Tale Of An Ale
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- Jul 18, 2006
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ok i would like to share part of my first brewing experience with all of you and i would appreciate any comments or suggestions (whether they be for the good or bad).
so for the most part i think i did pretty well even though i am still a rookie at this. i do think that i made a few mistakes, but hopefully the beer will taste reasonably well. i'll give you all a rough overview of the steps i went through.... first i cleaned and sanitized everything including the kitchen and anything that i thought would contaminate the beer. i put 2 gallons of sterile water in the carboy before i but the wort in. i re-hydrated the yeast... even though the kit told me not to which i found contractdicting everything else i read. i was using some directions from the kit and more directions from "How to Brew"- by John Palmer, i thouht the directions with the kit were very vague and not as descriptive as the ones i got off the internet. after adding the hops into the wort and letting it boil for a good hour (and the .5 oz of aroma hops) i brought the brew pot and set it in my sink which was filled with icy water..... come to find out that my brew pot is too wide for either side of my sink... an obvious newbie mistake, so it took almost 30 minutes to cool the wort down sense only about 2 inches sat in the cold water. i added the "proofed" yeast into the wort and then finally pored the 3 gallons of wort into the 2 gallons that were in the carboy, placed the airlock on it and stored it in my hallway on the .... carpet. which i found out was a bad idea, but i didn't know that at the time lol. so even though i ran through a few mistakes on the brew day i felt that the wort would make it, but i had my doubts sense after 6 hours nothing was happening inside the fermenter. so i went to bed in a melancholy mood and prepared myself for another week at work.
come the next morning the wort had not change hardly except for some small patches of white "Foam" that accumluated at the top, but when i came back from work i was suprised to see over an inch of foam that had built up on the top of the wort and i knew that the yeast was still alive. later that day i was doing some research on fermenting and found out that the wort was too hot, around 78 degrees F, so i took immediate action and but the carboy into my brew pot, filled it with water and ice and threw a t-shirt over it to cool it down... ofcourse i did this as gently as possible but i feel that the soon to be beer with be affected by this mistake. but it is now day 6 of the fermenting and the wort is at a constant temp of 70 degrees and the aroma that is being released from the carboy is very much like "Beer", so maybe not all hope is lost.
sorry for the very long post, but i am bit on edge at the moment due to my mistakes.
so for the most part i think i did pretty well even though i am still a rookie at this. i do think that i made a few mistakes, but hopefully the beer will taste reasonably well. i'll give you all a rough overview of the steps i went through.... first i cleaned and sanitized everything including the kitchen and anything that i thought would contaminate the beer. i put 2 gallons of sterile water in the carboy before i but the wort in. i re-hydrated the yeast... even though the kit told me not to which i found contractdicting everything else i read. i was using some directions from the kit and more directions from "How to Brew"- by John Palmer, i thouht the directions with the kit were very vague and not as descriptive as the ones i got off the internet. after adding the hops into the wort and letting it boil for a good hour (and the .5 oz of aroma hops) i brought the brew pot and set it in my sink which was filled with icy water..... come to find out that my brew pot is too wide for either side of my sink... an obvious newbie mistake, so it took almost 30 minutes to cool the wort down sense only about 2 inches sat in the cold water. i added the "proofed" yeast into the wort and then finally pored the 3 gallons of wort into the 2 gallons that were in the carboy, placed the airlock on it and stored it in my hallway on the .... carpet. which i found out was a bad idea, but i didn't know that at the time lol. so even though i ran through a few mistakes on the brew day i felt that the wort would make it, but i had my doubts sense after 6 hours nothing was happening inside the fermenter. so i went to bed in a melancholy mood and prepared myself for another week at work.
come the next morning the wort had not change hardly except for some small patches of white "Foam" that accumluated at the top, but when i came back from work i was suprised to see over an inch of foam that had built up on the top of the wort and i knew that the yeast was still alive. later that day i was doing some research on fermenting and found out that the wort was too hot, around 78 degrees F, so i took immediate action and but the carboy into my brew pot, filled it with water and ice and threw a t-shirt over it to cool it down... ofcourse i did this as gently as possible but i feel that the soon to be beer with be affected by this mistake. but it is now day 6 of the fermenting and the wort is at a constant temp of 70 degrees and the aroma that is being released from the carboy is very much like "Beer", so maybe not all hope is lost.
sorry for the very long post, but i am bit on edge at the moment due to my mistakes.
