Trials and tribulations of a first time brewer.....

[obi1ne]

IT took WAY longer than I ever expected!!! First off we did start with an AG recipe. Honestly it went well it just took so damn long for a number of reasons I am guessing: first time doing the process, inefficient boiling schedule and trying to learn how to regulate mash temps, the burner was extremely slow (or not setup properly), etc...

Hind site my first thought is the cooker, which I borrowed from my uncle is a camp chef (old) dual burner and the flame was more yellow and sooty than anything, pot was a mess not to mention my clothes. The boiling times took quite a while too easily close to 45+ mins. to get the full batch boiling (6.5gal). We used probably close to a half tank of propane (started with a fresh blue rhino 20lb.).

Mash temperature was another thing that we spent some time on. We assumed a slightly higher temp for the water going into the MT would be hot enough to maintain the temp we needed (150 degrees) but we sadly undershot and had to boil some more water to meet our mark. Next time I will have some math worked out to help compensate for ambient temps, grain temp and not sure if cooler temp would play a part as well, but I will contemplate on that. I am thinking this is most likely what contributed to our lower than expected OG reading, 1.027!!

Once our boil was done it was eazy peezy, we used a 1500ml starter and two days later she is happily fermenting away and quite nicely a lot of bubbling going on, so happy to see that!! More of a long winded explanation of what to expect with poor planning and a first time AG brew, FOR a first timer. When it takes this long its nice to have some brew buds along for the learning experience as well, we all took notes on what to improve upon for the next time!!!

Hopefully at this point she is just drinkable come bottle poppin day!!

 

[TyTanium]

Only uphill from there, for the most part. Sounds like you still had fun.

Did you temp correct your hydro reading? And was it post-boil? 1027 is really low, not bad...you'll have a nice session beer...but seems lower than I'd expect for what you've posted of your process.

 

[kh54s10]

Only uphill from there, for the most part. Sounds like you still had fun.

Did you temp correct your hydro reading? And was it post-boil? 1027 is really low, not bad...you'll have a nice session beer...but seems lower than I'd expect for what you've posted of your process.

This ^^

Hydrometers are accurate at about 60 degrees depending on manufacturer. If the temperature of the sample is far from that you need to use a correction table.

Were there any bubbles on the hydrometer? That would give a false reading.

Your processes seem good so other things that would give a low OG would be a bad crush on the grains or improper amounts of grain.

If you post your recipe the target OG can be figured out from a recipe design software.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

Congrats on brewing your first beer and having the testicular fortitude to jump in to all grain off the bat! Next time, pre-heat your mash tun with a few gallons of 170f water while your strike water is heating up. After you mash in and stir, close the tun and cover with a blanket or sleeping bag and you should only drop a few degrees at most over 60 minutes.

 

[kh54s10]

Congrats on brewing your first beer and having the testicular fortitude to jump in to all grain off the bat! Next time, pre-heat your mash tun with a few gallons of 170f water while your strike water is heating up. After you mash in and stir, close the tun and cover with a blanket or sleeping bag and you should only drop a few degrees at most over 60 minutes.

Also there is software online that will make calculations for strike water depending on the grains used and grain temperature.

I've used this one successfully: http://www.brewheads.com/batch.php

 

[cmybeer]

Also there is software online that will make calculations for strike water depending on the grains used and grain temperature.

^Second the calculators and the programs. Technology is out there for a reason and it is because it makes things super easy. I personally went with Beersmith and it has been the best $25 investment I have made in my brewing. Just by playing around with it I learned a lot and I don't remember the last time I was off on my strike water. Go to the website and get the free trial version and I'm willing to bet you won't be able to stop yourself from typing in your credit card number after those 20 days are up.

 

[obi1ne]

WOW!! Awesome feedback....with brew knowledge like this who needs BREW DAY HELP?!?!?!

As to the hydrometer reading there were quite a bit of bubbles we actually had to wait for the bubbles to go down until we could read it and even then it was a rough guess at best (from what we could read). We did try to account for temp based on what information my friend had gathered and use a correction calc. at Brewer's Friend.

