New Brewer from San Diego!

[swinginchandra]

Hey Everybody!
I've so enjoyed reading these forums for the past few days!!

Last sunday I started my first home brewed beer, a German Amber Ale! Thanks to searching HBT, we were able to rig a blow off tube for the carboy when it started foaming rather enthusiastically out of the airlock after the first night! I never would have figured that out on my own! Thanks guys!!

Cheers!!!

 

[Gremlyn]

Welcome! Where in SD are you?

 

[swinginchandra]

I live on the PB side of La Jolla!
Go to Mesa College...

-------

(by the way, my username refers to swing dancing... just thought I'd point that out to start off with... y'know )

------

edited to say: I checked out, and registered for, your home brew club! Cool!

 

[Gremlyn]

Good call on the name clarification

 

[swinginchandra]

I always forget there are alternate interpretations for that... since I use it for pretty much everything!
for exp. recently, at the bank, they asked me to choose an online ID for my online banking. I said "swinginchandra". The guy setting up my account gave me this look like I was a lepper!!! LOL. It took me a second to realize what his issue was, and then clarify.
I don't think he believed me.

 

[Emyrs]

welcome to HBT!
theres a few of us from sd on the forum..
theyve helped me a lot with a few problems that ive had.
good luck with that german amber!

 

[Gremlyn]

welcome to HBT!
theres a few of us from sd on the forum..
theyve helped me a lot with a few problems that ive had.
good luck with that german amber!

Your problems with brewing are far beyond the help of this forum...

 

[brewslut]

Welcome to HBT!!

 

[Emyrs]

Your problems with brewing are far beyond the help of this forum...

Ill kill you so hard!!!! =P
you try the DG clone yet? im gonna go pour a pint..

 

[TrailerTrashBrewer]

Got a brother out there on PB drive who got me to start home brewing..

Welcome..

This is really a lot like cooking from what I have learned in the last 4 months. Ingredients, techniques... If it can go wrong you will do it sooner or later..

What are you using for equipment?

Barrel,
Chiller,
Bottles
Kegs.

 

[swinginchandra]

Haha, Murphies law of home brewing??
We already had boilovers, and bubbling over!

We are using a 7 gallon glass carboy as a primary, then a plastic bucket for bottling.

We're about a week into primary right now. I think we will skip secondary, and just go straight to bottling, in a few weeks. Our hydrometer arrived broken, so we need to go buy a new one, so we can get some gravity readings going.

We will use the 1 liter swivel top bottles!

Thanks for the luck!

I love cooking, and alcohol, so what a great hobby! LOL

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone. I'll tell you all how it turns out!!

 

[Gremlyn]

Careful on the swing-top bottles, they don't always seal correctly and your beer will not be carbonated. Look at the white plastic piece, some have a seam from the molding process. The general consensus is that the seam causes enough of a gap to release CO2. They can be filed down easily enough.

 

[swinginchandra]

Interesting, thanks for the warning! We'll be careful. Maybe we'll go with different bottles, since we haven't bought them yet.

 

[DragonTail]

Welcome

 

[TrailerTrashBrewer]

Haha, Murphies law of home brewing??
We already had boilovers, and bubbling over!

We are using a 7 gallon glass carboy as a primary, then a plastic bucket for bottling.

We're about a week into primary right now. I think we will skip secondary, and just go straight to bottling, in a few weeks. Our hydrometer arrived broken, so we need to go buy a new one, so we can get some gravity readings going.

We will use the 1 liter swivel top bottles!

Thanks for the luck!

I love cooking, and alcohol, so what a great hobby! LOL

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone. I'll tell you all how it turns out!!

My suggestions..

Go straight to force carbing...

You will get sick of the bottles and the cleaning and not getting consistent carbonation.

You can get a corny for $30+
All you need is a fridge or a big garbage can that you can insulate and fill with ice to keep cold.. Put a spigot on the bottom to drain the melted ice..

Get a co2 tank..
regulator..

Some tubing..

Heck you are going to buy it sooner or later anyway..

Once you are doing the force carb thing then you can brew again and fill bottles for added reserve.

Also get as many carboys as you can for clarifying..

Get as much fermenting capacity as you can, buckets or carboys...

If you are like me and you find that you can brew a really tasty beer it is not hard to drink it up.. Then you are at the store buying beer.. Bad idea.. I figured out that it only cost me $.64 a pint for my home brew..

I have about $500 in equipment and some of that cost is because of not going right to the plate chiller and a 15 gal brew kettle home made one from a beer barrel. So I ended up upgrading and the other stuff just sits now..

Find a used fridge that you can clear out just for your beer..

Just a few ideas...

