[spaz]

Hi... well, I finally did it... dug out the 10-year old home brewing kit a friend game me for a birthday while i was still young and headed down to the home brewing store to pick up some supplies and additional tools.

I started the brewing process this past sunday, an ale. it was based on a recipe at the store. used pale malt extract and a little sugar; 4 types of malts (caravienne, carafoam, aromatic, biscuit) that i steeped separately; and saaz hops pellets. i used a wyeast belgian ardens smack pack.

so it all started off pretty well.. i filled up both my plastic buckets with water and iodophor and soaked everything for a couple hours.

somehow i misunderstood the instructions about yeast and only took it out of the fridge on sunday evening. i think now it should have been out a couple days. anyway, i smacked it and waited... not much happened, and then i noticed on the package that it said it could be used without it having expanded, so i assumed that would be fine.

my wort started boiling at around midnight sunday night / monday morning. added everything to recipe and removed from heat after about 70min, put in sink and ran cold water around the pot for about a half hour.

i emptied my primary fermenter and filled it with 2 gallons of room temp water (about 70degress) and then strained the wort into that, then filled up to 5 gallons with more water. the temp of the wort was not hot so i went ahead and opened the yeast pack and poured it in.... then spent the next 2 hours washing dishes and the kitchen... :-)

i woke the next morning to no bubble in my fermenter. im pretty sure it is air tight because even placing a very light electronic thermometer on top of it causes the fermentation lock liquid level to move a bit from drum-like movement of the plastic top.
i waited all day... sometimes kneeling in front of the fermenter, as if i were praying... nothing.

this (tuesday) morning i woke up and there were bubbles but only at the rate of about 1 per second or so. that went on pretty much all day until about 4 or 5 pm when it stopped. though if i move it around it emits a a bubble a second for a while (sometimes a minute or so, sometimes longer) then stops again. almost as if its stopped up, but the lock is clean and what little i can see through the side doesnt appear to be all foamy or anything.

i obvoiusly dont know what it did overnight or how vigorously.

first off, it appears based on others' descriptions that fermentation is a vigorous process and i should be seeing more than a bubble a second. Is it possible it did a whole bunch of bubbling overnight and then slowed by the time i woke up (i was asleep for less than 8 hours).
I also dont think it has stopped completely since it continues for a bit when i move the container around.
i held a flashlight up against the backside of it and there appears to be about a 2 inch layer of lighter color liquid (foam?) on top of the beer but it is still about 4 inches from the top of the bucket.

The temperature has been a little of a problem... I'm in southern california and summer decided to return for 2 days. its been almost 90, but I have been able to keep it in cool areas of my house where the temp only went up to about 78.

Tonight (tues) at midnight it will have been 48 hours with nothing more than this bubble per second rate, and that only for about 10 hours.

Obviously I am most worried about what happens if I try to let it continue? Am I reducing quality by it not having started fermenting for at least 24 and maybe more hours? Does the fact that its been sitting mean that too much has settled to the bottom and the yeast wont be able to react efficiently enough even if I do let it continue? When I strained it, it seemed to aerate well (foamed up a bit) so there should have been enough oxygen in there.

Is there a way to tell that a beer is ruined before you start bottling? the bottling process (including storage) seems to be the hardest part of all this and something i'd rather avoid if the beer is dead already anyway.

anyway, thats my first time story... any answers/comments/suggestions are greatly appreciated.

thanks!

Mike

[BierNewbie]

Be paitent, let it continue. It will be beer. If you do not build a starter a few days in advance, you should expect 12-48 hours before the ferment really takes off. In the meantime, do some reading at Palmer's How to Brew website. It is the best startup tutorial you will find on the net.
Welcome to an addicting hobby.

[wild]

What you're experiencing is pretty much what everyone else experiences. RDWHAHB
Actually the hardest part of the process is patience.

Welcome to the obsession.
Wild

[spaz]

ok, a bit of an update...

later tuesday night (when i wrote the original post) the few bubbles that existed stopped altogether. then somewhere around noon on wednesday they started again, but this time maybe 1 only every 2 or 3 seconds. this went on until early this morning (thursday). now its just resting quietly. but basically there was never any vigorous bubbling.

earlier this evening what little patience i had left deserted me and i pulled the fermentation lock off to peek inside the little hole. interestingly enough there was a thick layer of bubbly foam on top of the beer, so something is going on...or went on. it smells really good too... i guess a lot like yeast probably, but i like yeast and love hefeweizen.

anyway, i guess what i will need to do is start taking gravity measurements pretty soon so i can know whether something is actually happening. is there a way to tell from the current measurements whether full fermentation happened? or can you just tell when it stops? luckily i have this side valve thing on the fermenter so its easy for me to take samples out for testing without having to expose the beer to any (much) air.

also, i noticed in some other posts that people actually let air in when things seemed to be stuck... is this recommended? is there a way to know when that is necessary?

one last question: when people say to store it in a dark place, how dark do they mean? does it just mean out of direct sunlight? or does it literally mean in a closet with the door closed? does all light cause problems? e.g. including a flashlight? does this taint the beer or just stunt yeast growth?

...patience and excitement are battling...

