Updated: My first home brewing experience.

All -

So bought the beer making kits and am going to get started on our first batch tomorrow. But at this point the largest pot I have is and from what I hear we can expect some boil over with that.

ANy suggestions on places that would be open on Sunday where I might be able to find something suitable?

Also, I am trying to not spend $200 bucks.

Thanks for any input!

Was thinking I might be able to find one at Maxwell street, what do you think?

Here's my input. Your problem is not only that you need a 30 quart pot, you need a heat source capable of heating such a beast, which your stove probably can't. So you not only need a pot but a bigass outdoor burner with a propane tank attached...

OR DO YOU?

Beer guys get fanatic about cleanliness, and there's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes you can cheat and you'll be okay. After all, you are making your beer with an organism that produces a toxin (alcohol) that kills other organisms. If you pitch your yeast ahead of time to get a good and strong culture, you can take certain other chances and not skunk your beer, because even if it does get infected by some other microorganism in there, said other m.o. will be rapidly outnumbered by yeast and shortly poisoned by alcohol before it can get up to numbers that matter.

In short, even though the books all say you should boil everything, there's no need to boil all five gallons of future-beer aka wort to make five gallons of beer.

Buy three gallon-dispensers of somebody or other's bottled water. Stick them in the beer fridge to get them good and cold.

Make two gallons of extra-super-strong wort in a 12-qt. stockpot. Beer concentrate, in fact. Do your partial mash or whatever else you're doing in there.

When it's done and a beautiful chestnut-brown slurry, put the closed stockpot in a cold bathtub full of water to start bringing the temperature down fast. In the meantime, empty the three gallons of cold store-bought water into your fermenting bucket or jug. Finally, funnel the somewhat cooled super-wort from the stockpot into the cold water in your fermenting vessel. When temperature is safe for yeast, add yeast and aerate* and all that.

Net result: you only had to boil two gallons, not five, which you can do on a stove in a normal sized stockpot. And the the other three gallons helped with the eternal problem of cooling your wort.

* Aeration is the flaw in the whole "keep everything super-clean" position anyway. You're told to keep it free from exposure from air, except for the one time that you're trying to get a bunch of outside air whipped into it.

If you want to save some money, you can buy a canning pot. Cheaper ones are enamel. They work well for homebrewing as long as the enamel surface is intact. Once they have a gash or scratch, they may rust, and you won't want to use it anymore.

I've bought these at larger Ace hardware stores in the past.

If you want to have a pot that will really last, you can go with stainless steel. You can get one mailorder for about $80. I'm not sure where to buy one locally.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

I like the "wort concentrate" idea. The directions that cam eiwht the whole thing basically instructed me to do it with 3 gallons and then put the other 2 into the bucket.

Luckily I think my stove will be able to work as it has a large burner that produces a goood amount of flame.

Another tip: My husband uses a turkey fryer and brews in the yard. (Keeps the smell out, too) You can use the pot that comes with that. ( 4 - 5 gallon pot) Or add a larger pot. Tony's has some 6 gallon tamale pots that are about $40.

Good luck!

What are you making? I think we're making a Barleywine and a Triple tomorrow.

We bought a kit for an Oktoberfest. All from Brew and Grow.

We shall see. I think next weekend I will toss a nice Blue moonish style together. And by toss together I of course mean that I have no idea what I am doing, but thank goodness for the internet!

As Mike says, you don't have to do a full boil - it certainly simplifies the process to boil only a portion of wort and then chill it by diluting with cold water to bring you up to five gallons or so. However, partial boils like that are sometimes blamed for the "extract tang" that often plagues beginners beers. (Of course, if you're starting with mostly extract, you may have some level of that tang anyway.) Also, you'll need to use a little more bittering hops, since the higher gravity of the wort reduces hop utilization rates.

Personally, I use two 4-gallon aluminum stock pots (I think they were on sale under $20 each), not only because they're relatively cheap, but by breaking the wort into two vessels, I can get each to boil quickly enough on my stove to get a decent hot break. (And it's heavy enough to move around a hot 4-gallon pot of wort - think about trying to handle a nearly-full 7.5 gallon vessel.) Then with a typical wort chiller I can bring the wort back down to yeast friendly temperatures pretty quickly for a decent cold break (albeit in two steps).

But if you want to get a big ol' macho honkin' pot boiling away fast over a 75,000 - 100,000 BTU Cajun Cooker - go for it. But you'll definitely need a wort chiller.

