My First Brew

Two weeks ago I started my first ever batch of homebrew beer. I used a 5-gallon aluminum brewkettle and a 5-gallon water jug from Big Lots for fermentation, drilling a hole in the cap and sticking the airlock through for a snug fit.

I used 6 pounds of Briess Golden Light dry malt extract, 1 oz Palisade pellet hops for bittering and 1 oz whole Pacific Hallertau hops for finishing, 15 minutes before chilling the wort.

I used an American Ale yeast that I prepped with 1tbs of the malt after 15 minutes of hydration, and I pitched the yeast after adding the chilled wort to about a gallon of water in the fermenter.

At first I was concerned because the wort didn't appear to do anything so I went to bed, but after about two and a half hours my whole apartment had an extremely sharp malt smell in the air (making it difficult to sleep), and when I checked on it in the morning there was a nice frothy head to the wort and some active bubbling, plus a real yeasty/hoppy smell in the guest bathroom where I'm doing the fermentation.

I used no-rinse cleansers and sanitizers from the homebrew supply store and I heat-sterilized all glass bowls for yeast prep at 340F for an hour. I tried to keep everything as sterile as possible.

However, while chilling the wort I accidentally splashed some sink water into the pot, so I am a bit worried about contamination. Another issue was the wort preparation ended up making a lot less liquid than I originally anticipated, only about 3 gallons, and I am a tad worried about oxygen exposure since I left the prepped yeast in an open bowl for over an hour.

Last night I completed the rack to secondary after one week primary fermentation. I bought a 5gal glass carboy as was suggested and used the no-rinse sanitizer again. There was a bit of foam left over after pouring out the sanitizer even though I gave it over an hour to dry, so I used some preboiled water and tried to rinse it out anyway. Even so there was some foam left but I decided to start the rack anyway; I just hope the yeast are OK.

During the rack there was a wonderful beer aroma; I was tempted to taste the beer but I decided not to jinx it. It took me a few tries to get the siphon going and I used preboiled, chilled water for the starter, but I may have touched the preboiled water with my skin while fumbling with the siphon hose.

After racking I topped off with the remaining preboiled water to get my volume up, then I did the dry hop with one ounce of whole glacier hops. It was a tad messy getting the hops into the carboy so I ended up pushing them in by hand. I've read that the yeast are healthy enough at this point and whole hops are sufficiently hardy that there's little risk of contamination now but I'm still a bit tentative. I'm also a bit concerned that I won't get maximum hop exposure because some of the leaves are just floating dry on top of the beer.

To clean up, I washed out the primary with preboiled water and filled four sanitized mason jars with the flocculated yeast, which I should be able to use as a starter for future batches. I then scrubbed out the primary with a wire brush and used a mild bleach solution with hot water which I will leave overnight to sanitize it. I have a 6.5gal glass carboy for future primaries so I will probably retire the 5gal plastic bottle. I'm soaking all other unused tools in no-rinse cleanser to try and remove residue.

I covered the secondary with a towel to prevent light exposure and I will make it a point to stay out of the guest bathroom for the next two weeks. I will use 3/4c corn sugar for conditioning and I have oxygen-blocking bottle caps and two cases of 22-oz brown bottles.

Then this morning, I realized that I have not been filling the airlock with water! I'm not sure what I was thinking just sticking it in the top there and hoping it would keep oxygen out. So now I'm really concerned I've botched my entire first batch. I have an extra airlock on-hand so I boiled it today before work and swapped it out (with water inside) after quickly cooling it off in the freezer.

I plan to leave the beer in secondary for two weeks, at which point I will condition with 3/4c of corn sugar and transfer to bottles.

All in all I'm somewhat happy so far (the real beer smell was exciting!) but I'm reluctant to call it a success because of the improper airlock usage, sanitizer foam and potential contamination. But time will tell!

I kept a video log of it so when I get that edited together I will post a link here. Meanwhile, do any seasoned beer vets who like reading long-winded homebrew logs have any tips for later in the process, or future batches?

