New Brewer!

[SouthernMissPKT]

Hey Brewers!

I am a new user to this forum and to brewing! I received an BrooklynBrewKit with APA for Christmas. Brewed it this past Sunday and it is now fermenting with its blow-off and soon to have its airlock put in for its nap. Super excited for this brew but nervous at the same time.

There is a ton of information here and I'm excited to learn/get started! Cheers!

 

[ReaperOnefour]

Hello southernmiss. Welcome to the forum, & to homebrewing. It's really a great hobbie. If you ever have any questions or need advice. The guys here are always willing to help you out.

 

[max384]

Welcome to the forum. You've come to the right place if you have any questions or just want to talk beer.

Make sure to let us know how your first brew is! Remember, one of the most important ingredients in your homebrew is patience. Don't rush your first brew (I know, it's tough not to).

 

[jodell]

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

Welcome aboard!

 

[ReaperOnefour]

Cool picture, & a great movie.

 

[jmcdaniel0]

Aswesome! cant wait to hear how it turns out!

 

[jodell]

Hey Brewers!

I am a new user to this forum and to brewing! I received an BrooklynBrewKit with APA for Christmas. Brewed it this past Sunday and it is now fermenting with its blow-off and soon to have its airlock put in for its nap. Super excited for this brew but nervous at the same time.

There is a ton of information here and I'm excited to learn/get started! Cheers!

Also I didn't see where you are from. I'm in Mississippi too. (Greenville)

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

Also I didn't see where you are from. I'm in Mississippi too. (Greenville)

I know exactly where Greenville is, I'm in Meridian. Went to Southern Miss

 

[jodell]

I know exactly where Greenville is, I'm in Meridian. Went to Southern Miss

I just moved here 6 months ago

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

How's the flat delta treating you? Im going to take a stab and say Air Force? One of the few reasons, i would think, anyone would move there haha

 

[jodell]

How's the flat delta treating you? Im going to take a stab and say Air Force? One of the few reasons, i would think, anyone would move there haha

WeLloyd not a bad guess but no...my wife is with teach for America. We actually live on the Arkansas side but I work in greenville

 

[Hudini56]

Welcome, you have def come to the right place. I am not new to brewing, but newer to the forum, but I have my issues as I get more and more into it. And everytime I have a question, someone has a solution or suggestion. Let us know how the brew is,, when its done. I def have to agree with post above! Patience!! Give it time! Its tough knowing its right there waiting to be consumed, but wait it out. Cheers

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

So, I just switched out the blow-off for the airlock. 11 day to go! Let me know what y'all think about how it looks.


I'm going to try using a mesh bag for the next mash, did it loose but I'm thinking thats a lot of trub.

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

Not sure why it oriented itself that way. How do I fix that?

 

[beermanpete]

So, I just switched out the blow-off for the airlock. 11 day to go! Let me know what y'all think about how it looks.


I'm going to try using a mesh bag for the next mash, did it loose but I'm thinking thats a lot of trub.

Welcome! Your beer looks fine. There is a lot of sediment but it may be mostly yeast. The trub tends to be green if it is from the hops. If the mash carries over it will have a coarse texture. I don't see either in your photo. Anyhow, it will be fine regardless of what the sediment is.

Your phone adds a rotation setting to the image details that the forum software does not utilize. To get the photo rotated correctly you need to use a photo editor such as Photoshop or Paintshop to set the oreintation. (This is how I do i anyhow, there are surely other ways to get it done.)

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

Welcome! Your beer looks fine. There is a lot of sediment but it may be mostly yeast. The trub tends to be green if it is from the hops. If the mash carries over it will have a coarse texture. I don't see either in your photo. Anyhow, it will be fine regardless of what the sediment is.

Thanks for the heads up! Just seems like its going WAY to easily (knock on wood).

 

[harrke]

Brewing beer is not hard. Perfecting a beer takes years! Looks good so far. You will make a fine beer. I would assume you will start off bottle conditioning the beer (what gives it the carbonation). When you do that, wait. Leave the bottles in a warm place for at least a couple of weeks. Then refrigerate them for as long as you can wait--hopefully a week? It seems like forever, so at that point, brew another!

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

Brewing beer is not hard. Perfecting a beer takes years! Looks good so far. You will make a fine beer. I would assume you will start off bottle conditioning the beer (what gives it the carbonation). When you do that, wait. Leave the bottles in a warm place for at least a couple of weeks. Then refrigerate them for as long as you can wait--hopefully a week? It seems like forever, so at that point, brew another!

Yea, the kit that this is from instructs to use a honey water priming syrup and add the (don't know the word for the fermenting liquid, is it still wort?) to the syrup then bottle. Let rest in dark, cool place for 2 weeks then chill and enjoy!

 

[harrke]

You should be able to carbonate at room temperature. The pressure created will control the yeast. Dark is right! Good luck and welcome!

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

So, thinking/planning ahead, I have been reading it is a smart idea to move the carboy to where I intend to bottle the day before to allow sediment to settle from the move. Would it hurt/help to also put it in an ice bath during that time to sudo-cold crash it and clear it up. I'm thinking that the temp won't drop too drastically low or long enough to lose my conditioning yeast. What do y'all think? Am I overthinking this?