If you're looking for a stable, high output propane burner, I'll heartily recommend the Eastman Big Kahuna. I use it for wok cooking - the thing comes with a wok ring that reverses to a flat stand for a big stock pot...

Rock solid tripod base and 55k btus for all your wort-cookin' needs. $66 at amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Eastman-Outdoors- ... B0000CAQ0R

Ok, question number 2.

When we get to the point of bottling, do you all suggest stock-piling old Bud Light bottles, or going with a store bought bottle. I have read that the twist-off design of a lot of common domestic bottles can be problematic.

What about the ez-cap bottles?

Start hanging out in local bars that serve a lot of long-neck returnables. Buy a case here, a case there. Get yourself a GOOD capper--do not mess around on this item. And cap. There's just no other safe/reasonable way to do it.

Of course, if you have the patience for the long run, you can accumulate some of the Dutch bottles with the neat stoppered-tops. They make a really nice presentation.

BTW, one way to really smooth out the extract 'tang/twang' is to use just a bit of adjunct, for example, crystal malt. You'd be amazed how much good you can do yourself with an addition of bit of this toward the end of the boil.

As others have noted, the most critical period of microbial safety is the wort cool and aeration. Keep the tun as tight as possible during the cool, and do the aeration inside. [I always dreamed about building myself a sort of a bubbler-aerator, on the model of an aquarium bubbler, which could pump filtered air into the wort. Never got around to making one, but it still sounds like a good idea. ]

Geo

Nr706, I've seen the term but what does "extract tang" taste like? I went from canned extract to powdered extract with steeping some grains to doing a mash in the oven (that is, get it to mash temp on the stove, keep it there by putting in an oven that's within the mash range), and I noticed the quality of the flavor go up, gaining complexity each time. But I can't say there was some flavor that went away-- to my taste it just got fuller and realer.

Yeah, you can't cap twist-off bottles except with special equipment. Gotta be the old school kind.

Bottling is mildly tedious (cleaning moreso than filling and capping), my suggestion is get some 22 oz. bottles (available at any homebrew store). Any time you're going to show off your beer, you open one, instead of two, and pour it for both of you. I usually bottle a dozen or more 22 oz. bottles and cut down the total number by an equal (almost) amount.

One more suggestion-- buy different colors of bottle caps, bottle all of the same beer the same color, then retire that color until they're all gone. By the time you're making your third batch, you'll be glad you did.

Mike G wrote:Yeah, you can't cap twist-off bottles except with special equipment. Gotta be the old school kind.

I've actually capped twist offs by accident, so it is possible. But the problem is half of them don't seal properly so you get a bunch of flat beer after two weeks. So the proper old-school bottles are the way to go.

I've been meaning to get myself a kegging system for my next brews. Everyone says that once you keg, you'll never go back to bottling again. I'm sick of putting caps on beer. I want my beer, and I want it now! So kegging equipment is my next big brewing investment.

We recycle bottles among ourselves and friends - Bell's, Fat Tire, Rogue, etc all have regular bottles.

We also bottle into old champagne bottles. You can get plastic champagne bottle corks for cheap. We hold them down the duct tape (fancy, I know) - but it works!

Amen! to the kegging. I had a friend who went from buckets and bottles to customized soft-drink SS cannisters (he figured out some way to change the valving--I *think* there might even be kits available now) and his beer--which was already very good--improved noticeably. Plus, as noted, it was available NOW!

Champagne bottlles are a nice idea. American--but not European, Aussie, etc--bottles will take a standard crown cap. At least they did a few years ago, last time I tried.

I bottle my sparkling cider in them. Makes a very nice pkg on a Sunday morning...

Geo

Freund Container sells 22oz bottles for $8.72/12 in quantities of 10+ cases (you need 30 bottles or 2.5 cases for a 5 gallon batch). The drawback is that to avoid shipping, you need to pick the bottles up at their warehouse in Streator. I am seriously thinking about making a run down there. If anybody is interested in splitting a load of bottles, I will call them tommorrow for the details. They also carry 6 gallon food-grade buckets, as well as 15 and 30 gallon food-grade plastic barrels (if anyone is interested in some real serious brewing). They have 4 and 8 gallon hinge top square pails that look perfect for brining (and every other kind of bottle, jar or tin imaginable).

http://www.freundcontainer.com/

Mike G wrote:Nr706, I've seen the term but what does "extract tang" taste like? I went from canned extract to powdered extract with steeping some grains to doing a mash in the oven (that is, get it to mash temp on the stove, keep it there by putting in an oven that's within the mash range), and I noticed the quality of the flavor go up, gaining complexity each time. But I can't say there was some flavor that went away-- to my taste it just got fuller and realer.

