Yes, another first timer

[TC4Tay]

So, I brewed my first batch yesterday night, a Irish Red kit from northern brewer. It's sitting fermenting now with bubbles in the airlock every couple second.

I have the A419 set at 16c(60.8F) with the probe attached to the fermenting bucket. Probe is reading 17C(62.6F) with air temp in the room at 59F.

My only concerns are:
1) When I was boiling th wort, I may have had it too high and lost about a half gallon of water. How much of a problem is this.
2) I'm brewing/fermenting at work(my boss is cool haha) and the room I'm fermenting is is well insulated but has no central AC/Heat. Im using a poratble AC unit in there connected to the A419 and it's cooling well but the room still has temperature variations, especially at night, by maybe 3-4 degrees. Is that an acceptable variance?
3) I missed my OG by a little. Northern brewer states OG as 1.044 but I got 1.040-1.042.

All in all, I think my first time went pretty well. Now I just have to be patient.

 

[Hadsdad]

I have no answers for you, but I did my first brew today. Now we just sit and wait and hope it all goes well.

Good luck.

 

[Stillraining]

1) Only affect is it increased your OG and decreased your post boil volume. ( 1/2 gallon more boil off then expected I'm guessing is what you ment)
2) 3 to 4 degrees is totally exceptible in the middle of the yeast's range..But can be slightly problematic if its in the upper range...( Off Flavors ) if in the lower range it will just take longer other wise no issues.
3) Counter intuitive to #1 if you over boiled, but well within exceptiblel ranges.

Sounds like Your golden to me!

Resist the urge to rip the lid off for 3 weeks and just trust everything is as it should be. $100 says your beer will be just fine. Congrats and welcome to the forum.

 

[someguybrewinginco]

Agree with Stillraining, the most important thing is your sanitation and a reasonable fermentation temperature range. 60-62F seems a appropriate for an ale yeast (if not every so slightly low so fermentation might take a little longer). If you're getting 4 degree temperature variations in the room, the wort isn't experiencing 4 degree temperature swings it might be experiencing 2 degree temperature swings or less depending on how long the room temp is out of range.

Point is, you're fine and you'll likely have beer at the end that tastes great. It's more important to keep brewing more batches and perfect your technique than it is to fret over individual specific measurements here and there.

The beer will be great I'm sure.

 

[TC4Tay]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm just being over critical. As for the temp, i used danstar nottingham dry yeast. Calls for a pretty wide range of 56-70c so i guess I'm good. Again, I'm probably just being over critical since its my first batch. Thanks for the replies though.

 

[ncbrewer]

Looking good. Welcome to the forum.

 

[BigFloyd]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm just being over critical. As for the temp, i used danstar nottingham dry yeast. Calls for a pretty wide range of 56-70c so i guess I'm good. Again, I'm probably just being over critical since its my first batch. Thanks for the replies though.

You are at the ideal temp for using Nottingham. It does quite well in the upper 50's to lower 60's. After it slows in a few days, bump the temp to up around 64*F to let it finish. First gravity check at 10 days will be fine. Give it another 3-4 days after that.

The key to fermenting with Nottingham is keeping it cool. Anything over 67*F during the more active part of the fermentation is risking some significant off-flavors.

 

[spunk]

Ok i started my 1st and learning. 1st change my kettle isnt big enough so i had to add quite a bit of water came from a berky water filter that i then boiled and cooled. Time consuming. I will buy spring water should i boil that next time? It is pale ale kit. I have it sitting on counter in kitchen disher washer below it. House kept at 70. I used dry yeast put in feb 14 yesterday it was going crazy. Today i see no bubbles. Is it still formenting by slowly i have it in a formenting bucket so it does have air space in it. I was thinking to that maybe i should take downstairs. Instructions say to move to secondary 7-14 days. Then another week or so in secondary them move to bottling bucket with the spicit. Is that to much moving around?

 

[BigFloyd]

Instructions say to move to secondary 7-14 days. Then another week or so in secondary them move to bottling bucket with the spicit. Is that to much moving around?

Some instructions say that. There's not a good reason to move most beers (including a pale ale) to a secondary. Just leave it in the primary an extra week and be careful to not slosh it around before racking it to the bottling bucket.

