Hello :D

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WQFTruckster

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Well, I guess since this forum was my idea, I'll start :D

I did a quickie intro in the suggestions forum but here goes...

I'm WQFTruckster from the middle TN area. My girlfriend and I are currently working on our first ever batch of brew: a Brewer's Best German Oktoberfest kit. Reading through a couple of books, a trip to the store, and $217 later and our first batch was in the fermenter Sunday nite. So far I've come to two important conclusions:

1. Turn the stove off just before pouring in the extract, and then stir the extract as you are pouring it in. Learned the hard way and scorched a perfect spiral in the shape of the stove eye to the bottom of my brand new $40 SS pot. Any ideas on cleaning this?

2. I need a wort chiller and/or a lot more ice. I tried to use the ice bath in the sink method to cool, but ran out of ice in about 3 minutes and took a couple of hours to get it cooled down to pitching temp.

Other than these two things everything is going smoothly. The fermentation lock was bubbling nicely within 24 hours. I plan to rack to a secondary on Saturday.

Home to see everyone on the forums.
 
I tried to make a Oktoberfest once but it didn't turn out as good as I expected, Spaten's put mine to shame.

Did you buy your setup as a kit or pieced it together?
 
Michael_Currie said:
I tried to make a Oktoberfest once but it didn't turn out as good as I expected, Spaten's put mine to shame.

Did you buy your setup as a kit or pieced it together?
It is a Brewer's Best kit. Racked it to secondary the other day and got a chance to sample it. So far so good. One thing I did not realize when I started was that Oktoberfest is typically a Lager, and I'm making it as an ale instead. not sure how that will affect things.
 
If you followed the directions that came with your Brewer's Best kit, then you should wind up with a pretty decent, drinkable beer. They are good recipe kits to start out with.

You probably do want to get a wort chiller. You don't by any chance have a swimming pool with water in it? One trick we've used before we got wort chillers was to place the kettle of hot wort on the top step of the pool.
 
richanne said:
If you followed the directions that came with your Brewer's Best kit, then you should wind up with a pretty decent, drinkable beer. They are good recipe kits to start out with.

You probably do want to get a wort chiller. You don't by any chance have a swimming pool with water in it? One trick we've used before we got wort chillers was to place the kettle of hot wort on the top step of the pool.
Ya, I'm sure it will be drinkable, I tried a little the other day when I racked it over to the secondary. It tasted good, I'm just not sure how the final product will compare to an actual Oktoberfest.

No swimming pool, but I ended up setting it in bathtub with a wet towel wrapped around the top and a fan blowing on it, after I used up every ice cube in the fridge in about 2 minutes.
 
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