Home Brewing - GORDON's first brew

Beer brewing, wine aging, whiskey fermenting, soda pop carbonating.  Talk about it here.
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

Also in the future I have decided not to brew in the hot months, I'll just make sure I have enough to get through the summer by the end of Spring.

At least until I get fancy cooling coils and shit.
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Post by GORDON »

And oh yeah, already bubbling/fermenting 12 hours later... instructions said it would take 24 hours. I hope I aint making a batch of shit.
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Post by GORDON »

Just put the thermometer sticker on the first stage fermenter... 75 degrees. I think it is just too hot this summer to make beer in my house.
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Post by GORDON »

TPRJones wrote:You can find out how close you were on the SG here: http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/

With 1 as the baseline, at 74 degrees it will be off by about 7%.
I just checked my numbers, and according to that converter, my OG is right near the top of the range, now, instead of right at the bottom that I had recorded when I stopped adding water. I think if I would have added the last .25 gallons of water to make 5 full gallons, I would have been right in the middle of the range.
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Post by GORDON »

My water lock is not bubbling any more (24 hours after it went into the fermenter).... has my fermentation stopped already? That would be several days too soon.

It was bubbling earlier today at about 1 bubble per second.
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Post by GORDON »

Reading this forum

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39....e-74520

it looks like it is pretty hard to screw up beer, so being a couple degrees off shouldn't be a problem. I guess I'll just "relax and have a beer," since that seems to be the answer to most of the issues on that site.
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Post by Paul »

GORDON wrote:And oh yeah, already bubbling/fermenting 12 hours later... instructions said it would take 24 hours. I hope I aint making a batch of shit.

That's fine.

From my experience, powder yeast ferments really quick. It'll be bubbling hours after putting it in. (I've had better results with dry yeast, but it comes from different strains so you don't always get the exact same flavor if you do different brews with dry yeast, whereas with liquid yeasts they are a lot more consistent so you get the same strain every time.)

Liquid yeast takes longer (smack packs, pitchable yeast, etc.). Sometimes it takes two days before it starts.

I always keep a pack of dry yeast as backup. If I have my doubts I toss it in.

If the beer goes crazy with bubbles it's a rapid fermentation, and which means it can be done bubbling the next day. This isn't a bad thing, unless the inactivity is due to lack of oxygen or shocking the yeast, in which case it'll be under-fermented.

O2 - Boiling water depletes the water of oxygen. Did you splash it around and mix it up a bunch to get plenty of air in the water when you moved the wort to the water/ice?)

Shocking - Storage temperature is not a huge deal. It just needs to be in the ballpark. Temperature fluctuation is a much bigger deal. If the yeast changes ten degrees that will shock the yeast which basically means the yeast freaks out and goes dormant. It quits eating. Sometimes it'll wake up and continue, and sometimes you need to add new yeast.

As for taking the gravity of the beer... I quit doing that after a few batches. It's too much hassle, and I just don't care that much.
All of the kits I buy say what the alcohol content should be, so I know I'm close to that.
If you have doubts about whether the beer is done fermenting, just let it wait another few days. IMO, it's safer to wait a few days (if you suspect it's not done fermenting) than it is to risk contamination by taking a sample to see if the gravity has quit changing. ...also, I'm lazy.




Edited By Paul on 1311605872
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Post by GORDON »

Paul wrote:If the beer goes crazy with bubbles it's a rapid fermentation, and which means it can be done bubbling the next day. This isn't a bad thing, unless the inactivity is due to lack of oxygen or shocking the yeast, in which case it'll be under-fermented.

O2 - Boiling water depletes the water of oxygen. Did you splash it around and mix it up a bunch to get plenty of air in the water when you moved the wort to the water/ice?)
I may have had a rapid fermentation then, because I had 1 bubble per second when I checked it 12 hours later, and then I haven't seen a bubble since yesterday afternoon.

Does this mean I shouldn't even bother with the secondary fermentation, and just bottle it in another day or so?

O2 - Not a lot of sloshing, but it took almost an hour to cool it off because I ran out of ice, and I was lightly stirring it trying to get it to dump heat faster. Very lightly, but for an hour, so maybe I got a lot of O2 that way and that caused rapid fermentation?
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Post by GORDON »

What was neat was that I didn't have time for cleanup the night of the brewing, so I just put a few inches of water in the trub and put it outside. The next day (very hot out) it smelled vaguely of beer... so yay!

Also, speaking of heat, a lot of people on the beer brewing forums are talking about this heat wave, and they are having a hard time keeping their fermentation areas cooled.
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Post by Paul »

GORDON wrote:Does this mean I shouldn't even bother with the secondary fermentation, and just bottle it in another day or so?

No, go to the secondary. It needs to settle.
You move to the secondary to get the beer off trub (scum composed of dead yeast and hops and other particulates) so that doesn't taint the taste of the beer.
Also it leads to a clearer beer.

O2 - Not a lot of sloshing, but it took almost an hour to cool it off because I ran out of ice, and I was lightly stirring it trying to get it to dump heat faster. Very lightly, but for an hour, so maybe I got a lot of O2 that way and that caused rapid fermentation?