 

[spunk]

Ok i will leave in bucket but from what i have read i should leave alone. I make fruit wine so im used to opening and stirring the fruit so i then can see what is doing. Should i be worried that it may not be formenting? Can i take the lid off and look. Next time im putting it in the secondary so i can see waht is happening. Thanks

 

[RM-MN]

Yes you can take the lid off to see what it is doing. No, you shouldn't be worried that it isn't fermenting. No you shouldn't put it in the secondary next time to see what it is doing unless you reduce your batch size so there is room for the krausen.

 

[spunk]

I opened beer up not formenting from what i can see. Hydrometer says around 1.02. Dont taste good i think it may need something help. I also need to purchace sonething to pry that lid off l..oh my that was hard. Should i leave and check again

 

[msayler]

I opened beer up not formenting from what i can see. Hydrometer says around 1.02. Dont taste good i think it may need something help. I also need to purchace sonething to pry that lid off l..oh my that was hard. Should i leave and check again

Man, I get it. With my first beer, all I wanted to do was pop that top off and get a peep at what was going on inside. Instead, though, I followed the Homebrewer's Credo (RDWHAHB - relax, don't worry, have a home brew) and let it do it's own thing. When I thought it was done and I couldn't wait for one more minute, I waited a week longer. Beer turned out a little weird at first, but it aged out to be very excellent.

So, leave that top on. Don't mess with a secondary. You're only a week in on this brew, so I'd leave it alone for at least another week (or better, two) before I checked it for gravity again. Though you can't see it, those yeasty beasties are still hard at work, eating sugar and bad stuff, and pooping out delicious, delicious booze. Industrious little buggers, hard to kill. If you still have high gravity issues, buy another pack, hydrate it properly, repitch, wait a week, re-measure.

Also, think of it this way: if it's already ruined, what's the harm in waiting a bit longer? I wish I'd kept more of my first batch, but I ended up nervously opening bottles and checking carbonation too much.

 

[RM-MN]

If the hydrometer showed you 1.042 when you put the wort into the fermenter and it is now 1.020, the beer is fermenting but it is now at the silent stage where it gives no outward signs but the yeast are still suspended and are completing the process of breaking down the intermediate compounds. Your beer should taste awful now, with those intermediate compounds, lots of yeast, warm, uncarbonated.....It's also about time to let your beer warm up a bit more so the yeast complete the breakdown of the intermediate compounds, clump together, and settle out. give your beer at least a week in the warm room and it will get better and another week beyond that will improve it more as more of the yeast settles out. Then bottle or keg it and wait another 2 to 3 weeks. Then sample one bottle or glass. Only one! It will get better.

 

[spunk]

I will wait hope it is ok. It had a lot of air space in the bucket so that is ok. Im used to topping off when I am doing wine. It is the bucket that came with the kit I believe a 6 gal possibility.

 

[RM-MN]

I will wait hope it is ok. It had a lot of air space in the bucket so that is ok. Im used to topping off when I am doing wine. It is the bucket that came with the kit I believe a 6 gal possibility.

I put 2 1/2 gallons of wort in a 6 1/2 gallon fermenter bucket all the time and it comes out just fine. The CO2 put out by the yeast at the beginning of the ferment will purge out any oxygen that the yeast don't use for reproduction. When you open the bucket to take a sample you will get a little oxygen in but the beer contains dissolved CO2 and it continuously loses that so it will refill the space.

 

[spunk]

Ok thanks i will wait and let you know and ill stop worries for a bit. Thanks..

 

[TC4Tay]

So, update on my first batch. Wort has been sitting at 17c(62.6F) for 10 days now, bubbling in air lock is very,very slow and it still had a very little bit of what looked like yeas floating on top. Checked the gravity and got 1.01. I think target should be around 1.01-1.004 so i'm gonna check again on Friday and see if its the same of if it changes. After that, i'll leave it another week or so(leaving it in the primary) then cold crash for a day or two before bottling. The beer smelled good and had good color, though I expected a bit more red/brown. All in all i'm pretty happy with how everything is going.