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i just finished my first batch. whats next?

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Maceface

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I just finished making my first batch of my homebrew. It was a bavarian wheat beer. The only problems I had were there was some leftover sediment in the bottom of each bottle. And I didn't have a big enough pot to mix the ingredients and it was aluminum. Could someone please suggest what I do about these problems and what I should do next to further pefect my beer.
 
Okay, they sediment in the bottom of each bottle is yeast sediment from the conditioning process. It is a normal part of bottling. You can eliminate it by filtering your beer. Unfortunately, you would filter out the yeast and therefore need to force carbonate your beer. There is nothing wrong with the sediment. Most home brewers either learn to pour everything except for it, or if you are like me...you just don't care. It's up to you. As far as your pot goes. I remember my first brew kettle was a $17 stainless steel pot from big lots. You will want something in the 16-20 qt range. You might be able to find this at a thrift store as well. As far as "perfecting" your beer...you can only learn to do better each time you brew. Know yourself and learn the recipes and make up some recipes as long as you stick to known brewing techniques for now you will be fine. Oh, and sanitize sanitize sanitize. You can never be too clean...my first 4 or five batches were awful because I was too lazy about cleanliness.

I should mention that if the sediment really bothers you...you could always keg your beer. It's a pricey investment, but there is nothing like good beer on tap at home.
 
Aluminum is fine. Sediment is fine. If you want to improve for the next go round, get another fermenter and start a pipeline. After you've worked your kinks out in the actual brewday and processes, work on a temperature control system for your fermentation. Baby steps, and read read read on this forum!
 
What's next? YOUR SECOND BATCH! :D

Next I would suggest building your pipeline, another (or a couple more) fermenters will get the ball rolling.

Between bottles, kegs, and fermenters I've got between 20-25 gallons of beer and wine ready to drink or well on it's way. At my drinking pace, I'm pretty sure I'll never run out of beer :)
 
jaycount said:
What's next? YOUR SECOND BATCH! :D

Next I would suggest building your pipeline, another (or a couple more) fermenters will get the ball rolling.

Between bottles, kegs, and fermenters I've got between 20-25 gallons of beer and wine ready to drink or well on it's way. At my drinking pace, I'm pretty sure I'll never run out of beer :)

What do guys mean pipeline I haven't heard that b4
 
Having several beers going at once. Basically since you have several beers at different stages, you always have a beer ready to drink and another one not too far behind it. Once you get a pipeline going you have a pretty good idea how often you have to make beer to keep up with your consumption rate.
 
What do guys mean pipeline I haven't heard that b4

Think of it as a backlog...a running store room of beer...a little more at the ready.

I run a keezer with four kegs. At any given time I try and have at least four kegs in the keezer, four ready to go in and another four beers in fermenters. That means optimally I have on hand 60 gallons.

Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Sometimes I have a beer like an Imperial Stout that just needs to sit out of the pipeline and in a keg for six months until it's ready. Other times I have a cider that's less than 15 days turn-around time on it. And in a pinch I have a great lager recipe that's 30 days from brew to keg.

I think the idea is that once you start brewing you don't ever want to be in a position where you don't have some of your own ready and available. The allure of beer that is as good as homebrew can be is powerful. You get to make something and alter it to fit your tastebuds and you get to get it as fresh as it will ever get!

So I would say bookmark this site, start picking out what you want to brew next, get yourself a good quality pot and start asking your friends to save empty bottles for you!
 
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