My first brew. Some questions and worries

[hallucinaut]

So I went out and bought a equipment kit and a recipe kit from the local home brew store. Decided it's time that I pick up home-brewing my own beers and eventually kombucha.

I have a couple questions for anyone willing to help out a noob.

Are the sterile procedures as important as in mushroom cultivation? I let a few things slide, like I didn't wash the stirring spoon off in sanitizer every time that I put it back in my wort to stir. What exactly can happen if everything isn't completely sterile? Does it just effect taste or can it actually be harmful?

Also when I plugged my carboy up with the rubber stopper, I accidently pushed the rubber stopper all the way through. So I had to transfer the beer from the carboy to my plastic bucket and I don't think it was completely sanitary because I had to use my fingers to push the ****ing stopper up so pretty much all the beer touched my hand.

Wondering if I should keep it brewing or dump it and try again? I really don't want to wait a month to be super disappointing. Plus this recipe kit was 60 bucks.

Last thing is the recipe kit is for a double IPA from the local brewery called hop warrior. It came with hop pellets and it says not to strain them out, but I noticed the bottom is full of a bunch of green, chunky looking hop ****. Anyone else have experience with the pellets? Will they completely dissolve into the beer or what do I do so I don't have hop floaties in the brew?

And the last thing is the intructions told me to start my wort with 3 gallons of water, and when I added the additional 2 gallon afterwards, the wort did noot cool down lower than 115F so I had to let it sit for a few hours before I added the yeast in. Was that a bad idea? next time I'm only going to start with 2 gallons, I've decided.

Sorry for all the text, I just want to see if I'm over worrying or if I funked up.

 

[unionrdr]

Sanitizing with starsan wet sanitizer is easy. Sanitize anything that'll touch the wort. Save for ther brew kettle,since it'll be boiling anyway. As for the sanitizing flubs,you should be ok. Beer is incredibly resilient to nasties to a point. Like you getting your hands in it,or dropping something in. As long as you didn't scratch yourself first,it should be ok.
The pellets break up to this green grainy stuff,but don't dissolve. I use hop sacks in the boil & a fine mesh strainer going into the fermenter to reduce trub come bottling day. More clear beer for me.
And cover the brew kettle & chill it down to pitch temp in an ice bath. Say about 75F. If you keep jugs of top off water chilling real cold the day before,you can get the topped off wort in the fermenter down to about 64F no problem. Most ale yeasts would love that temp. I use a 5 gallon SS stock pot for a BK/MT (brew kettle,mash tun) & I can boil 3.5 gallons in it to account for some boil off. I do AE & PM (all extract & partial mash) in the same kettle. Partial boils on both.

 

[webby45wr]

Don't dump your beer! Time can heal everything, including beer. Revvy has a great thread concerning this - in fact I think it's a sticky in the beginner forum.

Sanitization is the norm for homebrewing (kills most not all) versus sterilization (kills all). Sticking your spoon in the wort to stir during the boil will most likely be fine. The boiling wort will kill all the nasties. I do recommend getting used to sticking your spoon in a bucket of sanitizer during your brew day as a good practice. Regarding sticking your hand in the carboy, don't do this again, but you'll probably be okay.

Hop pellets - i like to put my pellets in a nylon bag so I can pull them out at the end of the boil. You may want to consider this for the future. However, for now, the pellet gunk will settle to the bottom with the yeast cake. You may consider using a secondary. This will let you move the beer off the gunk and clear it up.

Cooling - use an ice bath in the future (put your hot bucket in a tub of ice water. This will help cool the beer. When it's below 100, then add your final top off water to drop it closer to the 70F yeast pitching temp.

Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew! (or craft until your first batch is ready).

 

[PIGMAN]

The stirring spoon issue is not that important as long as the wort was boiling. If you stirred it after the boil, then you should sanitize the spoon, as well as anything else that comes in contact with the wort. Your hands may be another issue, but you won't know until you sample the finished product. I wouldn't dump it now, as there are many stories of people that touched the wort or dropped things in, with no bad effects. The hop pellets will settle eventually, don't stress over that. Good luck with your brew.

 

[ScottG58]

You will probably be fine. As home brewers, we rarely sterilize. We sanitize--meaning we try to minimize the organisms that compete with the yeast. I have heard several times that nothing that grows in beer will kill you. Waiting until the wort was cool so it would not kill your yeast was fine. Great job on first brew. The second will be easier as you apply lessons learned in this one.

 

[hallucinaut]

I use a 5 gallon SS stock pot for a BK/MT (brew kettle,mash tun) & I can boil 3.5 gallons in it to account for some boil off. I do AE & PM (all extract & partial mash) in the same kettle. Partial boils on both.

Not sure what these terms mean, could someone explain?

Thanks for all the quick advice, everybody.

I'm gonna get another brew going within a week. I'll be much more confident on this next one, too.
I think hop sacks will be the way to go. Can I just sanitize the sack and tie it up with a string for it to steep in the carboy during fermentation?

I'll quit stressing. I had the feeling I was, but I'm into mycology, so I'm used to having to keep things completely sterilized while working out in the open.

