First time brewer (nervous/excited)

[jspain3]

So, after years of saying I would homebrew, I've finally bought a kit and am ready to take the plunge. I quickly realized that there is a lot I'm unsure of.

I have a 30Qt Bayou Classic pot and a burner. I plan to do a full boil and will be starting with a Brewer's Best Double IPA. I even built my own 60' immersion wort chiller (it was $15 cheaper than the 50' copper coil).

I was going to start last weekend until I realized that sanitizer was not included in the equipment kit. So, hopefully, my StarSan is delivered this week so I can brew this weekend. I did boil water in my setup to season the pot and test out the chiller.

A couple of newbie questions because I've read differing things:

1) Should I steep the grains in less water and then add more water before bringing to a rolling boil (and adding LME, hops, etc.)? Or should I steep the grains in the full, pre-boil amount (probably 6+ gallons)?

2) When cooling down with worth chiller, do you leave the lid on or off? I wasn't sure about condensation dripping back into the wort.

3) When pitching the yeast, should I sprinkle it in like the directions say or rehydrate the yeast first?

I'm sure I'll run across more questions as brewday approaches. Thanks in advance.

 

[GrogNerd]

1) 2½ gallons is enough for steeping. start to heat, drop your steeping grains in, take them out when it reaches 170°

2) lid off.

3) best to re-hydrate, but not necessary

here's an excellent, quick tutorial on extract + steeping grains brewing

 

[charliehorse]

1) The volume of water shouldn't matter that much when you're steeping the grains but it's easier to get 6+ gallons of wort of boiling if it's already at 170 degrees, so I'd use the full volume. Also, it's easier to measure the water if you don't have to worry about burning yourself.
2)Never ever put the lid on your pot once you've heated the water enough to steep grains. In fact, I don't even keep my lid with my kettle. Once it's cooled to pitching temperature, get it into the fermenter and put the lid on that.
3)Even though the directions say to pitch it dry, I normally rehydrate my yeast. I've don't it both ways and fermentation takes off faster with hydrated yeast. I've forgotten to do this before and I still got the final gravity that I was looking for.

 

[mdbrewer1]

1) 2½ gallons is enough for steeping. start to heat, drop your steeping grains in, take them out when it reaches 170°

2) lid off.

3) best to re-hydrate, but not necessary

here's an excellent, quick tutorial on extract + steeping grains brewing

here's an excellent, quick tutorial on extract + steeping grains brewing

+1 on the video. I still skim through it each brew day to make sure I don't miss any steps. It reminded me that I forgot to aerate my wort a couple batches ago.

 

[PhantomBrew1111]

1) 2½ gallons is enough for steeping. start to heat, drop your steeping grains in, take them out when it reaches 170°

2) lid off.

3) best to re-hydrate, but not necessary

here's an excellent, quick tutorial on extract + steeping grains brewing

here's an excellent, quick tutorial on extract + steeping grains brewing

I agree with this, I have only brewed once but the cover suggestion is a good one. I was at the end of my wort boil and thought I would steam sanitize the cover by loosely putting it on the pot, well I turn my back and the cover slipped all the way on and boom, sticky over boil mess.

 

[jspain3]

That video was very informative. It's one thing to read this stuff over and over, but watching it in action definitely helps. I have a second fermenting carboy, but I may just skip that step and just let it ferment in the primary fermenter.

 

[kombat]

2)Never ever put the lid on your pot once you've heated the water enough to steep grains.

Minor correction here: There's no problem keeping the lid on during mashing/steeping. In fact, it's quite helpful to do so, as it helps to hold temperature.

It only becomes a problem once you heat the wort to a boil, after you've removed the grains. This is because the steam evaporating off of the boil is carrying away dimethyl sulfide (DMS) compounds that contribute undesirable (cooked corn) flavours to the beer. You want to let those compounds evaporate away, so keep the lid off during the boil. I would also keep the lid off during chilling. But during mashing/steeping, the DMS compounds are not evaporating away, so there's no problem with keeping the lid on during that step.

