need to successfully brew a good beer. If you did read everything on howtobrew.com, you would know you need either food-grade plastic fermenting buckets or glass carboys. You need other stuff as well. The easiest thing to do is to locate a homebrew shop nearby, or online, and buy a nice kit. They usually have everything you need for well under $100. If I were you, I'd follow *everything* on the howtobrew site. Do EXACTLY what he does. Use the EXACT same equipment that he lists. Do not, for a second, think you know a better way of doing things because his method is tried and true.

Start here http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/index.html and do everything through chapter 1.5. That's the bare bones of the brewing process, but it will be infinitely better than the method you are currently using. I would read everything he writes about sanitation as well.

It sounds like you are planning to integrate the information on the howtobrew site with your own method. It's important that you completely start over at this point. Your old method will not produce a good beer, as you have found out already. Follow that site step by step and I'm convinced your next brew will be great.

There are some great brewers on this site who we can all learn from. Let them know if you need help.

 

[Yooper]

OMG!!! You guys actually care about me enough to give me advice!

The other two sites I've been asking for help just said "yeah your steps seem about right". I just read everything on the "howtobrew.com" site.

It seems, after reading, that I can probably brew with the tools and equipment I have... I just need to properly apply everything and my ingredients. But like that one guy said, whyrisk it and waste money on ingrediants; so i'll probably head to walmart and try to find a better fermentation bin, a thermometer and also a stainless steal strainer to reduce the amount of hops that will be floating around.

To sum it up, my former mistakes were these:

-Didn't boil the wort NEAR long enough
-Propably didn't sterilize properly (I used a heavy degreaser but it was scented)
-Didn't properly regulate temperature
-The container I used to ferment wasn't up to par


Any other recommendations of the top of your head?

Don't use any recipe that tells you to add corn sugar to it, except for the very end when you bottle. Don't worry about a strainer unless you really want one. All the "stuff" will fall out anyway. Use sanitizer, and definitely not a heavy degreaser. I don't think Walmart would have anything that you need, so I'd skip that and go to a home brew store, or purchase online from austinhomebrew.com or northernbrewer.com or morebeer.com.

If you follow the steps of extract brewing from howtobrew.com, including proper sanitation, it'll be good.

 

[Funkenjaeger]

It's a good thing that you decided to find brewing forums and list your procedure for advice, rather than trying to do it again with the same type of procedure and/or giving up. Brewing's really quite easy as long as you've got a good resource to learn from.

-Didn't boil the wort NEAR long enough
-Propably didn't sterilize properly (I used a heavy degreaser but it was scented)
-Didn't properly regulate temperature
-The container I used to ferment wasn't up to par

Cleaning and sanitizing are two separate things, no "degreaser" is going to be an acceptable sanitizer. If you can't get your hands on some starsan or iodophor, at least use bleach (but do some reading and use it PROPERLY)

The most glaring mistakes are the ones people have already mentioned: 2 days is not enough for fermentation to complete, you need to give it at LEAST a week in the fermenter, ideally more like 2 weeks. And get a hydrometer. It's immediately obvious just from looking at your "bottled" beer that it is nowhere near done, it's still cloudy with yeast. Also, you cannot just go throwing your beer into random bottles and only half-filling some of them - proper carbonation in bottles depends on the amount of headspace at the top of the bottle.

A 1/3 gallon boil is not nearly enough, even for the smaller batch you were doing. You want to be boiling as much of your wort as you can, and I would think that you should be boiling at LEAST 40% of your wort if you can manage. If that pot in the picture is your biggest one, you should invest in another - especially if you ever hope to do normal 5-gallon batches.

And, as others have said, try to find an actual homebrew store to buy equipment from, or order online - walmart is a pretty crappy place to get brewing equipment in general.

 

[the_bird]

It sounds to me like your procedures are those for a pre-hopped, "kit and kilo" kit - except that you didn't have one of those, you had an unhopped can of extract. Those are actually better - but they require that you do a full, hour-long boil (among the other incorrect procedures that have been noted).

Making GOOD beer the right way is easy, don't get discouraged. Read How To Brew, read it again (I'd recommend buying the physical book, it's great bathroom reading and you'll never "outgrow" it).

 

[teu1003]

OK ... I am now convinced that this is all a joke ...

Anyone who can type "I just read everything on the howtobrew.com website" ...

followed by ... "i'll head to walmart and try to find a better fermentation bin" ...

is trying to be funny. It isn't.

Listing 4 of the 12 weird things he did wrong and asking for "recommendations off the top of your head" is an attempt to make this all seem foolish.

Participate if you want ... this guy is joking.

 

[joshpooh]

I don't know if he's joking or not. Its alot of trouble to intentionally brew a beer that looks that bad and post pictures just to yank our chains. Even if it wasn't really beer in those plastic bottles (lord knows it didn't look like beer). He still had to do something to get those pictures.

This is a common miscoception about homebrewing I think. Some people think anybody can throw a beer together with improper equiptment, and no sense of the proper technique. Where others see it as something so difficult you have to be a rocket scientist. I don't think people other than brewers understand that it is in the middle of the two extremes.

O and BTW will95gt if you're not joking take everyone else's advice and buy an equiptment kit and use and ingredient kit also for your first brew. I don't think anyone mentioned midwestsupplies.com, but they offer a DVD that goes through the process with any purchase free. So if you learn better by seeing than by reading (visual learner) you might want to consider it.

