Proper Brewing Record Keeping

[Wino1]

Hey all - brewed my first beer last night. I was wondering if you could critique my notes below which were written as I brewed. Specifically, I'm looking for things to add/delete as I move from extract to AG. Note I still need a hydrometer and thermometer


Smashing Pumpkin Ale (1G Homebrew Recipe Kit)

9/9/15
Put 1.25G of hot water (tap water on highest setting for a few minutes) into pot. Did so with 10, 2 cup fills in measuring cup, poured into kettle. Moved kettle from sink onto stovetop and turned to medium (5) heat (timestamp 7:24).

7:25 Began steeping grains in cloth mesh (came with kit)

7:35 removed grains/mesh and discarded. Turned on stove top to High (9)

7:43 Boil is reached

7:45 1.5lb Maillard Malts Gold Malt Extract Syrup (100% malted barley) is slowly poured into kettle while stirring with steel whisker. Used sanitized spoon to get remaining extract out of jar. Small packet of hops from kit (3.5g Cascade hope pellets, Alpha 6.8% HP13T) added immediately after. These additions cause wort to stop full boil.

7:46 Full boil reached again, maintained heat setting at 7 throughout boil

8:28 Turned off heat, moved kettle to room-temp surface, added in spice kit. Put quickly back on stove to boil in spices instead of whisking.

8:28 Put covered kettle into cold water in sink. Kettle cover had been sanitized for a few minutes beforehand.

9:16 Kettle feels around room temperature.

9:20 Started siphoning beer from kettle into sanitized 1G carboy.

9:23-24 Gently stirred beer with cap on to aerate wort and added half packet of yeast (Dry Ale Yeast).

9:25 Put 1TB sanitizer water into airlock, capped carboy, and put in closet for fermentation to begin.

9/10/15
7:10 Check carboy - 1in foam head has formed and airlock is bubbling. Fermentation appears to have begun.

Observations: Small (3in wide by 1in tall) foam consistently at south facing side of kettle’s wall throughout boil, after extract and hops were added.

 

[bsc]

your notes are good (overkill compared to any notes I take, which typically only include the recipe and when hops/adjuncts/etc get added as well as gravity/volume readings).

I would recommend not using hot water out of your tap depending what you have for a hot water heater/filter system and recommend treating your water if you use un-filtered tap water. Definitely get a water report done so you know the mineral content of your tap water and find out if it is treated with chlorine/chloramine as both will create off flavors.

ps - no need to use a sanitized spoon if you are dumping extract into boiling wort
pps - get a thermometer, temperature is of utmost importance
ppps - get a hydrometer before going AG

 

[Beerontwowheels]

You did well in terms of recording for your first brew day. Pretty exhaustive given the instruments you had available to you.

Most important things to track when brewing:

• Starting volume before boil (how many gallons in the kettle)
• Ending volume after boil (how many gallons are left after boiling)
• weight of grain(s) used
• types of hops used & alpha/beta acid content (used to determine your International Bitterness Units - how bitter is your beer!?)
• weight of each hop addition
• boil times for each hop addition (60 min hop additions are added when 60 minutes left in the boil, 15 min hops added when only 15 mins left on the boil)
• What temperature are you fermenting at? If just fermenting in a closet, what's the ambient temp?
• pre-boil original gravity (using a hydrometer)
• post-boil gravity (again, using a hydrometer)
• Final gravity (also called terminal gravity) after fermentation has finished (hydrometer!!!)
• what temperature did you pitch your yeast at? (using a sterilized thermometer)

There are plenty of other things to track and record, but they come with more experience. Things like yeast pitching rate, pH, etc.

It's not really important to record what time the boil started and ended, rather, just record how long you boiled for.

That's about all I can think of right now...

 

[FTowne1]

Hey all - brewed my first beer last night. I was wondering if you could critique my notes below which were written as I brewed. Specifically, I'm looking for things to add/delete as I move from extract to AG. Note I still need a hydrometer and thermometer


Smashing Pumpkin Ale (1G Homebrew Recipe Kit)

9/9/15
Put 1.25G of hot water (tap water on highest setting for a few minutes) into pot. Did so with 10, 2 cup fills in measuring cup, poured into kettle. Moved kettle from sink onto stovetop and turned to medium (5) heat (timestamp 7:24).

