Noob needs some hand holding

[Stinkonamonkey]

Last Christmas my wife bought me a Mr. Beer kit and after a few batches I decided to move up to a 5 gallon process. This Sunday, I went to the local brew your own brew store and picked up a deluxe kit, which included a Negro Modelo clone beer kit. That night I brewed the wort, put it in the primary fermenter and let it cool down until Monday morning. The primary fermenter is a 6.5 gallon plastic bucket with an airlock. Everything was cleaned with no rinse sanitizer. Monday morning I put the yeast into a cup of warm water, let it bloom for 25 or 30 min and then stirred it into the wort. I put it in a closet and went to work. Initial hydrometer reading was 1.051. Instructions that came with the kit said the initial should be 1.056 so I thought that was pretty close. In the instructions, it called for a 70 degree fermenting temperature, but since I'm in Tucson, Az 80 degree's is what I keep my house at. So I get home and the darned thing exploded in my closet. Sent yeast foam all over the place. I have no idea what time it exploded. I pulled the primary out of the closet and took it back to the kitchen to clean it up. I pulled the lid off because it wouldn't seal again due to the dried on yeast foam all over the lip of the bucket. I cleaned the lid and the lip of the bucket then resealed it and put the air lock back on. The beer was bubbling like crazy when I put the lid back on and the air lock was bubbling happily. An hour later, all the bubbles stopped completely.

After searching on this forum (great resource by the way :rockin: ) I'm guessing I need to put together some kind of blow off tube setup. I'll do that next time, but what about my current batch of beer? Did it get contaminated? Is it secretly plotting against me because I didn't respect its special needs? Should I dump it out and start over or just give it some time and see what happens? Immediately upon discovering the mess I cleaned it up and then looked through the homebrewers bible. It said to relax, dont worry, and drink a homebrew. I didnt have any homebrew yet, so I just drank a Negro Modelo... I am still worrying though.

 

[Parker36]

Happens all the time, you should be fine. During this phase pf fermentation so much stuff is coming out, it is hard for the bad stuff to get in, if that makes sense. You should really, REALLY try to get fermentation temp lower than 80*. Having the temp this high will, for most yeasts, lead to lots off off-flavors and crazy fermentation that could lead to blowouts - but you already know that last part now.

 

[Warped04]

I wouldn't dump it until you taste it until after it's done fermenting. What is the gravity of the beer right now? Only that will tell you if you are done fermenting.

 

[Reno Homebrewer]

I agree with everything the other 2 said, but I want to add one point. You should worry more about letting the Wort sit overnight before pitching your Yeast. The Wort should be cooled down to pitching temps as quickly as possible, to minimize the chance of contamination, and to get a good "Cold break", which is another protein break. The proteins that drop out of your Wort during the cold break are the proteins that cause your Beer to develop "Chill Haze".

 

[Cape Brewing]

Agree with all above... you really want to get below 80 and you want to chill your wort as quickly as possible post-boil.

My main comment is to think of this as a rite of passage!! It's happened to all of us at one point or another and, for the most part, I think everyone remembers their first blow-out fondly.

"Aahhhh... I remember it like it was yesterday... brown foam stains all over my ceiling and wall and a puddle on the floor!"

They're a pain but that's how you learn and like I was saying... we're all done it at least once.

 

[TheJadedDog]

+1 to all the comments made so far.

An easy way to get the fermentation temps down is to buy a large cooler (like the Igloo 70qt ice cube). Next take some measurements and either cut a hole in the top or make a new lid altogether out of polystyrene insulation board since the fermenter is too tall to fit with an unmodified lid. I put frozen water bottles (rather than ice because I can just swap them out every few days and refreeze them) in the cooler with the fermenter to keep the temps down. Over time I have sort of figured out how many bottles and how long before it's time to switch them (took me a few batches to perfect it). I was able to lager in August with this method, it's just a PITA to change out the ice.

As to your concerns around contamination, I am sure you are fine since those yeasties are really working hard if your lid blew off. Rigging a blow off is easy, I put the other end of mine in a milk jug half full of sanitizer solution.

Finally as others have mentioned, you really don't want to wait a long time to pitch your yeast. Either invest in a chiller (the preferred method and a necessity if you ever go AG) or use an ice bath to get your temps down to pitch temp within 30 minutes or so from flame out. I use an ice bath and it seems to work okay, making a chiller is my next beer related project though.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

So my beer is probably fine, but will also probably not taste great because I didn't chill the wort, and because of how hot my ferment is. I'll go home and check the gravity to see where it is.

