First brew - solo

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+1 more for adding more yeast. If the gravity is really that high, even two packets is not enough, especially if you didn't rehydrate it. It might be beer, but it most likely won't be good. When you don't have enough yeast, they get severely stressed and produce a lot of off flavors.
 
TheCondor said:
Maybe I should look at my setup on beer smith since I have only used it for 2 brews.

Just to defend morebeer I love them. Living in sacramento they ship super fast and have very competitive prices. Also if you look at there website, it clearly says there kits don't include yeast or grain bags. Just saying.

One last question, is all extract the same as far as what gravity you will get from them? I thought different company's have different extract.
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are you selecting the right size kettle, and any top up? or if you're just dumping the trub into the fermenter, it's already accounting for trub loss. there are some little things that need to be tweaked to fit your system and processes, and that's why a lot of people don't like it. but i find if you can figure it out, it's way more accurate and has many more tools available in it than any of the internet calculators or other software.

turkeyjerky214 said:
+1 more for adding more yeast. If the gravity is really that high, even two packets is not enough, especially if you didn't rehydrate it. It might be beer, but it most likely won't be good. When you don't have enough yeast, they get severely stressed and produce a lot of off flavors.
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yeah actually you're right, i realized that his production date of his yeast is november 2013, which puts his viability (according to mr. malty) at 60%. so in that case he needs 2.4 packages.
 
So I had only asked my wife to pickup one yeast packet. I'm going to pitch that tonight and cross my fingers that my OG measurement was wrong. I'm assuming opening my primary too much could be just as bad as not enough yeast. Using #5 packet of dry yeast, what's best method to rehydrate?
 
tanktop said:
So I had only asked my wife to pickup one yeast packet. I'm going to pitch that tonight and cross my fingers that my OG measurement was wrong. I'm assuming opening my primary too much could be just as bad as not enough yeast. Using #5 packet of dry yeast, what's best method to rehydrate?
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just for future references, people usually refer to that one as us-05. not #5.

http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFA_US05.pdf

the good news is that you're at least getting closer to where your pitching rate should be.

for future brews, use this calculator to figure out how much yeast to use:
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html
 
For rehydrating, my method is to boil water, about 4 ounces. Once the water cools to about 80 degrees, sprinkle the yeast in but don't stir. Let sit
For about 30 minutes then stir to combine for a few minutes. Again, my method. I have seen many others.
 
During the first few days of fermentation it's ok to open as a lot of gasses are coming out and not much is going in. Just don't make a habit of it. By the way, are you seeing signs of fermentation?
 
And now I have added 2nd packet of yeast...

I should have taken a picture, the top was covered in a very thick looking film.

And damn, less than 2 minutes and it's bubbling again. I just might end up with beer!
 
TheCondor said:
End up with beer and an addictive hobby. Enjoy!! The film is called krausen by the way
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I'm so special... I read that an hour ago and thought, what film is he talking about, didn't know someone was talking about movies. Sometimes I need to slow down, most times I'm doing three things at once while planning two other projects in my head, please tell me I'm not the only one.
 
I've got it at 66. I have a basement with a concrete storage room but that doubles as the cats toilet. Kids are supposed to clean it daily but that doesn't always happen. So 66 will have to do... Everything I've read and heard said 68-72, why are people here recommending colder? Does it have to do with this particular brew or is it my high gravity?
 
tanktop said:
I've got it at 66. I have a basement with a concrete storage room but that doubles as the cats toilet. Kids are supposed to clean it daily but that doesn't always happen. So 66 will have to do... Everything I've read and heard said 68-72, why are people here recommending colder? Does it have to do with this particular brew or is it my high gravity?
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We mention it because the process of fermentation is exothermic, meaning that i gives off heat.
What that means is that an ambient air temp of 66 degrees in your basement could mean that the internal temp of the beer is 5-10 degrees hotter.

Higher temps stress some yeasts and cause off flavors to be created. Too late now since it is most important to keep it cool during the first 24-48 hours when active ferment really takes off.
 
and to further that, the more sugars there are to ferment, the more activity there will be, the more heat is created. so you're aiming for 68-72 as the beer temp, not the ambient air temp. one way you can easily help lower this if it's not possible to lower the ambient temp is by putting it in some kind of tub filled with water. if even the water is 66, that will be better than ambient air at 66. and then you could even add a bit of ice, or point a fan at the water with a wet towel draped over the top of the fermenter, and that will significantly help keep those temps low. after the main activity has stopped (anywhere between 4-7 days), then you can start to allow the temp to rise up into the 70s.
 
and to further that.... like said above with that OG (whatever it may be) there are A LOT of sugars to be processed.

