first brew

Doubtless your technique could be better, but tipping the batch? You may learn more from your mistakes.

If you read and followed the guide on the site you refer to you should have no problem. Is it fermenting now? (Bubbles from the airlock or foam from the blow off tube - that stages should last about 2 days and begin to taper off)

From what you write:

A kit that is old includes the yeast? Old yeast, may be dead yeast. You want to do everything possible to give the yeast a good start, and that includes using viable yeast in the first place. Treat the yeast with respect.

Sprinkle or mix the yeast - hardly matters. Ideally you would sprinkle dried yeast on the surface. Ideally you'd rehydrate, proof and start the yeast before you pitch it. Dried yeast can take a lot of abuse and still work - but get the yeast working fast and you are more immune to a bacterial infection.

Using bleach to sanitize will work fine, but it must be rinsed really thoroughly, particularly with the plastic and rubber parts.

Rusty bottle caps are OK as long as that doesn't mean inside where the beer will be, and they aren't so rusted as to affect the physical integrity. They usually start to rust at the edges along the crown or flutes - that's OK, top cap is OK because you will probably drink the batch before they rust through.

Aerating the wort is perfectly acceptable and desirable before and during the time the yeast is taking off. A lot of splashing is OK. It is the only time you want oxygen in the wort - the yeast need it to get started.

You DO NOT, however, want to oxygenate hot wort. The wort must be cooled first. Oxygenating hot wort causes oxidation (undesirable - changes the flavor).

You haven't said anything about heating the wort - the common extract homebrew technique is to heat the wort to get the malt extract to mix if doing a "no boil" technique (don't splash the hot wort - stir it).

A more common technique is to boil the wort and add hops for flavor bitter and aroma

During the boil, oxygen is driven out of the wort - so while it is boiling splashing won't matter.

If boiling the wort, it is desirable to cool it as quickly as you can before it goes into the fermenter. This causes the proteins in it to fall out of suspension and makes the beer clear. You are just using extract and sugar - so you don't have a lot of protein there in the first place, so that may not be so important.

Also there's partial boil and complete boil - you are using partial boil (or partial heating) the addition of cold water to volume will cool the wort.

I spray my water into the carboy with a garden hose - which aerates the water and wort, and causes a lot of foam. That foaming causes no problems that I'm aware of. I rock the carboy to mix the concentrated wort and water and my yeast starter - although the garden hose does a pretty good job of mixing. Failing to mix the wort and water will allow the (high gravity) wort to sit on the bottom of the carboy and the yeast will start working slower.

With a glass carboy I like to put about 1/4 to 1/3 of the water in first so the warm concentrated wort won't cause the glass to break. I don't know that it is necessary - I just never want to find out the hard way.

The yeast should begin fermentation in 5-12 hours. Longer may still work OK but isn't ideal.

The website

has a good, relatively complete, description of brewing.

Stick with the batch you have and only toss it when you know it is bad

- just doing one or two things in a less than ideal manner won't automatically mean the batch is ruined.

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Thanks, you've done a lot to help me sleep tongight :)

The last time I checked I watched a few bubbles go through the lock so that's a good sign (about 4hrs since I put it in now).

What I did with the wort was to sit the tin in hot tap water (supposed to make it flow out easier) while I boiled a couple of litres (2) of water. When I was done rinsing the bleach out (possibly not as thoroughly as I should have, but pretty well) I left about 2 litres of hot tap water in the bottom, added the sugar to that, mixed it in, tipped the boiling water in, then added the tin's contents and gave that a good stir. I took it downstairs imediatly and added cold water up to the 23 liter mark (about 10 of that with the hose out of the mix). Good to hear that the foam is normal.

Also, the carboy and other such things were old, the tin was bought a few hours ago and expires in 2006, so it shouldn't be dead. I didn't do anything special to help the yeast along, just tored the tinfoil pack open and tipped it in, I did read in my travels that cooper's yeast was relativly tough though.

peter

P.S. why do people emphasise rinsing the bleach, is it going to kill me or just make the beer taste bad?

On 15 Mar 2005 14:09:34 GMT, "Peter.QLD" wrote: Snip

It is unlikely it will kill you. Most people I've seen tend to use way more bleach than it takes to sanitize (so the concentration is high and requires more rinsing)

The only thing I have against bleach is that it is tenacious (will permeate and stick to some surfaces). A small amount of residual bleach is relatively easy to taste (as I discovered with my first batch many years ago) and is disagreeable in beer.

People use it all the time with good results. It is inexpensive and readily available. Handle it with care, avoid skin/eye contact, avoid too high a concentration - measure the amount you use (or do so at least once so you can guesstimate more accurately)

We used bleach to sanitize our RO system in a chemistry lab. The protocol was written to add "about" 10 milliliters of bleach to the system and turn on the pump then flush until the conductivity of the water dropped. We wasted a lot of money on filters until we found the maintenance person was interpreting "about" as "tip the gallon jug and pour several cups into the system." The protocol was changed to read "exactly" 10 ml. A chemist could estimate that amount, a maintenance person has to be told. (anywhere between 5 and about 20ml would work)

I switched to using sodium percarbonate that I buy online from chemical supply outlets - cheap, effective and relatively safe. It disassociates into hydrogen peroxide in water and releases some gaseous oxygen and CO2. One of its uses is in aquaculture (at high dilution rates) to keep fish alive in transport or when a pond is low in oxygen etc.. Also used commercially to bleach fabric.

