first batch tomorrow

[GatorWayne]

Tomorrow I will clean and sanitize my nice new equipment in order to start my first batch. It is a Chimay Blue clone and my wife and I are quite excited to taste it when it has aged properly. I created a starter yeast today and it is on the stir plate growing. After emptying numerous Wallerstein hefe weisen flip top bottles so they can be ready for bottling, I twisted 20' of copper around a 1 gallon jug to make my wort immersion chiller (so easy!). Pond pump in ice water will quickly chill my wort. Going to primary in a 6.5 gallon bucket and secondary in a plastic carboy. I will ferment at 68 degrees using a temperature controller and ice chest with frozen water bottles. Bottling it after 6 weeks or so .

I'm aware of the importance of sanitation now and star san will be sprayed on EVERYTHING. I've got the recipe printed out and I have read it many times to know what I need to do. I will have everything prepped so I am not going oh crap I forgot to ________ when the recipe calls for it.

Anything you can think of I need to pay particular attention to? I really bombed on a 1 gallon beer in a box brew attempt 5 days ago which led me to buying all the equipment I needed to make great beer at home.

 

[adamdillabo]

Good luck. Sounds like you have gone all out.

 

[flars]

Looks like you have thought it out well. Only reminder I would have is to control the fermentation temperature, especially in the first few days of fermentation.

 

[aarong]

Welcome to the obsession, The only thing I can think of is aerating the wort well before you pitch since this is probably a High Gravity beer. Have fun and take a lot of notes!

~Aaron

 

[Calder]

First batch and you are really ready.

Be ready for the first boil-over.

I assume the yeast is wlp500, or the wyeast equivalent. Starting at 68 is fine, but that yeast likes temps. After 2 days, you want to bring the temp up to about 80 F over the space of 5 days to bring out he flavors and dry it out.

6 weeks it should be good, but that beer ages well and will be better at 6 months, and great at 12 months.

 

[GatorWayne]

Brew day went great! I printed out the recipe, measured out the ingredients for each step and set them aside, and was very cautious and repeatedly sanitized equipment. Only through very close attention did I manage to not have a boilover. Lots of sliding the brewpot on and off the heat for about the first 13 minutes or so and then it calmed down some but I stirred the wort almost constantly so nothing burned on the bottom.

Before brewing I was working near my pool when I realized its temperature of 66 degrees was a great source of water for the immersion chiller. I was correct. I brought the brew pot outside, sanitized the chiller, dropped it in the wort, plugged in the pump and watched the wort go from 200+ to 100 very quickly. I had a backup ice chest filled with ice and water in case the immersion chiller did not work. The wort temperature really slowed around 100 degrees so I put the brew pot in the ice chest with the immersion chiller still running. I hit 70 rather quickly. I forgot to check the clock when I went back in but it was no more than 15 minutes from coming off the stove to 70 degrees.

I brought the wort back into the kitchen, added filtered water to get slightly above 5 gallons, used my big strainer to agitate and hopefully aerate the wort, added the yeast which I started the night prior, secured the lid on the bucket, popped the sanitized airlock on, and mixed / shook the bucket some more. I was not sure if the yeast needed to be mixed or not.

Here is where the fun started. The recipe says to ferment at 68 degrees. In order to do this I was going to use two ice chests. I‘ve got one all prepped to hold the fermenting bucket and return line inserted. Other chest I just need to put the pump in and put the fill line into the first chest and hook up the temperature controller. Great plan until I realize almost near the end of my boil that the first chest look a bit small to hold the bucket. Oh crap. Yep, it was too small. It was 67 degrees outside so fermenting bucket sat on back porch while I worked on the chests. My second cooler had a larger drain opening than my tubing so I built up the diameter on the tubing with electrical tape, pulled it through, filled it with water, and checked for leaks. Set it in place, got second cooler in place, tubing and temperature in place, and put wort in its water bath. Working great but I’m a bit concerned my piece of tubing with electrical tape is going to leak and I end up with 7-10 gallons of water spreading through the house. I take everything outside and set it up. Done I think. Watching the news the temperature is supposed to get into the 50s. Damn it! Too cold! Take wort out of chest, pull electric taped tubing, close drain, fill with pool water at 66 degrees, take back into house, and put wort inside. I put a frozen bottle of water in to keep the temperature around 70 (house is 74 and ceiling fan is lowing on cooler.