If you do not already, I would make sure to have a blowoff tube instead of airlock in that bucket. If things really take off, you could have a huge mess on your hands.:cross:
 
joshesmusica said:
and to further that, the more sugars there are to ferment, the more activity there will be, the more heat is created. so you're aiming for 68-72 as the beer temp, not the ambient air temp. one way you can easily help lower this if it's not possible to lower the ambient temp is by putting it in some kind of tub filled with water. if even the water is 66, that will be better than ambient air at 66. and then you could even add a bit of ice, or point a fan at the water with a wet towel draped over the top of the fermenter, and that will significantly help keep those temps low. after the main activity has stopped (anywhere between 4-7 days), then you can start to allow the temp to rise up into the 70s.
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I learned that lesson the hard way my first time doing a barleywine. It was around 1.100, and I had it in my basement which was around 64º. I'm not sure how hot it actually got, but it was a fusel alcohol bomb. Now that beer, I could've drank in a frosty mug. Drinking it near freezing was the only way I could handle the bite, and I was too stubborn to dump it.
 
turkeyjerky214 said:
I learned that lesson the hard way my first time doing a barleywine. It was around 1.100, and I had it in my basement which was around 64º. I'm not sure how hot it actually got, but it was a fusel alcohol bomb. Now that beer, I could've drank in a frosty mug. Drinking it near freezing was the only way I could handle the bite, and I was too stubborn to dump it.
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hahaha sounds like a very similar experience to my first christmas beer experiment. i had never really heard of a christmas beer, but it is very popular in europe. i thought that it should be high alcohol content and a lot of roastiness and some "christmas" types of spices. it turned into a very fuselish bomb (luckily, i think, i caught the temps on like the second day and made sure to chill it and kept it about ambient 60F for the rest of fermentation, but still way too many fusels for my liking). a lot of people liked the beer (but to be honest their palettes had not known fusels until i pointed them out), but it was nowhere near what i had planned. it turns out that over here a christmas beer is basically a brown ale of some sorts. in the end i drank every last one of those beers, because they weren't bad enough to dump. oddly enough some of that fusel taste wore off a bit after some time.
 
Wow!!! Walked in the door from work and damn does it smell good, and strong. Very aromatic smelling, doubt that is any indicator but I'm guessing that a bad smell would be.
 
yeah, most often you're not gonna wanna go off of the way the beer smells. yeast have some wild smells! i read a lot before starting to brew, so i expected it a bit, but then i brewed a witbier. holy **** that stuff's crazy! i thought i for sure infected it. nope just the way that yeast smelled.
 
So my airlock is still very active but has slowed to bubbles every 3-4 seconds, the first 48 hours I was worried about a mess. If it's still active at 2 weeks should I give it a 3rd week in primary or go ahead and rack it anyway. I've also decided to dry hop when I rack it. I will taste it first though to make sure it resembles beer so as not to waste the hops.
 
tanktop said:
So my airlock is still very active but has slowed to bubbles every 3-4 seconds, the first 48 hours I was worried about a mess. If it's still active at 2 weeks should I give it a 3rd week in primary or go ahead and rack it anyway. I've also decided to dry hop when I rack it. I will taste it first though to make sure it resembles beer so as not to waste the hops.
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i would say to (almost) never go by airlock activity for deciding when the beer's finished. the only way to know if it's time is to take gravity readings. then the great part about testing the gravity is you also get to taste the beer to make sure it doesn't have any major off-flavors.

and by rack it, are you talking about to a secondary? to be honest, although some will disagree, plenty will agree that you can just dry hop in primary. i'm guessing the beer is gonna be just fine to use the hops on it. in fact, i would guess it's only gonna help it even if you picked up some off-flavors. i would personally wait until day 16 from when you brewed, then dry hop for 5 more days. then bottle it.
 
Thanks for that advise. I dumped everything from my brew pot into primary so I think I'm going to move it to secondary mostly to separate from the trub. I'll dry hop in secondary by putting hops directly on top. At least that's my plan so far. A total of 3 weeks fermenting is enough?

I think it'll be a miracle if this stuff is drinkable!
 
I agree with joshesmusica with skipping the secondary. I only transferred to a secondary once and haven't looked back. It's safer to leave in primary as transferring could possibly lead to adding oxygen to your beer. Leave the beer until you get a few gravity readings that are the same, then just dump your hops in. That's my opinion. Just be sure when you transfer to a bottling bucket or keg to leave all the sediment behind. With enough time it will all settle out. You could cold crash if you have some room in a fridge.
If it has alcohol it will be drinkable [emoji1]
 
tanktop said:
Thanks for that advise. I dumped everything from my brew pot into primary so I think I'm going to move it to secondary mostly to separate from the trub. I'll dry hop in secondary by putting hops directly on top. At least that's my plan so far. A total of 3 weeks fermenting is enough?

