First Brew TODAY
Ok...first off, thanks to everyone who helped me out in deciding what equipment to go with and in giving me some great tips.
I'm going to start my first attempt at home brewing in a few hours, and just want to make sure I have all bases covered.
Let me know if I missed anything:
1. Clean and Sterilize all of the equipment I'll be using about a half hour before I start.
2. Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil, and pour them into my fermenter to cool.
3. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil.
4. Once I've reached a boil, turn off the heat and add the adjunct and liquid malt extract, stirring continuously, making sure it doesn't sink to the bottom and burn.
5. Once it's all mixed in, turn the heat back on until I have a boil going again.
6. Turn off heat again, and add bittering hops, and start my 1 hour timer.
7. With about 15 minutes left in the boil, add the flavoring hops.
8. At the hour mark, turn off the heat, and put my immersion wort chiller into the wort to start cooling it.
9. Once I've gotten the wort to about 80%, remove the wort chiller, and pour the wort into the fermenter so that it mixes with the other 2 gallons that I'd boiled earlier.
10. With a sterilized baster, pull out some of the wort to get my starting gravity measurement.
11. Pitch the yeast into the fermenter.
12. Put on lid and airlock (half filled with water)
13. Give the fermenter a few shakes for some final aeration...and let it sit until fermentation is complete.
Does that about cover it all?
Only question I have, unless I've missed anything, is...should the wort chiller be sterilized? I've read where I should put it in the wort with about 10 minutes left in the boil, and then remove the pot from the heat, and start the water flowing through the chiller.
Any suggestions on this part?
THANKS.
Your list looks good. Yes, put the chiller in with 10 min left in the boil to sanitize it. I usually do not shut the heat off when I add the hops.
As a side note: how big is your pan? If you are using DME be prepared to watch for boil over as your wort starts to come back to a boil. Also watch for the same thing when you add your hops. I think someone on the board here said they use a spray bottle w/ water to get the foam down. Me personally I pick the pan right off of the stove. After about 5 min of this it stops.
Thanks djbrewing.
I actually have a 30qt pan, enough to hold the full 5 gallons...should I just boil all 5 gallons if I can, or go with the boil, 2, then 3 method?
Frankly, the bigger boil that you can have, the better, so if possible, I would say go for the 4 gallons...but since that won't leave you with a huge amount of room beware of boil over...
Also, if you are using bottled water instead of tap, there isn't really too much of a need to boil that prior to adding to fermenter...what you could do is chill that water and pour on top of the wort to help you get down to a good pitching temp.
One other comment/question, I take it that you aren't using any grain in addition to the LME/DME? If not freely ignore this next comment, but if so, bring water up to ~150 degrees and steep the grains for about 30 minutes, in a grain bag, pull out the grain bag, fight all temptation to squeeze and just let it drain.
Good luck and let us know how it all goes!
Thanks Grimace...No grain in addition to the malt extract. It's my first go, figure I'll go as simple as possible. The instructions I got at my brew shop said to pitch the yeast when the wort is between 70-80 degrees. Was planning to use the wort chiller to get as close to that as possible.
A couple more quick questions.
Should I stir and/or shake the fermenter to mix the wort and aerate before pitching the yeast?
Also, once I pitch the yeast, should I stir it in? I've read anywhere from just put the lid on, to stir it in and give the fermenter a few shakes...what's the best way to go?
Definitely shake your carboy well to aerate but only before pitching your yeast. After fermentation begins you want to minimize the amount of oxygen you introduce to your beer. I haven't heard anything about mixing in yeast; I always just pour it in. Good luck and keep us posted.
FirePitBrew wrote:
Definitely shake your carboy well to aerate but only before pitching your yeast. After fermentation begins you want to minimize the amount of oxygen you introduce to your beer. I haven't heard anything about mixing in yeast; I always just pour it in. Good luck and keep us posted.
Thanks for the advice all!
Taking Grimace's advice and going with a 4 gallon boil. Just started a low flame on it now while I go grab some dinner to warm it up, and going to get to work when I'm done with dinner.
Can't wait to see how it turns out...and I will definitely keep you all posted.
THANKS AGAIN!!
I'm assuming once the boil is over, I should remove all of the hops while cooling..correct?
OK...first brew went well...I think. Guess I won't know for sure for a few weeks.
A few questions.
I cooled the wort with a wort chiller. I thought the water would flow out very hot...but it didn't. It was just a little warm, and got cool pretty quickly. I brought the wort down to roughly 80 degrees in about 20 minutes. One thing that did happen when I was cooling the wort, I noticed that one of the clamps was a little lose on one end of the wort chiller, and a little bit of water flowed into the wort, it was very little, but I'm just wondering if that could have harmed it any.
I poured the wort into the fermenter, added a little over a gallon of room temperature bottled water to bring it up to 5 gallons, gave it a few shakes. and checked the temp. The floating thermometer read about 70 degrees, but the stick on thermometer on the fermenter read bout 78 degrees. I'm guessing this might have been from having just poured in the cooler water on the top.
I checked the specific gravity and at that temperature it read 1.051. The directions didn't say what I should be aiming for, so I'm not sure if this is the typical reading for a light lager.
After I checked the specific gravity, I pitched the yeast at the 78 degrees that the outside stick on thermometer read, and sealed it up. I noticed that the airlock had lost a litter water due to me shaking it probably, so filled it back up, but filled it too much. Used some paper towels to soak up until it was just a little past halfway.
I have the fermenter in a closet and at last check (about an hour after I put it in there), the thermometer on the fermenter read between 73 - 75 degrees.
Sound like I did everything right? (yes, everything was sanitized...i was extremely nuts about this and even sanitized more than once with a no rinse sanitizer, but rinsed anyway as was suggested)
How long does it typically take before I start see some bubbling in the airlock?
Congrats on your first brew. Sounds like everything went well. Let's see if I can answer a couple of your questions. Whenever I notice any water dripping down into my wort from my chiller, I always make it a point to tighten up the clamps and stop it. Usually I don't think it would cause much damage but I'd rather not take the chance. When it comes to removing hops from my boil, I use pellets so they dissolve into a sludge and mix in with the rest of the trub in the pot and I use a double mesh strainer that fits in my funnel to strain everything out when I pour my wort into my carboy. This also aerates my wort well too. And it could be anywhere between a few hours to a couple days before you notice any airlock activity. It depends on the yeast you used and how accommodating your wort is in terms of temperature, oxygen, and nutrients. I'm not sure if you're using a glass carboy but if you are you'll be able to see kreusen forming on the top of your wort.