Hey Coachlight,
Welcome to you and your fiance to the forum You will learn much from people here. You mentioned getting some folding tables. Knowing that there are many different types all made from varying materials I would be real careful about what you choose so that it is strong enough to hold up the weight of a mash tun if doing all-grain. Definitely use the burner only on the ground.
I vote for heating water and boiling outside as well if you can stay out of snow/rain and direct wind. I do all grain, the mashing, the boil and the chill all are done outside using a makeshift table (sawhorses and 3/4 plywood) for the mashtun. Once I drain to my buckets I progress inside and pitch. Then it is down to the basement for ferment. So brew day for me is both an inside and outside affair. Others have different methods that work for them, you’ll find what works for you after a number of batches.
Good luck and let us know how your first batch goes.
VK
Good pointers there. I may shift my basement idea to the garage. I’ve got a nice area where my tools and backyard equipment sit (that I can shuffle around to make room). There is a door to the backyard right there, and a water spigot. I just need to determine if the turkey fryer will,be in the cards before we brew the first batch. If not, stinky kitchen it is! Haha…
i love the smell of a fresh brew, it fills the house with a wonderful aroma. i recently moved into the garage with a turkey fryer and a foll boil, made 2 batches so far and i miss the aroma in the house. my wife never complained too mutch about the smell and the kids have learned to like it.the fact that i make wine for the wife doesnt hurt either. (she doesnt drink beer) good luck and have fun. i think it will be even more fun for you with your wife to be by your side watching for a boil over. once you taste the fruits of your labor you will be hooked for good. my advice start slow, partial boil in the kitcken. get the hang of it you will know when its time to step it up and add equiptment to your system.
i love the smell of a fresh brew, it fills the house with a wonderful aroma. i recently moved into the garage with a turkey fryer and a foll boil, made 2 batches so far and i miss the aroma in the house. my wife never complained too mutch about the smell and the kids have learned to like it.the fact that i make wine for the wife doesnt hurt either. (she doesnt drink beer) good luck and have fun. i think it will be even more fun for you with your wife to be by your side watching for a boil over. once you taste the fruits of your labor you will be hooked for good. my advice start slow, partial boil in the kitcken. get the hang of it you will know when its time to step it up and add equiptment to your system. ive made 43 partial boil extract batches i got from NB, they were all just as good as any micro brew ive had.
Hey everyone…so today I finally was able to brew my first batch. I did it on the kitchen stove and had a lot of fun. No boil overs and in general I think it all went very well. I came up with a few questions as I was going though. What do you all think?
Do I need to “sanitize” my hands during the post-brew phases? I sanitized all my little items, but obviously had to touch them (plugs, scissors, yeast, etc).
I had real issues getting the bung through the plug, and ended up taking it on and off a bunch of times. I re-soaked in sanitizer each time, but should i be worried about having the glass carboy “uncovered” for so long after pouring in the yeast?
My stopper dint seem to snug down on the carboy very well. My kit came with 2…one would pop off all the way every time. The other seems snug but isn’t all the way down (I can’t pull or twist it some feel it is on there, but it certainly isn’t all the way flush to the lip of the carboy neck.
General sanitizing question: I filled my plastic bucket with 5 gallons and did an ounce of Starsan. I soaked everything for a few minutes, then used the siphon to pull almost the entire amount into the carboy. Shook it around and let it sit for a bit. Then dumped. No rinse. The next step was putting 2 gallons of water in the carboy before pouring in the wort. Am I supposed to be using sanitized water for this? I just filled my sanitized bucket with water from the sink and poured it into my sanitized carboy (using a sanitized funnel). Sound right?
My instructions said to set it in a warm dark place and wait for fermentation. But it also said that optimal temp for the beers fermentation is 60-72 degrees. I just took it to the basement, but should it sit somewhere warm for some period of time before being transferred to somewhere cool?
Sorry for the mile long list everyone. Now it’s time to wait until secondary fermentation!
Sounds like the stopper you ended up using is fine. If it went flush, it would be hard to remove.
The short time of exposure to air as you fiddled with the stoppers is probably no problem at all.
I tend to let the sanitizer soak my hands as I handle items. Usually the items go right from the sanitizer to whatever they are applied to.
I top off with tap water. I read somewhere that it should be safe. Some people boil the top off water the day before. Some use bottled water.
The basement is ok if not too cold - git the carboy up off the floor onto something, because the floor can chill it too much. (Unless it’s a lager. I use my cold wintertime basement floor to help keep temp down.
Finally, I cover a carboy with a black t-shirt to help keep more light out.
Now the hard part - leave it alone and just watch the temp! Try to keep it in the range recommended by the yeast packet.
Thanks harp dog. And I assume to check the temp I need to dip the thermometer that came with the kit into the liquid? Obviously sanitize it first? Would I want to sanitize the stopper each time I remove it? Or is there another way…
In my experience, if the rubber stopper is wet (which it will be if you pull it out of sanitizer like you should) it does slip out of the carboy. I often take a piece of tinfoil and use that to wrap around the mouth of the carboy with the stopper/airlock in it. That holds it in place well.
No big deal on air exposure - a few minutes with a carboy is not anything to worry about - especially if you have a clean carboy, and even more so if you use a yeast starter.
In the future - I would not use tap water that is straight from the faucet. You very well may be ok, but sooner or later you won’t be. I would use boiled/cooled water or at least Reverse Osmosis store bought water - it is only $1 for a couple gallons, and that is a very cheap insurance policy when it comes to sanitation.
Do not dip your thermometer into your fermenting beer. You can assume that your beer will be roughly 2-5 degrees warmer than your room temperature. Or get one of these and stick it on your fermentor - http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brew … meter.html
Don’t remove that stopper until you are ready to move your beer. Personally - I ferment primary for 3 weeks, move to a bottling bucket (or directly to keg). The fewer times you come in contact with your beer the better. If you want to secondary it - leave in primary for 2 weeks then move to secondary (take a hydrometer reading at that time). Let sit another week or two and bottle.
You can use a guess of 5-7* rise in temp over the room temp. If you live in a larger community, you can get a stick on temp strip for aquariums at a big box store. They usually only go down to 64*, fine for Ales.
It isn’t necessary to make up 5 gallons of sanitizer. I only make up 1 gallon and splash that around the carboy.
Thanks again everyone. I did notice a little sticker strip thing. Had no clue what it was! Haha. Came home today and the cap is still snug and I’ve got bubbles coming out of my air lock. Exciting!
Well, I waited 3 weeks. Never went to secondary. Gravity was 1.008. Seemed done. Just bottled with a cane primer. Excited. Going to let it sit for 2 weeks, and then crack one and see how she looks. This hobby is super fun and I can’t wait to brew again.
Congrats! I find it very hard to wait the 2 weeks for my first sample. 1 week in, I usually chill one for 30 minutes in the freezer and then give it a try. Why not, it’s your beer!
my only cure for that issue was to brew on a regular basis. I can distract myself with the stuff thats ready to go long enough for the newer stuff to condition.
