What did I do wrong?

[tloveland]

So here's the background story... my girlfriend got me a brooklyn brew shop kit last Christmas that I just got around to brewing, a 1 gallon Warrior Double IPA, only they had forgotten to include the hops and yeast. So I drove to my local brewer store and bought some warrior hops and some lallemand bry-97 yeast.

The brew went fine and I pitched about half the packet of yeast, and went to bed.

The next morning, the beer was going nuts. Swirling and foaming and bubbling like crazy, but it continued to get more and more vigorous and by day two it looks like this (see attached picture). So much foam went through the blowoff tube that it accumulated to be about 400 mL (I know because my blowoff tube is resting in a measuring cup).

So my question is, what did I do wrong? Did I use the wrong kind of/too much yeast? Is my apartment temperature too high? (~75°) I know that it's indicative of a good active fermentation but I can't help but miss the almost-full beer that was lost through foam in the blowoff tube.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Ted

 

[hannibalmdq]

You really didn't do anything "wrong". It'll still end up as beer. You're just seeing a very healthy pitch of yeast at a high fermenting temperature do its thing in a small fermentation vessel.

Kudos on using a blowoff tube from the get go though. Foresight or happy coincidence, that was a good decision. Don't worry about the blow off, it's mostly yeast and trub and there are tons of yeast still in your brew to finish the job.

You'll probably find your beer to be estery and maybe even a little hot. It's well on it's way to being beer though! Congradulations!

 

[myndflyte]

You didn't do anything wrong. That's just active fermentation. Although you may want to monitor the temperature of your beer. Usually a stick on thermometer gives you some idea. If the room is 75F then the beer is probably even warmer, which usually you want to be around 65F. But unfortunately, you are going to have some loss especially when you have such active fermentation.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

#1 - Relax.
#2 - It will still turn into beer, so relax.
#3 - Yes, the temperature is a bit higher than desirable. Higher temperatures make for very active yeast. It can also lead the yeast to make some byproducts with less desirable flavors. In the future you can put the jug in a bucket of cold water to help dissipate the heat.
#4 - you likely used much more yeast than required. A typical sachet of dry yeast is enough for a 5gallon batch so you could use 1/4 packet and still be good. More yeast will result in more activity, but again, that is not always desirable.
#5 - You could use to get a larger fermenter so that even with an active fermentation you don't lose as much, but it's not required.
#6 - Relax, you've been infected with the love of brewing and your life will never be the same...

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Looks good to me, Ted - the only ting I can think of is that it is possible that you pitched too much yeast. I believe that the actual packages of yeast that one buys are for 5 or 6 gallons, whereas you're only brewing for 1 gallon. So there might be too much yeast in there, but I am not sure if that is a problem or not.

Either way, the blowoff tube is doing its job, so no worries. My first brew from BBS (Chocolate Maple Porter) looked just about the same as yours as far as foam, krausen etc. If yours continues the way mine did, the activity will drop considerably after Day #3, but it will continue to ferment.

Some suggestions:

a) Next time, contact the customer service folks at Brooklyn Brew Shop. They have been extremely helpful and friendly in my experience, and I am certain they would have shipped out replacement yeast and hops.

b) Their website has lots of helpful information, videos, a timeline etc. I am not a "video person," but even I found the videos to be extremely valuable.

c) You might want to consider allowing the beer to ferment 3 weeks rather than 2; most accounts I have read on here seem to agree that 2 weeks isn't quite enough, and when I asked BBS about it, they said that 3 weeks is perfectly fine.

d) You might consider using 2 tablespoons of honey for bottling rather than 3; most folks here have reported better results with 2 and that 3 tablespoons results in slight over-carbonation.

e) Consider cold-crashing (putting the fermenter in the refrigerator) for 3 days or so between fermentation and bottling - this will allow the yeast and sediment to compact, making bottling much easier and probably allowing you to get a higher yield of finished product.

f) Enjoy your first brew! Looks great, so far....

 

[davejanssen]

Hey Ted, welcome to the hobby! looks like you are off to a good start. As everyone else has mentioned, you didn't really do anything wrong. But here are some things that might help out for future batches (which many others have mentioned above):

Fermentation is going to create bunch of foam. The amount will depend on things like the yeast you use, the temperature, the malt you use, how strong your beer is, etc. But in just about every case you are going to want to provide more headspace (air above the liquid) than you have in that jug. The blowoff won't really be a problem, but I find it better to have a good deal more headspace. That is a bit tricky with 1 gallon batches because you don't want to limit how much beer you get in the end and there aren't really many convenient jugs between 1 and 2 gallon sizes. But having more headpsace is generally good.

There are some yeast calculators out there that help you to determine how much yeast you should add. I spent years brewing before I found them and I think they have greatly improved my brewing. I use the Mr Malty calculator (http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html), but I know others on here can point you to some other equally good options. you tell the calculator how much beer you have, and what the original gravity is. Then you can select the dry yeast tab and it will tell you how much you should use for your beer. Don't stress about it too much, but that will give you an idea of what is a good amount of yeast to add.

When I started out brewing, I wish I knew how important fermentation was to making good beer. And temperature is important here. Again, don't stress out about this too much and enjoy the brewing process. Don't let worries get in the way of making the hobby fun. But for most ale yeasts, especially English-type yeasts and North American yeasts, 75 is a bit on the warm side. If you can come up with a way to cool the temperature to the upper 60's, that will probably be better. Some really simple and low cost ways of trying to cool the temperature include cold water baths. That is a pretty beginner-friendly way to start thinking about temperature control. And as you gain some more experience and figure out how much space/time/money you want to dedicate to homebrewing, I would suggest looking into more ways to control the temperatures of your fermentations. I wish I had done this when changing to new equipment and process in my earlier brewing days.

Bottom line here, congratulations on your first beer! You didn't do anything wrong but there are some ways you can make it go more smoothly next time. And don't stress about it too much.

Dave