First Brew

[Grant McKinley]

My first brew day was Aug 18. Started with a Fat Tyre since its my favorite. It went really well. Cooking it was the easy part, waiting for the finished product is tough. Beer fermented at 68 Deg. in the fermentation chamber (mini frig with thermostat control). The test bucket was a little smaller than the fermentation bucket, so I had to take the saws all to the can dispenser and shelf on the refrig door to get it to fit. It took 20 hours for the fermentation to start which started to worry me. After a week I started the secondary fermentation. Cold crashed for another week. Dropped the temperature down to 60F for 6 days and one day at 54F.

Went ahead and bottled yesterday. The clarity came out better than I thought it would. It has more of a kick to it than fat tire and is a little darker but taste great. One or two weeks in the bottles to carbonate and then it will be good to drink. The alcohol content ended up being 4.8%. I racked 268 ounces.

 

[NeoBrew]

Looks like it's going to be a good one!

The common wisdom these days is that you do not need to put the beer into secondary. I'm wondering if you did a Northern Brewer kit? They have not bothered to update their instruction sheets. It's pretty commonly believed now that the extra transfer to secondary doesn't produce any better beer and introduces a chance for some oxidation and possible infection. Most of us just leave it on the yeast cake for an extra week or two.

The concept of secondary seems to have stemmed from large breweries where the yeast cake is large and under considerable pressure due to the amount and depth of beer on top of it. At the homebrew scale it will not cause your yeast to autolize and create bad flavors.

No worries, we all used to secondary in the past. Your beer is going to be great!

 

[small_b_brewing]

Wow, that clarity is amazing! I'd be thrilled to have mine that clear, let alone on my first brew

 

[RM-MN]

A lot of my beers don't show fermentation activity for up to 36 hours or even a bit more. They have all made beer.

Good brewing practices, careful racking while bottling, and time in the primary fermenter will get you clear beers. Super clear beers can be had by gelatin fining too.

 

[Ronald C Gregory]

congrats I just cracked open my first beers this weekend hope you enjoy the journey

 

[bobeer]

Looking good. Welcome to the hobby! Let us know how it turns out.

 

[Grant McKinley]

Thanks for the replies. I can't wait to taste it cold.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Looking great congrats on your first brew. It'll be even better after its carbed up.cheers

 

[Jag75]

Man that looks good . Fat tire is a really good beer . On the secondary note if you have a fast fermenter you can "rack" without exposing the beer to oxygen. The fermenter is awesome . So easy and simple . I always do a secondary with this because the conical ball usually if full of sediment within a week. It would be interesting to do a 10 gallon brew and split it into 5 and 5 . Do a secondary on one but not the other and see how the clarity turns out . I think everyone is just used to doing out of tradition. My Aunt is the one who got me into this and shes been doing secondaries for years . However I believe Cask Ales dont go through a secondary if I recall.

 

[Iowa Brewer]

Wow, looks great, man!

 

[RM-MN]

It has more of a kick to it than fat tire and is a little darker but taste great.

Beers made from extract nearly always turn out a little darker because of the process used to make the extract. By adding most of the extract late in the boil you can offset part but not all of that darkening. My experience says that my home brewed beers always have more kick than commercially produced beer even though they calculate to the same amount of alcohol.