Thanks again for all the advice. Any tips or extra input is greatly appreciated, especially about designing a recipe. Some type of high percentage IPA, high percentage winter ales or low calorie stouts.

 

[brewkinger]

He has a 5 gallon stainless steel (SS) kettle that he uses for both making the wort (mash tun) with grains and then the same kettle to boil the wort (brew kettle)

He boils 3.5 gallons at a time (fits nicely in a 5 gal kettle) then adds water after the boiling (some has been lost to evaporation and cooling)

Add water to bring the total up to 5 gal into the fermenter.

 

[brewkinger]

The AE (all extract) means that he has either liquid malt extract (LME) or DME (dehydrated malt extract in powder form) added to water to make wort.

Partial mash is some grains (steeped to extract sugars) then additional LME and/or DME to make the wort.

 

[unionrdr]

The AE (all extract) means that he has either liquid malt extract (LME) or DME (dehydrated malt extract in powder form) added to water to make wort.

Partial mash is some grains (steeped to extract sugars) then additional LME and/or DME to make the wort.

Almost right. Partial mash is just that-mashing less than 100% of the fermentables. I mash 5lbs of grains in 2 gallons of water,which is to say about 50% of the total fermentables in the beer. I then add 3lbs of DME,or 3.3lbs of LME at flame out to make up the other 50% of the fermentables.
Steeping can use more water & is just soaking sugars out of pre-converted grains,like caramel/crystal grains,carapils,carahell,& the like.
Mashing uses base grains that must use the grains' enzymes to convert starches to sugars. And at specific temps & water volumes.

 

[brewkinger]

Almost right. Partial mash is just that-mashing less than 100% of the fermentables. I mash 5lbs of grains in 2 gallons of water,which is to say about 50% of the total fermentables in the beer. I then add 3lbs of DME,or 3.3lbs of LME at flame out to make up the other 50% of the fermentables.
Steeping can use more water & is just soaking sugars out of pre-converted grains,like caramel/crystal grains,carapils,carahell,& the like.
Mashing uses base grains that must use the grains' enzymes to convert starches to sugars. And at specific temps & water volumes.

Blame it on a long day of work and the noob in me still wearing off. For some reason when I was typing my post, I was thinking of the extract kits that I recently used that I steeped grains and added LME/DME. Those fall under the category of....?.... partial volume extract with steeping grains?

Whatever the case may be, I was "almost right":rockin:

 

[hallucinaut]

Bad news in this thread. Turns out I did ruin the batch, but not in the way I thought. The recipe kit came with DME and LME, well I thought the LME was corn syrup, so I didn't add it in. Anyway the guy at the brew store told me I'm going to have an extremely hoppy 3.5% IPA because I messed it up. So I'm tossing the batch.

Bought more ingredients, however and giving it my second chance right now. I feel a lot more confident on this batch.

Before I do toss the batch, I want to make sure there is no way I can get the alcohol % up after forgetting to add about half the malt. Anything that can be done or is it a gonner?

 

[masterfool101]

Bad news in this thread. Turns out I did ruin the batch, but not in the way I thought. The recipe kit came with DME and LME, well I thought the LME was corn syrup, so I didn't add it in. Anyway the guy at the brew store told me I'm going to have an extremely hoppy 3.5% IPA because I messed it up. So I'm tossing the batch.

Bought more ingredients, however and giving it my second chance right now. I feel a lot more confident on this batch.

Before I do toss the batch, I want to make sure there is no way I can get the alcohol % up after forgetting to add about half the malt. Anything that can be done or is it a gonner?

Depending on where you're at in fermenting, you can easily boil he extract in some water (to sanitize it), cool it, and add it to the fermenter. Your gravity will still be lower than anticipated (you'll be increasing the volume of beer), but you'll be higher than you were.

 

[hallucinaut]

Depending on where you're at in fermenting, you can easily boil he extract in some water (to sanitize it), cool it, and add it to the fermenter. Your gravity will still be lower than anticipated (you'll be increasing the volume of beer), but you'll be higher than you were.

It's been bubbling for about 18 hrs now. The homebrew shop is closed for tonight so I'd have to wait until around noon tomorrow before I could get more LME and add it in. Will that have been too late or would it be worth a try?

 

[hallucinaut]

Actually it turns out that the people working at the bar can get me the LME. I just boil it in some water for how long? 30 minutes? then add it in and seal it back up and let it ferment for a week or should I just do 6 days?

 

[masterfool101]

I'd boil it for only about 5 minutes. Add it in, and let it go until it's done. I recommend 3 weeks in the primary fermenter.

 

[unionrdr]

Not even that. As long as it's sealed up,you don't need to boil the snot out of it. Just mix it with boiling water. Pasteurization happens at 162F,not 212F. It also takes only seconds,not minutes or hours. So just boil a little water to thin it down,mix well,then take off heat & cool down to room temp.

 

[hallucinaut]

Let's say I did boil it for an hour. Is this going to have any negatives effects?

 

[unionrdr]

Yes,it'll darken & possibly get some that extract twang folks complain about so often on here. % minutes in this case is plenty.

 

[Rosvineer]

Probably want to let it cool before adding right?

 

[unionrdr]

Yes,cool it down to about the same temp as is current in the fermenter.