 

[Will95gt]

Listing 4 of the 12 weird things he did wrong and asking for "recommendations off the top of your head" is an attempt to make this all seem foolish.

What are the other 8 things I missed? And my trip to walmart was mainly in search of a stainless steal strainer... trying to avoid shipping one.

EDIT: oh, i was also going to see if they had any good buckets that would work for fermenting. Most of the kits i've seen that come with buckets are just industrial screw lid buckets with an air lock adapted to them (not hard to do) and a logo painted on it.... Right?

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6873

Thats what this looks to be.

 

[Bobby_M]

At a minimum, you'll want a new food grade bucket with lid, a no rinse sanitizer like one set, starsan or iodaphor, and a 20qt stock pot so you can boil about 2 gallons without fear of boilover. Strain it after you cool it, but not after fermentation. Straining though, is the least of your problems. If you let it sit in the fermenter long enough, everything will be settled to the bottom. Then you siphon the clear beer off into another sanitized container, add some priming sugar, then fill and cap your sanitized bottles.

How did you expect the beer to carbonate exactly?

 

[Will95gt]

At a minimum, you'll want a new food grade bucket with lid, a no rinse sanitizer like one set, starsan or iodaphor, and a 20qt stock pot so you can boil about 2 gallons without fear of boilover. Strain it after you cool it, but not after fermentation. Straining though, is the least of your problems. If you let it sit in the fermenter long enough, everything will be settled to the bottom. Then you siphon the clear beer off into another sanitized container, add some priming sugar, then fill and cap your sanitized bottles.

How did you expect the beer to carbonate exactly?

Well I was basically following this method:

[ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=sAJKWCdaPq4[/ame]

But now that I'm reading much more I'm starting to wonder how that guys method even worked out--he seems to leave too much up to chance, especially in terms of sanitation.

Anyways, I'm looking to ditch my old set and possibly ordering one online. What do you think of this:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6873
+
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4293
+
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=3381

As far as the bottles go, does "per 24" mean they are including 24 bottles in that 10 dollar shipment? That kind of confused me.

Also Before I'd use the ingrediant kit that I'd order I'd probably try to do half a batch or so with the remaining ingrediants I have here:

Thanks for all of y'alls help so far... the only thing holding me back right now is the price of shipping...

 

[the_bird]

No!!! It's "The Turd Bag!"

(who actually seems like a nice enough guy and all, but whose methods leave a bit to be desired.... and he's starting with a can of hopped extract, so the procedures are different from what you should have been following).

 

[Yooper]

If I recall correctly, Bobby_M has a great youtube video of extract brewing. Maybe he can chime in here (or someone who knows the video I mean) and give you the link.

This guy is a joke- he's talking about "sterilizing" which is completely wrong. You can sanitize and be sanitary, but unless you have an autoclave, you're not sterilizing. His video is not the worst we've seen around here, but it's definitely wrong.

Forget the sugar and hopped malt extract. And whatever that crap he calls "adjunct".

I highly recommend you get an equipment kit that you saw at midwest supplies, and then buy an ingredient kit either from them, or get a Brewer's Best kit. They have excellent instructions and good quality kits. Austin Home Brewer, Northern Brewer, and More beer.com have all good products.

 

[MrShake]

If your willing, as well, I would recomend the upgraded kits at midwest. You WILL appreciate having carboys!

 

[Bobby_M]

He's been brewing crappy beer for 23 years. He really knows how to do that. Practice makes perfect? No. Practice makes permanent.

Watch this (trying as hard as you can to ignore the inspirational video soundtrack):

[YOUTUBE]RENxL0HhRu4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[PseudoChef]

EDIT: oh, i was also going to see if they had any good buckets that would work for fermenting. Most of the kits i've seen that come with buckets are just industrial screw lid buckets with an air lock adapted to them (not hard to do) and a logo painted on it.... Right?

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6873

Thats what this looks to be.

Those buckets that midwestsupplies.com sells are food grade and usually 6.5-7 gallons. The buckets that Wal-Mart/Home Depot/Lowes sell aren't food grade, not as durable, and only usually 5 gallons.

If you have a bucket that's only 5 gallons, it won't leave enough head room for a 5 gallon batch of beer due to increased pressure and krasuen formation during fermentation.

 

[FEARDIZ]

Well I was basically following this method:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sAJKWCdaPq4

But now that I'm reading much more I'm starting to wonder how that guys method even worked out--he seems to leave too much up to chance, especially in terms of sanitation.

Anyways, I'm looking to ditch my old set and possibly ordering one online. What do you think of this:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6873
+
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4293
+
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=3381

As far as the bottles go, does "per 24" mean they are including 24 bottles in that 10 dollar shipment? That kind of confused me.

Also Before I'd use the ingrediant kit that I'd order I'd probably try to do half a batch or so with the remaining ingrediants I have here:

Thanks for all of y'alls help so far... the only thing holding me back right now is the price of shipping...

that will get you started at a minium.. you'll end up buying more stuff, like carboys etc.. That's a million times better than what you were using. Also look for a bigger pot, at least 2 gal. If you going to buy one, get at least 5-6 gals.
Also get a kit recipe like Brewers Best

don't use plastic bottles for your beer

If you want to use that dextrose, try this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14860

you can use plastic bottles for Apfelwein if you don't carb it.. make sure they are clean and sanitized

let us know where you live, maybe someone knows where a local store if for you

 

[brewt00l]

I think that is one badass ghetto hooch rig!