 

[swinginchandra]

Yah I've been thinking of buying a spare fridge for brewing. If we really clean out the closet we are using right now it would probly fit.
Money is kinda tight right now, u know, college student budget, so probably won't by the equipment for force carbonation right away, but I'm sure we'll move to kegging soon.
Actually, I want to buy a few 3 gallon carboys, so I can get more experience trying different things.
The HWIMBO (lol) feels strongly against using plastic at all, for anything other than very short term, because "all plastic, no matter how hard, off-gases". That lowers our options of inexpensive materials a lot!

 

[EricT]

Welcome to HBT. I'm pretty new myself but haven't run into a question that hasn't already been answered here at one time or another. I also second the Kegging comment by TrailerTrashBrewer, I am waiting for mine now.

 

[Gremlyn]

swinginchandra, you can assure your HWMBO that HDPE plastic really is OK to use for brewer and that many hundreds of thousands of people brew with it all the time. When you say 'off gases', is the fear of plastic leaching into the beer r oxygen permeating through the plastic to the beer?

 

[swinginchandra]

plastic leaching into the beer... anyway, we'll stick with glass carboys ... they just look awesome too!!!

 

[Gremlyn]

plastic leaching into the beer... anyway, we'll stick with glass carboys ... they just look awesome too!!!

Glass works just fine, just more expensive; I have a few I use. Just make sure you keep them out of the light!

 

[swinginchandra]

Well, we tried our beer last night, and, well, it tastes like beer!!

It's got good color, clarity and carbonation, - a little bit on the hoppy side for an Amber, which I think is good. It does have a little bit of a sweetish after taste that's on the banana-ey side that's not so pleasant - from reading around here, it seems that might be esters from our yeast??

Anyway, on the whole, a success. No infection, and it's certainly drinkable!

 

[Gremlyn]

Well, we tried our beer last night, and, well, it tastes like beer!!

It's got good color, clarity and carbonation, - a little bit on the hoppy side for an Amber, which I think is good. It does have a little bit of a sweetish after taste that's on the banana-ey side that's not so pleasant - from reading around here, it seems that might be esters from our yeast??

Anyway, on the whole, a success. No infection, and it's certainly drinkable!

Excellent! The banana taste is probably from lack of fermentation temp control (hotter temps = yeast making esters), and the sweetness could be a few different factors, such as extract caramelisation, crappy extract that just won't attenuate well. What was the final gravity? I'd be willing to bet you got stuck around 1.020, that's very common for extract kits.

 

[swinginchandra]

Actually, no - our final gravity was about 1.15 or 1.14
the sweetish after taste is the bananey - the sweetness other than that is only a litttlllee bit more than what would be expected for an amber.
I'm thinking of buying one of those blanket thingies to help regulate temperature for the carboy, do you have any experience with that?

 

[Gremlyn]

The electric blankets will only get the temperature up. Cheapest/easiest way is just a tub with water and ice packs. Throw an old t-shirt or towel around it to draw the cold water up around the non-submersed part. It's not ideal, but it'll definitely help.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/swamp-cooler-plastic-fermenter-91995/

 

[EricT]

I had a Honey ale that had a Banana Bubblegum taste to it, I figure it was too high ferm temp so made a SOF Chiller, I posted pics in the DIY section. Theres also a link with how to make it.

 

[swinginchandra]

hmm, that sounds like a good idea...
should I be worried about making the temperature too cold? It's really only a slight after taste, and I don't want to lower the efficiency of our yeasties!! p)

I think we're going to try a bunch of different small batches next to sample, and try some 1 gallon all grain batches, to ramp up to doing an IPA -- both of our favorites!

Doing something like that for a little one gallon carboy would be pretty easy I think... we'll have to try it

 

[carnevoodoo]

hmm, that sounds like a good idea...
should I be worried about making the temperature too cold? It's really only a slight after taste, and I don't want to lower the efficiency of our yeasties!! p)

I think we're going to try a bunch of different small batches next to sample, and try some 1 gallon all grain batches, to ramp up to doing an IPA -- both of our favorites!

Doing something like that for a little one gallon carboy would be pretty easy I think... we'll have to try it

Yes, you can make it too cold. 65-68 is ideal for most typical yeast. Every strain has different tolerances, but that's the range I find myself hitting most often. Some will ferment into the 50s, but I don't like pushing it that low. edit: You won't have off flavors, but your yeast might just stop working, and that's no fun.

 

[Gremlyn]

You'd be hard pressed to get it and keep it too cold using a tub with ice packs and water. As carnevoodoo said, you're looking to be in the mid to upper 60's while fermenting, and that's inside the fermenter. The yeast throw off a lot of heat when fermenting and can easily be 5-10F hotter than ambient temperature at the peak of activity.

 

[swinginchandra]

ok, we will certainly try that next time then!

Thanks for all the advice guys.

When we have a descent brew made we'll have to meet up with all y'all san diegans and get some real opinions on it... we're like proud parents right now

 

[Gremlyn]

Reviews of early brews can be more helpful than reviews of good brews