First beer making journey...totally unorganized!

[GenesisBrewery]

Well, my adventure began when my wife gave me a beginners brew kit for my 45th birthday. I let it sit for about a month before I decided to buy the ingredients! I went to the local place where she purchased the kit and purchased the following: enough grains in a sock to make 5 gals, yeast, magnum, hersbrucker, & northern brewer hops. Total cost was about $47. The guy gave me a recipe and some instructions and I was out the door. I went to Walmart and bought 6 gals of spring water. (our water sucks)

I'm a pretty busy and procrastinating guy so I didn't begin my brew until 4 months later! By this time the yeast had expired! I had the grains in an air tight container, the hops were in vacuum sealed packs. So on the Saturday of the Super Bowl I decided to start, but first I needed some more yeast(it expired). While buying the yeast from the same place, I told the very helpful guy that I had lost my recipe and I didn't have a clue as to what type of beer I was making. He told me that when I got home to call back with the name of the hops he had sold me 4 months ago and he could tell me what to do. Man I'm making this hard!!!

So once I get home I set up my large aluminum pot (will get stainless next time) on my gas top stove. I followed the instructions the guy gave me the second time. I was able to control the temp precisely with the gas stove. I called the guy back and he instructed me to add my hops after the grain boil at these times...magnum at the start of the second 60 minute boil, northern brewer with 30 mins left and hersbrucker with 20 mins left.

Once the boil was complete I sat the pot in the sink and added a 20lb bag of ice. Well that hot pot went through that bag like it wasn't even there! I then had to use my refrigerator ice, it took about 3 hours to get the wort between 65-73 degrees!!! The wort spg was 1.052. I vigorously poured it in the fermenting bucket and poured in the yeast( I forgot to stir it in).

During the time(4 weeks) in my upstairs closet which maintained a temp of about 72 degrees I noticed the air lock bubbling for a couple of days. Whole closet smelled like beer! Now on to the bottling!

Back to the store for bottles, caps and priming sugar. I spent about $42. It was at this time that I noticed that I had the wort fermenting in the wrong bucket! It was suppose to be in the bucket with the valve at the bottom...ooops! Now that meant I had to get it all stirred up with the waste at the bottom of the bucket. My calculated spg was suppose to be 1.014 and wouldn't you know it that was my final measured spg...at least something is going to plan! Anyway, once I transferred to the bucket with the valve at the bottom the solution was now cloudy. So I asked my wife if she had any suggestions for filtering, she had none! On to my next person...my mother! She said use some handkerchiefs! Well I had some brand new handkerchiefs that my wife suggested I boil to sterilize. Afterward, I fashioned the hankies to the valve and presto clear beer! I then added the priming sugar, then stirred and stirred.

I bottled the beer and put all the bottles in 2 cooler. I then put the coolers in the closet where the closet temp is between 70-75 dgrees. They have been there a week and from just holding a bottle up to the light it looks like it's doing nothing!

Oh well, that's my 1st beer making journey. I'll see what it taste like in about 2 more weeks. Oh one more thing, the beer seemed darker than what I thought it was going to be??? But, it did have a very strong beer and alcohol aroma that I noticed while bottling. My wife opened some doors to air the house out...Ha! Ha! Ha! All comment and questions are definitley welcome...THANKS for reading my long narraitve!!!!

 

[RM-MN]

What a fantastic story about your start on the journey to making the perfect beer. Love it!