I think it'll be a miracle if this stuff is drinkable!
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here you go:
http://brulosophy.com/2015/03/22/the-impact-of-kettle-trub-part-2-exbeeriment-results/

and here you go:
http://brulosophy.com/2014/08/12/primary-only-vs-transfer-to-secondary-exbeeriment-results/

BUT, if you absolutely feel like you have to move it to secondary since you paid for the carboy:
1) make sure it's smaller than the bucket you've got now. or in other words, you want as little headspace as possible in there.
2) put the pellet hops in, then siphon the beer on top of that.
3) go ahead and check your FG, if it's at or within 1 or 2 points of your expected FG, go ahead and do it at the 2 week mark, whenever that was/is.
4) then you wanna leave it in there for at the most 1 week more. a lot of people report vegetal flavors (like grassy, aka not what you're hoping from the dry hop) for much more than that. if you really feel like you need to have it in the secondary vessel for 2 weeks because some kit instructions you read somewhere (or some really old school brewers, or even one of their apprentices) told you to, then wait until the last 5-7 days to throw the hops in.

BUT #2, can i ask why you feel it's important to move it off the trub (all the gunk at the bottom)?

3 weeks should be enough. especially for a hop-focused beer you want to try to drink it as young as possible, but still after it's no longer green. so if you're bottling, 3 weeks ferment, 3 weeks bottle condition should be plenty of time for it to round out enough.

and lastly, you have not even come close to effing this beer up. it's gonna be tasty. i've heard of people who have screwed up WAY worse than the small mistakes you've made (again your worst probably being the frosty mug ;)) and still had decent enough beer in the end.
 
Thanks for ruining all my plans!!!!

So recommendations?

Dry hop into primary for a week?

Should I at least use a bottling bucket or just carefully siphon into bottles from primary?
 
Yeah throw those hops into primary for a week. Just pour them in.

Use a bottling bucket to bottle. Many people rig up their thief to their buckets spigot, then insert spigot into bottle and it fills the bottle when it is pressed to the bottom of the bottle. Release when the bottle is full, and when you pull the bottle from the thief there will be prefect airspace in the bottle.
 
I agree on both counts. Just toss the hops in primary. I used a bottling bucket when I was bottling. I felt it made things easier.
 
I think if there's no reason to rack to secondary why wouldn't you just use a carboy instead of bucket other than cost. Adding hops through a 3" hole rather than opening the 14" lid of a bucket would give less chance for contamination.
 
Just a tip, frosty mugs are for Banquet and Silver Bullets, not craft beer. When it's that cold, you lose a ton of flavor and aroma.
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tanktop said:
I think if there's no reason to rack to secondary why wouldn't you just use a carboy instead of bucket other than cost. Adding hops through a 3" hole rather than opening the 14" lid of a bucket would give less chance for contamination.
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Buckets are far easier/safer to carry around, clean, etc. When it comes to dry hopping, I just yank the airlock and pour pellets through that hole.
 
Everyone has a personal preference. I like carboys personally, I like that the glass won't absorb Flavors or scratch like plastic. Carboys are heavy and I'm always afraid it will crack or I will drop them. I feel a little more comfortable after buying a brew hauler.
 
tanktop said:
It does resemble a very hoppy vodka

View attachment 269102
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i went back and checked my numbers again on this. turns out that morebeer extracts yield only about 1.035 ppg. so all in all, with everything included in the recipe, plus your extra pound of sugar, you should've had (and likely did have, considering how hard it is to mix all that water and sugar water together) 1.088 OG. But beersmith is saying that you should've reached 1.009. so you're still quite a ways from that. how long's it been fermenting now? i guess that residual sweetness could help balance the high OG, but 1.017 (you typed in 1.014 into the shot of the calculator, but that hydrometer is at 1.017 at least, the bubbles are sitting at 1.016. could be even a bit more because of the angle of the photo. then add onto the fact that i'm guessing your beer temp is sitting somewhere around 70, and you're likely at 1.018 or 1.019) is pretty high still, especially considering how much sugar you added. definitely check it again at the end of dry hopping to make sure it hasn't gone down more. you should hope that it has, but you definitely don't want to bottle it if it's still fermenting some. you'll have some bottle bombs on your hands.
if you can somehow get it down to 1.009, then you'll get yourself about 10.5% abv. if it stays where it's at now, you'll have about 9.3%. either way, drinking more than a couple of those is sure to make for a fun night!
 
It's been fermenting for two weeks now. I was planning to bottle next Sunday, you think ten days instead of seven would be best?
 

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