First Kit, and a few mistakes

[mythbustingpyro]

So I made my first extract kit (smashing pumpkin small batch) a couple days ago and thought Id share a few mistakes I made. These were the instructions: http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/SmashingPumpkin_ONEGALLON.pdf

I steeped the supplied specialty grain while I brought my pot to boil. I thought I had remembered that steeping temp was at 170, so I stopped it and let it "rest" there for 10 minutes but after looking at the extract sticky again today it said 150. Not too worried about that, from reading it just left me with less fermentable sugar. After the 10 minutes at 170 I pulled the bag and brought it to boil.

I remembered to pull it off the heat and stirred in the LME while pouring slowly and used the same muslin bag to contain the hops to keep the hop material out of the wort (after rinsing the bag).

Next I put it back on the heat and once it reached boiling set my timer for the 45 minute boil. All went well, never got close to boil over (I stirred around 90% of the time. Probably overkill, but I had nothing else to do.) At 45 minutes I pulled off the heat and pulled the hops out.

I used an ice-bath to try and cool, but my sink stopper didn't fully seal the sink so I lost a lot of water and ice to trying to keep it full. Since I was losing water so fast I tried to recover and started stirring the wort. As a result it took me 14 minutes to get the temp down to 90F, I don't know whether this is good or bad. But as soon as I finished I realized how that probably just oxygenated the hot wort which is a no-no.

I poured the wort into my 1 gallon carboy, probably a little less than a gallon but I can top up later. I had no trub that I could differentiate from the wort, so it all went into carboy. My OG was 1.062. At this point I realized I forgot to add the pumpkin spices at flameout so I added them now. I shook the carboy to aerate the wort now.

I was going to rehydrate the yeast but the neither the yeast package nor the kit (US-05) recommend it so I skipped it. I pitched the yeast at the 90F which was probably too hot. I used the recommended half packet. I re-shook the carboy to further aerate and suspend the yeast fully.

I had to use a balloon since I forgot to get the larger bung for my wide neck carboy, which I'm slightly thankful because some krausen blew out the tiny hole in the balloon during the first night. My temps are a little hot for my liking at 70F ambient but its the best I can do here.

I'm going to bottle after 2 weeks, using the fizz drops provided.

I'm not a huge fan of the instructions provided. They didn't let me know what grains they were being steeped, and just said to steep them while raising to boiling. It also didn't give me a target OG or FG so I'm not sure if I'm way off base (unlikely with extract from my understanding). But I guess thats not too big of a deal.

So I feel stirring the wort while cooling was my biggest mistake to worry about. Followed by the steeping temp. And finally not adding the spices till the wort was cool. The airlock is unfortunate but had never been a big problem before, two of my carboys have the wider neck (normally used when I secondary/bulk age) and this one was the only open one.

What do you think of my first goal. No matter what I'll have a gallon of beer.

 

[btbnl]

The steeping grains are primarily for flavor rather than fermentables, and the risk with too high a steeping temperature is tannin extraction.

The 5G kit comes with 0.5lb of caramel/crystal 40; roughly scaling that down I'll assume 2oz in the 1G kit.

Based on the amount of extract and assuming 25% efficiency on the specialty grain it looks like you've got about 0.9G of wort (the full gallon would have given you an OG of 1.054).

The biggest issues I can see are adding the spices too cool and the yeast too hot; as long as the stirring wasn't too vigorous (and arguably even if it was) that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[BlackGoat]

Many of us stir while we cool, I use a immersion chiller and I always give it a couple stirs to help speed up cooling, it isn't a problem at all. That certainly wasn't an issue, as long as you stirred with a sanitized spoon. Your biggest issues here were clearly temperatures. The 170 for the steeping grains isn't a huge problem. Pitching yeast at 90 degrees is, and fermenting at about 70 degrees is on the higher end or above the tolerance of most yeast. Keep in mind, during fermentation the activity will cause the beer to be several degrees higher than ambient temps. When you pitch yeast too high and ferment too high, you can get off flavors - in particular you tend to get a rubbing alcohol aroma/flavor, among a number of others.

This is all part of the learning experience though, when I first started brewing I had the exact same issues with chilling in a sink, pitching yeast too hot, and fermenting at warm temps. I always figured it wouldn't matter. I ended up with beer and some of those early batches were good but focusing on getting the temperatures within the right range is one of the biggest improvements I've made. On your next batch, I'd suggest you make sure you get that wort down to a temperature in the low 60s before pitching, then find a way to keep it there (search for "swamp cooler" techniques on this forum for some easy ideas).

 

[mythbustingpyro]

Yeah. I normally have temps around 65 ambient for fermenting brewing at my parents but had to brew at home this time.

Will definitely wait for it to cool fully next time. I was jumpy after infecting a batch of wine letting it cool overnight.

Once Im out of school and we buy a house Im going to work on an electric kettle build (biab). To contol my mash/steep/boil better.