I’d like to get started..

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Two rounds of hops in, sanitizing the coil now.. gettin close! 😎

Word to the wise.. that little temp bulb is HOT!!!


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Well, I raised the Grainfather up to allow the pump to pull as much wort out as possible. I’m pretty sure there’s about 6 gals in the unitank.. not bad! 😎 The temp dropped all the way to 62.5 using the CFC, I was impressed to say the least! I pitched the yeast, sealed her up, and set the controller to 65F. Hopefully in a couple weeks I’ll have something that resembles beer! 😁

I’d like to give a huge THANKS to all that have helped in this endeavor! I can truly say… without this forum, I would not be this far along in this hobby! It’s only been about 2 weeks since I decided to give home brewing a shot!

Now for the Porter kit I bought! 😆

Hmmm… I do have a spare fermenter sitting there! 🤔


-David


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If I recall correctly you also have a spare keg( 2 kegs on tap at the same time sounds like a winner). Double brew days save on cleaning/sanitizing supplies I double batch every time I brew. Same goes for kegging days. I usually brew 2 12ish gallon batches and split them so for example you could have a chocolate porter and the other be a peanut butter porter, and then lets say a split a cream ale batch one cherry and one peaches. I end up with 4 each brew day but 2 would be totally good enough if I only looked at this as a hobby.
 
superiorsat said:
If I recall correctly you also have a spare keg( 2 kegs on tap at the same time sounds like a winner). Double brew days save on cleaning/sanitizing supplies I double batch every time I brew. Same goes for kegging days. I usually brew 2 12ish gallon batches and split them so for example you could have a chocolate porter and the other be a peanut butter porter, and then lets say a split a cream ale batch one cherry and one peaches. I end up with 4 each brew day but 2 would be totally good enough if I only looked at this as a hobby.
Click to expand...

Yep, I was thinking the same thing keg wise. I’m going to have to do some more reading.. how do you make it a flavored porter?
 
You can add cacao nibs (I usually toast to bring out the flavor and to sanitize) to the fermenter but that usually doesn't give me a ton of chocolate flavor just a hint of smooth faint chocolate, if you want more noticeable chocolate flavor I use 100% cacao powder and it can go in the boil or fermenter. PB2 is my favorite powdered peanut butter ( just found out the Walmart brand doesn't come through fermentation well, only bought because they were out of PB2)for beer and I put it in the fermenter before I add the wort. I'm kind of a sanitation freak so If it isn't going to be boiled I will heat treat pasteurize what ever is going into the fermenter. For a peanut butter powder I will put aluminum foil over a baking sheet and weigh out a pound of powder and spread down the middle of the foil then kind of rap it like a tin foil burrito and bake at 170 degrees for an hour, let cool, then dump in the fermenter right before transfer of the wort. As far as flavoring any beer with other ingredients here is a few ways to deal with that. Coconut same process except I toast/brown then rap put back in as oven cools, this would go in a weighted bag in fermenter, fruits I use a hand held blender to puree heat to pasteurize then cool and add to fermenter. Lots of ways to add flavors and I prefer natural as I cannot stand anything artificial or extracts.
 

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Awesome info! Thank you!

I’ve got some PB2, might give that a shot on the porter. Do you have a conical? Just wondering if that would affect how well it takes the flavor?
 
I don't use any conical fermenters for homebrewing so what ever ingredients that go into the fermenter at the start are in there all the way to kegging. In your case you will be dumping the cone but once fermentation has run its course I see no harm in dumping the cone.
 
Ok.. so it’s been a bit since the chaos of the first Brew Day (it actually wasn’t bad at all) so figured I needed to update the thread. So, I brought the wife out to the garage the night before Brew Day to show her what she had gotten me for Christmas. 🎅🏼😁 She wasn’t thrilled, but was accepting, so I headed out today to pick her up something nice (a Beretta APX 😎 ). When I got back home, I found that my temp had climbed about .5 of a degree. I’m thinking great, what happened?