There was almost no activity on the air lock yesterday. Today it looks like a heart monitor with a steady pumping up and down. Water is 70-72. The airlock smells great! After all the moving around yesterday I’m convinced I need a small fridge or a properly equipped cooler system to maintain temperature.

It will be tough waiting 6 weeks but it gives me time to empty some more Wallerstein hefe-weisen bottles! I think the hefe-weisen is going to be my second batch. I really like it!

 

[GatorWayne]

First batch and you are really ready.

Be ready for the first boil-over.

I assume the yeast is wlp500, or the wyeast equivalent. Starting at 68 is fine, but that yeast likes temps. After 2 days, you want to bring the temp up to about 80 F over the space of 5 days to bring out he flavors and dry it out.

6 weeks it should be good, but that beer ages well and will be better at 6 months, and great at 12 months.

It was Wyeast 1388 Strong Belgian Ale. Being so new at this I'm not sure if this is the equivalent to wlp500.

Does it need to get to 80 or is high 70s warm enough? I just reread the discussion with this recipe and I was wrong about the temperature to ferment at. it doesn't have one so I'm going to let this get to at least room temperature at 74-76 degrees.

 

[kombat]

Congrats, sounds like you're well on your way. It seems like you might be over complicating the fermentation temperature control. Personally, for ales, I simply set my carboy in a plastic laundry tub ($7 at Wal-Mart) half-filled with room temperature (65° F) water, and cover it with a wet t-shirt. I check the temperature of the water bath a couple of times per day, and if I catch it inching up a little too high (as fermentation kicks off and produces heat), I'll drop in a couple of frozen water bottles.

Also, what are you using for water? If you're using tap water and are on a municipal water supply, you should find out whether your water contains chlorine or chloramine and correct it accordingly. I use Campden tablets in my water.

Finally, you mentioned you plan to secondary in a carboy. What's your reason for racking to secondary at all? Why not just do the whole ferment in the primary bucket? Racking to secondary exposes the beer to contaminants (read: infection) and oxidation, and should only be done for a good reason, such as getting the beer off the yeast (so you can re-use it) before adding post-fermentation ingredients like fruit or dry hops (which would otherwise contaminate the yeast cake).

 

[GatorWayne]

Congrats, sounds like you're well on your way. It seems like you might be over complicating the fermentation temperature control. Personally, for ales, I simply set my carboy in a plastic laundry tub ($7 at Wal-Mart) half-filled with room temperature (65° F) water, and cover it with a wet t-shirt. I check the temperature of the water bath a couple of times per day, and if I catch it inching up a little too high (as fermentation kicks off and produces heat), I'll drop in a couple of frozen water bottles.

Also, what are you using for water? If you're using tap water and are on a municipal water supply, you should find out whether your water contains chlorine or chloramine and correct it accordingly. I use Campden tablets in my water.

Finally, you mentioned you plan to secondary in a carboy. What's your reason for racking to secondary at all? Why not just do the whole ferment in the primary bucket? Racking to secondary exposes the beer to contaminants (read: infection) and oxidation, and should only be done for a good reason, such as getting the beer off the yeast (so you can re-use it) before adding post-fermentation ingredients like fruit or dry hops (which would otherwise contaminate the yeast cake).

I’m pretty sure I over thought temperature during fermentation. I just checked the water temperature and it is 72-74, pretty much where it has been all day long. I think I’m just going to toss a frozen water bottle into the cooler in the morning and afternoon. That should be good enough.

I used mostly filtered water and some tap water that was boiled. Thankfully I read just a bit about tap water so I was prepared.

I read this recipe takes quite awhile, around 6 weeks, until it is ready to be bottled / kegged. I want to brew some other beer while this is in the secondary. I’ll have to read some more but another option I have is buying another bucket. My carboy is only a 5 gallon so I can’t use it as a primary.

 

[violinguy]

Congrats, sounds like you're well on your way. It seems like you might be over complicating the fermentation temperature control. Personally, for ales, I simply set my carboy in a plastic laundry tub ($7 at Wal-Mart) half-filled with room temperature (65° F) water, and cover it with a wet t-shirt. I check the temperature of the water bath a couple of times per day, and if I catch it inching up a little too high (as fermentation kicks off and produces heat), I'll drop in a couple of frozen water bottles.

Very cool idea. Another of those "wish I read that before I brewed" ideas Oh well, that's what these forums are for and the next batch will be better for it!