• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

New to Brewing New to Site

wolf74

Apprentice
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
3
Reaction score
0
I have always been interested in home brewing, but recently I have gotten real serious about it and started studying how to brew.  Over the past six months I have read books, magazines, forums and watched many videos on how to brew. 

Starting with extract brewing was not appealing to me so I went straight to All Grain and just brewed my first batch last weekend, everything went well and I hit a post boil OG of 1.053 (target was 1.055) and now have it bubbling away in the primary fermenter... now I am already planning my next brew.

Looking forward to chatting with some more people who enjoy the home brew experience and definitely want to learn more about this art.
 
Congratulations!  Hitting your post boil OG on the first attempt at all grain brewing is quite an accomplishment.  What is your recipe and what temperature are you fermenting at?
 
The recipe came from BeerSmith http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/1449/rapture-red-ale,  I had to modify to fit in to a 5 gallon batch and used WLP001 yeast because the local brew supply store did not have the WLP090 in stock.  I did a yeast starter so had a rapid start and found out that next time I should look at using a blow off tube... a bit messy. lol

The ferment is holding at 68 in my basement, the temperature is always constant there.

 
If the ambient temperature in your basement is at 68F, then the beer is probably fermenting at about 74-75F.  This will produce some off flavors.  The next time, keep the fermenter cool by putting it in a tub with about six inches of water in it.  Then wrap a towel or shirt around the fermenter, with the bottom hanging in the water.  You should get the cloth wet first.  Then put a fan blowing on it.  The fan will cause the water to evaporate quickly from the towel, but the towel will stay damp as it wicks more water up from the tub.  This will cool your fermenter by about 4-6F cooler than ambient.

With WLP001, I like to keep the beer fermenting at about 65-67F, to get the best flavor profile.  I do let it free rise up in temperature after about 80%+ of the fermentation has been completely, to let the yeast clean up after themselves.

Keeping it cooler will also slow down that initial fermentation a little bit, so that it doesn't blow off quite as badly.
 
Back
Top