Mike

[spaz]

ok, one more update. i drew a sample and measured specific gravity, adjusting for temperature it is 1.016 (1.0158). according to the recipe doc the beginning gravity should have been 1.046, which would of course mean a lot of fermenting went on, right?
i also took a sip of my sample... it tasted pretty yeasty (obviously) and had a kind of very slight acidic bite (could that be very slight carbonation?). it wasnt strong a strong bite, just kind of unpolished. it is also rather light, surprisingly.. but i guess i used pale extract so thats probably why. i just called my homebrew shop to see whether they knew what the final specific gravity would be. he suggested i move it to the second fermenter if its already that low (even before checking more to see whether its actually stopped; kind of surprising..?). man, this is exciting! :-)

hope people dont mind me putting a bunch of updates here... i need to share... :-)

Prosit!

Mike

[BierNewbie]

Patience will give you better beer. Yeah your primary seems over. Move to secondary now and from here on, oxygen is a bad thing. Try not to aerate when moving. Don't let it splash. My SOP is to primary for a week then secondary for 2 weeks then check the gravity. A week later check the gravity again. If it's the same it's ready to bottle. If it has dropped some more then check again in a week and if it's the same as the last week then it's ready to bottle and so on. When you go to bottle, be sure to measure the sugar by weight instead of volume. A 5 gallon batch gets about 5 ounces. Add this when you siphon out of secondary into a clean bucket using just the siphon to mix it. Again oxygen/aeration is not good. Get it in the bottles leaving just about an inch of space above the cap. Get the caps crimped on and again you need patience as this can take 2-4 weeks to carbonate and bottle condition. It's all a lesson in delayed gratification.

[spaz]

Ok, so I decided to rack to the secondary and this was a bit more of a trying experience. i guess live and learn they always say... so while i was complaining of no bubble during fermenting, i got some during racking. not many, but the tube i stuck in the secondary kept curling upwards and not staying under the top of the liquid so it splayed out a bit against the side. in addition, tiny bubbles seemed to build up in the tube. not too many, but by the time i was through 5 gallons there was a little group of bubbles churning at the top of the tube. is this normal or am i just a failure at racking. note, if i do this again i will buy different equipement. the racking tube is not as long as my bucket, and since i did it through the lock hole, i was having a hard time keeping it pressed to let liquid through. also, it seems it would be better to have a solid tube on the secondary side as well. this would make it easier to keep against the bottom / under the liquid.
two more quick questions for people...
all my beer only filled up the 5 gal carboy to just into the curved part meaning there is a good 4 inches or so of space up to the stopper. granted most of it is angled so its less volume than the bucket, but on that other how to brew site i know he mentioned that one reason for using a 5gal secondary was that you can reduce that air volume. what should the level normally be in the secondary?

also, i almost broke all my fingers trying to get the lid off my plastic bucket... is that normal? is there a trick to it? i guess its great in that i know its sealing, but the wrestling match i had with it was almost enough to convince me to go to a glass primary..

thanks,

Mike

[spaz]

Hi, I have another question but since its about this batch i'll include it in this thread instead of starting a new one. so i am now at 3 weeks since i started. 1 week in the primary and now 2 weeks in the secondary. as i mentioned it was already at 1.016 on the 5th, i took another today and it is 1.0147. i will test again tomorrow... i havent seen a bubble in the lock in a long time. anyway, my questions are about clarity. when i racked from 1st to 2nd it seems i sucked some of the yeast base into the secondary. obviously there is some yeast suspended in the beer anyway, but even after a couple weeks although there is about 3/4" of sediment on the bottom of my secondary, the beer itself is still not clear. i poured a half liter in a tall, clear glass and i cant see through the beer. it looks about the consistency of hefe weizen. is that meaningful? it is still at fermentation temperature.
my other question is about taste. will the taste change at all during the bottle conditioning? i thought that process was more about carbonation than anything else. i tasted it and although it has some complex flavors after a few seconds in your mouth, the initial taste is very light, almost like a lack of beer aroma. im assuming the carbonation will have some affect on how its taste is perceived as well though.

thanks,

MIke

[hevimees]

Originally Posted by spaz

Hi, I have another question but since its about this batch i'll include it in this thread instead of starting a new one. so i am now at 3 weeks since i started. 1 week in the primary and now 2 weeks in the secondary. as i mentioned it was already at 1.016 on the 5th, i took another today and it is 1.0147. i will test again tomorrow... i havent seen a bubble in the lock in a long time. anyway, my questions are about clarity. when i racked from 1st to 2nd it seems i sucked some of the yeast base into the secondary. obviously there is some yeast suspended in the beer anyway, but even after a couple weeks although there is about 3/4" of sediment on the bottom of my secondary, the beer itself is still not clear. i poured a half liter in a tall, clear glass and i cant see through the beer. it looks about the consistency of hefe weizen. is that meaningful? it is still at fermentation temperature.
my other question is about taste. will the taste change at all during the bottle conditioning? i thought that process was more about carbonation than anything else. i tasted it and although it has some complex flavors after a few seconds in your mouth, the initial taste is very light, almost like a lack of beer aroma. im assuming the carbonation will have some affect on how its taste is perceived as well though.

thanks,

MIke

Don't worry about clarity, you beer should clear up once it has carbonated in bottle. The type of the yeast affects the time it takes for your beer to clear up as well.

The taste will change during bottle conditioning, and the carbonation naturally changes the taste as well. Just wait and see... or taste