 

[beermanpete]

I would skip the ice bath. If the beer is already clear it will be fine. If it is still cloudy let it sit another week before bottling.

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

New question: Is it possible to over pitch the ferment? I have a new brew coming up and I'm trying to figure out how to scale the yeast and still do a dry yeast. I dont have an electric scale and I could eyeball it but don't feel confident about doing that.

 

[beermanpete]

Yes, it is possible to over pitch. If you are you using yeast that is included in the kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop it should already be properly sized for thier kit.

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

I'm asking for my next batch; not a kit. The recipe calls for 125ml starter using 1pkg of yeast. Since I have to scale it 1/5 I was going to do a dry pitch as not to waste the other 4/5.

 

[max384]

New question: Is it possible to over pitch the ferment? I have a new brew coming up and I'm trying to figure out how to scale the yeast and still do a dry yeast. I dont have an electric scale and I could eyeball it but don't feel confident about doing that.

It's possible, but pretty uncommon. Underpitching is WAY more common.

For OG's less than 1.055, average (not even max) pitch rate is 0.5 million/ml/degree plato. If greater than 1.055, it is 1 milion/ml/degree plato.

If you do the math, that is about 3.8-7.6 billion cells/gal/degree plato. So, for a 1.040 OG beer, that's about 40 billion per gallon.

Do you know your OG for your next beer?

Regardless, if you're using dry yeast, you have two options. You can either sprinkle the dry yeast on the wort and you'll lose roughly half the viable yeast. Or you can rehydrate the yeast to preserve viability. You can also make a starter, but obviously that's not needed here.

Even if you only need half the yeast cells (as an example), and therefore pitching the entire packet would get you pretty close, if it were me, I'd rehydrate half the yeast pack instead, that way you're pitching healthier cells.

Here's a yeast calculator from Mr Malty http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

 

[mkelly601]

Welcome to your new obsession! As a fellow Mississippi brewer, I would recommend that you start looking at temp control for your future brews. Unlike some here, we do not have basements with consistent rooom temps in the 60's here in Mississippi. Your 70 degree ambient room temperature will mean the temp of your fermenting beer could reach 75-80 degrees during inital fermentation which could produce unwanted off flavors depending on the yeast that was used.

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

It's possible, but pretty uncommon. Underpitching is WAY more common.

For OG's less than 1.055, average (not even max) pitch rate is 0.5 million/ml/degree plato. If greater than 1.055, it is 1 milion/ml/degree plato.

If you do the math, that is about 3.8-7.6 billion cells/gal/degree plato. So, for a 1.040 OG beer, that's about 40 billion per gallon.

Do you know your OG for your next beer?

Regardless, if you're using dry yeast, you have two options. You can either sprinkle the dry yeast on the wort and you'll lose roughly half the viable yeast. Or you can rehydrate the yeast to preserve viability. You can also make a starter, but obviously that's not needed here.

Even if you only need half the yeast cells (as an example), and therefore pitching the entire packet would get you pretty close, if it were me, I'd rehydrate half the yeast pack instead, that way you're pitching healthier cells.

Here's a yeast calculator from Mr Malty http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

Forgive me, but that went WELL over my head. But since I'm here to lean, I'm here to listen. I can figure out how, via youtube, to rehydrate the yeast but the DID call for a starter (I thought that meant to rehydrate) since it does how would I scale that properly as not to lose 4/5 of the pack of yeast. The recipe called for 1 pkg of Wyeast Irish ale @125ml.

Welcome to your new obsession! As a fellow Mississippi brewer, I would recommend that you start looking at temp control for your future brews. Unlike some here, we do not have basements with consistent rooom temps in the 60's here in Mississippi. Your 70 degree ambient room temperature will mean the temp of your fermenting beer could reach 75-80 degrees during inital fermentation which could produce unwanted off flavors depending on the yeast that was used.

To The Top! I actually have my old mini fridge from college in storage and was trying to figure out how to turn that into a fermenter.

 

[max384]

Forgive me, but that went WELL over my head. But since I'm here to lean, I'm here to listen. I can figure out how, via youtube, to rehydrate the yeast but the DID call for a starter (I thought that meant to rehydrate) since it does how would I scale that properly as not to lose 4/5 of the pack of yeast. The recipe called for 1 pkg of Wyeast Irish ale @125ml.

Oh okay, I see. It looks like you have a smack pack that is 125 cc. When new those have approximately 100 billion yeast cells, which depending upon the yeast age and your OG, may actually be okay to pitch in one gallon.

When you make a starter, generally the smallest size you would make would be 1 liter, which would be appropriate for most 5 gallon batches. For a one gallon batch, you won't need a starter.

Do you know what the OG of your next planned brew is going to be?

 

[SouthernMissPKT]

Do you know what the OG of your next planned brew is going to be?

If you can give me a few hours I'll plug my recipe in the program. Trying to get that monster buck!

However, while I'm sitting here I would love to learn about that equation you were trying to give me earlier.