First brew - questions

[pjlabonte96]

Got my deluxe northern brewer with chinook ipa. Brewed it on Wednesday. Airlock started bubbling Thursday night and I checked it yesterday and it is bubbling constantly.

Is constant bubbling a good sign of fermentation?
Also is it normal for the beer to have 2 color tones to it? It’s in a carboy and the bottom half of the beer is darker than the top half. Maybe by a shade. As if the water has separated from the mix or something. It could just be the angle of the light when I look at it.

 

[whiskeyjack]

Bubbling means you have active fermentation which is good, although no bubbling does not mean inactive fermentation. No bubbling means either no fermentation or leak somewhere resulting in no bubbles through airlock. The dark stuff is probably trub. Cheers!

 

[kh54s10]

Both are normal. As whiskeyjack said it is a lack of bubbles in the airlock that can sometimes but not always alert to a fermentation problem.

As the fermentation progresses your stratification in the carboy may get even more distinct as sediment and yeast start falling out of suspension. Initially the top will start to get clear and the bottom, maybe 2/3 will be cloudy. As the sediment packs down the ratios will reverse until all the beer is clear and there is a compacted layer of debris called trub on the bottom of the fermenter.

 

[pjlabonte96]

Both are normal. As whiskeyjack said it is a lack of bubbles in the airlock that can sometimes but not always alert to a fermentation problem.

As the fermentation progresses your stratification in the carboy may get even more distinct as sediment and yeast start falling out of suspension. Initially the top will start to get clear and the bottom, maybe 2/3 will be cloudy. As the sediment packs down the ratios will reverse until all the beer is clear and there is a compacted layer of debris called trub on the bottom of the fermenter.

Okay thank you both of you. I wish this process was quicker, I can’t wait to try my first brew!

 

[mongoose33]

Okay thank you both of you. I wish this process was quicker, I can’t wait to try my first brew!

I have learned a great deal about homebrewing, but the one thing I have yet to learn?

Patience!

When you get a pipeline of beer going, you'll find it easier to exercise patience.

*************

A lot of the learning involves what's "normal." I've attached a few pics below showing various fermentations I've had; the closeups show the kind of trub/yeast layer you'll end up with after fermentation has ceased and the yeast and trub have dropped out to the bottom of the fermenter.

If your fermentation remains active, you should be able to take a flashlight and shine it into the fermenter from the side, and see what looks like a roiling storm of yeast. I've attached a link to a video showing active fermentation; mine don't tend to have the big chunks floating around, but I think that's a consequence of the type of yeast, recipe, temp, and so on. You should be able to see something similar.

 

[pjlabonte96]

There is a lot to learn in homebrewing. I have learned a great deal, but the one thing I have yet to learn?

Patience!

When you get a pipeline of beer going, you'll find it easier to exercise patience.

I agree. My plan is once I transfer the beer to the secondary tank, I want to brew up a wheat beer Incase I don’t like the chinook ipa. I’m not too keen on IPAs. I like my blue moon, shock top, allagash white and I like most lagers haha.

 

[kh54s10]

You don't need to transfer to secondary. If you are dry hopping, you can do that in primary. Once fermentation has finished you can add the dry hops and after the prescribed time, bottle the beer.

If there are no dry hops, at 10 - 14 days take 2 gravity readings a day or 2 apart, if they are the same, bottle the beer.

If you have only one fermenter and are ready to start another, that is a reason where you could use a secondary.

 

[mongoose33]

I agree. My plan is once I transfer the beer to the secondary tank, I want to brew up a wheat beer Incase I don’t like the chinook ipa. I’m not too keen on IPAs. I like my blue moon, shock top, allagash white and I like most lagers haha.

I edited my post above w/ some pics and a video that may help you see what's "normal."

I have two suggestions. I've brewed 53 batches, have progressed well, but I remember what it was like my first few times brewing. Lots of moving parts, things to time correctly, how to do this and that....it gets better. Take good notes on what you do, any measurements you might have, so that you can refer back to them in the future to know what "normal" is.

I've attached a pic of a page from my notebook; this is how I record things about brew day. Yours can be more or less, depending. There are things I don't write down now because they're just standard--things like oxygenating the wort. I always do that.

Others will use software like Beersmith, still others have a form that they use to record things. Here's a Google Images page of a whole bunch of "brew sheets" you might consider: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en.....2.26.1014.0..0j35i39k1j0i30k1.0.he2SHk5IFfU



One reason I like detailed notes is that if I hit on a recipe and process, I want to be able to reproduce it.

The second suggestion is this: don't overcomplicate at the beginning. Find relatively simple recipes and master the process. IMO, brewing is more about process than it is about recipes; the more complicated things are at the beginning, the greater the chances for screwing something up that will produce something not intended.

Beer brewing is a pretty resilient process; you'll still get beer, and as long as the errors aren't huge in magnitude, probably good beer. But at the outset, as a new brewer, you want to master that process. Complicated recipes make it harder to do that. And there are many, many beers whose recipes are simple yet the output is terrific.

Enjoy the process; learning about brewing is almost as much fun for me as drinking the result!

 

[Novacor]

Okay thank you both of you. I wish this process was quicker, I can’t wait to try my first brew!

If the process was quicker there would be nothing slowing me down and I'd probably never stop brewing...

 

[seatazzz]

I would suggest doing a lot more reading here on HBT. This particular forum is jam-packed with threads from first-time brewers just like you, asking a lot of the same questions you have, and getting great answers from the more experienced brewers (I started several threads here myself back in the day). Also you can read Jon Palmer's How to Brew (available for free in the first edition online at howtobrew.com, newer additions available at Amazon or your favorite book retailer).

Most of the kits out there will tell you to leave your beer in primary for 7-10 days, then transfer to secondary for another 2 weeks. It's really not necessary, unless you're doing something more with your beer (adding fruit, aging, etc). For your basic ale, you can leave it in the primary fermenter for the entire process, until you're ready to package, then you should get yourself a bottling bucket.

As long as your process is good, you can be enjoying that first beer of yours in less than 3 weeks from start to finish...7-10 days in the fermenter, and then 2 weeks in bottles to carbonate.

Read on, and BREW ON!

 

[TGFV]

As others have said, read read read.

And more importantly use the search function. When I first started out nearly all my questions had been asked, sometimes multiple times over the years previously.

Though don't feel worried to ever ask, the only stupid question is the one that should have been asked but wasn't.

And for the colour striation, different yeasts can have different effects on it. Several yeasts cause protein clumps to form temporary layers, and others cause the whole carboy to look like a single gle breathing organism as it thrashes around wildly (looking at you saison yeast!)