The recipe we followed is a Purple Haze clone (referenced from this forum I believe). This was to gain wifey support and a request by her (this is really the only reason we nutted up and went AG at first bat!!!)

In response to cmybeer, I have seen few people mention BeerSmith and will definetly be giving that a look for next go around, in that same token my friend stumbled across some absolutely wonderful checklist and beer day planning sheets at Brewer's Friend as well for anyone anxious to avoid some of my own n00bie pitfalls!!

Cannot thank everyone enough for the feedback really looking forward to getting around on this forum and learning some ISH!!!

 

[cmybeer]

A vast, vast majority of home brewing is prep-work and waiting so make sure you do those right off the bat. The remaining time is divided between cleaning, actual brewing and drinking with drinking obviously being the most enjoyable but also the most dependent on the others.

 

[obi1ne]

A vast, vast majority of home brewing is prep-work and waiting so make sure you do those right off the bat. The remaining time is divided between cleaning, actual brewing and drinking with drinking obviously being the most enjoyable but also the most dependent on the others.

true that...I'll certainly have my detailed checklist next time!!! I was glad we took the time to keep notes on improvements and things NOT to do.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

^Second the calculators and the programs. Technology is out there for a reason and it is because it makes things super easy. I personally went with Beersmith and it has been the best $25 investment I have made in my brewing. Just by playing around with it I learned a lot and I don't remember the last time I was off on my strike water. Go to the website and get the free trial version and I'm willing to bet you won't be able to stop yourself from typing in your credit card number after those 20 days are up.

Or if, like me your are leary of typing your credit card number, Amazon sells the program on a CD.

 

[larrybrewer]

This is Larry with Brewer's Friend. Glad our tools came in handy. We are pushing pretty hard right now on new features that manage mash water. Stay tuned for that.

You might try adding a little sugar to it to boost the gravity a tad. You really want to get the ABV up above 3% or you may run into stability problems. My guess is you will be drinking through it pretty quickly

 

[2PintsLow]

^Second the calculators and the programs. Technology is out there for a reason and it is because it makes things super easy. I personally went with Beersmith and it has been the best $25 investment I have made in my brewing. Just by playing around with it I learned a lot and I don't remember the last time I was off on my strike water. Go to the website and get the free trial version and I'm willing to bet you won't be able to stop yourself from typing in your credit card number after those 20 days are up.

Agreed! Best $25 investment. You can print out brewsheets that will help stay on track during brew day and it catalogs your recipes for future use. Another good app (and its FREE!) is Brewzor Calculator. It has easy to use correction tools to help calcuate mash temps, hydro corrections, attenuation etc. It comes in handy and I use it quite often. Congrats on the first brew and let us know how that bad boy turns out!

 

[kh54s10]

I got my BS 2 copy thru Birdman Brewing Co. It was the best price online with a download option. It took a couple of brews to dial in my equipment and losses etc. On my last brew everything was spot on.

It is a great tool and some of the upcoming enhancements sound great!

I used beer calculus at hopville.com with good success online. BS2 has a lot of extra features that make the $ worthwhile. Love it.

 

[obi1ne]

Well, fermentation is slowed down, no where near the amount of action that was previously when I posted the pics. I have been giving it a swirl every few days just to make sure everything that can get eaten up by all the yeasties does!! I took a hydrometer reading today and it came out to 1.009. I will let it ride another day or two and measure again just to see if there is still any action going on, if not we will be racking here soon. I did taste it and it was awfully gratifying to find out that IT TASTED LIKE BEER!!!!! Albeit warm and uncarbed but still I was happy to see it was like I expected (considering the recipe) light, wheaty and flat!!

 

[obi1ne]

This is Larry with Brewer's Friend. Glad our tools came in handy. We are pushing pretty hard right now on new features that manage mash water. Stay tuned for that.

