Well I started my first brew yesterday afternoon and ofcourse no matter how much you read and learn you have mess ups like any good noob.
Im doing the American Amber Ale kit from B3 and a full-wort boil of 6 gallons. So I have a smaller propane burner and then a big one that we use for crab boils. Well the larger one had some problems with the connection so I used the smaller one. BAD idea. It takes forever to do a fullwort boil. This smaller burner puts out some heat now, it just wasnt enough.
So I finally get it to boil at around 6:32 with starting at 5:10. Turn the heat off to stir in the extract and 1st hops. 2nd BAD idea. It took forever for the small burner to get back up to boiling. Finally at around 7:00 it was still barely boiling so I said screw this I have to put it on the large burner. I set it up and tranfered the pot. Immediately it started boiling. This was about about at 7:15. So I said well im going to let it boil for another 15 minutes and then make that my 40 minute mark since I didnt get a full boil the whole time.
7:30 I put my wort chiller and my whirlfloc in.
7:45 I put 2nd hop addition
7:49 I put 3rd hop addition
7:50 I turned off heat/and turned on the wort chiller.
This was my 3rd mistake. I didnt check the chiller beforehand and ofcourse there was a small leak that I had to tighten up. Nothing big just a small dribble of water.
So I go on waiting about 40 minutes for the wort to cool then I tranfer half of it to my plastic bucket in order to do some aeration. I shake it all up as best I can and then pour the rest of the wort into it.
I let this sit for about 15-20 minutes to try and let some of the sediments settle out and then I transfered the wort via spigot into my glass carboy. I put the packet of yeast into the glass carboy and continues to fill it up. I also took some wort for a OG reading. Which was 1.053 so I was looking on target of my goal 1.047-1.055 I believe.
Now I had still gotten alot of sediment in my glass carboy. Should I have racked it out of the plastic bucket and then into the carboy or does it matter? And since there is a good bit of sediment should I only leave it in the primary for 1 week and then rack it into my secondary for 2 weeks?
And also what do you guys use in your airlock? I used my sanitizing solution of star san and its really bubbling up alot. Like soapy bubbles out the top.
Notes for next time:
1) Use correct size burner.
2) Check for leaks with wort chiller.
Besides the few messups that made me want to tear my hair out it was relatively smooth and I really enjoyed just relaxing outside with a beer and makeing some beer.
Update: This morning I got up and checked the carboy before work and it was fermenting quite nicely.
Im doing the American Amber Ale kit from B3 and a full-wort boil of 6 gallons. So I have a smaller propane burner and then a big one that we use for crab boils. Well the larger one had some problems with the connection so I used the smaller one. BAD idea. It takes forever to do a fullwort boil. This smaller burner puts out some heat now, it just wasnt enough.
So I finally get it to boil at around 6:32 with starting at 5:10. Turn the heat off to stir in the extract and 1st hops. 2nd BAD idea. It took forever for the small burner to get back up to boiling. Finally at around 7:00 it was still barely boiling so I said screw this I have to put it on the large burner. I set it up and tranfered the pot. Immediately it started boiling. This was about about at 7:15. So I said well im going to let it boil for another 15 minutes and then make that my 40 minute mark since I didnt get a full boil the whole time.
7:30 I put my wort chiller and my whirlfloc in.
7:45 I put 2nd hop addition
7:49 I put 3rd hop addition
7:50 I turned off heat/and turned on the wort chiller.
This was my 3rd mistake. I didnt check the chiller beforehand and ofcourse there was a small leak that I had to tighten up. Nothing big just a small dribble of water.
So I go on waiting about 40 minutes for the wort to cool then I tranfer half of it to my plastic bucket in order to do some aeration. I shake it all up as best I can and then pour the rest of the wort into it.
I let this sit for about 15-20 minutes to try and let some of the sediments settle out and then I transfered the wort via spigot into my glass carboy. I put the packet of yeast into the glass carboy and continues to fill it up. I also took some wort for a OG reading. Which was 1.053 so I was looking on target of my goal 1.047-1.055 I believe.
Now I had still gotten alot of sediment in my glass carboy. Should I have racked it out of the plastic bucket and then into the carboy or does it matter? And since there is a good bit of sediment should I only leave it in the primary for 1 week and then rack it into my secondary for 2 weeks?
And also what do you guys use in your airlock? I used my sanitizing solution of star san and its really bubbling up alot. Like soapy bubbles out the top.
Notes for next time:
1) Use correct size burner.
2) Check for leaks with wort chiller.
Besides the few messups that made me want to tear my hair out it was relatively smooth and I really enjoyed just relaxing outside with a beer and makeing some beer.
Update: This morning I got up and checked the carboy before work and it was fermenting quite nicely.
