Hello from Boise

[cwb124]

Hello there, new homebrewer here.

Got an LD Carlson Brewer's Best kit for xmas with one kit of Red Ale. It's the kit without a carboy, but I bought one for secondary anyway.

Just put that Red Ale into the the primary fermenter about an hour ago, and so far everything looks good.

I had boiled 2.5 gallons of water last night and got it down to about 33 degrees by this morning. Boiled 3 gallons of wort and put it in with the 2.5 gallons of cold water. Unfortunately, I lost more than I thought during the wort boiling and only got about 4.5 gallons in the primary, so put in another .5 - .6 gallons of filtered water to bring it just above 5 gallons total. Submerged the primary into a rubbermaid bin of ice and water and chilled it to 70 degrees in about 15-20 minutes. OG is 1.42, which is correct for this recipe and threw on an airlock and it's in my closet as we speak. I'll be looking for bubbles late tonight or tomorrow morning.

My only question is should I be concerned with blowoff? The directions for this recipe made no mention of using any type of blowoff tube, but I've read some about it and was wondering.

Anyway, these forums have been a great help over the last week or so as I read every thread I could.

 

[fifelee]

The need for a blow off tube largely depends on your fermenter size. I ferment in a 6.5 gal carboy, and typicaly don't need a blow off tube. If you have alot of head space I wouldn't worry that much.

Welcome.

 

[Rhoobarb]

Welcome! It sounds like you had a great first-time brew session!

As beer4breakfast says, it's always good to have a blow-off tube at the ready, just in case. And, like fifelee, my primary is a 6.5 gal. glass carboy. Still, I've had some ferments that were so vigorous that I still needed a blow-off tube.

I've found that you'll know if you need one in the first 24 hours. I usually only see such vigorous ferments when I either a.) use a healthy yeast starter or b.) rack my beer over the yeast cake from a previous batch. Use the search bar above using the terms "make a starter" or "rack over previous yeast" and you'll get lots info on those two topics!

 

[knipknup]

BB's red ale is a good one.
I always use a blowoff tube for my primary. Out of 11 batches, the first 10 all foamed through the blowoff tube into the bucket - very active fermentation. My 11th batch also had very active fermentation but it was in my new 6 gallon fermenter. I still used a blowoff tube just in case, but it didn't reach it in spite of the 3 inch krausen!

Cheers.

Oh, and I pm'd you...

 

[homebrewer_99]

Nice town, Boise. Been there a number of times. Welcome.

 

[RichBrewer]

Welcome.
Here's to success with your first batch.