How to make mistakes

[mat289]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a first time brewer and poster. I just brewed a gallon batch of an IPA and had not considered boil off in the process. I ended up with quite a bit less wort than I expected, but didn't want to introduce impurities from extra water before pitching yeast. What is best practice to end up with the right amount of wort? Also what other mistakes should I be aware of before brewing my second batch?

 

[grem135]

I top off with tap water treated with campden to get rid of chlorine/chlorimine. Some here will have boiled and cooled water available for top off and others get bottled water. Pick your poison.
Other mistakes often made: keep ferment temps down! low to mid 60s for most ales... and thats the wort temp not ambient temp. get temps to ferment temp before pitching.. see above.

 

[mat289]

Great, thanks for the wisdom!

 

[Indianhead_Brewer]

Welcome!

Never fear. Go get yourself a couple of jugs of reverse osmosis (aka - drinking water) from the store and top off in your fermentor to get to your proper batch size, shake to mix everything and aerate, pitch your yeast and you are good to go. Now the fact you reduced your wort more than anticipated means you may have carmelized things a bit more than you wanted so you may find the color of your beer to be a little darker and the flavor may not be 100% of what you hoped. Don't worry about it too much. Read as much as you can on this forum and don't be afraid to ask questions. I recommend picking up a copy of ”How to Brew” by John Palmer as it is a great resource for both the beginner and experienced brewer.

 

[woozy]

1. Fill a pot with with water. Boil it for an hour. Measure the difference. That'll be your boil-off for that pot on that burner at that heat.

2. Don't be afraid of impurities is water unless you know of specific issues to be afraid of. I use municipal tap water and most homebrewers do too (except those who live in area with specifically known problems with their water; of which there are many and the issue is legitimate but for most brewers it isn't; find out if your water has an issue but merely being tap water in and of itself isn't).

3. If you do, have a source of bottled, treated or otherwise safe water to use.

 

[unionrdr]

I use local spring water from the source. Great for pm beers & the yeasties seem to love it. It may darken,but just a little if it didn't go too long,ime.

 

[MoonshineJane73]

I suggest that you take lots of notes, both when things go right and when things go wrong. That way you have documentation to go back to when you notice that one brew turned out differently from the rest. And you might want to check out this list of top beginner mistakes: http://passionforthepint.com/top-13-beginner-brewing-mistakes/