I don't know.
The wort you pour in is an oxygen dead zone.
WHen I put it into the ice, I splash it.
When I add water, I use the hand-sprayer-thingy on my sink, then I stir it up like I'm beating eggs. That foams up and makes lots and lots of bubbles.

I'd be a little worried that there isn't enough oxygen in there for the yeast. One burp per second in the airlock isn't that extreme.

Here's the issue I see...

1) You do not want to introduce oxygen into beer that's done fermenting, as that'll lead to a skunky beer.

2) You *want* to introduce more oxygen into the beer if the yeast are out of oxygen. Otherwise you will have sweet beer. Also, if you bottle, that puts some air and more sugar) into the beer, so when the yeast starts eating again it can over-carbonate. I have exploded bottles before due to over carbonation.

So if I thought it needs oxygen, I'd move it to the secondary fermentor asap and make sure it sloshes some when I do so.
If I thought it was done, I'd move it to the secondary after the week (or whatever the directions say), then leave it in the secondary another week.




Edited By Paul on 1311612434
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Post by GORDON »

Can I check the gravity again, will that tell me anything?
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Post by Paul »

Do you have directions that say what the gravity should be?
Or what the alcohol content should be so you can do the math (subtracting from the old measurement) and figure out if the alcohol content is right?
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Post by Paul »

What I mean is.
If the gravity stays the same, then nothing is happening.
If the gravity has changed enough to show proper alcohol content, then move it to the secondary.

If the reading hasn't changed enough, then there is problem so check it again in a couple days to see if it changed.
If that reading is the same, and your alcohol is too low, then I'd consider and mixing it up some with a sterile spoon to add some 02.

I've had beer stop after 24 hours (my first batch did in fact) and it was fine. Chances are you're worrying over nothing.

Most directions and advice you see online involves liquid yeast, and they tend to be a lot slower. I've found that dry yeast gets the job done a lot quicker for some reason.




Edited By Paul on 1311619590
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Post by GORDON »

Paul wrote:Do you have directions that say what the gravity should be?
Or what the alcohol content should be so you can do the math (subtracting from the old measurement) and figure out if the alcohol content is right?
Yep. According to the instruction sheet that came with my ingredient pack, OG should be 1.034 - 1.038, and Final should be 1.010 - 1.014. According to my notes my OG was 1.0337.

I will probably take another measurement tomorrow and we'll see what up.
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Post by GORDON »

Opened the primary and measured gravity: 1.0014, adjusted for 72 degrees. I was surprised it already smelled like beer, I thought it wouldn't seem like beer until after it was bottled. It smelled like gooood beer.

I kept taking whiffs as I siphoned into the secondary.

As it siphoned I let it fall directly into the bottom, thus agitating it and supposedly oxygenating it.

As soon as I had the bung and water lock in place I saw it bubbling.... was about 1 bubble per minute, 5 minutes after it was in the secondary.

I took a couple pics that I will post later.




Edited By GORDON on 1311725818
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Post by GORDON »

Image

Below is my trub... had about a quarter inch when the container was level.
Image

When I took the gravity in the primary, the level was right dead center of the zone my hydrometer considers to be "finished beer." I have little color coded blocks on mine - there's a block for wine, beer, etc. There is an orange range for what gravity should be when you start beer, and a green range for what it should be when the beer is done. Today's reading was dead center of "done." (You can actually see the hydrometer in the left of the top pic, laying on the table.)

A couple weeks in the secondary and 2 more in the bottles should be rather tasty, yes?

+++

My primary container is now not being used... I am thinking I will start a second batch a couple days before bottling day, when my secondary will be free.

I am impatient.




Edited By GORDON on 1311728918
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Post by GORDON »

Bought 48 bottles today, and a bottle rack. Approx 6 days til bottling.
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Post by Paul »

Hurray for a butt-load of cleaning.
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Post by GORDON »

My beer has been in the secondary for 10 days, now. The instructions say to keep it there "about 2 weeks." Can I bottle it this weekend, or is it important to wait until Wednesday, exactly 2 weeks?
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Post by Paul »

Since you had the rapid fermentation you should be fine.

At this point you're just waiting for what particulates are left to settle (trub), which clarifies the beer.
You'll be adding more sugar, which will grow more yeast, which will carbonate it in the bottle but will also create more sludge when that yeast dies, so there's no reason to be too picky about the secondary.

Basically if the yeast is done because it has eaten all the sugars it can, then you can bottle. I think you are are that point, so go for it.

In a worst case scenario the yeast stalled so there are a lot of sugars remaining, and when you bottle the yeast devours all of those sugars, creates too much C02, and explodes the bottles.

I used recycled bottles. When I had explosions, it was only the three Corona bottles that burst. Other bottles (Sam Adams, Guinness, etc.) were okay. (I usually had a few clear bottles, Corona & Newcastle, so I could observe the color)




Edited By Paul on 1312673775
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