You should publish that, its long enough!

haha, anyway, sounds like you had a good brew. Don't worry about the sink water, stuff like that always happens but 9 times out of 10 your beer is going to be fine.

Cheers!

Ditto. I once had a brew where my immersion chiller was leaking un-filtered/un-softened well water into my brew pot. During the attempted repair of said leak, I dropped a rusty screw driver into my wort.....

...best beer I had ever made up to that point!

Was your no-rinse sanitizer Star-san? If so, don't worry about the foaming/bubbles. There is always leftover foam from using that, it won't hurt your beer. And if you are concerned about touching things with your hands, I usually make sure mine are clean and then dip them in the sanitizer solution before touching stuff (like hops that need to go into the carboy).

Sounds like you were very careful with your process (minus that tiny airlock incident). Relax and wait for the goodness.

Yep, Star-san. The guy at the homebrew store said that was the best, though I protested and argued I could just use bleach. Of course, that means more boiling for clean rinse water!

I have never boiled top-off water, rinse water & syphon starter water. Been brewing for 8 years and have never had an issue.

Special Hops said:

I have never boiled top-off water, rinse water & syphon starter water. Been brewing for 8 years and have never had an issue.

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Cool. I'm just being extra-careful because I'm just starting out, but that's encouraging.

The things you're worried about, contamination wise, aren't too significant. Sure, they are 'exposure risks'...but in all reality, its kind of hard to RUIN a batch of beer (assuming the recipe is solid to start with).

Is it better to use sterilized water? sure! Will tap water always infect your beer? Usually not.

If you do a little reading into the history of brewing, you'll find that our ancestors didn't sanitize anything, and used open fermenters that weren't sealed, but just had a screen or some cloth draped over the top of a large fermentation jar/pot/urn...often made of fired clay.

And there are ways to brew beer with wild yeast strains, not to mention lambics made with brett and lacto 'bugs'.

if you fermented in fairly clean environment, even a dry airlock will keep most stuff from getting into the carboy. in the future, fill it with cheap vodka or star-san solution.

as for star san foam...I've actually drank some star san (mixed up) to see if I could detect those flavors in my beers. it doesn't have much flavor to start with, and i could never taste anythign like it in my beer or meads.

and, it didn't kill me. Try drinking some bleach...even diluted a little...and when you get out of the hospital, we'll discuss which sanitizer wins

I think your beer will turn out just fine...however the water bottle you bought likely is not the right kind of plastic for use as a primary fermenter or secondary vessel.

ANd most importantly, don't forget this will likely not be your biggest brewing error. Last night I broke a floating thermometer in my cooling wort! Doh!!

-Todd

Reading this, I was worried that your water jug wasn't airtight because you talked about strong aromas, but when you later said you hadn't put water in the airlock, that's probably why.

I'm assuming that water jug is food grade?

Special Hops said:

I have never boiled top-off water, rinse water & syphon starter water. Been brewing for 8 years and have never had an issue.

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+1 I rinse everything well before and after use with hot tap water. I keep a small spray bottle filled with starsan and spray everything well inside and out before putting it in the wort. I just started using starsan last year just for good measure but I never had any problems before.

For the big stuff like primary fermenters and carboys when I'm finished with them during a brew session, I rinse them and fill them with hot tap water and add 1/2 scoop of oxiclean versatile and let them soak overnight drain rinse well and let them dry. When it's time to do another batch just rinse with hot water and sanitize with a little starsan and your ready to go.

OK, I just finished bottling. I cleaned out the bottles with an Oxy-Clean solution, scrubbed them and triple-rinsed them, then sanitized everything the night before, except the bottles which I sanitized by siphoning star-san from the bottling bucket, which served both to clean the siphon hose, and worked as a siphon starter. I was careful to siphon off the first liquid before going into the bottling bucket which by this point contained my priming solution of 2/3 cup corn sugar boiled with 2 cups water.

