n00b alert- My first brew scheduled for this weekend

[Walker]

do you have a separate bottling bucket, or are you currently working with just one single bucket?


-walker

 

[Truble]

My kit came with a separate bottling bucket with a spigot.

 

[Walker]

perfect!

You can eliminate most of the crud from getting into your bottles with careful transferring of the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket. When you siphon the beer out of the fermenter, just do the best you can to avoid transferring any of the sediment into the bottling bucket. You will have to sacrifice a small amount of beer, but not very much.

Let the beer rest for 10 to 15 minutes after transferring to the bottling bucket so that any sediment that DID come over has a chance to settle to the bottom of the bucket (and below the spigot tap).

The beer will clear up remarkably in the bottles, and there will be a thin layer of sediment in each bottle (mostly yeast that was needed for carbonating anyway.)

I really suggest doing the minimal amount of work for this first batch. Then, after you get the chance to enjoy the fruits of your labor, you can tweak your procedures on the second batch and begin making improvements.

-walker

 

[Truble]

thx- that's what I was looking for.

 

[Orfy]

Truble from what I'vepicked up, secondary gives "things" A chance to drop or float, amongst othe things. (I'll find out when my first batches finish).


Hey Walkers got a face.

 

[Walker]

Hey Walkers got a face.

Yeah.. I finally tossed in my $10 to support the site yesterday. I was debating on whether to put up my real face or not, but this one is much more pleasant.

-walker

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Considering my other hobby is my 1977 MG Midget, my wife appreciates the relatively lower fiscal requirements of home-brew. Hobby costs increase exponentially in relation to the number of wheels involved.

Homebrewing, like many other hobbies, is very easy to scale to the level of financial involvement you're comfortable with. I think the problem comes in for many of us OCD's who keep thinking of ways to make it "better" which often equates to $ in many cases, either in ingredients or new equipment. We're happier with our beer after each step and can't imagine why somebody else wouldn't be, although that's not necessarily the case! It's a slippery slope of extract->ag->kegs->kegerator->???->RIMS, but you pretty much hop off the train wherever you want. I have a buddy who does nothing but extract brewing (with steeped grains) and I wish my AG batches were half as good.

Take it in steps...each batch add something to your process if you want, such as checking the ph of your water and correcting it, or using whole leaf hops, or jumping to ag...or just brew extract based recipe kits!

 

[Cheesefood]

YOU CAN HOMEBREW FOR LESS MONEY THAN BUYING COMMERCIAL!

Cheesefood and I disagree on this one, but at least you have both opinions now.



-walker

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's not as much fun to make Ghettobrau as it is to make good beer. Heck, if I wanted just cheap beer, I'd stick with 40's of Old English.

 

[Cheesefood]

question: would it make sense to strain the beer as I syphon it over to my bottling bucket? I know I need to be concerned about aeration from splashing, but it seems to me that a simple cloth filter attached to the end of the syphon tube with a sanitzed zip-tie or something like that would work.

Am I going too far?

Straining would aerate it, which isn't what you want. Strain it before putting it in your primary.

 

[Walker]

If he keeps the cloth filter on the tip of the hose, and the hose under the surface of the beer in the bottling bucket, it won't aerate at all.

-walker

 

[Cheesefood]

If he keeps the cloth filter on the tip of the hose, and the hose under the surface of the beer in the bottling bucket, it won't aerate at all.

-walker

Hmm...sounds like a lot of clogs IMHO.

 

[Truble]

I was thinking something along the lines of what Walker said. But not just a small membrane across the hose end, but more of a filter "bag" attached to the end, submerged, that would catch any excess sediment.

In any event, given the advice I have received thus far, that is an experiment left for a future date when I have become more proficient at the basics.

 

[Truble]

Hello all,

I have a question: I have my primary full of pale ale that is 8 days in the hole, and I am looking to rack it next week (no secondary on my first batch). I would like to check the SG this weekend to make sure that there are no surprises when I go to bottle next week, figuring that if it needs a kick in the pants, I can take care of it now and still be on schedule for next week. I am using an opaque bucket for a primary. Question: How bad is it to open the bucket and check the SG 1 week out from bottling? I am fairly confident that fermentation was successfull, and I am thinking that it will only be open long enough to extract a large enough sample to fill my hydrometer sample tube.

I have not opened it at all during the first 8 days. It has been between 64*F and 67*F all that time, and has been locked in a closet. The only thing that has been touched is the airlock, to top it off with boiled water once, because I thought I had lost some to evaporation.


Any thoughts? Am i being too paranoid? not enough?

 

[Walker]

just make sure your gear is clean for taking the sample. You should be fine.

I use a regular old turkey baster with about 1 foot of siphon hose jammed onto the end. With something like that you can just remove the airlock, evacuate the baster, insert the hose, and draw off.

You'll be in and out of that fermenter in 5 seconds. If the hose is clean, no problems at all and the lid stays on the whole time.

-walker

 

[Truble]

interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that. Not sure if the grommet for my airlock has a wide enough diameter for my syphon hose though. Might need to make a trip to the HW store.

thx walker....