 

[peterj]

I was going to start last weekend until I realized that sanitizer was not included in the equipment kit. So, hopefully, my StarSan is delivered this week so I can brew this weekend. I did boil water in my setup to season the pot and test out the chiller.

I see you're in Alpharetta so I just wanted to let you know that instead of ordering it online and delaying your brewday, you could have gone to a local homebrew store and picked it up. Beer and Wine Craft in Sandy Springs is where I usually go. The owner is a pretty nice guy, and I actually recently found out he goes to my church (and that he makes all of the wine we use for communion!). You could also go to Brewmaster's Warehouse off of Roswell Rd in Marietta. They usually have a little bit better selection (for example they carry Wyeast and White Labs while Beer and Wine Craft only carries White labs) and slightly better prices, but they aren't as reliable. Sometimes they'll be out of super common items and the last time they crushed my grains they did a terrible job. Anyway the point is you don't have to wait for stuff to come in the mail, you can just go out and buy it!

 

[jspain3]

I actually work across the street (well, almost) from Brew Depot, so that's where I got my starter kit and recipe kit. I read somewhere that most brew stores didn't carry StarSan so that's why I ordered it online. I wasn't in a hurry since I can't brew until the weekend anyway. Good to know there are other stores nearby.

 

[jspain3]

For a double IPA will fermenting at room temp (75) be ok or should I fashion a swamp cooler? If push came to shove I could probably use the guest bath tub for the first few days with cold water and ice.

 

[unionrdr]

Definitely look into cooling the fermenter during initial fermentation. And keeping the lid on during steeping or mashing is good to keep the heat in. I like to rehydrate dry yeast to shorten the lag phase.

 

[jspain3]

Quick recap of maiden brew day:

I started with 6 gallons of water which was probably too much for my kettle (30 qt) because I had several boil overs. I was ready for them with a spray bottle but the trigger snapped off while battling the first one. After several relights, I finally finished the boil and began chilling with my immersion chiller. It worked great going from 200 to 85, but stalled out after that presumably because of the hose water temp, even though I tried running it through an ice bucket first.

When I poured the wort I to my fermenting bucket I was over five gallons. I just stopped it at five and tossed the rest. Rookie mistake? At that point was just ready to be done because the kids were up from their naps and were ready to play. I pitched the yeast and put the fermenter in a spare garage fridge with the temp setting on the lowest setting. Hopefully, that won't drop the temp too low for fermenting.

All in all, I had fun but definitely realized a few things I will change for next time. I'll chalk this one up to a "learning experience."

Thanks again for all the tips.

 

[Conan]

That's too hot for a clean ferment. Definitely aim for 70 max on the side of the fermenter. Kyle

 

[Jay-Brew]

For a double IPA will fermenting at room temp (75) be ok or should I fashion a swamp cooler? If push came to shove I could probably use the guest bath tub for the first few days with cold water and ice.

Good luck on your first batch. You'll learn something about your process every batch for a while. If the room temperature is 75F your beer will be warmer than that when it starts fermenting. I think it can potentially get up to 10F higher than ambient temperature so warmer than you want for this beer. You'll want to keep it cooler so a swamp cooler is a good idea.

 

[MindenMan]

You added about the right amount of water, you just didn't let it boil long enough. Fermentation temperature control is critical. You could have the best technical brewing day, and pitching the yeast too hot, and/or fermentation temp too high, your beer quality will suffer. You said you could use the spare bathroom tub for a couple of days, that may be all you need. Do you have a way to stockpile some ice or blue ice? Run the water into the tub as cool as is possible, after placing bucket in tub, and if the water temperature is 70* the beer is 5* hotter usually. 75* is too hot for good beer. Cooler is better, and it is only critical for the first two, maybe three days. At that point, room temperature will be okay.

 

[jspain3]

I initially had the fermenter in a spare fridge on the warmest setting. The DIPA recipe said 60-72 was ideal, but the wort was down in the 50s and not much was going on in the first 24 hours. Worried that I let it get too cold, I pulled it out and left it at room temp overnight. This morning it was bubbling feverishly. FWIW, I am using US-05 yeast.