Should I leave it in the primary once it reaches its final gravity seeing as how the primary is covered in dead yeast foam? Or should I transfer it to the secondary?

Guess I need to look into a refrigerator for the garage.

 

[Warped04]

It won't be perfect tasting, but it will be beer.

I would leave it in the primary and then after it is done fermenting (1-2 weeks), rack it to the secondary (assuming that you can still get a seal on that primary).

It gets to be about 110 in the summers here, and I can maintain a 74 degree ferment with a party bucket filled with water, with the carboy submerged with 2L soda bottles ice cubes, with standard water bottle ice cubes as support.

I have 5 2L and about 9 water bottles, and I rotate them in and out of my freezer.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

So I checked the Gravity today and its 1.022. The instruction sheet says FG should be 1.012. It was also bubbling slightly inside the bucket, so Im not worried any more. It tasted fine. I'll probably give it another week or so and then transfer it to a secondary for another couple weeks.

I scanned craigs list today for a beat up old refrigerator and it looks like they can be had for around $50 plus or minus depending on how good of shape they are in. I'll probably pick one up and modify it to keep the temperature I want.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. I'll keep this updated.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

So I checked it again and it is still at 1.022 a week later. As stated above the instructions said FG should be around 1.012. It is still in the primary.

Should I leave it in the primary for another couple weeks? Transfer it over to a secondary?

Wish I would have found this forum before brewing this batch. I made lots of mistakes. ;-(

 

[TheJadedDog]

If it still hasn't dropped you may have a stuck fermentation. I'd suggest buying another packet of dry yeast and pitching it, give it 10 days, then check it and see where you are at.

And don't worry, nothing is wrecked at this point.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

Do you think there will be enough oxygen in there to support the yeast?

 

[carnevoodoo]

Do you think there will be enough oxygen in there to support the yeast?

The yeast only really need oxygen in the initial staes to reproduce. If you're using a dry yeast and you rehydrate it first, there's no real need to worry about oxygen, and at this point oxygen is bad anyhow, so go ahead and pitch that second packet of yeast.

 

[paul_h]

Get a food grade, fully sealed container to allow your brews to cool. It's better to put your hot wort into a container that has no air (as it's filled to the brim) or no airlock (as they just suck fluid and air in as the hot wort contracts) if you're a "no chill" brewer. Most camping stores, department stores etc have water containers that are 5 gal.
Carefully transfering wort into that, allowing the wort to cool overnight without any air, or anything getting in, then splashing it about like crazy when pouring it into your fermenter is the best way to keep the wort clean and to provide oxygen to the yeast, then shake the crap out of it for good measure.
edit: may not help this time, but for future reference. I'm only saying this because I've had a few stuck brews and I think it's because of lack of oxygen in the first place. A stalled fermentation at 80F can only be ****ty yeast or lack of nutrients.
I have had a few stalled fermentations but haven't had a single one since I've aerated the wort a lot. I'm sorry to say none of the ones I had to rouse or repitch have ever been good beers. Prevention is what you have to do in homebrew.

 

[Laurel]

If the beer isn't cooled quickly you'll miss your cold break and have lots of errant proteins running around the brew.

 

[paul_h]

Cold break has already happened in extracts, you don't need to worry about cold break in kits.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

Well, I pitched more dry yeast today. Hopefully it will bring the SG down to where it should be. I'll check it again in a few days. I think this is the last time I'll be using dry yeast.

 

[Stinkonamonkey]

Ok, so I just checked the SG again and it is right at 1.016. Exactly what it should be! This has fermented at 79 deg - 81 deg the entire time it has been in the fermenter. Using dry yeast. It went into the fermenter 6/29. Should I bottle or give it more time in the primary? Or rack it to secondary?

The guys at the LHBS where I bought my equipment and the kit were pretty firm about absolutely racking it to secondary ASAP. They brew all or their beer at similar temps. When I questioned them about autalysis they claimed to have never noticed it, but ONLY because they always rack to secondary. I'd rather give it more time on the cake to clean up after itself. But how many of you who do this leave it on at higher temps?

Everybody on here talks about off flavors from fermenting at higher temps. Would leaving it on the cake clean up some of those off flavors?