Yeah, I guess I'd call it kind of thinness/one-dimensionality of flavor (not necessarily body, although that was also an issue with some of the first batches I made from hopped extract kits). It seems most obvious in lighter beers. Steeping grains can help a lot.

I still like to do full boils - it's like giving the whole house a facial. Plus, I like the aroma of hops. (Now that I think about it, could that be a reason I currently live alone?)

kafein wrote:Another tip: My husband uses a turkey fryer and brews in the yard. (Keeps the smell out, too) You can use the pot that comes with that. ( 4 - 5 gallon pot) Or add a larger pot. Tony's has some 6 gallon tamale pots that are about $40.

Good luck!

What are you making? I think we're making a Barleywine and a Triple tomorrow.

What is Tony's?

Alright. Well fermenting has begun. I will say, the description of the beer said it would have a "golden" color, but it looked more like a red or brown ale at this point. Will that change over the next couple of weeks?

We were thinking about upgrading to a glass carboy for our next batch. I am guessing this is soemthing we could pick up on the cheap. Any idieas?

Also, our hudrometer reading came out at 1.036 when our starting range was supposed to be 1.052-1.055.

What could have caused this variable and what does it mean in the long-run? Just a lower alcohol content?

Thanks for your help all!

jpeac2 wrote:Alright. Well fermenting has begun. I will say, the description of the beer said it would have a "golden" color, but it looked more like a red or brown ale at this point. Will that change over the next couple of weeks?

We were thinking about upgrading to a glass carboy for our next batch. I am guessing this is soemthing we could pick up on the cheap. Any idieas?

Also, our hudrometer reading came out at 1.036 when our starting range was supposed to be 1.052-1.055.

What could have caused this variable and what does it mean in the long-run? Just a lower alcohol content?

Thanks for your help all!

Extract will darken during the boil - it's tough to get a light golden color with any extract brew. Longer the boil, the more the sugars will caramelize (but the better the hop utilization will be).

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the beer may lighten slightly during fermentation - but only slightly. I could be mistaken. Also, unless you're taking specific color readings, it can be tough to judge the color during the process. You're likely to be looking through a much greater quantity of beer, filled with little yeasties and trub for light to light to have to fight its way through - it may end up looking lighter in a typical beer glass when finished. But don't expect Miller Lite in color - think more like Bass Ale.

As far as the hydrometer reading, it can be influenced by the wort temperature you took the reading at (they're usually calibrated for 60°), but that won't make the difference between 1.036 and 1.052+

A few possibilities: were there any little air bubbles sticking to the hydrometer when you took the reading? That could make a difference like you describe. Was it a somewhat short boil, or did you add extra water (assuming you did a partial boil) to get the temp into fermenting range? If that's the case, yes, you'll have a lower-alcohol brew (but maybe more brew).

As far as a glass carboy, that's highly recommended - but don't wait for your next batch - use it for the secondary fermentation (i.e. siphon the beer off the dead yeast and other gunk after the airlock bubbles - at most, say, only once every two or three minutes - usually takes 4 - 7 days for me. Too long on the gunk can yield off flavors, and the beer with benefit greatly from being siphoned into the carboy.) With a glass carboy, you can keep an eye on it, and see when the remaining yeast has dropped to the bottom, so the beer looks relatively clear. That's when you can fine it (if you like), prime and bottle.

I've gotten leftover glass carboys for free from people with in-home water coolers - I imagine the plastic ones would be okay, too. One trick I use in the secondary - I take an old sweatshirt, soak it in water and drape it over the carboy (and the carboy is in the basement over a drain). It further protects the hops from light, and the evaporation keeps the secondary fermentation a little cooler. Maybe I'm just imagining that it makes a difference - I haven't done scientific comparisons.

Just my 2¢ - others are free to disagree.

jpeac2 wrote:Alright. Well fermenting has begun. I will say, the
We were thinking about upgrading to a glass carboy for our next batch. I am guessing this is soemthing we could pick up on the cheap. Any idieas?

