Post Brew Day (night) Thoughts

[Kylito87]

So me and my buddy brewed our first batch of beer last night. Along the way I learned many things and had many interesting experiences. I made some mistakes that I am sort of worried about but the airlock is bubbling this morning. So I will go through a wrap up.

1. My stove has just enough balls to do a 3 gallon boil. Takes a while but it can be done.

2. LME is sticky stuff. I had my 6 pound container in some warm water to soften it up and my buddy squeezed it and it went all over his hand. Also that little ring that is under the cap popped off and went into the wort. Luckily it floated to the top in 5 seconds and I grabbed it.


3. Starsan is cool stuff. Super thick. I put a drop in my airlock and filled it half way with water. I have had bubbles all morning lol.

4. Chilling the wort is a nightmare without a chiller. I cant hook one up to our tap in the kitchen. The only plus is my apt has a hotel style ice maker on the ammenity floor. I am sure people were wondering what the hell I was doing at 10 pm getting ice.

5. The grain steep is annoying with a little 5 $ instant read from jewel. I need a nice thermometer that clips onto my kettle.

6. The tube that your hydrometer comes in is not the best test vessel. I put the wort into the tube and the bottom popped out. Wort all over the floor in front of our SWMBOeds

7. I didn't sinc my hydrometer to temp that it is calibrated to. At about 75 it showed 10.62 but it is calibrated at 60.

8. I am very concerned about temperature. I cant do a swamp cooler and I don't have an outlet in my closet for a fan. it is holding at about 72 to 74 ambient which is way way way to high. So I am expecting some unwanted esters.my thermostat is set at 60 right now in my apt.

9. RDWHAH(C)B shouldn't be taken too liberally I think if I would have had less beer my brew day would have been smoother. I am hoping it doesn't turn out horrible.

10. Watching a wyeast smack pack take off is fun.

11. However this beer turns out is not going to stop me from brewing . It was a learning experience. Me and my buddy had a blast and we are getting together in 2 weeks to rack to secondary. Wort tastes weird it is sweet and thick and almost reminds me of a hoppy grainy milk shake. We tasted everything we ate a grain , hop pellet , and tasted extract. This was amazing and to see the airlock bubbling away puts my fears at ease ........... For now anyway . Thanks guys for helping me with this I feel like when I got in the kitchen I was in the zone I had no unsure feeling I knew the whole process and had it outlined in my head. The hook has been set. We already have several recipes in mind that we want to try.
Cheers Guys

 

[ChshreCat]

My thoughts on a couple points...

3: Try mixing up starsan in a spray bottle. It's even cooler that way. Just spray stuff down rather than filling or dunking, and when it comes time to fill/refill an airlock... just a few sprays in the top and you're good!

8: Do you have a freezer you can fit some gallon jugs into? You could fill some up with water, freeze them and then put them in the closet with your fermenter. That will help get the temp down. Won't work as well as a real fermentation chamber or a swamp cooler, but it's better than nothing.

 

[zepolmot]

What did you happen to be brewing?

I don't have any temp control either at this point. But I've managed to throw together a solid Amber Ale and a mean Coffee stout in my apartment's ambient 65-72* closet.

I pulled up my hydrometer correction thingy and a 1.062 @ 75* would be 1.064 @ 60, so don't beat yourself up too much there.

I'm with you on the whole wimpy stove thing. I'm anxiously awaiting my full size kettle to see how it holds up under 5 gal boils. It was able to handle 3 with no issue.

 

[Kylito87]

Fuggles IPA midwest. I made a spray bottle of starsan but being this was the first time using my equipment I made a gallon ratio of starsan shook the piss out of the fermentor dumped it and took the spray bottle of starsan and blasted it some more. I am just obsessive compulsive. I did wash everything with EZ clean first.

 

[Calder]

4. Chilling the wort is a nightmare without a chiller. I cant hook one up to our tap in the kitchen. The only plus is my apt has a hotel style ice maker on the ammenity floor. I am sure people were wondering what the hell I was doing at 10 pm getting ice.

You should be able to un-screw the very end of the tap. It will have a small screen in it, and should be replaceable. You can get adapters from hardware stores that will fit this thread and your cooler.

 

[Kylito87]

I am not so sure it is a one of those faucets where you can pull it out like a handle. The spout on it doesn't look like it will come off. Maybe I am wrong and if I am I will get a chiller ASAP.

 

[jtkratzer]

Your local hardware store should be able to find you anything you want for pipe/plumbing fittings.

The nice thing about a chiller is you can put different adapters on each end of the hose. One one end is a fitting for the garden hose...tried to use that outside when it was around 10* and it must have been frozen. Backup plan was the other end of the chiller hooks up to the faucet in the laundry room.

I haven't figured out how to brew or bottle a batch of beer without having to do at least a hasty mopping in the kitchen afterward.

Enjoy, start the next batch. :rockin:

 

[Kylito87]

So as an update my airlock has slowed to a big bubble every two to three minutes or so with a alot of small bubbles at the top. I am going to transfer to secondary next weekend not this weekend. The only concern I have is I might not have got a full 5 gallons in the fermentor do to foam. If I transfer to secondary I don't want too much headspace but it is going to be in there for a week or 2. So what is your guys opinions?

 

[Bithead]

Check out this How To Clean or Replace a Faucet Aerator. There's written instructions and a video. Should work with any faucet set. Some are inside threaded and some outside.

 

[Kylito87]

http://sales.buysmrt.com/s/7560c It is like this sort of not the exact same one. The little aerator is so little I don't know how it would work. If I can get a wort chiller on this bad boy I will do 3 backfilps and run around my house 3 times

 

[jtkratzer]

http://sales.buysmrt.com/s/7560c It is like this sort of not the exact same one. The little aerator is so little I don't know how it would work. If I can get a wort chiller on this bad boy I will do 3 backfilps and run around my house 3 times

Our kitchen sink has the single neck that you can pull out and use as a sprayer...to get it to work, I have to pull the sprayer out of the mount, unscrew it, and attach the wort chiller to that hose via an adapter.

