First brew is going down tomorrow!

[lespaul23]

I posted last week when I ordered my gear. I basically have a deluxe home brew kit from northern brewers (2 glass carboys), wort chiller and a 8gal kettle for a full boil setup. Plus some extra stuff...

I've read everything I think I could have read at least twice and have been reading on this forum for a while. I'm pretty confident but we shall see. I will be doing a Irish red ale for my first. It's an extract kit with 2 hop additions. I'll be using Nottingham freeze dried yeast for it. After that it's white labs liquid yeast all the way. I want away from this dried yeast!

I'm going to order a stir starter, flask and DME tomorrow to make my yeast starters with from now on, and some mason jars to start washing my yeast. Yeah! Then I should be good for a while.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

 

[masskrug]

Full boil? Do you have a propane burner, or do you plan to do a full boil on the stove top?

Good luck and welcome to brewing.

 

[BrewerBear]

Welcome aboard and good luck with the first brew. Since this is your first brew what makes you think you want away from dry yeast? I use both dry and liquid depending on what yeast I need for the brew.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Welcome aboard and good luck with the first brew. Since this is your first brew what makes you think you want away from dry yeast? I use both dry and liquid depending on what yeast I need for the brew.

This. Dry yeast works great, and you do not have to worry much about starters. Fewer choices, but I have no problem using dry. Liquid yeast is fun too, and I love making starters. I just hate that my flask does not have a level bottom and my stirbar rattles loudly.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Cool. That means you're in the fabled drinking period. You see, there's these empty beer bottles that sometimes mistakenly get delivered to stores filled with beer. You need to take some home and empty them so when you're ready, you have bottles to fill with your award winning brew.

 

[boscobeans]

1. Clean your kettle (if aluminum oxidize it by boiling water in it)
2. Clean chiller and everything else that will come in contact with the beer.
3. Follow directions (ask now if you have any questions)
4. While doing the boil sanitize the fermenter and everything else that will come in contact with the beer and place it on a sanitized surface.
5. Chill the wort to the proper temperature (a couple of degrees lower is a good idea unless you are at the lowest end of the yeast's recommendation). Let your yeast packet warm up to the same temperature as your wort.
6. Take a hydrometer reading and pitch your yeast.
7. Cover, put in airlock/blowoff tube and maintain the proper temperature for a week or two and you have made beer.

Get bottles and WAIT, WAIT, WAIT. LOL
bosco

 

[pellis007]

Don't forget to rehydrate your yeast before pitching. I recently did the NB Irish Red Ale extract and it came out great. The only thing I did different from included instructions was to pour about 1/3 of the LME in at the beginning and poured the rest at 50 mins into the boil. Stick your chiller into your boil kettle at about 50 mins to sterilize. Sanitize, sanitize, sanitize and aerate before pitching your yeast. It's a little awkward with those glass carboys, but rock it around for a good 30-45 seconds. Most of all have fun!

 

[DrunkleJon]

Don't forget to rehydrate your yeast before pitching. I recently did the NB Irish Red Ale extract and it came out great. The only thing I did different from included instructions was to pour about 1/3 of the LME in at the beginning and poured the rest at 50 mins into the boil. Stick your chiller into your boil kettle at about 50 mins to sterilize. Sanitize, sanitize, sanitize and aerate before pitching your yeast. It's a little awkward with those glass carboys, but rock it around for a good 30-45 seconds. Most of all have fun!

The yeast rehydration thing is debatable. I haven't bothered after my first time using dry. Have not really noticed a difference other than it takes a little longer to start bubbiling out the airlock.

 

[lespaul23]

Full boil? Do you have a propane burner, or do you plan to do a full boil on the stove top?

Good luck and welcome to brewing.

No burner. I have a glass stovetop that's only a couple years old. I already tested it and it got 6 and a half gal to boil pretty easy.

As far as yeast goes, I know dry is fine but want to make starters and start washing my yeast. I would just like to Taylor the flavor more then what I can do with dry yeast. And I will be 're hydrating it.

I'm 1 step ahead of some of ya heh. I already boiled in my kettle 3 times with 6 and a half gal to get it ready. I put my chiller in and boiled that. It will be getting sanitized and boiled again b4.

And to William shakes beer haha love it. I'm already on it. I keep finding those empty bottles at the store filled and I'm trying my hardest to keep them empty.


Thanks for taking interest I'm excited. Just have to wait for FedEx to come with my last package...... is it to early for a beer?

 

[DrunkleJon]

Just a FYI, your Immersion Chiller only needs to be clean to work if you put it in for the last 15 minutes or so of your boil. The heat of the boil will sanitize it for you.

 

[lespaul23]

Thanks I will do 15min, but I think I'm still gonna sani it b4 I boil. Once cold water is flowing through it, it starts to sweat from the copper up top where it meets the rubber hose and I can't boil that part so a sani dunk first then I will boil it. I don't want water droplets that aren't clean to fall in my wort.

Thanks.

 

[lespaul23]

Well first brew day went well. What a mess to clean up lol.. it's in the primary and bubbling away. No krausen yet but its bubbling.

 

[jerrodm]

Sounds like things are going great. One thing about my Irish reds, they seem to need a longer bottle conditioning period than some of the other British style beers I make. So if it doesn't taste exactly perfect after 2-3 weeks in the bottles, don't despair! Mine are usually hitting their stride at about 6 or 7 weeks in the bottle, IMO.

Cheers

 

[BrewKid]

Well first brew day went well. What a mess to clean up lol.. it's in the primary and bubbling away. No krausen yet but its bubbling.

For an Irish Ale with a lower OG you won't see much Krausen if any at all. I've brewed a Red Ale and an Amber ale and neither one showed much Krausen at all. But I'm starting to notice also that Extract batches don't seem to have much Krausen. I just attribute that to the low OG.

Now when I did not Bitter Choc stout and my all grain RIS then I had so much Krausen it was pushing through my blow off tube.

 

[RIC0]

be sterile about the entire process, can't stress that enough.

 

[lespaul23]

Lots of krausen now prob 3in. It's been 24hrs. Airlock is going like crazy now!

 

[masskrug]

Looks great! I'm surprised you can get 6 gallons to boil on the stovetop. I took me 3 hours to get 3 gallons boiling.

 

[lespaul23]

What??? That's crazy!!! It takes me about 45min to get 6 and a half up and boiling.

 

[lespaul23]

For an Irish Ale with a lower OG you won't see much Krausen if any at all. I've brewed a Red Ale and an Amber ale and neither one showed much Krausen at all. But I'm starting to notice also that Extract batches don't seem to have much Krausen. I just attribute that to the low OG.

Now when I did not Bitter Choc stout and my all grain RIS then I had so much Krausen it was pushing through my blow off tube.

What temp are you fermenting at? I have never heard anything about extract brews not foaming.... Here is a better updated pic of what's going on. This is about 30 hrs after brewing. Looks good to me.

P.S. the OG of my wort was 1.042

 

[BrewKid]

What temp are you fermenting at? I have never heard anything about extract brews not foaming.... Here is a better updated pic of what's going on. This is about 30 hrs after brewing. Looks good to me.

P.S. the OG of my wort was 1.042

I'm fermenting right around 68-70 degrees. That seems to be what my basement temp is at the moment. But nope, never got foam with extract. Could be lack of aeration.