smokeskrene4207
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- Joined
- Sep 21, 2021
- Messages
- 22
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- 14
Hello all;
Let me start by saying this is not my first time fermenting things. I've made a few batches of mead, wine and shine. I have never brewed beer. I have a hydrometer. And a proof and tralle for the still.
I thought beer might be easy to make give my experience. So I buy a summer shandy clone extract kit. I bought a wort chiller and hooked it up in the kitchen. I have a 13.2 ss pot. My fermentor is a 7 gallon bucket I got from local(not really local tho) brew shop.
So this is probably my fault, but I bought it in May to make it immediately when it came. As it turned out my plan to brew got cancelled due to other priorities. I didn't think to check the kit out. That was a huge mistake because this Friday as I'm following directions to start my first beer I realized during the grain steep that I'm missing 2.5 lbs of LME. I figured I had to continue so I went ahead and supplemented the LME with 2.5 lbs of corn sugar. I added all the sugar to the boil pot which I moved off the burner and used a big stainless wisk to mix until completely dissolved. I moved the pot back to the burner and turned the heat back on high. I continued to wisk until Temps got up to 200. I figured by then the sugars would be dissolved. At the start of the boil I added 60 minutes to my timer and dropped in my hops. I didn't have muslin for the hops so it was just free floating, another missing item from the kit. At the 15 minute left mark I tossed in the wort chiller. End of timer I turned on the wort chiller and cool to 80 as per my directions. I opened up the valve and dropped the wort into my fermentor. I topped up to 5 or so gallons and took an gravity reading that was 1.028. No good so I added in more corn sugar to it like 1.5 lbs which brought it up to 1.043. I figured that would be a good starting gravity. I mark it on my fermenter and notice I have about 5.5 gallons altogether. I go to pitch the yeast and there is none. I'm already pretty upset at this point that not everything was there, but come on yeast is essential in a beer kit. Well I check my yeast stash and I find lalvin d47 and bread yeast. I pitch the Lalvin because I felt it was a no brainer.
Now its been four days. Airlock activity has slowed. But I'm kind of worried because I keep reading and seeing videos of people saying sanitize everything. I do every time. But I realized after that I added dry corn sugar directly to cold wort and added air when I wisked it to dissolve to get my readings. The wisk was sanitized but the 2 minutes I wisked added air and I added dry unsanitized sugar to the wort.
What worries me is infection. I pitched yeast and got airlock activity almost exactly 6 hrs later. Then it rocketed full bore until last night. Now it bubbles like once every 5 seconds. I know all that means is there was activity and it slowed but I'm used to a longer more vigorous ferment when I make meads and wines. I'm used to 5-7 days of the airlock rocketing at full speed and then the slow rate in bubbles when I do my first rack.
So I was wondering if I even have beer at this point?
Or is it just grainy sugar water?
Did the wisk during the sugar addition and sugar addition itself at a cool temp cause problems?
How will I know when my ferment is done? I'm used to fermenting but those things always ferment to .999 and beer doesn't attenuate fully.
How long before I should cold crash? I was hoping Sunday since thats 10 days since I pitched yeast.
Should I rack to secondary? If so when? I'm assuming I'd want to cold crash then rack to secondary?
Sorry for the long read BTW.
Also I contacted the company yesterday and explained that the kit was missing half the stuff. I told them it was inconvenient and I got lucky because I had the corn sugar and yeast so I'm not upset as much as informing them to pay attention. I told them its really my fault because who doesn't double check ingredients and the kit was 4 months old. The guy on the phone took my name and number and said the owner would call me back in 2 weeks when he comes back from vacation so he can hear it himself. The owner called me 2 hrs later on his day off to hear what happened. He made a new shandy beer kit personally for me. It blew my mind this guy came in on his vacation to not only hear my complaint, but to resend me a kit that he put together himself on a order older than 3 months.
Let me start by saying this is not my first time fermenting things. I've made a few batches of mead, wine and shine. I have never brewed beer. I have a hydrometer. And a proof and tralle for the still.
I thought beer might be easy to make give my experience. So I buy a summer shandy clone extract kit. I bought a wort chiller and hooked it up in the kitchen. I have a 13.2 ss pot. My fermentor is a 7 gallon bucket I got from local(not really local tho) brew shop.
So this is probably my fault, but I bought it in May to make it immediately when it came. As it turned out my plan to brew got cancelled due to other priorities. I didn't think to check the kit out. That was a huge mistake because this Friday as I'm following directions to start my first beer I realized during the grain steep that I'm missing 2.5 lbs of LME. I figured I had to continue so I went ahead and supplemented the LME with 2.5 lbs of corn sugar. I added all the sugar to the boil pot which I moved off the burner and used a big stainless wisk to mix until completely dissolved. I moved the pot back to the burner and turned the heat back on high. I continued to wisk until Temps got up to 200. I figured by then the sugars would be dissolved. At the start of the boil I added 60 minutes to my timer and dropped in my hops. I didn't have muslin for the hops so it was just free floating, another missing item from the kit. At the 15 minute left mark I tossed in the wort chiller. End of timer I turned on the wort chiller and cool to 80 as per my directions. I opened up the valve and dropped the wort into my fermentor. I topped up to 5 or so gallons and took an gravity reading that was 1.028. No good so I added in more corn sugar to it like 1.5 lbs which brought it up to 1.043. I figured that would be a good starting gravity. I mark it on my fermenter and notice I have about 5.5 gallons altogether. I go to pitch the yeast and there is none. I'm already pretty upset at this point that not everything was there, but come on yeast is essential in a beer kit. Well I check my yeast stash and I find lalvin d47 and bread yeast. I pitch the Lalvin because I felt it was a no brainer.
Now its been four days. Airlock activity has slowed. But I'm kind of worried because I keep reading and seeing videos of people saying sanitize everything. I do every time. But I realized after that I added dry corn sugar directly to cold wort and added air when I wisked it to dissolve to get my readings. The wisk was sanitized but the 2 minutes I wisked added air and I added dry unsanitized sugar to the wort.
What worries me is infection. I pitched yeast and got airlock activity almost exactly 6 hrs later. Then it rocketed full bore until last night. Now it bubbles like once every 5 seconds. I know all that means is there was activity and it slowed but I'm used to a longer more vigorous ferment when I make meads and wines. I'm used to 5-7 days of the airlock rocketing at full speed and then the slow rate in bubbles when I do my first rack.
So I was wondering if I even have beer at this point?
Or is it just grainy sugar water?
Did the wisk during the sugar addition and sugar addition itself at a cool temp cause problems?
How will I know when my ferment is done? I'm used to fermenting but those things always ferment to .999 and beer doesn't attenuate fully.
How long before I should cold crash? I was hoping Sunday since thats 10 days since I pitched yeast.
Should I rack to secondary? If so when? I'm assuming I'd want to cold crash then rack to secondary?
Sorry for the long read BTW.
Also I contacted the company yesterday and explained that the kit was missing half the stuff. I told them it was inconvenient and I got lucky because I had the corn sugar and yeast so I'm not upset as much as informing them to pay attention. I told them its really my fault because who doesn't double check ingredients and the kit was 4 months old. The guy on the phone took my name and number and said the owner would call me back in 2 weeks when he comes back from vacation so he can hear it himself. The owner called me 2 hrs later on his day off to hear what happened. He made a new shandy beer kit personally for me. It blew my mind this guy came in on his vacation to not only hear my complaint, but to resend me a kit that he put together himself on a order older than 3 months.
. 
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41vpOQ2OvTL._SL500_.jpg)
