This is written by a beginner (me) for beginners. I hope this post will save you lots of time. I’m obsessed with learning everything I can about brewing and have lots of questions. I’ve found most of the answers here on this forum, thank you. I’ll edit this post as new info come available. Not so much for you folks but to help me remember what I’ve done – right and wrong.
So here’s the stuff I’ve learned during my first batch (American Wheat using NB’s Deluxe Kit)
EQUIPMENT
I purchased the Northern Brewer Deluxe kit with glass carboys ($160.00 or so). I’m glad I invested in glass but people seem to be perfectly happy with plastic bottle-type see-through carboys. They are much lighter and won’t shatter when dropped which is one of my many fears. If I had to do it all over again, I might have gotten those.
EDIT: I just saw this beauty on NB’s home page. This will be my new carboy after I drop my first one. http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/big- … BLER_Slide
Hell no to plastic buckets. My research says they work fine but if you are going to be brewing for the long haul, you’ll really wish you invested in see-through carboys (glass or plastic). I want to see what’s going on in the carboy.
The deluxe kit does not come with a hygrometer (correction HYDROMETER)! That is a big oversight. Any “deluxe” kit ought to have a hygrometer (hyDrometer). No, it’s not 100% necessary but beer brewing is an exercise in controlling and monitoring everything. I would have gladly paid the extra $15 for a hygrometer/test tube. So if you’re new to brewing and have even a hint of “control freak” (or if you’ve ever enjoyed a chemistry set), purchase a hygrometer/test tube along with your kit.
The Deluxe kits includes two glass carboys. One is five gallons, one is 6. The six gallon is for primary fermentation, the 5 is for secondary. The 6 gallon has much more “headroom” for the Krausen so it won’t spew through the airlock. This is obvious to anyone who has brewed but the instructions for a beginner aren’t clear on which one to use first.
You need a LARGE boil pot. Standard large 2.5 gallon kitchen pots won’t do. Boil-over is a near certainty as I almost found out. I happened to have a large turkey fryer pot that I’ve used for shrimp boils. It worked well. Made of aluminum and $30.00 from Walmart. My research tells me that $150 stainless steel is best but only because it doesn’t ding . . . And it’s prettier. Who cares. Save $100 bucks (that’s two beer recipes!) and buy an aluminum one.
Indoor boiling over an electric range will try one’s patience. It took three forever’s to boil the water, two forever’s to re-boil the wort and the smell permeated the entire house for days. The not-unpleasant smell got stuck in my nose so that I smelled it a week later even while away from home. It’s not a bad smell but it’s still there. Invest in a gas burner and boil outside. The water boils much faster.
My kit included a 1” diameter tube about 2 feet long. Other than stuffin’ it in my pants to impress the chicks, I have no idea what it is for.
FERMENTING
Seeing those yeasties start a’bubblin’ within 2 hours was a real treat. It was like an applause for a job well done.
Anyhoo, I’ve been obsessing over temperature control. It’s (what passes for) winter here in North Alabama and I like sleeping in a cool house. My programmable thermostat goes down to 59 degrees at night and I ain’t paying $500 utility bills to keep my beer warm. So far my carboys have been steadily reading 61 -65F. I think that is on the low side of excellent but I’d like to bump it up to a constant 65-68F. I think I’ve settled on storing my carboys in a large Rubbermaid tub ($20) half filled with water and an aquarium heater. During the summer, I think I’ll use the same setup but will use 1 liter soda bottles full of ice to keep carboys cool and the aquarium heater to level the temp out. Am I obsessing over temperature control too much? Probably but opinions on temps vary widely.
I’m want to perfect my consistency during the process and temp is one thing I . . .Must . . . Control.
SECONDARY FERMENTATION
The consensus on the forum tells me that, except for some specialty brews, it’s hardly ever necessary. I only did it because I needed my primary for another batch. But I’m glad I did it so I’m going to disagree with the consensus. There was a lot of trub in my primary when I transferred it to secondary (I used a grease splatter mesh as a filter as I transferred from primary to secondary).
