First post & home brew

[mleban]

New member, first post and first extract home brew, RyePA. Here are the things I did, does anyone care to comment on why I did them, and your thoughts on good, bad, or indifferent?

1. Steeping grains – just dunk the bag, tie off to handle and let soak. How much actual steeping of the grains should I have done? Does this make any real difference after sitting in the 150° water for 20 minutes?
2. LME – I poured approx. ½ of the 9 lbs of LME into the pot at the start of the boil. Then for some reason I added 25% at 30 minutes and the rest at 10-15 minutes.
3. Buddy warmed up the LME before I put into the pot, although I really couldn't tell any difference between the pre-warmed LME & the remainder which I just had outside with me. What's the best thing to do here?
4. I took the pot off the burner every time I did an addition, stopping the clock. Then after the additions I waited until I got a rolling boil to re-start the timer. So with my 2 hop and 2 additional LME additions, I figure I extended the total time to more like 80 minutes with 60 minutes of actual rolling boil.
5. Wooden spoon (not the magic one) – stirred the pot with your typical wooden kitchen spoon. Besides not being really long enough to get me away from the heat, any issues with using wood?
6. Immersion chiller – cleaned & sanitized. Did I read where I can just put it into the boil with 10 minutes left to sanitize?
7. Remembered some posts about stirring the pot in the opposite direction of the chiller tubes, so I quickly grabbed my wooden spoon and did a quick stir before I realized I hadn't sanitized it.
8. Chilled wort down to 100°, then started to transfer into primary. Forgot to put some of the cold water into the vessel first. After transferring and realizing I also forgot to whirlpool before the transfer, I put almost all of the wort into the primary. I did roll the pot some to catch a few of the hops left at the bottom. Seems like the pelleted hops are pretty small at that point and hard to separate.
9. If I go with a conical fermenter in the future, will I be able to just dump all the wort and not worry at all about hop transfer? Then when done with primary I can use the valve to transfer directly to the keg.
10. Topped off my initial 2.5 gallon boil with the remainder to make 5, although wasn't measuring or being precise. Top off water was cold.
11. Vigorously shook and rolled the primary for a couple of minutes to aerate. Sufficient or is it really necessary to oxygenate?
12. Didn't actually take the temp of the wort before pitching the yeast.
13. Fermentation – my buddy ferments his in his closet at 73°, I wanted basement and I have a box fan blowing on the carboy. I figure it has to generate heat.
14. Kit says to place carboy in a quiet spot until fermentation begins. Does the yeast really care?
15. After 24 hours had to swap out the air lock for a blow-off tube. Why not just go with the blow-off tube from the start?
16. My plan is to 4 week primary, cold crash (for how long?), keg and let it sit for 2 more weeks (yea, right) before opening the tap. Kit says anywhere from 4-8 weeks, which I assume is pretty standard. Seems like the general consensus from other posts I have seen is the longer the better. I have a dual tap with a commercial brew so its not like I won't have good beer. Would rather wait for it to be as good as it can be before breaking into.
Thanks for taking the time to read.

 

[Yooper]

Welcome to the obsession. I'll try to give my answers to your questions, although many brewers do things a bit differently.

1. Steeping for 20 minutes is perfect. It's like making tea. The resulting liquid (called wort) should smell really great.
2. Adding the LME at various times doesn't really matter, but there is no advantage to adding it three times. The disadvantage is that it will stop the boil, so I personally wouldn't. I'd add about 1 pound of extract per gallon of liquid in the boil at the very beginning, and then add the rest at flame out. That way, it doesn't stop the boil or require much thought.
3. As long as it's easy to pour, it doesn't matter. Warmer extract comes out of the jug easier, if you're using the 'milk jug' type of container from your brew store.
4. That sounds pretty tedious. Next time, don't add the LME two times during the boil, and the boil won't stop.
5. A wooden spoon is fine.
6. I put mine in with 15 minutes left in the boill, just rinsing it off first.
7. When you chill, it does help to agitate the liquid, and/or the chiller, gently so it cools faster. This is when you put aside the wooden spoon, as it can't be easily sanitized. Use the chiller itself, picking it up and "stirring" gently with it, or use a stainless utensil that is sanitized if the wort is no longer boiling. Anything pre-boil or during the boil doesn't need to be sanitized (the boiling sanitizes it), but once the boil stops, nothing should touch the wort that isn't sanitized.
8. Chill a bit lower than 100 degrees, so that when you add the cold top up water, your temperature is about 62 degrees or so. I transfer all the wort into the fermenter and don't whirlpool. Some people do, but it doesn't matter. All of the 'stuff' will fall to the bottom via gravity anyway after fermentation.
9. Don't know- I've never had a conical.
10. Yep.
11. It's necessary to aerate- but it is easier to cool the boiled wort first to under 80 degrees, and just shake the 2.5 gallons, rather than the whole primary! Pouring the wort into the primary also aerates it quite well, especially if you splash it in, and then you won't have to shake at all!
12. ALWAYS check the temperature, and pitch at 62-65 degrees for ales. That's one of the most important things to making the best beer.
13. Way too warm. Fermenting beer often generates more heat than you'd think- I've personally seen a +10 degree difference between ambient and beer temperature. It's important to keep the beer temperature (not ambient) cool, generally in the mid 60s, for almost all ale yeast strains.
14. "Quiet spot". I never heard that before. Just cool and dark (cover the carboy so it is not exposed to light. But you can play music if you'd like- yeast likes 90s grunge alternative in my experience.
15. Sure, if you use a blow off tube, you can just skip an airlock.
16. I'm not a fan of a 4 week primary (don't like the yeast character imparted), but if you do that's fine. I don't cold crash either, but you can if you want. I'm generally drinking my beers before week four. Most ales don't benefit by aging, but it depends on what you're making. I definitely do NOT subscribe to 'the longer the better' group- why would you drink older stale beer, when you can drink it fresh? Like I said, a few ales benefit from aging, but most do not. It depends on many things like the OG of the beer (higher alcohol beers may take a bit more time to be at their peak), or complex ingredients (Russian imperial stout with the big bold roasty flavors and high alcohol may take a bit longer for the flavors to meld). But plain ol' pale ales and ambers and such are great by about week 3 if made well.

But that is the key- ferment too warm, underpitch the yeast, etc, and then sometimes aging out some of those off flavors may benefit the beer. A properly made beer won't benefit from age- it'll just get older. Just like you don't want an old bottle of commercial beer, you don't want an over aged glass of homebrewed beer, either!

 

[ncbrewer]

Welcome to the obsession. I'll try to give my answers to your questions, although many brewers do things a bit differently.
/QUOTE]

Lots of helpful stuff here.