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I thought I’d get away with not using the cooler/chiller pump setup, but looks like it’s going to produce its own heat. I’ve got a/c in the garage, it’s set to 61F now until I get the cooling equipment hooked up. It’ll be much cheaper to run the pump in a cooler of ice water though verse the a/c, especially since I’ve got a 120gal reef tank out here that needs to stay at constant 78F.
 
bracconiere said:
:mug: i'm still having a hard time believing this is your first brew though....
Click to expand...

🤣🤣 Appreciate it brother!! Hopefully, with the guidance of y’all, I’ll be a pro one day!

Took a few minutes and hooked up the cooling side of things. It consists of a cooler with holes in the lid, a small dc pump, some insulated lines, a 1gal frozen jug of water and about 3 gals of tap water. Within a minute, it brought the temp down to .1F below the set value! 😮


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Last edited:
Well, it’s been 8 1/2 days now so figured I should add an update. With it being the week of Christmas, we‘ve been so busy I‘ve really done nothing with the ferminting wort other than check the temp on the controller a couple times a day and change out the ice block in the cooler every other day. Probably not much else I could have done but take some readings and get tired of waiting. 😁

From what I can tell, the gassing off has stopped. After realizing that, I figured I should pull a small sample and take some readings. Here’s what I’m getting for converted readings using the Northern Brewers site.



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The recipe for the kit I used says FG should be around 1.015. I’m assuming it’s about time to crash cool it, dump the yeast, and then carbonate it. This part worries me much more than the brewing phase.. I know this is where I can really screw it up.
 
Oh, and I was wrong about the gassing off. I sat there and watched it for a bit because I thought it was odd that it had just stopped... it’s still gassing off, just at a much slower rate.
 
You’re 8 days in. Despite what your gravity readings are, it ain’t done yet. Patience is the cheapest ingredient in brewing, but it can be surprisingly scarce. Don’t get in a hurry. Check the SG again in a couple of days and again in a couple more. Even if the gravity isn’t dropping, the yeast are still doing yeasty things which will improve the flavor and clarity of the finished product.

It’s possible to go grain to glass in a week, or so, and get drinkable beer. Adding some time to the recipe, however, is the difference between drinkable and “Holy siht! You made this?! ;)
 
grampamark said:
You’re 8 days in. Despite what your gravity readings are, it ain’t done yet. Patience is the cheapest ingredient in brewing, but it can be surprisingly scarce. Don’t get in a hurry. Check the SG again in a couple of days and again in a couple more. Even if the gravity isn’t dropping, the yeast are still doing yeasty things which will improve the flavor and clarity of the finished product.

It’s possible to go grain to glass in a week, or so, and get drinkable beer. Adding some time to the recipe, however, is the difference between drinkable and “Holy siht! You made this?! ;)
Click to expand...

Appreciate the reply! I have no problems with waiting, I was just worried something might go crazy if I wait too long.. sounds like that’s not the case. The sample I pulled was pretty cloudy, I assumed it would be though. It smelled amazing though! 😁

According to the weather forecast, it‘s supposed to get down to 27F this time next week.. should make it a lot easier to crash it. I’ll change my focus to getting that porter going this week! 😁
 
It’s been 27 days, and there hasn’t been much action at all from this one for the last week or so. Figured it was time to CRASH!! 😎


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Chiller is set to -6C, the controller on the Brewtech is down to 36.5F now. I’m going to let it run like this for another 24 hours or so, then carb it with the carb stone. I did pressurize the unitank to around 8psi to offset the negative pressure.. I’ll keep an eye on it to make sure it’s enough.
 
Sorry for the repeat info.. just wanted to close this one out on a high note! 🍺

So, it’s been 30 days. After the cold crash for 48hrs, I hooked the co2 up to the carb stone, set it to 10psi (the target for this type beer/temp per the charts) and walked away. It definitely took longer than I thought it would, about 30hrs, but it finally got up to 10psi in the unitank. I pulled the co2 off, bumped the temp up to 39F, and headed to work. When I got home from work in the wee hours of the morning, I poured my first home brewed pint ever… awesome! 😎

Tastes great too! 🍻



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