switters
Well-Known Member
Well, my first batch has been in the carboy for about 18 hours. The airlock is bubbling and a nice krausen is forming on top. First, I want to thank everyone here again for their support and encouragement. I posted many questions leading up to brew day, and two "emergency" questions yesterday. They were all answered within minutes. This is an amazing community.
I thought I'd share some of the things I learned in the event that my experience might be helpful to new brewers who are getting ready for their first batch.
1. Get the right equipment. I was mashing in an old cooler I had laying around. Big mistake. I had crazy heat loss, and had to add more hot water than I wanted to which thinned out the mash a bit. In the end, I was scooping out part of the mash liquid with a sanitized measuring cup, heating it on the stove, and putting it back in. This raised the temp back up without changing the thickness of the mash. Next time I'm just going to spend the $35 and get a 5-gallon Igloo beverage cooler.
2. Don't try to cool the wort in the sink. It took me 1.5 hours to cool to 75 degrees, even with 5 water changes, stirring frequently, and several frozen water bottles. Next time I will either get a 25 lb. bag of ice and dump in the bath tub, or I'll just get an immersion chiller and be done with it.
3. Give yourself more time than you think you need. It took me a couple of hours longer than I thought it would (mostly because it took so long to cool the wort, but other steps took a bit longer too).
4. Make it fun. I think I took it a bit too seriously, and for most of the time I was doing it by myself. It would be a lot more fun with a few beers and a friend or two around.
5. Don't bite off more than you can chew. I decided to go with a partial mash for my first beer. In retrospect, I think I might have been better off just doing an extract. There's a lot to keep track of because everything is new. An extract-only brew would have taken less time and less equipment. On the other hand, I enjoyed the challenge of doing a partial mash. YMMV.
I thought I'd share some of the things I learned in the event that my experience might be helpful to new brewers who are getting ready for their first batch.
1. Get the right equipment. I was mashing in an old cooler I had laying around. Big mistake. I had crazy heat loss, and had to add more hot water than I wanted to which thinned out the mash a bit. In the end, I was scooping out part of the mash liquid with a sanitized measuring cup, heating it on the stove, and putting it back in. This raised the temp back up without changing the thickness of the mash. Next time I'm just going to spend the $35 and get a 5-gallon Igloo beverage cooler.
2. Don't try to cool the wort in the sink. It took me 1.5 hours to cool to 75 degrees, even with 5 water changes, stirring frequently, and several frozen water bottles. Next time I will either get a 25 lb. bag of ice and dump in the bath tub, or I'll just get an immersion chiller and be done with it.
3. Give yourself more time than you think you need. It took me a couple of hours longer than I thought it would (mostly because it took so long to cool the wort, but other steps took a bit longer too).
4. Make it fun. I think I took it a bit too seriously, and for most of the time I was doing it by myself. It would be a lot more fun with a few beers and a friend or two around.
5. Don't bite off more than you can chew. I decided to go with a partial mash for my first beer. In retrospect, I think I might have been better off just doing an extract. There's a lot to keep track of because everything is new. An extract-only brew would have taken less time and less equipment. On the other hand, I enjoyed the challenge of doing a partial mash. YMMV.
