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My newbie Porter after one week in the fermenter

Prior to opening up the ferementer tonight I did notice some activity in the airlock but I'd say 3-4 minutes passsed between 'burps' so there is a wee bit of hungry yeast left.

Intial gravity before I pitched the yeast was 1.040. Today it is at 1.017. I'm going to take another reading in the morning and then again tomorrow night. If there is no movement from 1.017 I guess it is time to bottle. When I pulled the lid off the fermenter I noticed a subtle film of oil. Is this from the hop pellets? Should I be overly concerned?

Otherwise the beer has retreated from the hops and left them clinging to the sides of the fermenter. During transfer to my bottling vessel I should be extra careful not to get hops in there, right?

The beer smells sweet, malty and boozy. I'm pretty excited. I damned near drank my sample for the hydrometer, but given that I dunno how clean the hydrometer is, I thought it best just to throw out the sample when I was done.

Reply to
Joe Murphy
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Sounds good. Sounds like the yeast is almost finished doing its job.

It's probably the hops, but could be that your fermenter was not clean. If it's a cleanliness problem, you might not get as nice a head on your beer as you might like... but it's not a real big deal. If it's the hops, it's nothing to worry about.

It won't hurt anything, but it's nice to leave most of the slime behind so you don't end up with a half inch of crud in the bottoms of all your bottles.

I usually drink a sample, there's no harm in it. It's flat and not fully developed yet, but it gives you a rough idea of how your beer is going to turn out.

Reply to
David M. Taylor

Thanks for the input so far, Dave.

I soaked and then scrubbed the hell out of my fermenter with simple diswashing soap. Rinsed and let dry. Right before brewing I put C-Brite in there and scrubbed and sloshed it around. I then placed the fermenter in front of a fan to dry it out more quickly and examined the interior for any soil. So I think it may be the hop pellets. At least I hope so.

I'm rinsing out the hydrometer really well so that I can taste tomorrow's sample.

Thanks again, Joe

Reply to
Joe Murphy

When you take a sample with your hydrometer the first go around, you usually sanitize it anyways. As for the fermentor, after cleaning it, you can usually let it air dry over night unless you are planning on making a new batch instantly. The reason why I say that is, it's standard practice to sanitize when you start each new batch... so unless you're just wanting to put away the fermentor quicker, using a fan doesn't do much else. Heck. even wiping it out with a clean dry towel is probably faster than a fan. :)

There's lots of cleaners and sanitizers on the market. I usually go through Northern Brewer (or Morebeer.com for my stuff). They have a nice selection of sanitizers/cleaners (I use Star San.. great foamy goodness, One Step for smaller sanitizing sessions like a hydrometer, and I just picked up PBW to aid in cleaning:

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Black Dahlia Murder

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