some quastions before brewing!

[ZipoX]

Hi people!
As you can guess I am new here, so say Hi
I and my friend want to brew, we bought a good kit (I think) and next week we will start brewing. First of all I read the FAQ and the guids here but I dont realy understand it well. so here are my quastions :
1. We have a full aluminum pot, does it make any difference between this and a stainless steel pot?
2. The capacity of the pot is only 10L, how we are going to do it? all of the guids I read are useing a 32-35L pot.
3. About the cleaning part, is it OK\recommended to use bleach?
4. Out first bear will be a brown ale bear, is it good for the first time?

Thank you any way, and forgive me about my english (I am from israel:rockin!

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

1. We have a full aluminum pot, does it make any difference between this and a stainless steel pot?
2. The capacity of the pot is only 10L, how we are going to do it? all of the guids I read are useing a 32-35L pot.
3. About the cleaning part, is it OK\recommended to use bleach?
4. Out first bear will be a brown ale bear, is it good for the first time?

The difference between the aluminum pot and the stainless pot is the stainless pot is empty. The aluminum one is full.

Aluminum has better heat conductance but lots of people have unwarranted issues with aluminum. I forget why.

Concentrated boil and top off with clean, boiled water.

Bleach can be used but is generally shyed away from due to the need for rinsing and potential off flavors (chlorophenols) if the bleach is not thoroughly rinsed.

Bears are hard to brew. You will definitely need a bigger pot to brew a bear. You'll not even fit a cub in the pot you have. Watch out for the Mother bear. she might be a bit miffed about you brewing her cub.

Brown Ale are nice beers tho'.

 

[WVBeerBaron]

Just my two cents....

I stay away from aluminum, there are arguments against it (it leeches into the beer). No one has ever had a problem with stainless steel.

The bigger the pot the easier it is to brew. Most extract kit recipes I've brewed boil 10L at a time so you may need a bigger pot, 15L maybe. You DO NOT want a pot that is filled to the brim when you start to boil, it will boil over and make a huge mess. I brew with a 7.5 gallon pot (28.39 liters).

Bleach will work but can cause problems if not rinsed out completely. The bleach can react with your beer and cause nasty flavors. You should pick up some sanitizer from you homebrew shop or online.

Brown ale sounds great to start with, I would just try to keep it simple for your first go.

To me the most important thing you can do is read about brewing and experiment, read and experiment.....

happy brewing!

 

[ZipoX]

thanks man, for the quick answer, but you didn't tell me how to brew with 10L pot, what to do and so on....

 

[phatuna]

did your kit come w/ directions?

You will want to boil your extract and add your hops throughout the boil like your directions should tell you to do. When you are done boiling (approx. 1 hour), you will cool this solution (called wort), and add "top up water" to get to your desired volume which should be around 5 gallons.

Once your wort is at 5 gallons and back to room temp, add yeast and put in a cool dark place for 3 weeks. Bottle it up. Wait another 3 weeks, then drink as fast as possible and repeat.

 

[PHBalanced]

The difference between the aluminum pot and the stainless pot is the stainless pot is empty. The aluminum one is full.


Bears are hard to brew. You will definitely need a bigger pot to brew a bear. You'll not even fit a cub in the pot you have. Watch out for the Mother bear. she might be a bit miffed about you brewing her cub.

Thanks for the laugh! :rockin:

 

[TipsyDragon]

Hi people!
1. We have a full aluminum pot, does it make any difference between this and a stainless steel pot?
2. The capacity of the pot is only 10L, how we are going to do it? all of the guids I read are useing a 32-35L pot.
3. About the cleaning part, is it OK\recommended to use bleach?
4. Out first bear will be a brown ale bear, is it good for the first time?

1. aluminum is cheaper. people think it will leach into your brew and give alzheimer. this is a total myth. there is more aluminum in a typical antacid than will ever be in your brew.

2. look into partial boils and converging recipes from full boil to partial boil. i'm sure you can google or search the site for this info.

3. bleach is not recommended for metal parts. it will rust it. look into PBW or Oxycean. besides bleach is a sanitizer not a cleaner and needs to be rinsed off which is not recommended for brewing. if you want to sanitize look into StarSan or Iodophor.

4. a brown ale is a beginner level recipe. just be aware that it may be an all extract, extract and specialty grain, or partial mash. each has its own little ins and outs.

 

[NuclearRich]

The difference between the aluminum pot and the stainless pot is the stainless pot is empty. The aluminum one is full.

Aluminum has better heat conductance but lots of people have unwarranted issues with aluminum. I forget why.

Concentrated boil and top off with clean, boiled water.

Bleach can be used but is generally shyed away from due to the need for rinsing and potential off flavors (chlorophenols) if the bleach is not thoroughly rinsed.

Bears are hard to brew. You will definitely need a bigger pot to brew a bear. You'll not even fit a cub in the pot you have. Watch out for the Mother bear. she might be a bit miffed about you brewing her cub.

Brown Ale are nice beers tho'.

lmao

 

[ZipoX]

I searched in google for partial boils guids but couldnt find any guid....

 

[dzlater]

this might help explain things better
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1-1.html
if your kettle is not big enough to boil the total volume of beer
you can boil as much as will fit in the kettle and then add more water to
reach your target volume
good luck

 

[BendBrewer]

Who says Muslims and Israelis don't get along.........

 

[ZipoX]

this might help explain things better
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter1-1.html
if your kettle is not big enough to boil the total volume of beer
you can boil as much as will fit in the kettle and then add more water to
reach your target volume
good luck

I read it alredy, so what you are saying is that i need to brew in the pot like reguler brewing and the rest will be water? the beer wont become watery?

 

[phatuna]

your extract contains a set amount of sugar, you need to dilute the extract with water so your beer is not discusting. Your extract is measured so that when you put it in the fermenter using water to get to 5 gallons, your beer will taste good.
It does not matter much if you boil with 5 gallons, or boil with two or three gallons then top up.
That is about as basic as I can explain it. You should re-read Palmers book in the link above, it has just about all of these questions answered for you as well as the science to back it up.

 

[BendBrewer]

I read it alredy, so what you are saying is that i need to brew in the pot like reguler brewing and the rest will be water? the beer wont become watery?

He is talking about Top Off Water, added to the fermenter.

Say you start your boil with 8L which is about 2 gallons. This will boil down to 5-6L during your brew. Assuming your kit is a 19L or 5 gallon batch you would add enough water to your fermenter after adding your wort to reach 19L total.

Assuming again that you are using extract, I suggest not adding the extract until 15 minutes left in your boil to allow for proper hop utilization.

No, it won't be watery. The fermentation process will 'mix' it all up for you.

Save this for your next thread:

My O.G. is WAYYYY to Low.

(You'll get that one later.)

 

[davidstark]

(its me, at my friend's home) thank dude, nice answer, now another question, their is a guide that fits my way? i mean partial boils.....thank again!

 

[BendBrewer]

Read this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/

 

[althalos]

Chlorine is no bueno for stainless steel - it removes the oxidized layer making it stainless - use other sanitizers unless you keep it away from the stainless steel.

BTW, brown ale bears are tasty. I shot one in southern Wyoming with a permit; tasted like chicken and caviar.