My first brewing experience laid out

[wakeuphicks]

Ok so brewed for the first time, thought I would share my experience... and all of my mistakes lol. Apologize if this gets lengthy.

First of all making the wort was a blast, although I probably consumed a little too much beer, which probably led to some of the mistakes...what are you gonna do...
Smelling the grains and malt cooking up and then getting that clean hop smell coming off the port after we threw them in...delicious, I wanted to drown myself in it.
Everything was going swimmingly ( no boil over or anything) until i got to cooling down the wort. I had my ice bath ready, along with a frozen gallon of water that i was going to cut open and put in the wort to speed up the process. Forgot to sanitize the knife/scissors i was using to cut open the frozen jug of water, and then on top of that, dropped the UNSANITIZED scissors in the wort. Freaked out a bit, my buddy calmed me down, suggested we bring it back up to boiling to kill anything. Did that, cooled it back down and put it to primary.
Let it sit for 2 weeks, even though it stopped actively bubbling after 4-5 days or so, then bottled last night. The stopper my buddy gave me fit very loosely in the fermenter and so upon attempt to pull it out, it fell in.
I went ahead and siphoned into my bucket (how do you get the last inch or so of liquid without getting all the crud at the bottom???) and began bottling. Bought brand new bottles, but didnt wash them out, just sanitized well before bottling - thinks it makes a difference? Tasted some, had a good flavor, just warm and flat of course.
Also forgot to take an OG reading, but took a FG when bottling and it was 1.026...seems a bit high - its a Full Sail Amber Ale Clone -range is supposed to be around 1.014 or so. I did add some extra DME during the boil than what the recipe called for. Any ideas on whats bringing it up?
Any tricks on avoiding sucking up the sediment when siphoning? My auto siphon has a little thing on the end but it doesnt block out a whole lot.
Thanks in advance for listening and hopefully this will let others know that you can make a lot of noob mistakes and still turn out a pretty decent beer, hopefully anyways, ill let you know in a couple of weeks after it carbs up.

 

[birvine]

Make sure you primary for 3-4 weeks so the yeast cake is solid and you probably won't dredge any up.

Re-boiling might have messed up the hop profile.

Likely, it will all be fine.

Please report back!

Brent

 

[wakeuphicks]

Also i did a five gallon batch, but was only able to get about 46 beers out of it =/

 

[birvine]

By letting the yeast compact you'll be able to rack a much higher volume from the fermenter.

Brent

 

[ajf]

A FG of 1.026 sounds very high. I'd keep a careful eye on them (wearing safety glasses) in case you get bottle bombs. I'd also sample about 1 bottle per week, and if they start to get over carbonated, put the remaining bottles in the fridge to stop further fermentation.
Birvine's comment about fermenting for 3 - 4 weeks is a good one. I often have beers that haven't finished fermenting after 2 weeks. I check the gravity at 2 weeks, and if it's very close to what it should be, I will keg 1 week later. If the gravity is still high at two weeks, I check again after another week, and keg after another week. I don't know what I would do if the gravity was still high after 3 weeks. It's never happened.

As for transferring the beer, and leaving the trub behind, tilt the fermenter slightly before racking. You can get much more wort out that way, and still leave the trub behind.

-a.

 

[wakeuphicks]

Noted. Yeah it was still pretty loose on the bottom, so I'll let it sit a little longer next time, see if hardens up some.

As for transferring the beer, and leaving the trub behind, tilt the fermenter slightly before racking. You can get much more wort out that way, and still leave the trub behind.

-yeah... dont know why i didnt think of that considering that what i did towards the end when siphoning from bucket into the bottles, but it being first time bottling at all, i think i was a little overwhelmed:cross:

 

[dezman]

Couple of words of advice. First off the gallon jug of frozen water, I hope you didnt put it directly in the wort when cooling. If you did DONT DO THIS! Ice can still contain bacteria. As for siphoning dont worry about getting every last drop out of the kettle your most likely topping off with cold water to achive final volume correct? Just rack off as much clear wort as you can, sometimes tilting the kettle twards the autosiphon when theres only a little left will help you get a little more. Just be carful not to stir up trub on bottom. Sounds like you did prtty well for your first batch, hope it turns out good!

 

[Mikethepoolguy]

I read your post but what did you do wrong? It looks like a typical brew day to me. Welcome to the obsession.

 

[wakeuphicks]

Couple of words of advice. First off the gallon jug of frozen water, I hope you didnt put it directly in the wort when cooling. If you did DONT DO THIS! Ice can still contain bacteria. As for siphoning dont worry about getting every last drop out of the kettle your most likely topping off with cold water to achive final volume correct? Just rack off as much clear wort as you can, sometimes tilting the kettle twards the autosiphon when theres only a little left will help you get a little more. Just be carful not to stir up trub on bottom. Sounds like you did prtty well for your first batch, hope it turns out good!

Yes i did put it directly in the wort, although it prolly didnt even need it, because it cooled off QUICK when i took it off the burner and put in the ice bath.
When you say topping off with cold water, at what point in the process do you mean? I added water to bring it to five gallons in the fermenter because i only boiled 3, but thats the only additional water i added outside of the frozen gallon.

 

[ChaosStout]

Yes i did put it directly in the wort, although it prolly didnt even need it, because it cooled off QUICK when i took it off the burner and put in the ice bath.
When you say topping off with cold water, at what point in the process do you mean? I added water to bring it to five gallons in the fermenter because i only boiled 3, but thats the only additional water i added outside of the frozen gallon.

Its ok to add the frozen water as long as its Distilled Bottled water. I use Ice cold distilled to top up with instead of adding it frozen to the cooling wort. Never had any problems. just make sure its Distilled

 

[dezman]

Yes i did put it directly in the wort, although it prolly didnt even need it, because it cooled off QUICK when i took it off the burner and put in the ice bath.
When you say topping off with cold water, at what point in the process do you mean? I added water to bring it to five gallons in the fermenter because i only boiled 3, but thats the only additional water i added outside of the frozen gallon.

I mean you top off with cold water in the fermenter to get five gallons, which is exactly what you did. (most dont do full boils to start off, so i assume you were part of the "most" :cross

 

[wakeuphicks]

Its ok to add the frozen water as long as its Distilled Bottled water. I use Ice cold distilled to top up with instead of adding it frozen to the cooling wort. Never had any problems. just make sure its Distilled

It was distilled, but yeah I think that would make it a lot easier to just use ice cold water instead of having to mess around with getting the frozen water out of the jug