7:25 Began steeping grains in cloth mesh (came with kit)

7:35 removed grains/mesh and discarded. Turned on stove top to High (9)

7:43 Boil is reached

7:45 1.5lb Maillard Malts Gold Malt Extract Syrup (100% malted barley) is slowly poured into kettle while stirring with steel whisker. Used sanitized spoon to get remaining extract out of jar. Small packet of hops from kit (3.5g Cascade hope pellets, Alpha 6.8% HP13T) added immediately after. These additions cause wort to stop full boil.

7:46 Full boil reached again, maintained heat setting at 7 throughout boil

8:28 Turned off heat, moved kettle to room-temp surface, added in spice kit. Put quickly back on stove to boil in spices instead of whisking.

8:28 Put covered kettle into cold water in sink. Kettle cover had been sanitized for a few minutes beforehand.

9:16 Kettle feels around room temperature.

9:20 Started siphoning beer from kettle into sanitized 1G carboy.

9:23-24 Gently stirred beer with cap on to aerate wort and added half packet of yeast (Dry Ale Yeast).

9:25 Put 1TB sanitizer water into airlock, capped carboy, and put in closet for fermentation to begin.

9/10/15
7:10 Check carboy - 1in foam head has formed and airlock is bubbling. Fermentation appears to have begun.

Observations: Small (3in wide by 1in tall) foam consistently at south facing side of kettle’s wall throughout boil, after extract and hops were added.

****, man. I've gotten so lazy that:
I sometimes don't even write down or log recipes.
I don't remember brew dates at all.
I get batches of bottled beer mixed up regularly because I'm too lazy to label bottles.

Keep up the good work!

 

[bsc]

I use a big old piece of tap and include as many relevant details as possible then it moves from carboy->carboy->keg...

 

[Rau711]

****, man. I've gotten so lazy that:
I sometimes don't even write down or log recipes.
I don't remember brew dates at all.
I get batches of bottled beer mixed up regularly because I'm too lazy to label bottles.

Keep up the good work!

Color caps. I have like 15 different colors so each batch can have a different color. Then anything I want to age, I label the cap so I don't mix up an old stout and new IPA with the same color cap.

 

[TripleSixHoppia]

My notes.

Mash temp okay? Yeah
Mash pH okay? Yeah
Hit target OG or nah? Yeah

Cool.

But I'm one of these dudes who doesn't really give a **** about hot side. Most of my beers get 90% of their flavor from fermentation. I've been doing a lot of extract lately. I wish I could just pay someone to brew the wort for me.

 

[quirkzoo1]

My notes.

Mash temp okay? Yeah
Mash pH okay? Yeah
Hit target OG or nah? Yeah

Cool.

But I'm one of these dudes who doesn't really give a **** about hot side. Most of my beers get 90% of their flavor from fermentation. I've been doing a lot of extract lately. I wish I could just pay someone to brew the wort for me.

An expensive option but if you are serious:

http://www.picobrew.com

I know someone that said the exact same thing "I wish I could just pay someone to brew the wort for me" and they have been really happy with their pico brew.

 

[TripleSixHoppia]

An expensive option but if you are serious:

http://www.picobrew.com

I know someone that said the exact same thing "I wish I could just pay someone to brew the wort for me" and they have been really happy with their pico brew.

Yeah I looked at those. I thought about telling my dad to get one. He kind of wants to brew, but not really. So it would be perfect.

 

[BadJustin]

An expensive option but if you are serious:

http://www.picobrew.com

I know someone that said the exact same thing "I wish I could just pay someone to brew the wort for me" and they have been really happy with their pico brew.

Wonder what that contraption runs.

 

[quirkzoo1]

Wonder what that contraption runs.

https://picobrew.azurewebsites.net/store/products/zymaticdetails.cshtml

$2,000

It only makes 2.5 gallons, but since you are just loading the ingredients and pushing a button it really isn't that hard to make a double batch if your aging vessels are already setup for 5 gallons.