My first brew

[WhizzBanger]

Hello to everyone. This is my first post on the forum, it will also be my first attempt at brewing beer.

For Christmas I got a Definitive Bitter by Young's. I will hopefully kick off the brew tomorrow afternoon.

I've read the instructions that came with the kit and also read a few posts on this forum, with regards to airlocks and blow-off tubes. My instructions mention nothing about airlocks.

The 5 gallon fermentation bin that I have has a very good lid, super tight. I'm sure with just a little bit of pressure buildup the lid will blow off.

My second query is; where do people source their glass bottles from for the right price?

Cheers

 

[kombat]

My second query is

Where was the FIRST query?

where do people source their glass bottles from for the right price?

If you mean big, 6.5-gallon "glass bottle" for fermenting (i.e., a carboy), I found mine on Kijiji/Craiglist for $10-15 each. If you mean 330 mL beer bottles for bottling, I got mine the hard way - buying 6-ers of a beer I like that has pry-off caps and easily-removeable labels, and building up a stash that I use for submitting beers during competition season.

Regarding your bucket, DO NOT snap that lid on tight. As you noted, if the blowoff gets plugged up, pressure will build up until that lid pops off and it'll make an awful mess. Just set the lid on fairly snugly (but not snapped on), and put something heavy on top, like a phone book.

 

[kev211]

What is your first query? Haha, welcome to the forum and the hobby! Good luck on your first brew tomorrow. If you have the ability to do so, I recommend blow offs over airlocks (some people prefer otherwis), because I like knowing that all the air and potential krausen buildup (foam generated from fermentation) have somewhere to go, and airlocks just dont give them the space.

About the bottles... Are you talking bottles for putting your beer in? Or fermenting carboys? Personally, I save my empties from store purchased beers, clean and reuse (saves a lot of money). If youre talking carboys, your LHBS or any of the online stores should supply them all within a few bucks of each other. I like morebeer.com and midwestsupplies.com

Good luck tomorrow!

 

[aprichman]

The lid / seal is supposed to be airtight but the airlock by definition is not airtight and will prevent the lid from blowing off. The idea is that the airlock can let gas out but cannot let gas in by creating a water seal. It's common practice to use starsan instead of water in airlocks because the liquid in the airlock can possibly be sucked into the fermentation vessel. It's not exactly a common occurrence but always better safe than sorry in my opinion.

A blowoff tube is really just a different version of an airlock compared to the little plastic ones that sit on top of your fermentation vessel. In reality they are functionally the same with the exception of the blowoff tube being a much larger airlock. The design of a blowoff tube varies but the idea is that you run a piece of tubing into a decent sized container that has water or starsan in it. The size of the tubing depends on your vessel. Glass carboys can use large 1" ID tubing straight into the bung. Plastic buckets usually need to run smaller 3/8" tubing through the stem of a 3 piece airlock.

The reason for a blowoff tube is to deal with the krausen that is created during active fermentation. Depending on the beer a tremendous volume of krausen can be created. If the volume of the krausen and beer exceeds the volume of the fermentation vessel liquid and foam are going to start to come out of the vessel. A standard plastic 3 piece airlock doesn't have very much volume, so if the beer and krausen start to foam up too much the airlock will fill and then start to overflow through the top. If a thick piece of krausen gets stuck in the airlock pressure can build up and cause the bung to pop off or even the carboy to explode.

With a blowoff tube you can create an airlock to accommodate the spill over. If you're running a 3/8" blowoff tube through an airlock you can still have kruasen clog things up and blow out the bung cover and/or the carboy. If you're running a 1" ID tube you are good to go - that thing is not ever going to clog.

Hope that helps clear things up

 

[mrgrimm101]

I would say it depends on how big your carboy/bucket is. I've used at 5 gallon glass carboy as a primary (my 1st batch) and had a huge blowout of foam in my airlock, so I rigged up a blowoff hose and a small container of sani soultion. I didn't know that I needed more headspace.

Now I ferment in a 6.5 gallon plastic big mouth bubbler..I always used to use buckets before this. I never rig up a blowoff hose..I always use airlocks and haven't had any problems. Maybe I've gotten lucky, but my brews don't krausen up and foam to fill the 1.5 gallon of headspace. I know lots of people start out with blowoff hoses and put an airlock on after the active fermentation is complete, but I've not found this to be necessary. Like I said, maybe I've just been lucky so far.

If you are referring to 12 oz glass bottles, I just save them from what I buy from the store..I buy quite often. I delabel and clean them out beofre use. I've needed to buy new ones from my LHBS and I got 24 bottles for about $0.49/each.

 

[aprichman]

As for bottles you can buy them from your LHBS, but the bottles they tend to sell are not as thick as commercial beer bottles.

I reuse commercial beer bottles, it's super easy. I make sure to rinse any bottle I open during the day before I go to bed - don't let unwashed bottles sit around. I rinse each bottle with a small amount of hot tap water 5 times. When I have enough clean bottles I will fill up a plastic tub with warm water and a good amount of baking soda. I let ~6 bottles soak for 15-20 minutes at a time. The baking soda bath makes most bottle labels come off really easy. After that I give them a light scrub with steel wool on the outside and rinse each bottle 5 times again. After letting the bottles dry off for a few days I'll stick them in storage. They are ready to go for brew day.

