First Brew

[ezboarderz]

Well I finally made the plunge into the world of homebrewing. Today was my first brew day. I brewed deathbrewers PM dunkelweizen. It went relatively smooth although I'm sure i did a few things wrong. I nailed the mash temps and everything but I do have a few questions.

I live in southern california, and today i made a wort chiller at ace. It worked well untill I hit around 80 degrees, and I could not get it down for the life of me. Also a tiny hit of the hops managed to get through the bag because i accidentally dropped it into the wort.

I sanitized, and pitched the yeast at 80 degree wort. If this alright or will they die off?

Other than that it went smooth.

 

[android]

you'll be fine. you might be a few fruity esters from the high temp but that's not a bad thing. i'd try to get it fermenting around 68 if possible.

what kind of beer was it BTW?

if you want the wort chiller to work better, get a tub to hold water and ice, and a cheap fountain pump (at lowe's for about $10). connect the wort chiller faucet connection to the pump and put the discharge side in the tub. this will save a TON of water and allow you to use 40 deg water to chill the wort with. EdWort has a thread floating around with pics of the set up.

congrats on the first brew!

 

[ezboarderz]

you'll be fine. you might be a few fruity esters from the high temp but that's not a bad thing. i'd try to get it fermenting around 68 if possible.

what kind of beer was it BTW?

if you want the wort chiller to work better, get a tub to hold water and ice, and a cheap fountain pump (at lowe's for about $10). connect the wort chiller faucet connection to the pump and put the discharge side in the tub. this will save a TON of water and allow you to use 40 deg water to chill the wort with.

congrats on the first brew!

Its a dunkelweizen. I do have a fridge hooked up with the ranco controller and its at 66 degrees. Thats a good idea. I'll have to try that for the next brew.

Also I do have one question about the clean up. Is there an easy way to clean the grain bag? That thing is filthy from all the hops and wort that is has been in. I cant image the only way is holding it under a sink trying to get all that color off of it.

I just got back from working out and theres already a layer of stuff on the bottle layer of the carboy. See picture for details. I assume these are my yeasties getting settled.

I am now going to brew again this weekend. Clean up isnt as fun as that actual brewing though.

 

[ChshreCat]

Its a dunkelweizen.

Then esters aren't that big of an issue. I'd be worried more about fusel alcohols than phenols since the temp was high right at the start. Not a big worry, but if the temp ends up being an issue, that'll be how it'll show.

 

[Arkador]

I use a disposable grain bag, and throw the whole thing away afterwards.

I must be in the dark ages, putting my cookpot in a sink full of icy cold water, but I do my entire process in the kitchen, 5G at a time.

 

[ezboarderz]

I use a disposable grain bag, and throw the whole thing away afterwards.

I must be in the dark ages, putting my cookpot in a sink full of icy cold water, but I do my entire process in the kitchen, 5G at a time.

ok good, I was wondering, "How the **** am I going to clean this thing perfectly?" So i guess that makes sense.

I did this in the kitchen as well, but i figured i might as well spend 30 on supplies for a wort chiller. I will have to check out ed worts's little idea.

 

[ChshreCat]

I use the sink too. Works great for me in my small scale I'm at right now.

 

[Yooper]

I have some very nice grain bags, so I rinse them in the sink as best I can, then turn them inside out and wash them in the washer and dryer. Sometimes I use the top rack of the dishwasher, but the washer gets them cleaner.

I don't use bags for my hops (except for dryhopping), but I image it would work just as well for the hop debris as it does for my winemaking stuff.

 

[android]

sorry man, i totally missed the 'dunkelweizen' part of the post. the esters shouldn't be an issue, i'm sure overall it will be fine. as far as the grain/hop bags go, i just invert them over the trash and use the spray on my faucet to clean it out. it gets it surprisingly clean and i've reused them many times without problem. just lay them out and let them dry before storing.

 

[carnevoodoo]

Where in So Cal are you?

I would work on getting that pitching temp down more. I get mine to 80 or just a bit below (I know, it is hard here sometimes) and then put mine in my freezer to cool down further. Not everyone has a dedicated freezer for brewing, but you'd be better off throwing your fermenter in a water bath with ice and waiting to pitch, even if it takes several hours. Nothing will go wrong in that time and pitching temps are important.

 

[ezboarderz]

I live in Irvine. Yeah, to solve the cooling issue, i bought a fountain pump (20 bucks) and im going to fill up my sink with ice water to get the temp down to about 70 degrees.

I cleaned the grain bag pretty well, although it is a bit discolored from the hops. It should be fine, I sanitized it and stored, so it should be cool.

I am about to start a hefeweizen in about 30 minutes. Hopefully this brew goes a bit smoother, although the dunkelweizen went pretty well except for the pitching temp.

Thanks again for your help! This forum is amazing

 

[ezboarderz]

I just want to give an update on how the fountain pump/ice water wort chiller worked out. It worked wonderfully!!! I got the temp down from 200+ degrees to 67 degrees in about 18 minutes! quite an improvement. I shall be endulging in the hefeweizen that i brewed today in 1 1/4 months! Cheers