First brew with my new kit!

[Cinci-Brewing]

I recently upgraded from my Mr. Beer kit to a 5 gallon bucket with spigot as my primary fermenter, I'm going to use a carboy down the road, but this setup will have to do for now.

For my first brew, Cooper's Irish Stout, i was going to keep it simple and not use DME, just white sugar. But i decided to use 1 lb of Muntons plain extra dark spray dried malt extract and 1 cup of white sugar (didn't know if more then 1 cup of sugar would be to much with the DME).

Everything went great, expect for when i was putting the airlock on, i pushed down to hard and the rubber grommet came off the lid and went right to the bottom. So i removed the lid, washed my hand and arm with soap and water, dry off then went to the bottom to remove the rubber grommet.

I got a brand new grommet i had with my kit, dunked it in one step, rinsed it off and put my air lock on without any more issue's. I hope that didn't ruin my brew.

I checked my seal once i put the air lock on and everything shows a good seal.

Several hour's later, i can smell a very light smell of what the wort smell's like and there is a bubble and the sound of air releasing every now and then so i think everything is going great.

When It's time to bottle, i have 1 liter and 16 ounce bottles. How much corn sugar do i put in the bottles?.

 

[SporkD2]

congrats! I recomend that you find a bucket without a spigot for your primary. Some nasties can hide in the valve and could one day infect your beer. Also, remember soap and water cleans, but doesnt sanitize. Lots of people have had their gromets fall in, its not big deal and next time just grab a new one and get the old one out when you transfer. Search the board for formulas about how much corn sugar you should use.

 

[JohnnyO]

Measuring corn sugar to put directly into bottles can be very tedious. You may want to look into carb tabs. You can get them at any LHBS.

What most people do is use a bottling bucket (what you are fermenting in, it sounds like). You would boil your corn sugar in 1-2 cups of water, cool, and pour into your bottling bucket. You rack your beer on top of this, then bottle.

Look into the carb tabs for this batch, and pick up a carboy to ferment in for next time.

 

[snevey]

http://iam.homebrewtalk.com/Cinci-BrewingCinci-Brewing - The MR BEER way of doing things was to put the measured sugar or carb tabs in the bottle. As you know, this was a PITA for 20 bottles of beer, little alone 50-60 bottles. I'd recommend while this beer is fermenting away to use this time to acquire a bottling bucket. I don't know the exact cost, but I'd bet less than $15.

Mr. Beer can make some good beers, way to step up. People are afraid of fermenting in their bottling bucket, and I'm not sure why. Mr. Beer kits have spigots and you ferment (and bottle) from them. All I would do is make sure you clean the spigots by removing them from the buckets and soaking them in a cleaning solution and then thoroughly rinsing, and then sanitize them. Then store them in a zip lock bag and repeat the process when it comes time to ferment again.

If I were you, I would get a piece of tubing and attach it to the spigot on your fermenter and gently drain the wort into the bottling bucket on top of the boiled sugar/water solution once it was time to bottle. Carefully, as you don't want to introduce ANY aeration (oxygen) to the wort once it has been fermented...

 

[Cinci-Brewing]

Thanks for all the replies, i definitely want to get a glass carboy, then use the bottling bucket I'm fermenting in now for bottling. I was on a budget, so i thought, how can i get into 5 gallon brewing while keeping cost down.

What i did with the spigot, was dunk it in a pan of one step and rotated the valve on and off to insure that i could sanitize as much of the spigot as possible.

But i definitely want a glass carboy for my next brew recipe. I want to get into kegging too, i hope i can just convert an old refrigerator into a kegerator.

I do have one more question, i have not used a hydrometer for this batch, i will have one to use for the Wheat beer recipe that's next, but not for this batch. From what I've read on the forums, everyone recommends to ferment for two weeks, even if air lock stops bubbling, leave it alone for two weeks. Do you recommend to leave it in the fermentor for two weeks before bottling and would i increase the chance of contamination by leaving it in there for two weeks?