I hear that “secondarying” will reduce sediment in my final bottled product. From what I filtered from the primary, that just has to be so. I’ll know in two more weeks when I open my first bottle . . .OK probably a week since I can’t wait. My secondary had a very thin bed of pleasant yeast trub in the bottom and it was resistant to being stirred up when I stuck the syphon in for bottling. I bottled all but a quarter of a bottle of liquid.
EDIT: I reverse my disagreement with the consensus and Northern Brewer ought to revize their instruction sheet that suggests secondarying. The following thread on another forum, while not definitive, is certainly very convincing. Bottom line is that it probably doesn’t clarify the beer, either, so there is zero reason to secondary except for specialty brews. There also doesn’t really seem to be much harm in it, either (if you properly sanitize and careful of re-oxygenating the beer during racking). So I’ll secondary only if I have a need to empty my 6 gallon carboy for another batch.
This is quite the heated (but educational) debate: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/seconda … ck-155255/
STERILIZATION
A spray bottle full of StarSan solution is very handy from beginning to end of the brew process. Oh, and I didn’t know you could re-use the stuff until after I poured out 5 gallons of it. People report keeping it stored for a year?
EDIT: A good way to use half the sanitizer is to bottle on the same day that you brew a new batch. That way, you use the stuff twice. Again, way obvious but worth it if you can schedule like that.
Starsan makes a fair amount of “soap bubble” foam after you sterilize the carboy. DON’T FEAR THE FOAM! Just leave it alone. When they say you don’t have to rinse Starsan, they mean it. I worried about all the foam, rinsed my carboy with faucet water to remove all the foam and sweated for 2 weeks worrying that I had introduced bacteria into my 1st batch. I was lucky this time. I think.
There is lots of debate on Oxyclean/TSP versus PBW as a carboy cleaner. Oxyclean is cheaper but not really “food safe.” You have to rinse and rinse well. I’ll stick with PBW. Buy it in bulk and it’s cheap enough and works very well.
BOTTLING
I guess you’d need a bottle tree if you’re brewing in a basement but if you have a dishwasher, it works perfectly as a bottle tree. Just spray Starsan solution on all the “prongs” of your dishwasher rack and use it to dry your bottles before brewing. I have not seen that tip on the forums. Perhaps it’s too obvious? But whatever, I almost purchased a tree until I thought of that.
You need two FULL cases of empty bottles for a 5 gallon batch. My friends told me I would not need the full 48. They were wrong.
Capping the bottles is a bit of a chore. I must work on a system there to make it more efficient.
I don’t see the necessity of the “Vinator” for sterilizing bottles. A couple of squirts from spray bottle with Starsan solution works fine. Alternatively, you have to sterilize the bottling bucket with Starsan. Practice filling your bottles with a squirt of solution into each bottle , shake, pour out then place the bottles in your sterilized dishwasher rack to dry. I also didn’t see this tip in the forums but, again, it’s probably too obvious.
I’ll see after drinking my 1st batch but suspect a bottle jet-washer is not really necessary unless you fail to rinse your bottles after drinking.
Brewing is a labor of love but removing labels from some bottles sucks balls. According to a popular science article I read (and the forums here), a mix of Ammonia and water is best. I used plain water (didn’t have ammonia at bottling time) and it worked but not well. I’ll have ammonia next time.
Instead of Starsan solution, some people suggest baking bottles at THREE HUNDRED FIFTY DEGREES for one hour or more to sterilize? Seriously? That’s crazy. Pretty much any microscopic living thing is killed at 160 degrees in seconds. If you are out of Starsan, don’t bake the hell out of your bottles. It can make them brittle and potential bobble-bombs. But whatever the case, I won’t be sterilizing in the oven. Too many things can go wrong.
I don’t want ANY sediment in my beer. My next obsession will be over deciding on Irish Moss versus gelatin versus other clarifiers. There are even some reusable caps you can purchase that slurp up the sediment. Those are probably expensive but perhaps worth it. I just don’t know but, by Silenus, I will not tolerate sediment in my bottles.
That is all. For now.