I use the plastic bucket for my primary, and glass carboy for my secondary. Every brew I've ever done has been two-step, as I pretty much dry hop everything I brew. The nice thing about a glass carboy is that you can leave the beer in it and forget about it for pretty much as long as you want, without having to worry about it picking up off flavors from plastic or whatnot. A 6-gallon glass carboy should run you about $22 at a homebrew shop.

Also, our hudrometer reading came out at 1.036 when our starting range was supposed to be 1.052-1.055.

What could have caused this variable and what does it mean in the long-run? Just a lower alcohol content?

If the reading is correct, this will mean a lower alcohol and probably watered down brew. How would this have happened? Either not enough grain extract or too much water, simple as that. Don't fret it. 1.036 is a bit on the low side, but you still should get a decent, if not a little bit light, beer. We're looking at about 3.0 - 3.5% ABV when it ferments out.

Excellent.

Thanks for the input all!

Tony's is Tony's Finer Foods. There are a few locations through the city and suburbs. We frequent:

Tony's Finer Foods
4137 N Elston Ave
Chicago, 60618

Getting a little worried. We put the wort into the carboy on Sunday night around 10PM and then added the yeast with a stir. Capped it and put it into storage.

As of 5PM Tuesday night there are no bubbles. Is this a potential nightmare brewing here?

In a word - maybe. I've had the same experience, for two different reasons: 1) the yeast took off so quickly that it finished most of its job before I was aware of it (a good thing), or 2) there wasn't enough yeast, or it got killed off or otherwise stunted (a bad thing).

Ideally, you should see bubbles within the first 24 hours at most.

A few questions -

What kind of yeast did you use?

Did you make a starter (not always required, but never a bad idea)?

What temp was the wort at when you pitched your yeast?

Did you aerate the wort (sloshing, etc.) before pitching the yeast?

What technique did you use to cool the wort after the boil?

Did you put the wort *directly* into the carbouy, after boiling, etc.? I mean, without a primary fermentation in an open top container? If so, there's a good chance that nothing's going on.

Yeast need an initial period of high O2 in order for the colony to grow to a size capable of fermenting the batch of wort. This is *usually* accomplished by putting the ready wort into an open top container, pitching the yeast, and aerating. Once the fermentation gets going, the container is covered and the primary fermentation is run til completion.

Geo

I've actually never done an open container fermentation and have never had any problems getting my yeast to do its thingy. I've just always splashed the wort around vigorously to aerate it, pitched the yeast, put the top on, the airlock, and fermetation generally begins 6-18 hours later.
Most of my homebrewing books advice on closed fermentations for beginners.

If you don't see any bubbles of any sort, and are reasonably sure you haven't missed any fermentation activity, then it seems your yeast is dead or the wort is not properly aerated, although I've been pretty lazy sometimes about properly aerating my wort, and activity usually springs along anyhow. I'd still wait a day and see if anything happens.

My questions would be what kind of yeast did you use and what was the temperature of the wort when you pitched the yeast.

OK answer these here.....

Ideally, you should see bubbles within the first 24 hours at most.

A few questions -

What kind of yeast did you use? - We used a kit from Brewers Best, and unfortunately I do not remember the packet's name, but it was dry.

Did you make a starter (not always required, but never a bad idea)? - Don't think so here.

What temp was the wort at when you pitched your yeast? Below 90 and probably closer to 70-80, I do not have an exact thermometer. I know, need to get one.

Did you aerate the wort (sloshing, etc.) before pitching the yeast? We stirred the wort after putting into the bucket (correction from before, its not a carboy, sorry for the mixup).

What technique did you use to cool the wort after the boil? Put it into a sink filled with ice and cold water.

It doesn't seem like you did anything wrong, per se. I've never worked with dry yeasts, so I don't know if a starter is required or not. I suppose it's possible the yeast was dead to begin with--since I started brewing, I've been told not to use the dry yeast that comes with the kit beers. However, they should work, as people have been brewing from kits for a long time.

Buy yourself an appropriate White Labs or Wyeast yeast strain next time. The White Labs is pitchable (no starter necessary) and should ferment your beer very easily.

Also, the rather low starting gravity may be responsible for a slower fermentation. The yeast doesn't have as much available sugar to eat and reproduce. I'd still give it another 12 hours and see what happens.

I suppose you can also go out and get a liquid yeast, pitch that, and hope for the best.

One more note:

When we blended our wort with pure water, we put the water in first and then siphoned the wort into that. Then added yeast and stirred like crazy.

Is that part kosher?