- Thread starter
- #41
Yeah I bought 2 pounds just didn't see a reason to take a pic of both. Got it boiled, cooled, and in the fermenter.
Brewing
- Thread starter chevelleguy0
- Start date
Sweet! I just wanted to be sure. Do you take hydrometer readings?
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- #43
No I just started all this so I'm trying to keep it simple.
No prob. With extracts, it's not as important. It IS great though to track when fermentation is complete. Congrats on the successful brew! Let me know what you think post-fermentation.
Seth, I hope its not too late. I have been traveling and intended to respond earlier. If not, it gives you an excuse to practice again.
I would expect with a stock pot like that to boil off 1/2 gal + over the course of an hour, and then you will need to factor in a pint or two to loss from absorption to the hops and in the bottom of the fermentation vessel.
As far as cooling, the cheapest and easiest method at that scale is to simply empty your ice bin into the kitchen sink and fill it with water up to near the top of the pot, or as deep as you can. Once the boil is over, just place it carefully in the ice water in the sink. Some top tips to keep in mind. For the last few minutes of the boil, sanitize your stir spoon and a clip-on dial thermometer in the wort by letting them boil. Then as the boil time expires, put the lid on (it wouldn't hurt to sanitize the lid too) with the spoon and thermometer sticking out. Then you can monitor the cooling progress until it reaches fermentation temp. You can also stir the wort occasionally to get the warmer part of the liquid into contact with the outside of the pot, where it will be cooled. Also, keep the lid on the pot while cooling. It will make it marginally slower, but it tends to keep things and sunlight out of the wort. At this point forward, sunlight will oxydize the isomerized acids from the hops, and cause skunking if left out too long. Gently swish the pot in the ice to keep it in contact with the cool water and ice remaining in the sink.
Hope this helps,
Matt
I would expect with a stock pot like that to boil off 1/2 gal + over the course of an hour, and then you will need to factor in a pint or two to loss from absorption to the hops and in the bottom of the fermentation vessel.
As far as cooling, the cheapest and easiest method at that scale is to simply empty your ice bin into the kitchen sink and fill it with water up to near the top of the pot, or as deep as you can. Once the boil is over, just place it carefully in the ice water in the sink. Some top tips to keep in mind. For the last few minutes of the boil, sanitize your stir spoon and a clip-on dial thermometer in the wort by letting them boil. Then as the boil time expires, put the lid on (it wouldn't hurt to sanitize the lid too) with the spoon and thermometer sticking out. Then you can monitor the cooling progress until it reaches fermentation temp. You can also stir the wort occasionally to get the warmer part of the liquid into contact with the outside of the pot, where it will be cooled. Also, keep the lid on the pot while cooling. It will make it marginally slower, but it tends to keep things and sunlight out of the wort. At this point forward, sunlight will oxydize the isomerized acids from the hops, and cause skunking if left out too long. Gently swish the pot in the ice to keep it in contact with the cool water and ice remaining in the sink.
Hope this helps,
Matt
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I will be making my second ever batch of beer next week. A clone of Heretic Brewing's Evil Twin. My last batch was supposed to be a pale ale, but I ended up botching that one. At least it was still drinkable.
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- #47
So here's what I did. I boiled with the lid off because I was reading that it can condense things that need to boil off and reintroduce them to the wort. Only boiled 1.5 gallons. Filled the sink with ice and water. Sanitized my stir spoon, set the pot in the sink and stirred the wort while using another spoon to stir the ice water. I figured this would keep from building an insulating area of warm water around the pot. Within 5 mins I had the wort around 100 degrees and dumped into my fermenter. Then added enough cold water to bring the level to 8.5 quarts. This brought my temp down enough to pitch my yeast.
Sounds perfect. Not sure what size your pot is, but that sounds like it was spot on. Just remember, your hop utilization is a bit less in a concentrated boil, so you may want to adjust up about 20% to allow for that from the original recipe. One of the biggest improvements in my beer came when I went to full wort boiling. I just waited until I saw a sale on turkey friars at Walmart and bought one 50% off. I have only fried about six turkeys in it, but made more than probably 200 gallons of beer with it. If you are only doing 2 gallon batches, you just need a sale on stock pots. Sounds great! Hope it turns out well, and remember--RDWHAHB.
Here's a few good tidbits...
use Wyeast yeast - excellent quality and you can customize your ale style just by using a different yeast strain. When you use specialty grains, don't boil. Don't exceed 165 degrees - higher and tannins in the grain hulls will give the beer an earthy taste. Unless you have a cool cellar - avoid trying to do a Steam Beer (lager brewed at ale temperatures). Tried it twice here in Florida and had to toss both batches. Just too warm here. Use finings or Irish moss to make your brew much more clarified. Keep everything sanitized. Keep the fermenting vessel and blow-off tube as an absolutely closed system with water in a bucket with the blow-off tube in the water. If you don't, you will definitely know it! Wild yeast / bacteria funks up beer pretty bad! Have fun and keep brewing!
use Wyeast yeast - excellent quality and you can customize your ale style just by using a different yeast strain. When you use specialty grains, don't boil. Don't exceed 165 degrees - higher and tannins in the grain hulls will give the beer an earthy taste. Unless you have a cool cellar - avoid trying to do a Steam Beer (lager brewed at ale temperatures). Tried it twice here in Florida and had to toss both batches. Just too warm here. Use finings or Irish moss to make your brew much more clarified. Keep everything sanitized. Keep the fermenting vessel and blow-off tube as an absolutely closed system with water in a bucket with the blow-off tube in the water. If you don't, you will definitely know it! Wild yeast / bacteria funks up beer pretty bad! Have fun and keep brewing!
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In addition to wyeast, I would not hesitate to use white labs products or several of the lallamand/safale dry yeasts. There are some new liquid yeast labs on the market but I haven't given any of them a whirl.
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- #52
Thanks for all the advice guys.
Seth, looks awesome! Congrats on your first brew! I will be doing my first this coming weekend. Yesterday I finished building my fermentation chamber and will be testing it out this weekend. Now the hard part begins, the WAIT!!
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- #54
Yeah no kidding about the wait! My fermenter has a spigot on it and I have already pulled a little shot glass to see how it's going. So far I think it's going to be a good beer if it keeps going the way it is. I'm sure it's too early to tell anything but I was impressed. Btw how's the weather weather in Richmond? Seems like it might get nasty up here, already have 2 inches of snow at the house.
I would much prefer to have the snow you guys are getting, so far this year (today included) just above 32*F rain, it SUCKS!!!
You're not a real homebrewer unless you've mopped your ceiling.
To avoid anything explosive, you can try a couple of things, depending on what you are fermenting in.
If it's the bucket, then don't snap the lid down tightly until the krausen starts to subside. You don't have to worry about stuff getting into your beer. It'll be pumping out so much CO2, it's basically blowing everything else away from it.
If you're fermenting in a carboy, you can just cover the top with some sanitized foil (again, not too tightly). A blowoff tube also works great (use the 2" tubing or whatever fits snugly into the neck of your carboy) and avoids some cleanup in the neck of the carboy.
Brew on! Brew strong!
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- #57
My goal is to not mop the ceiling lol. If that happens there well be know more homebrew courtesy of SWMBO. That's what I like about this Mr. Beer kit it has a nice lid and it fits on the counter under the cabinets.
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- #58
Alright guys I didn't do a very good job not pouring all the crap into my fermenter from the bottom of the pot. Are all those little hop pieces going to settle out? Just worried I'm gonna have hoppy beer literally.
They will settle out just fine. And, if they don't, you still have beer.
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- #60
Have to agree I will take snow over the rain any day.
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