Hello, newb here!

[Tadpole]

Hey everyone, just joined today and started home brewing a few days ago. I live in Falcon, Colorado.

Been enjoying craft beers for quite some time now and kept tossing around the idea to make my own. I pulled the trigger and bought a home brewery kit from William's Brewing. Saturday night I boiled up the wort and an American IPA from their kit is in the fermenter. Actually a little nervous as it doesn't seem to be bubbling out of the airlock as much as I expected. But it looks like there's a foamy head in the bucket (thinking glass carboy now) and there are bubbles in the airlock, just not actively bubbling out. Anyway...I already have decided that I want to upgrade some of my stuff and pick up some things it didn't come with.

A note about me personally. Originally from southern Indiana. Lived a few places, recently retired from USAF active duty. Married with 2 kids. I actually retired out of Colorado Springs last year and moved to Yakima for a job. That place kick started my home brew thoughts again. Ended up moving back here to Colorado on the new year for another job, so goes life.

Looking forward to reading and learning things here since right now I'm full of questions, primarily equipment ones.

 

[passedpawn]

Welcome to the forum.

You'll get a lot of opinions on fermenters. Here's mine: bucket is fine, but for a new brewer that is a lot of satisfaction and education in seeing the fermentation (you'll grow out of this fascination eventually). I hate the glass carboys (they break), so I'd always recommend Better Bottles. Search "plastic vs. glass" for a thousand heated discussions regarding this.

Bubbles. Don't worry about bubbles. Bubbles can mean fermentation, change in temperature, agitation, etc. Lack of bubbles means no fermentation or the very common leak around the bucket seal or bung or cork. So, bubbles mean nothing. Check this flowchart.

 

[Tadpole]

Thanks! I do like the valve in the bucket for transferring (racking?) the beer to the priming tank and then the bottles (and eventually kegs) though. But I sure would like to see in there right now! Haha! I'll look at those discussion on the bottles.

I followed the directions of the kit, kind of vague on some things. The room where I have the fermenter in is 65-67° so I think I'm right now. Highest I saw in there around it was 69 briefly, nice dark and cool room. The room next to it is 55-60° and I think that will be good for the 2nd part of carbonation / aging. I'm mostly paranoid about bacteria. I'm going to get some Star San that I've been reading about this week.

 

[Tadpole]

After some reading around on here I figured it's okay to pop the top for a quick look. So I just got home and snapped these pics. This is after about 67 hours in the fermenter. I think this is normal looking, though I don't know for sure. Actually smells pretty good too.