A few bubbles in four hours is probably good. I always start/proof the yeast hours before I pitch the starter - that will usually give me vigorous fermentation in ~5 hours (foam coming out of the blow off tube)

I use whiskey or grain alcohol in the airlock on the theory that it will kill anything that tries to get into my wort. It may be a waste of money, but it makes me feel better . . . And the airlock never reverses flow since I added temperature control to the fermenters.

If you cooled the wort too slowly, the beer may be cloudy or turn cloudy when you refrigerate it (called "chill haze"). That doesn't affect the taste.

A "wet cardboard" taste is from oxidized wort. I, myself, don't munch a lot of wet cardboard . . . but do know what it smells like.

Using corn or cane (table) sugar is OK especially if you are just starting. It gives beer a slightly sour taste or "cidery" taste. Bear that in mind if you encounter that flavor. Most homebrewers will use all malt extract for sugar and just use some corn or table sugar for carbonation.

You can buy cheap beer more cheaply than you can make it; you can make "good" beer more cheaply than you can buy it.

For body (head) and color you can use crushed grains steeped in water (that later gets boiled and made into wort).

Hops flavor and aroma (sorely lacking in most commercial brews and many microbrews) is tricky to get right, but worth the effort if you continue with the hobby.

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I did just tip the bleach in, so the recomended 1/2 cup probably came out as about 2. For the last couple of hours it's been averaging a bubble every 2 seconds or so. I certainly didn't cool the wort slowly, but I may have oxidised it a bit, I'll keep an eye out for interesting flavours in a few weeks. I'm pretty confident it'll come out as something worth drinking now, those bubbles give me hope.

Also, I don't know what American pricing on cheap beer is like (I'm in Australia, and I'm making assumptions about where you are), but this will cost me about $15 for 18L ($10 tin + bits and pieces). The same amount of similar strength store bought would be about $70. So I think I can produce it more cheaply. Of course, if I worked for pay over the hours it takes to do it the figures would look somewhat different. From what I see in here there are people that consider time spent brewing to be no great hardship though.

At this point I'm not much of an expert on different beers, that was part of the attraction - making a batch of something should show me more of the differences than buying a six pack of it.

I plan to brew out of store bought tins for the first few months. It seems like something I could get interested in, so I'll probably work toward more control over the process, pick up a bit more equipment etc. as time goes by.

One last point, is there any downside to leaving it in the carboy for a few days more than it probably needs? I haven't got a hygrometer, and I will be away for the weekend around the time this will probably finish fermenting, so I plan to leave it in for a full week, just so I know it's finished and so I will have time to clean bottles and stuff about.

peter

"One last point, is there any downside to leaving it in the carboy for a few days more than it probably needs? I haven't got a hygrometer, and I will be away for the weekend around the time this will probably finish fermenting, so I plan to leave it in for a full week, just so I know it's finished and so I will have time to clean bottles and stuff about."

Hi Peter

I usually brew on Saturday then rack to the second ferment the following Saturday then bottle the Saturday after that although I have left the beer in the second ferment for 2 weeks on several occasions and I've never seen any negative results. I have heard if you leave the beer in the primary fermentor too long the yeast hulls will start to break down and give your beer off flavors but that would take quite a while.

Good Luck & enjoy brewing Griz, Colorado USA

On 15 Mar 2005 18:31:28 GMT, "Peter.QLD" wrote: Snip

Most folks do overuse chlorine bleach. In fact the 1/2 cup is probably the correct dilution for 20 liters of water if you intend to kill living things. Five drops of bleach in the same quantity of water is probably enough to make water safe to drink.

Out of curiosity, what do you pay for Fosters in the large tins? That's the only Aussie beer they have where I live. They have the bottles in supermarkets too, but I swear it isn't the same beer.

Cheap, slightly flavored water with allusions to the term "beer" on the labels, here sells for around $30/18 liters (assuming my conversions are accurate). The cheapest actual beer is more like $50/18 liters ("on sale"). It wasn't long ago that cheap American beer was less than brand name soda pop.

Hours it takes? for me that's about 4-6 a week and with a batch (~19 liters) coming off about every week.

I go about it the other way around - try to sample the commercial version of a beer then decide to try brewing it.

Nothing wrong with the store bought tins. They sell a "no boil" version of John Bull porter that I've been wanting to try. $18 for two 3.5 lb tins. (Ever since I had some Samuel Smith's "Taddy Porter" I've been on a porter jag) There's nothing quite like getting up early and putting in a couple of hours on the kayak then having a porter for breakfast.