Last night I opened my oxygen absorber bottle caps and transferred them into mason jars filled with Skol vodka. After transferring to the bottling bucket, I filled both cases of beer bottles -- 24 22-oz bottles -- with beer to spare, so I put the rest into an on the fly sanitized mason jar (I love Star-San!!).

While transferring to the bottling bucket I stole a small amount of beer for tasting. It's a rich amber color, and while it's unfortunately a tad light-bodied, there were no off flavors, and the hop aroma is pronounced and extremely enjoyable. I think topping off the secondary may have had something to do with the lack of body, so I will refrain from that in the future and just make sure I have plenty of clean water on hand to top off the primary before pitching the yeast.

10 days until drinking time!!

Also, tomorrow I transfer my second batch into secondary....

bernerbits said:

10 days until drinking time!!

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I'd wait a tad longer. You will try one at 10 days, but if you wait another few days or even another week it'll be better!

+1 on extended time before drinking. Per S.O.G.'s, your last bottle will be your best

Cheers!

bernerbits said:

To clean up, I washed out the primary with preboiled water and filled four sanitized mason jars with the flocculated yeast, which I should be able to use as a starter for future batches. I then scrubbed out the primary with a wire brush ...

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This concerned me. I don't have a good idea of what your primary is, but you don't want to use a wire brush (or even a harsh scrubbie pad, for that matter) on plastic. It can create scratches and pits for bacteria to hide in (and evade sanitizing efforts later on).

I retired the plastic jug anyway, but it's actually a wire-based brush with nylon bristles.

you'll probably want to transfer the beer you have in a mason jar to another container that can hold the pressure. otherwise, you might have a nice explosion in a couple of days when the yeast starting working on the priming sugar.

carnevoodoo said:

I'd wait a tad longer. You will try one at 10 days, but if you wait another few days or even another week it'll be better!

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Well, July 27 is my 27th birthday, so perhaps maybe I can wait until then, to open my present.

KingBrianI said:

you'll probably want to transfer the beer you have in a mason jar to another container that can hold the pressure. otherwise, you might have a nice explosion in a couple of days when the yeast starting working on the priming sugar.

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Interesting. I thought mason jars were designed to hold pressure since they're used for stuff (like preserves) that expands...

bernerbits said:

Interesting. I thought mason jars were designed to hold pressure since they're used for stuff (like preserves) that expands...

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While agree with you that mason jars are designed to hold pressure, it's in the opposite direction. The contents of a mason jar (like preserves) are usually at a negative pressure relative to the ambient pressure. It is also a smaller difference from ambient than a carbonated beer. Whether it will hold or not, I don't know. It will be a neat experiment though, be sure to report back on whether it holds. I would store it in a safe place though and wear ballistic glasses when handling it!

bernerbits said:

Yep, Star-san. The guy at the homebrew store said that was the best, though I protested and argued I could just use bleach. Of course, that means more boiling for clean rinse water!

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StarSan is WAY better than bleach. Starsan really is "no rinse".

If the surface has been wetted with the solution for 30 seconds, you're done. Dump it out. Once the wort hits starsan, the PH levels shoot up and the stuff becomes inert. So really, don't fear the foam, and don't bother rinsing.

If you have to touch anything to do with the beer, do yourself a favor and plunge your hands into the starsan solution for a minute or so to sanitize. It's not perfect (your skin will hide way too many bacteria) but it'll probably go a long way towards preventing accidental contamination.

Even better, starsan will last a few weeks in a closed up bucket. I have a tupperware bin that is filled with solution all the time. That way, if I need to take a hydrometer reading (you need a hydrometer to understand what your beer is doing as it ferments) you just chuck everything into the bin. Hell, everything I use for brewing goes into starsan now. It's fantastic. I even soak the cheesecloth I use to filter out my hops. I keep a small canister of it to stick my brew spoon in just to reduce contamination that much.

Relax, your beer will be drinkable. Consider picking up a wine/beer thief if you want to sample your beer. Makes hydrometer readings and taste samples damn easy.