On brew day I soak the bottles in starsan for 2+ minutes and hang them on a sanitized bottle tree. I try to bottle within 30 minutes of hanging the last bottle on the tree.

If I just need some extra bottles, Trader Joes is my go to place. They sell a good deal of beer that isn't half bad for $6 per 6 pack - especially the Stockyard Stout and Black Toad.

 

[WhizzBanger]

Thanks for the replies. For the British members on here. How will Wetherspoons take to me turning up asking for 80 500ml brown bottles?

 

[Psylocide]

Thanks for the replies. For the British members on here. How will Wetherspoons take to me turning up asking for 80 500ml brown bottles?

From an American member... what's the worst they would do? Say "no?"

Go for it.

 

[kev211]

From an American member... what's the worst they would do? Say "no?"

Go for it.

This

 

[gregmosu]

As for bottles you can buy them from your LHBS, but the bottles they tend to sell are not as thick as commercial beer bottles.

I reuse commercial beer bottles, it's super easy. I make sure to rinse any bottle I open during the day before I go to bed - don't let unwashed bottles sit around. I rinse each bottle with a small amount of hot tap water 5 times. When I have enough clean bottles I will fill up a plastic tub with warm water and a good amount of baking soda. I let ~6 bottles soak for 15-20 minutes at a time. The baking soda bath makes most bottle labels come off really easy. After that I give them a light scrub with steel wool on the outside and rinse each bottle 5 times again. After letting the bottles dry off for a few days I'll stick them in storage. They are ready to go for brew day.

On brew day I soak the bottles in starsan for 2+ minutes and hang them on a sanitized bottle tree. I try to bottle within 30 minutes of hanging the last bottle on the tree.

If I just need some extra bottles, Trader Joes is my go to place. They sell a good deal of beer that isn't half bad for $6 per 6 pack - especially the Stockyard Stout and Black Toad.

Hi aprichman,

I saw somewhere where someone said to soak the bottles in bleach to get the labels off. I was all set to start on that tomorrow... but baking soda is the way to go? Also, this person suggested baking the bottles in the oven @350 for about an hour to sanitize them. Your method star-san seems easier. Just want to make sure before I do something dumb and waste bottles... I've been drinking Sam Adams like it's my job for the past two weeks. Too bad I can't find a job emptying bottles for people!

 

[kev211]

Hi aprichman,

I saw somewhere where someone said to soak the bottles in bleach to get the labels off. I was all set to start on that tomorrow... but baking soda is the way to go? Also, this person suggested baking the bottles in the oven @350 for about an hour to sanitize them. Your method star-san seems easier. Just want to make sure before I do something dumb and waste bottles... I've been drinking Sam Adams like it's my job for the past two weeks. Too bad I can't find a job emptying bottles for people!

I use oxyclean and warm water to soak mine in. Oxyclean (or store brand versions) seem to work great with making the labels just peel off

 

[gregmosu]

I use oxyclean and warm water to soak mine in. Oxyclean (or store brand versions) seem to work great with making the labels just peel off

thanks! I'll give it a shot.

 

[Wolfbayte]

I pick up the off-brand oxyclean free substitute from the dollar store. I forget how much it costs, but it's cheaper than the big box stores. Plus the Dollar Store is closer to my house than Walmart or Target.

 

[aprichman]

Oxyclean or baking soda should work well. Oxyclean is more expensive than baking soda and also contains a lot of weird chemicals and detergents. No need to spend the extra money and expose my bottles to weird chemicals, but that's just my thoughts on the subject.

Starsan is one of the most powerful "tools" in my brewing "toolbelt". I highly recommend using it for sanitization. You can reuse it and store it for awhile if you keep it in a bucket with a lid. It will stay good for even longer if you use RO or DI water to make it. I also highly recommend a bottling tree - even the smallest bottling trees are good for 5 gallon batches. It's incredibly handy to have up to 45 bottles consolidated into a small space with the bottles facing upside down.

Bottling is one of the most time consuming parts of brewing, so I'm all about anything I can do to make it easier. Hopefully next year I'll be in a bigger place and can start kegging and cut bottling out entirely!

 

[Psylocide]

Labels suck... steel wool does not.

Soak in regular water or water with something in it for a few minutes and scrub them off. Just dont let it go down the drain, I can do 50 bottles in about 5 mins.

 

[WhizzBanger]

Apologies for the late reply. I bottled the bitter with 2 carbonation drops per 500ml bottle. After a week in the warm and what's now been about 1.5 months in a cold garage the end product is far too fizzy with a slightly vinegary sour taste.

I believe the over fizz is due to over egging the sugar when bottling.

Not too sure about the vinegar taste though...

Any suggestions?

 

[hanuswalrus]

Here's a list of descriptions of the common off-flavors in beer:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

And another specifically on vinegar off flavors:
http://www.winning-homebrew.com/sour-flavors.html

It may be a sanitation issue

 

[fuelish]

I don't enter beverages in competitions, so....I just clean and sanitize bottles, and don't bother removing labels...but then again, I'm a lazy meadmaker