This is How My First Brew Day Went with Notes!!!

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Ok this was a month ago, but this is a recap of my first day brewing.

29-8-15

9.00am make up 20litres of sanitizer, 120g for 20L

add 30 litres of hot tap water temp in kettle reads 50C

Heating strike water to reach a temp of 70C, then turn off gas.

Note: all the paint off the new burner wasn't burnt off prior to starting and is giving off a bad paint smell. While heat strike water.

Turned off gas at 71.5C

9.55am grains in and stirred and insulated with pillows temp reads 67-68C

10.10am check temp and stir temp is 67C and climbing slowly.

Note: noticed dry clumps of grain, gave it another good stir, remember to stir and add grain slower next time.

10.25am stir and temp is at 66C and climbing slowly

10.40am stir and temp is at 65.3C

10.55am finish mash and temp is at 64.4C

Note; was happy with mash temps

start a sparge with 74.8C water from jug, made up a 3L plus what drained from bag another 4L

now pre-boil volume is 30L.

Start gas back up and rolling boil reached at 11.28am

11.38am 1st hops 7g of cascade

2nd 30mins to go of 75min boil 14g cascade hops

10mins to go 34g add 1 and a half teaspoons of Irish moss and wort chiller for sterilizing

0mins to go 42g cascade hops

gas off.

20L of wort after boil, start to cool with wort chiller reaching 25C then transferring to fermenter gives me 18L in fermenter then I add 5Litres of cooled boiled water to bring my total back to 23L

aerate pitch yeast and set at 19C to ferment.

Dry-hopped on Monday 21st Sep.42grams cascade hops at 1pm

Tuesday start cold crash at 8pm 31 hours after dry hop

Wednesday 6.30am see the temp is at 5.7C reset for 3.0

Thursday still at 3.0C

Friday raise temp to 18C at 7.00am, 4pm beer is at 13.1C 7.34pm at 14.3C

Saturday temp is at 18.2C at 8.00am

Hydrometer reading taken at wrong time after I added the dextrose and hydrometer didn't float at all sat on the bottom of glass trial jar. 

Bottle day...today!!

I worked out how much was usable in fermenter and made up enough dextrose to boil with 2 cups of water put hat into another fermenter and then auto syphoned into that one keeping above the trub in primary (real yucky!!!) then I attached the bottle tube wand and bottling was easy as. Till I dropped the last one and it didn't break but hands were very slippery.

made up: 38 500ml bottles. will condition for 2 weeks then try when chilled!

yeah.

Today's Brew day, felt more at ease but got distracted, I guess made a couple e of errors, whoops!

.started with 34L of strike water, noticed temps dropping even with pillows and sleeping bag

after 45min temp got down to 62C so I panicked and turned heat up too high and the exterior temp gauge read 85C then I went SHIT!! and chucked in a jug of cold water and kept lid off this probably lasted for up to 4 or 5 mins. when I used digital thermometer I got a reading of 63C when outside gauge read 80C still so I won't be rely on that gauge much again. shouldn't have turn it up too high either.

pre-boil volume is now at 30L made a note of the burner adjuster to be more accurate.

nice rolling boil at 1.19pm added the simcoe hops 16g

at 2pm added simcoe hops 23grams

60mins gas off started to chill and realised I hadn't added my flame out hops Amarillo hops 20grams so chucked them in at 50C while chilling which took up to about 20mins.

I actually hit my target OG exactly 1.052.

Bottles are tucked away in a cardboard box in spare bedroom and new brew in fridge fermenter at 19C.

Having a few Moa's right now and I'm buggered.

Cheers to everyone that helped by commenting.

Daza.

  

[Craig Howard]

Good on ya Daza.  Big day...You earned the beer after all that. Hope it turns out great.

Btw

what did this mean?? !! 

9.00am make up 20litres of sanitizer, 120g for 20L

add 30 litres of hot tap water temp in kettle reads 50C

You didnt add water to sanitising solution and brew with that.. hopefully!!!

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

na mate, the top line is just making up the sanitiser, 20 litres made from 120grams of sanitiser. and second line I added to kettle (no sanitiser added) 30 litres of hot tap water and before heating the gauge read 50C so only needed to bring it up to 70C. I hope it is good too. There is probably still trub in beer, not as much as there could have been that's for sure left so much behind. I am however considering using a secondary fermenter....does it need to be glass like a carboy or can I just use a plastic fermenter?

Cheers mate.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Hey Craig can you please tell me how different you are approaching your brew and bottling to my "processes". ?
Cheers mate

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

forgot to add that I got smack on the 23 Litres I wanted, but I did add water when temp went up so maybe should have started with a strike water of 36L?

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

I found on google that by taking a reading from my bottled beer it needs to be flat so carbonation isn't present or will get a false hydrometer reading and at 60F the only thing is my OG could have been wrong? I think it was 1.060 then I added 5 litres of water to fermenter, I should have taken another reading then. I think that brought it down to 1.047 I think so will try it when beer is reading so i can drink some and make rest of bottle go flat. Haha

[Cain Harland]

At a guess you will get a reading thats just as bad if not worse if the priming sugar is fresh so you will have to wait till its finished conditioning then let it go flat and even then the reading won't be right but between that and what your software tells you to expect you should have a pretty good idea.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

Cheers mate. I have a feeling it's going to be pretty low :-( I accidentally took the FG after I had added the dextrose and the hydrometer sank to the bottom, sitting on the bottom no floating,

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

No bubbles in airlock nearly been 24 hours???

[Cain Harland]

I wouldn't worry too much about no airlock action after just 1 day. Some yeasts (US05 is one) can be slow to start but then get go for it once they get started. Even 20 degrees I would consider a bit warm for a pale ale but that depends a bit on the yeast your using.

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

yep I'm using the US.05 one ok will drop temp back to 19C wasn't at that yet anyway. recommended temp I think is 18-20C?

[Cain Harland]

According to the manufacturers 12-25°C ideally 15-22°C so your 20c is still in the ideal range

[Darren Andrews (Daza)]

yep, the bubbles have started!! yay., second brew on it's way now.