There is beer in my closet

[Katnip]

Or at least I hope so.

I just want to give you all a big thanks - I have my first batch of beer fermenting in my living room closet at this moment. No clue if it'll actually be drinkable, but most importantly, it exists. I've done a ton of lurking and have upgraded my stupid questions to only mostly-stupid.

I'm a total novice at brewing but experienced in acts of culinary adventure, live in central Connecticut and have more closet space than I know what to do with. If the murky but delightful smelling liquid in the bucket ever turns into an Irish stout, we'll be cooking with gas.

I'm sure I'll have a fresh slew of stupid questions in three weeks come bottling time, but that's a while yet. Thanks for all the good reading!

 

[trevorc13]

Great! Now this is where it gets important. Believe it or not, mixing the ingredients together is the easy part. The fermentation is where the beer is actually made. Just make sure you keep the temp on the low end of what is suggested on the yeast, and make sure you pitched enough of it. Those, along with sanitaztion, are the most important things you can do to have a great tasting beer.

Especially pitching enough yeast. Where most people go wrong, in my opinion, is that they just pitch one pack or vial into a beer that requires two or three. If you don't pitch enough yeast, they get stressed and provide some off flavors you could do without. Think of it as catering an event for 30 people and inviting only 10, but telling them they have to eat everything. You'd have some pretty uncomfortable people. This is one thing I wish people told me when I started. Go to www.mrmalty.com to see if you added enough yeast. If its a stout I assume its a lower gravity beer and you added enough, but it never hurts to check, you can always add more yeast if you need it.

If you already heard this and this is old news, I apologize. Like I said, I wish I was told this when I first began. Have fun!

 

[Revvy]

Show this pic to your closet and give it something to aspire to.

 

[2PintsLow]

Congrats on the first batch Katnip, let us know how it turns out!

 

[HeadyKilowatt]

Don't worry. There IS beer in your closet. It WILL be drinkable.

Homebrewing worst case scenario... you still made beer. And unless you messed up really bad (like almost on purpose kind of bad), you'll enjoy it because you made it.

RDWHAHB.

 

[Katnip]

Revvy - my closet is already getting ideas! I only have the starter bucket, but maybe once I give it a real go, I'll graduate to a t-shirt-wearing carboy!

Thanks for the link trevorc13, according to that, I do have less yeast than I need in the batch, so I'll see if I can grab another packet at the little shop up the street that has brewing supplies.

My current paranoid is about doing anything that might accidently add any air, so the closet is pretty much off limits except for a daily check to make sure it hasn't erupted/spilled over/sprouted legs.

 

[Revvy]

You think T-shirt wearing carboys are hip, check these bad boys out I found on the internet.

 

[Stauffbier]

Show this pic to your closet and give it something to aspire to.

I'm surprised you still have room for Panko Crumbs and Chees-its in there!

 

[cmybeer]

if it's still new and fermenting at a vigorous level I'd say you could add yeast if you really want because the CO2 that is shat out will push that out of the carboy. That said, you will be fine if your not too far off for a Irish Stout of a low initial gravity. The main problems occur when it is a Russian Imperial Stout and you're pitching one package of yeast.

Those suited up carboys are sweet! Right now I've got my 12.9% barleywine sitting in a secondary covered in my girlfriends old Golden Girls T-Shirt.

 

[Katnip]

Those carboys are all dressed up for a night out!

I'm not seeing much in the way of bubbles anymore but it's only been three days, and I'm perfectly happy to let it sit for a nice long time. Opened the lid for a look in on Day 2 and I had a ring on the bucket, but not much else (thankfully, it smelled much like beer!).

My OG was 1044 assuming I didn't screw up my hydrometer reading - it sank my first two attempts at getting a reading. I was going to take another reading at Day 7 and see how it was feeling.

 

[barneygumble]

Katnip. If your OG is less than 1.050, your beer will taste good. Could you have built a starter? Sure. Will have it been better? prolly. But it will be soooo good. and prolly better than anything you could get in a bottle. Dont worry. Have a brew, and wait for your homebrew. Dont hurry it.

1.044 will be a mild stout. If you brewed extract, you can assume the number the kit came with. The big number for a new extract brewer is the final gravity. Considering your OG and the yeasts used for stouts, you should be looking at about 1-012@ +- fg.

The HUGE thing, if you were sanitary, now is temp. KEEP THE TEMPS AT THE DEAD BOTTOM OF THE TEMP RANGE FOR YOUR YEAST STRAIN FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS! That means for the fist few days, the temp inside the fermenter will be much warmer than that. This cant be emphasised enough. sanitazation, enough yeast, and right temps during fermentation will make good to fantastic beer. All errors will be forgiven somewhat with time if those three things are followed.

 

[ahaley]

I think I need to buy a glass Carboy so I can have it suit up!
Good luck on your brew! I just did a "wilde Irish red" and it came out good, though it's " strong " for most people it's abv is like 2% or 2.5%