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GiAnT4LYFE

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Hey guys. First timer brewer, long time drinker here. My name is Lloyd and I live in northern Delaware. My birthday just passed and my Fiancé hooked me up with a 5 gallon brewing kit and a Brewers Best IPA kit for my first try, I'm an IPA lover. I looked up how to do it on YouTube and read the instructions so far. I can tell this will become my new passion. I can see so far the number one thing is sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. A friend of mine recommended using a cup of brown sugar in two cups of water replacing the sugar in the bottling portion, what are you thoughts? I was wondering if anyone had anymore advice for this 37 year old noob. Well, I look forward to any feedback. Thanks.
 
GiAnT4LYFE said:
Hey guys. First timer brewer, long time drinker here. My name is Lloyd and I live in northern Delaware. My birthday just passed and my Fiancé hooked me up with a 5 gallon brewing kit and a Brewers Best IPA kit for my first try, I'm an IPA lover. I looked up how to do it on YouTube and read the instructions so far. I can tell this will become my new passion. I can see so far the number one thing is sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. A friend of mine recommended using a cup of brown sugar in two cups of water replacing the sugar in the bottling portion, what are you thoughts? I was wondering if anyone had anymore advice for this 37 year old noob. Well, I look forward to any feedback. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Sanitize is right. Likely the kit did not come with Star San and almost 99% of us cannot suggest it enough.

Second, if the yeast is not labelled, consider getting US-05 as well.

Third, DO NOT FOLLOW the canned instructions if they suggest any of the following:

Pitching yeast at any temp over 70 f
Secondary after 7 days (I am part of the no secondary mafia)
Adding extra corn sugar to boost alcohol

Fourth, consider calculating the priming sugar needed verses just tossing in the full 5 OZ from the kit.

Oh, and welcome to the insanity...the water is just fine in here.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
Sanitize is right. Likely the kit did not come with Star San and almost 99% of us cannot suggest it enough.



Second, if the yeast is not labelled, consider getting US-05 as well.



Third, DO NOT FOLLOW the canned instructions if they suggest any of the following:



Pitching yeast at any temp over 70 f

Secondary after 7 days (I am part of the no secondary mafia)

Adding extra corn sugar to boost alcohol



Fourth, consider calculating the priming sugar needed verses just tossing in the full 5 OZ from the kit.



Oh, and welcome to the insanity...the water is just fine in here.
Click to expand...


The cleaner is Easy Clean No Rinse Cleaner. The yeast is DRY 97. I want to try doing this soon, but I really don't want to screw it up, lol.
 
GiAnT4LYFE said:
The cleaner is Easy Clean No Rinse Cleaner. The yeast is DRY 97. I want to try doing this soon, but I really don't want to screw it up, lol.
Click to expand...

Probably BRY 97 which seems to have a good reputation.

"Easy Clean No Rinse Cleaner"...not a sanitizer. If you MUST start now Iodine and Chlorine are options if there is not local home brew store but...even Amazon carries Star San and some is even Prime.

The tiniest but of it make 1 gallon of re-usable sanitzer. I have brewed about 45 gallons and used 2 oz...and I still have a gallon and a spray bottle full.

You cannot screw this up unless you do not follow the dilution requirements.
 
I'll get the Star San. This is exactly why I'm in here asking questions. Thank you. I have a local store, and the 32 oz is actually cheaper than Amazon, which is shocking.
 
Last thing is bottles...you have time so make your life easier. You need 52. They need to be clean. They will need to be sanitized on bottling day. They need to not be twist off.

The "clean" part is the hardest. If you have not secretly been stockpiling bottles rinsed twice right after emptying...you have a lot of annoying cleaning to do.

Or throw a party and have everyone bring their favorite beer not a twist top then follow them around like a mental case grabbing the empties out of their hands the MOMENT the last drop is consumed then double rinsing them...or do it the next morning.
 
All of the above, plus. Be aware of the fermentation temperature.

When you go off the deep end like the rest of us, you will look into a fermentation fridge or other solution. But in the mean time, after sanitation, fermentation temperature is the second thing that separates good from bad homebrew.

Until you decide to invest in more equipment, try to keep the fermenting beer somewhere between the low 60s up to about 68 degrees. The more stable the temp the better. When many of our brewing yeasts get above 70 they start creating off flavors in the beer. Be aware too that when the fermentation really gets rocking (+/- first 5 days) it can be 5-8 degrees warmer in the fermenter than the air temp in the room.

There are certainly beers that can benefit from higher temps. Belgian beers for instance call for the flavors Belgian yeasts produce at higher temps, but for an IPA I tend to shoot for 63-65 degrees.

Good luck, and welcome to our world!
 
When you ferment, the fermentation process will increase the temperature of the wort by about 5 - 7 degrees, keep this in mind. Because if you ferment at 68 and then the fermentation takes off, it's going to go up to 73 - 75 degrees. You just made banana beer.

Keep it in the low 60s for you first batch, more error proof.

Next, I dont see any reason to switch out the priming sugar with brown sugar, your not going to taste a difference. :mug:
 
Luckily she got me 2 cases of beer bottles as well.

I've decided to do this Saturday. It'll give me time to get the Star San and a couple other things ready.
 
I'm so pumped up to get this thing going Sat. Have my best friend coming over during it, which makes it nice because he's done a couple batches himself. I'm picking up Star San tomorrow after work. Looking to try a chocolate stout for the kit after this. I'm hoping I get the process right.
 
GiAnT4LYFE said:
I'm so pumped up to get this thing going Sat. Have my best friend coming over during it, which makes it nice because he's done a couple batches himself. I'm picking up Star San tomorrow after work. Looking to try a chocolate stout for the kit after this. I'm hoping I get the process right.
Click to expand...

Grab a cheap spray bottle, too.
 
GiAnT4LYFE said:
What is that for?
Click to expand...
Spraying star san, silly.

But seriously. I put about 1/2 gallon of star san in the ferementor and shake it all around. Tubing is easy to sanitize squirting it into the tubing and letting it foam then squirting it on the outside, etc. Easy stuff to use.
 
Did it last night. Started the process after dinner at 8:30pm. Took a while to get the water up to 160. The rest of the process went easy up to the chilling of the wort. It was 33 out last night, so I thought that letting chill outside was the best. Bad idea and I need a wort chiller. It took from midnight to 4am to cool. Obviously I was dozing on and off. Well I forgot to pitch the yeast until 9am... How ****ed do you think it'll be?

Honestly it was the most fun I've had doing something in a long time.
 
Welcome to the homebrew world!
I prefer Star San to the other sanitizers, also. I keep a small bucket of it made up and set tubing and small parts in it for a couple of minutes before I use them. The spray bottle with Star San in it is very useful for buckets, touch ups, etc.
I did one or two brews before I got an immersion chiller. It will help immensely.
You can use any sugar you want for bottle priming, but I normally use dry malt extract. I think it gives finer bubbles and better head. You can find calculators for the volume of CO2 you want with the amount of beer to carbonate at The Beer Recipator or TastyBrew.com.
 

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