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

interesting idea. I hadn't thought of that. Not sure if the grommet for my airlock has a wide enough diameter for my syphon hose though. Might need to make a trip to the HW store.

thx walker....

Just remove the grommet/stopper and airlock, whole kit and kaboodle and then follow Walker's technique. I'm more laissez faire (sp?) if I'm taking a reading in a bucket. I'll crack the lid off and take a reading with my sanitized hydrometer directly. If using a carboy, that's not really an option.

 

[Walker]

Yeah.. when I say "remove the airlock" I mean the rubber stopper and bubbler together.

-walker

 

[Truble]

My bucket does not have a rubber stopper, it has a rubber grommet: donut shaped with a slice in the perimeter all around the circumference that is then put into the hole in the bucket lid with the lid material in the slice around the perimeter, making a nice seal. the airlock then gets inserted into the center, where that seals up nice as well. Problem is that I can't take that grommet out without taking the lid off. I think, however, that a smaller gauge tube, say 1/4" OD or 5/16" OD might fit through.

 

[Walker]

Bummer.... yours is just like Alton's Browns.

I suggest that as soon as you have this current beer out of that fermenter, you drill that hole bigger and get a rubber stopper to put into it instead. Then you can take readings for future batches easier.

-walker

 

[Walker]

hmmm... does your bucket have a spigot on it? if so, just tap it and get your sample that way.

-walker

 

[Truble]

not my primary- my bottler does, but that does not help me right now .

My local HW store has tubing. I will stop by there and rig something up.

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

I would just go straight in with the hydrometer, but that's me. However, Walker brings up a point (not applicable in your case) that I've wondered about...if I were to take a sample from a fermenter with a spigot wouldn't I wind up with some wort/beer outside of the valve, but inside the outlet of the spigot which would then have an opportunity to harbor an infection which would transfer to my beer when I drain it through the spigot? Or do people normally only use the spigot for taking samples and siphon the beer out?

I use a cheap plastic fermenter with a tap as my primary which I then drain through the tap into my glass carboy secondary, which I then siphon back into the cheap plastic bucket for bottling via the tap again. Generally speaking, my SG readings are taken directly in the primary when I drain my kettle and again in the primary/bottling bucket when I am bottling.

 

[Walker]

If I were to take a sample from a fermenter with a spigot wouldn't I wind up with some wort/beer outside of the valve, but inside the outlet of the spigot which would then have an opportunity to harbor an infection which would transfer to my beer when I drain it through the spigot? Or do people normally only use the spigot for taking samples and siphon the beer out?

Hmmm.. good point, BeeGee. I think that if you use the spigot for a sample, and also intend to use it to transfer to a secondary, you probably WOULD have some issues with sanitation.

I have a spigoted bucket (came with my beginner's kit) but I no longer use it for fermenting. I use it for wort cooling with ice water and aeration via shaking and free-fall transfer into my primary on brew day through the spigot. Then I use it again for bottling later.

If you want to draw a sample from the spigot, you are probably best to siphon to your secondary rather that re-use the spigot.

-walker

 

[Orfy]

BeeGee, I had a similar thought today, I was bottling from my secondary from the tap which had not been sanitized since it was filled.

 

[Walker]

You probably run a much lower risk, Orfy, because you didn't take a sample through that spigot, so it was sanitized once and has probably maintained a pretty clean environment. 1 week old beer dried up in there from the sample you took is a different story.

Interesting.... if I had to use my bucket for fermenting and was worried about it, I think I would probably wrap the spigot in plastic wrap after sanitizing it to help keep it clean until it came time to actually use the spigot.

-walker

 

[Darth Konvel]

Good point about the spigot. I suppose if you had some no-rinse solution handy, you could put some in a squirt bottle and shoot it up into the spigot, but it probably wouldn't be able to reach everywhere up in there. Safest to just rack with equipment you know is sanitized.

 

[Truble]

when you use the bucket w/ spigot as a primary, and then use the spigot to rack to the secondary, don't you end up sucking up some trub to boot?

 

[Orfy]

I think I propably will get a bottling bucket, but at present I'm up to $200 and have not drank a bottle!

 

[Walker]

man... the more I hang out here, the more I worry about sanitation! I find myself worrying right along with you when someone brings up something like the spigot that was cleaned 2 weeks ago being used to transfer beer.

I am more careful (or obsessed) with it now that at any time in the last 8 years. I just keep trying to remind myself that they used relatively dirty barrels, wooden paddles, and who-knows-how-filthy equipment thousands of years ago to make beer.

even the sloppiest brewer here is probably a million times more sanitary than the best brewer 1000 years ago.

You guys are making me paranoid!

-walker

 

[Truble]

I think I propably will get a bottling bucket, but at present I'm up to $200 and have not drank a bottle!

this is what I am trying to keep control of. I figure that I will go through a couple batches and then evaluate what I want/need in terms of equipment, as I am at about $125 without tasting the first drop. Luckily, my kit came with a bottling bucket, but the bottle filler is not the best quality, nor is the airlock or the racking/syphon tube.