You might try adding a little sugar to it to boost the gravity a tad. You really want to get the ABV up above 3% or you may run into stability problems. My guess is you will be drinking through it pretty quickly

Is it ok to add sugar at this point? If so do I have to worry about using a special kind of sugar or use just standard sugar? Also is sanitizing an issue when adding something like that at this point??

 

[obi1ne]

Agreed! Best $25 investment. You can print out brewsheets that will help stay on track during brew day and it catalogs your recipes for future use. Another good app (and its FREE!) is Brewzor Calculator. It has easy to use correction tools to help calcuate mash temps, hydro corrections, attenuation etc. It comes in handy and I use it quite often. Congrats on the first brew and let us know how that bad boy turns out!

This is certainly going to be in my plans this next go around, we have a few things planned to make this process a little more efficient next recipe. It is an extremely in depth program a little overwhelming at first glance.

 

[larrybrewer]

I think it is probably too late to add sugar now that the fermentation is over. It would have been possible early on, perhaps mid way through. Looks like you got about 2.3% ABV. This was good practice, and it sounds like you have an idea of what to change for next time. Stick with it and let us know how it goes!

 

[obi1ne]

Followed up this past weekend with another brew day (which took way too long to get here!!). This time around we did a darker brew (porter) and were aiming to really improve our OG compared to the last go around. The brew went well, we shaved 1 and a 1/2 hours off our last attempt and did much better with our mash this go around. Our efficiency was around 71% and OG was 1.048. I will say this go around we used the Brewer's Friend brew day planning sheets which was/is an absolutely must have brew day resource (FYI, I am not affiliated with Brewer's Friend). We have really been tempted lately to start looking at brew stand options just because our current setup is either using stairs and chairs to let gravity do the work and involves quite a bit of shifting vessels around throughout the brew process. Either way with 5.25 gallons priming and another 5.25 fermenting we are really enjoying the hell out of our two first AG brew experiences. The pic below was right after pitching the yeast on brew night. Since the pic about 8-12hrs. later there is quite a heavy ring of bubbling foamy goodness and a great deal of airlock clicking taking place!!!

 

[larrybrewer]

That's great news. 71% efficiency is plenty. In about a month, you'll have some beer to drink! Keep up the good work.


Larry

 

[obi1ne]

HA!! Thanks man greatly...thx for the great work you guys have done with the Brewer's Friend tools very helpful stuff!!!

 

[mroyer747]

Hey I'm a 1st time brewer and I had some questions?? Is it cool if I ask them on here??

 

[obi1ne]

cool with me, a lot of knowledgeable people here who I am sure can come up with some quick 1-liners of knowledge!! (not counting myself, cause Im a n00bie too!!) but I will help if I can.

 

[mroyer747]

Ok I'm brewing an EPA and my OG Was 1.042 and tonight I'm at 1.010. Well it's been very slow process... I left it in the primary fermentation because it was so slow. The recipe is an extract and was supposed to be ABV 5.0 and well now I'm just finally at 4.2. My question is.. Will it ferment and go up in ABV in the bottle? I moved it to the secondary tonight and how long should I leave it in the carboy?? By the way tonight is 2 weeks of fermentation process.

 

[kaconga]

Will it ferment and go up in ABV in the bottle? I moved it to the secondary tonight and how long should I leave it in the carboy?? By the way tonight is 2 weeks of fermentation process.

Don't bottle fermenting beer! It will cause serious problems. Check your gravity over a couple of days and see if it changes at all. No change and a 1.010 stable means you are done fermenting. You can leave it in secondary as long as you wish. I do one to two weeks depending on the beer. Remember that it will have to typically spend 3 weeks in the bottle too for carbonating.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

I think it is probably too late to add sugar now that the fermentation is over. It would have been possible early on, perhaps mid way through. Looks like you got about 2.3% ABV. This was good practice, and it sounds like you have an idea of what to change for next time. Stick with it and let us know how it goes!

+1 I have a small notebook that I use to record tasting impressions and dates. I also note any recommendations for changing/improving the recipie. It helps keep track when it comes time to rebrew an old friend.