ReeseAllen
Well-Known Member
I'm working on my first batch of beer right now. Years ago I brewed a handful of small batches of wine, but it's been a long time and I've never tried brewing beer before now.
I got the beginner's kit from my LHBS last weekend which is a red ale. I used a tub of liquid malt extract and a small bag of grain that was provided, along with some pelletized hops to make the wort. I pitched the yeast on Sunday, August 30.
The house temperature was in the high 70's and the brew was close to 80 F, so I rigged up a makeshift evaporative cooling setup involving a bin of water, a box fan, a t-shirt, and an aquarium pump. That (plus a couple of trays of ice cubes tossed in the bin) brought the carboy temp down to about 72 F and kept it there.
I pitched the yeast after starting it in a shallow pan of boiled-and-cooled water on Sunday afternoon.
SG at pitching: 1.046
T+1:00 - The airlock finally starts bubbling a bit.
T+3:00 - The krausen is about an inch thick already and the airlock is bubbling faster.
T+12:00 (Late Sunday night) - Huge krausen, foam coming out of the airlock, which is bubbling pretty quickly. The cooling water already smells like beer.
T+20:00 (Monday morning) - Still foaming out of the airlock.
T+30:00 (Monday evening) - The brew is churning like crazy, it looks like a beer snowglobe. Chunks of yeast and hops are flying around and the bubbling is strong. Krausen fell a lot, only about an inch thick. Airlock still bubbling pretty quickly.
T+54:00 (This evening) - The krausen is almost nonexistent and the bubbling from the airlock has slowed a lot.
The instructions my LHBS gave me suggested that the primary "vigorous" fermentation could be done as quickly as 48-72 hours and recommended racking into a secondary fermenter once the fermentation has slowed considerably. I followed this advice, and am now wondering if it was the right choice.
I only have one carboy and one bucket, so I sanitized the bucket, racked the beer into it, then cleaned and sanitized the carboy and racked the beer back into it, minus the sediment at the bottom of the first fermentation.
SG during this racking: 1.018
The beer smelled great, very yeasty and alcoholic when I was racking it out of the carboy today. A big improvement over the fairly unpleasant smell of the hot wort on Sunday. A couple of hours have passed, though, and now I'm looking at my re-filled carboy and it appears to be dead. I see almost no bubbles rising to the beer's surface and the airlock is bubbling about once a minute compared to the previous once per second. The temperature of the brew right now is around 72 F.
I'm hoping that the yeast in suspension will come back to life soon and finish off the secondary fermentation. Please offer words of wisdom and perhaps encouragement. I'd like to buy another carboy this week and start a second batch, so I want to make sure I'm not just repeating a bad process when I do.
I got the beginner's kit from my LHBS last weekend which is a red ale. I used a tub of liquid malt extract and a small bag of grain that was provided, along with some pelletized hops to make the wort. I pitched the yeast on Sunday, August 30.
The house temperature was in the high 70's and the brew was close to 80 F, so I rigged up a makeshift evaporative cooling setup involving a bin of water, a box fan, a t-shirt, and an aquarium pump. That (plus a couple of trays of ice cubes tossed in the bin) brought the carboy temp down to about 72 F and kept it there.
I pitched the yeast after starting it in a shallow pan of boiled-and-cooled water on Sunday afternoon.
SG at pitching: 1.046
T+1:00 - The airlock finally starts bubbling a bit.
T+3:00 - The krausen is about an inch thick already and the airlock is bubbling faster.
T+12:00 (Late Sunday night) - Huge krausen, foam coming out of the airlock, which is bubbling pretty quickly. The cooling water already smells like beer.
T+20:00 (Monday morning) - Still foaming out of the airlock.
T+30:00 (Monday evening) - The brew is churning like crazy, it looks like a beer snowglobe. Chunks of yeast and hops are flying around and the bubbling is strong. Krausen fell a lot, only about an inch thick. Airlock still bubbling pretty quickly.
T+54:00 (This evening) - The krausen is almost nonexistent and the bubbling from the airlock has slowed a lot.
The instructions my LHBS gave me suggested that the primary "vigorous" fermentation could be done as quickly as 48-72 hours and recommended racking into a secondary fermenter once the fermentation has slowed considerably. I followed this advice, and am now wondering if it was the right choice.
I only have one carboy and one bucket, so I sanitized the bucket, racked the beer into it, then cleaned and sanitized the carboy and racked the beer back into it, minus the sediment at the bottom of the first fermentation.
SG during this racking: 1.018
The beer smelled great, very yeasty and alcoholic when I was racking it out of the carboy today. A big improvement over the fairly unpleasant smell of the hot wort on Sunday. A couple of hours have passed, though, and now I'm looking at my re-filled carboy and it appears to be dead. I see almost no bubbles rising to the beer's surface and the airlock is bubbling about once a minute compared to the previous once per second. The temperature of the brew right now is around 72 F.
I'm hoping that the yeast in suspension will come back to life soon and finish off the secondary fermentation. Please offer words of wisdom and perhaps encouragement. I'd like to buy another carboy this week and start a second batch, so I want to make sure I'm not just repeating a bad process when I do.