 

[Bithead]

AH, now I understand. may need to rethink this. Anyone have experience with the fancy faucets.

 

[Kylito87]

A how to with pics would be great on this for use Fancy Faucet people lol. My sink is really not deep enough for an effective ice bath, A wort chiller would make my life and brew day so much easier. I was talking to SWMBO and she sort of cried foul about taking the faucet apart but I want to do it anyway .

 

[Kylito87]

What did you happen to be brewing?

I don't have any temp control either at this point. But I've managed to throw together a solid Amber Ale and a mean Coffee stout in my apartment's ambient 65-72* closet.

I pulled up my hydrometer correction thingy and a 1.062 @ 75* would be 1.064 @ 60, so don't beat yourself up too much there.

I'm with you on the whole wimpy stove thing. I'm anxiously awaiting my full size kettle to see how it holds up under 5 gal boils. It was able to handle 3 with no issue.

LOLS and I am a total fool. In my n00b awkwardness and desire to bust out my hydrometer I did it before I topped up DAMN IT!!!! So I am way off and like I said I am having doubts if I got my fermenter up to five gallons. That is why I am scared to death of putting it into my 5 gal better bottle.

 

[bovineblitz]

My swamp cooler fan is just a computer fan hooked up to a cell phone charger. I got a bin from target that's barely bigger than a carboy. If you can fit a carboy, you can fit a swamp cooler.

 

[glenn514]

Ignore the kitchen faucet problem! Get an old, beat-up 5 or 6 gallon bucket, a cheap water pump from Harbor Freight, two 5'-6' lengths of vinyl hose from the hardware store, and the proper adapters/fittings to attach one hose to the pump [it is usually a garden hose fitting]. You now have a recirculating immersion chiller! Attach one hose to the output of the pump and the input of the chiller. Attach the other hose to the output of the chiller and put it into the bucket. When you plug in the pump, you are recirculating water from the bucket through the chiller and back to the bucket.

On Tuesday, I chilled my batch of Irish Red from boiling to under 100°F in less than fifteen minutes. Started with about two gallons of tap water, and as that warmed, I added ice. When I was done, I simply took the output hose from the bucket and put it in the sink. Presto...the water was all pumped out and I didn't have to ruin my back picking the bucket up!

glenn514

 

[RM-MN]

I bought a long stem thermometer from Midwest Supplies so I could leave it in the kettle while I steep the grain. I didn't care much for the mount that came with it so I made my own to clip onto the side of the kettle and keep the end of the thermometer in the middle of the kettle to avoid measuring the temperature of the bottom of the kettle or the side where the temperature may be different that the majority of the liquid due to heating/cooling.

 

[Chap]

Skip the secondary... leave it in the primary for 4 weeks then bottle or keg

 

[LostBavarianMan]

About chilling wort, this was advised to me. If your boil kettle is big enough freeze 2 to 4 2 little soda bottles. sanitize before using in wort. put in wort and change them out this plus an ice bath will get your wort to pitching temp in no time at all. Just my 2 cents.

 

[beer_monkey]

5. The grain steep is annoying with a little 5 $ instant read from jewel. I need a nice thermometer that clips onto my kettle.

I started my first batch last night and realized I didn't have a good thermometer for the task. I ended up using binder clip on the side of my kettle to hold the probe of an oven thermometer. Worked fairly well and had the benefit of having a temperature alarm as well as a timer.

 

[lou2row]

My thoughts on why you will be a regular member and quality contributor to the boards:

1. You have been here a year reading before starting your first beer, rather than joining while your first beer is suffering from problems already and want answers that are already addressed lower down the page.

2. You read enough to know what SWMBO means.

3. Your spelling and English are very good. Your posts are enjoyable to read.

Welcome! I'm sure your beer will come out great. I wish I had a friend to go through starting out with. It will be alot more fun that way. Let us know how the beer ends up!

 

[Kylito87]

Thankyou very much for all the support. I plan on taking my faucet apart sometime when I can put it back together in a hurry. I am racking this beer into secondary saturday afternoon. I am hoping all goes well. It will probably stay there until I get back from Myrtle Beach. I will keep you all updated. Cheers and many good beers

 

[Kylito87]

So here is an Update. I racked my Fuggles IPA into the secondary on Saturday. I am only concerned about few things . One I accidentally squeezed the bulb of my baster in the prinarmy while collecting a sample. Also there is about 4 and a half inches of headspace in my secondary but after reading here I am at ease about that. It is only staying in there for two weeks and then it is bottling time. There was some slight sloshing when my buddy and a I moved it back to the closet. I hope I didn't F it up . It was amazing how good it tasted when we drank the sample . It has changed so much over the course of two weeks. It definitely tastes like beer warm flat beer but beer none the less. There are no off flavors or smells so I think I was ok on my sanitation. Anyway just wanted to keep you guys posted. I will let you all know how bottling goes on the 22nd. I am hoping that the characters improve as this beer matures. Next time I will check my volume more closely so I end up with closer to 5 gallons.

 

[Kylito87]

So another update. The beer was bottled on the 22nd the day after I got back from Myrtle Beach. It went fairly smooth. We ended up with 47 and 3/4 bottles. My buddy has decided to enter our beer in a local homebrew contest at binny's in South Loop . It will have been in the bottles for just over 2 weeks at that point . We will see how it turns out. I think he is nuts for wanting to enter our first batch but it is a good opportunity to get some feed back and meet other fellow Home brewers. Just wanted to give you all an update.

Cheers