You are getting back to ideal versus good enough again. The beer can fit around your life, as a rule. It isn't that critical. You are using relatively low sugar and an easily fermentable sugar so it should be ready in a week. I leave mine in the primary fermenter for

3-5 days (usually closer to three) then rack to a secondary and let it sit for the balance of two weeks, then bottle. A high alcohol (lots of sugar) beer might go for up to a month. There's also lager and ale

- lager takes longer at lower temperatures. "Barley Wine" and mead take awhile also.

I used to use a hygrometer. It is only really useful if you have an accurate starting gravity (hard to get with anything less than full boil brewing in my opinion) and then it is useful in telling you that fermentation is/isn't complete. If it isn't complete, what they call "stuck fermentation" you don't have that many options - pitch more yeast, raise the temperature a bit. worry about it, or just bottle it and move on. Since I always bottle it and move on . . .

My only bad batch was the first, ~14 years ago. I knew nothing about beer making and had no Internet or usenet to ask questions. Since then my worst brews are about like Fosters in a can, and I consider that pretty good beer.

You are wise to stay with cans for a time, but read up on grains and hops etc. - that's where the real artistry and reward come in.

Want something a little different? substitute some honey for the sugar, or throw 8 -16 ounces of molasses in addition to the sugar (sweetens the brew slightly, adds a nut brown color to light colored beer, and alters the flavor a bit)

I look forward to "brewing day." After the coffee pot comes off the burner, the yeast starter goes on. Once it has boiled I let it cool until the yeast can be pitched. Meanwhile the brew pot is heated to ~160F and the grains go in and the brew pot goes into an insulated "cooler" to let them steep. Pitch the yeast to the starter then fill the bottling bucket with sanitizer and wash the bottles in the bottling bucket. Drain the bottling bucket, while the carbonation sugar/water is boiling - drain through the racking hose, blow off hose and bottling hose so they get sanitized. Bottle and cap while the next batch of wort (grain bag removed) is heating, dissolve the DME add the bitter hops and boil, add flavor and/or aroma hops, cool the wort and fill the carboy that I washed while the wort was boiling. Attach the blow off tube and it is done - pet the cat.

I have an efficient system worked out. It is easy brainless work for the most part and I listen to music and drink homebrew - if that's called "work" bring it on! This is a damn fine hobby.

One other thing . . . keep the fermenter carboy away from sunlight or fluorescent light (I throw a pair of old sweat shirts over each to keep light out and heat in - but it is

Totally off topic.

I use kites to pull my kayak (wind permitting). I noticed that all four of my kites ("parafoils" and "sleds" - single line kites) pull to the right when over stressed (outside their wind range on the high side)

Now four ain't exactly what they call "a statistically significant sampling." So I posted to a kite usenet group . . . my first/only reply, so far, is that there is no Coriolis effect in kites or drains in Northern and Southern hemispheres, and they quote a site that supports this idea.

Which direction do your drain water vortexes spin in (clockwise - end away from where you are standing to the right -- or anticlockwise)?

Know anyone that flies single line kites there - in heavy wind?

Mine all pull/spin right when overloaded, but that may just be coincidence. At least for kites - there's no denying all drains here spin clockwise or at least all of them that I've ever seen.

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I haven't even tasted Fosters that I remember, it is sold here, but not overwhelmingly popular. I know our international reputation is mostly based on it though, so I might have to sample some and develop an opinion.

The standard size for cans here is 375ml (12.7oz), the same for stubbies. I don't think I've seen Australian beer in anything bigger, but I prefer glass anyway and don't go looking for cans.

I've got mine in a nice dark corner under the house (not a basement). I've put it right in close to the conrete wall, and there's earth on the other side of that, so it should be quite cool/stable in temperature there. I haven't got a termometer though, might have to get one of those ones that stick on the side for easy reference. The days have been maxing at about 30C (86F) and the nights have been down to about 20C (68F) lately.

We don't have anything really equivelent to skunks, I know of them, but I don't know what they smell like.

peter

default wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I just went and found your thread, and read the one link out of the two that actually loaded. Remarkable. He's gone and mathematically proved that it shouldn't happen, without apparently bothering to check if it does.

Now I'm confused, I generally trust these guys

on such matters. I'm going to do a bit of experimenting.

Inconclusive, I did a few different basins, but I thought it was meant to go counter clock, so I started a small clockwise swirl to make sure, then they went clockwise. But they were small basins and probably don't take long enough to drain to be able to combat an introduced swirl with the forces. I got bored of it about then :)

It'd be interesting to see someone who's taken a scientific approach to whether it happens or not rather than whether it's plausible.

Actually, now I'm not even sure what results I was meant to get. I think the moral of the story is that I need to find some lunch.

peter

Peter,

You never can be sure until the fermentation process is well underway. Just let things be for a copule of days. If your brew starts to ferment within a day & completes fermentation within

4 days you may be lucky. Wait a few days for the sediment & yeast toi settle then draw off some fluid & taste it. If its just flat beeer a bit green your home. If the flat beer has any off flavours dump the lot & better luck next time.

Pete Qld also