Now lets take you another step or two on your journey. This time I'd suggest you get another extract kit with specialty grains. Steep the crushed grains in the water to extract the color and flavors, then discard them. Bring the water to a boil, add half of the extract, stirring like a madman to get it mixed in before it sinks to the bottom and burns. (better to turn the heat off until you get it mixed well) Bring it back to a boil, lower the heat and add the 60 minutes hops. Keep it boiling and add any other hops according to the instruction schedule. About 5 minutes before the end of the boil, add the rest of the extract. Doing it this way will keep your extract from darkening so your beer will turn out lighter in color. When it is done, you need to chill it. I start with water, not ice, until I get the temperature down a bit, adding more water to keep the temperature down. Add ice when the temperature gets down below 120 so it continues to cool. (alternatively, use a big tub of water outside where you can let it spill onto the ground, it works faster). While it is chilling you can rehydrate the yeast. Don't pitch the yeast until the wort it below 80, preferably below 70, more preferably but harder to accomplish below 65. Try to keep the beer (once you pitch the yeast it is beer, not wort any more) cooler to ferment. I prefer low 60's for my ales because that helps control the speed of the ferment and limits the off flavors. It needs these cooler temperatures until the active ferment is over, about 3 to 4 days usually. Then you can let it warm to the low 70's for the remainder of the time in the fermenter. Try to keep it in that fermenter for 2 weeks at the warmer temp and then use your hydrometer to determine if it is ready to bottle.

I bottled the beer and put all the bottles in 2 cooler. I then put the coolers in the closet where the closet temp is between 70-75 dgrees. They have been there a week and from just holding a bottle up to the light it looks like it's doing nothing!

You shouldn't see anything happening in the bottles. The yeast don't have a lot of sugars to eat so they work slowly but trust me, they are getting your beer carbonated. Try chilling one at a week and after 24 hours or more of chilling, pop the top open and pour yourself a beer. It probably won't be the best beer ever but it should be drinkable. Another 2 weeks will make it better. More time yet and it will improve more yet.

 

[Lunitar]

Genesis,

I had the same experience with the ice in the sink lasting about 3 minutes.

On my next brew we followed up the sink icing by filling up the bathtub with cold water. I set the pot on a can of catfood (anything to allow water under the pot) and gently stirred the tub.

It only took about 10 minutes to achieve pitching temps.

I hope that helps, I am a newb as well, doing my 3rd batch tomorrow.

 

[Cyclman]

Buy a kit and make a wort chiller (plenty of threads on how to do that for < $30). Welcome to the journey!

 

[jwetzler]

I bottled the beer and put all the bottles in 2 cooler. I then put the coolers in the closet where the closet temp is between 70-75 dgrees. They have been there a week and from just holding a bottle up to the light it looks like it's doing nothing!

While you're letting it bottle condition the beer will look normal, and won't see any bubbling or anything like that...kind of boring I know.

What you should see (or at least I have on my first 2 batches)...is a small amount of sludge on the bottom of the bottle. You will have to hold the bottle up to the light, and flip it upside down, then you will see a sludge like substance. That is some of the settled yeast, which is a good sign, and that means that it's eating the priming sugar and is multiplying like it should.

 

[jwetzler]

Also, to get your wort temperature cooler even quicker here is what I do.

Because I'm a master jedi in the art of being frugal, I never buy bags of ice even if it is cheap lol. I have a small tin corona bucket that will fit about 5 or 6 beer bottles in. So I let the ice maker in my freezer fill its primary container, then I empty it into the corona bucket. Then I leave the bucket in the freezer, and let the empty ice container fill back up with ice again. Now I have double the amount of ice to use on an ice bath for the wort.

-At least 24 hours before you brew, put a couple gallons of water in your refrigerator and let it get cold. I generally put 2 or 3 gallons in the fridge...as I normally only do 2 or 2.5 gallon boils.
-10 minutes before your boil is over with, fill the sink about halfway or more with water & ice (Ice Bath).
-Once the boil is over, put the stock pot in the ice bath. Once a lot of the ice has started melting, go ahead and pour in a gallon of refrigerated water in the wort and stir it around...then check the temp.
-I then continue to add refrigerated water until it's topped off around the 5 gallon mark. In less than 15 minutes I can normally get my temperature down around 65-70 degrees.

I pitched my yeast at 80F on my first batch and will never do that again. I think that is why my first batch ended up having a strong overpowering alcohol solvent flavor to it.

Anyways, pitch your yeast at a nice low mid 60's temperature. I've heard that during the fermentation process the wort can heat up between 5-10F above room temperature. So pitching in the 60's should give you a good cautionary cushion once the fermentation process is in full effect.

Good luck, let us know how your beer turns out when you crack one open.