First Homebrew.

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Mon May 16, 2011 2:48 pm

So I finished my first brew earlier today, everything seems to have gone well the wort tasted pretty good after the boil.

Boiled in 6.3 gallons of water, I think I ended with less than 5 gallons.
The OG seemed to be a little on the high side after the boil, I ended up at 1.058, maybe because of the liquid lost?
The wort finished up pretty clear going into the carboy, it's been downstairs for a couple of hours now, a few bubbles moving through the air lock.
Only 21 days till bottling.

Used
3.3 lbs light dme
2.2 lbs amber dme
1.1 lbs of crystal 60 steeped for 30 minutes in 2 gallons of water at 160F

1 oz Galena at 60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade at 30 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade at 15 minutes
0.5 oz Cascase at 0 minutes

Pitched 2 packs of Safale US 105

Can't wait to see if it works out.

phirleh · Post by **phirleh** » Mon May 16, 2011 3:40 pm

codfishh wrote:So I finished my first brew earlier today, everything seems to have gone well the wort tasted pretty good after the boil.
Boiled in 6.3 gallons of water, I think I ended with less than 5 gallons.
The OG seemed to be a little on the high side after the boil, I ended up at 1.058, maybe because of the liquid lost?
The wort finished up pretty clear going into the carboy, it's been downstairs for a couple of hours now, a few bubbles moving through the air lock.
Only 21 days till bottling.

Used
3.3 lbs light dme
2.2 lbs amber dme
1.1 lbs of crystal 60 steeped for 30 minutes in 2 gallons of water at 160F

1 oz Galena at 60 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade at 30 minutes
0.5 oz Cascade at 15 minutes
0.5 oz Cascase at 0 minutes

Pitched 2 packs of Safale US 105

Can't wait to see if it works out.

Congrats, based on your grain and extract, it looks like the OG should have been 1.052, so it's not far off. You probably could let it ferment for 7-10 days, or wait until the gravity is at 1.015 and then prime and bottle. Give it a week in the bottle (I sometimes crack one after 3 or 4 days in the bottle, purely for evaluation purposes)

You may need to be brewing again in 21 days

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Mon May 16, 2011 3:56 pm

Lol yeah, that's the dilemma, do I wait and see how this turns out so I can maybe adjust somethings or possibly brew two batches with the same problems.

I'll probably end up with a second batch down either way.

Pretty excited to try this first batch though.

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Mon May 16, 2011 4:03 pm

Congrats, you made beer!!!

Take a gravity reading first, but you can probably just bottle it after 14 days, and can probably chill down a bottle and check the carb level after 7 days in the bottle, though I always found my bottle conditioned beers didn't taste quite right until 3 weeks in the bottle (2 weeks at room temp, 1 week in the fridge).

Best suggestion I can offer at this point is to only use the lightest DME you can get, and rely on specialty grains for added colour/flavour. With stuff like amber DME, it is hard to know what exactly it contains, and fermentability is often a concern.

Now that you know your boil off rate, adjust accordingly to hit your target volume/gravity.

Get another batch going ASAP!!!

J343MY · Post by **J343MY** » Sat May 21, 2011 3:24 pm

two packs of US-05 is a bit excessive for your OG. check out the Mr. Malty Pitching rate calculator. http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Sat May 21, 2011 10:03 pm

Thanks, I will. I was loosely using the Cinncinnati Pale Ale recipe in John Palmer's How to Brew book.

Hopefully there's no ill effects from the extra yeast. It's looking like the primary fermentation is pretty much done, the beer is starting to clear and the yeast is starting to settle at the bottom. I haven't decided whether to rack to a secondary yet, if I do I'll get a FG reading as well.

Has anyone had any issues with US 105 not clearing very well? I've had a few people tell me that it takes a long time.

icemachine · Post by **icemachine** » Sat May 21, 2011 10:47 pm

It's a midrange floculant yeast. US-04 clears much better, but if you want that American yeast character you need to live with the clarity level or use some gelatin

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Sat May 21, 2011 11:16 pm

codfishh wrote:Has anyone had any issues with US 105 not clearing very well? I've had a few people tell me that it takes a long time.

Yes, it is slow to clear. No big deal. Cold conditioning helps.

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Sun May 22, 2011 8:19 pm

Just checked my gravity after 7 days, it's gone from 1.058 to 1.020, it fermented pretty vigorously the first couple of days and sent stuff up into the airlock. Is this a stuck fermentation, or am I just being impatient?

J343MY · Post by **J343MY** » Sun May 22, 2011 8:44 pm

US-05 always takes longer than a week for me. Give it another week and then check again.

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Mon May 23, 2011 9:01 am

J343MY wrote:US-05 always takes longer than a week for me. Give it another week and then check again.

Really? I pretty much exclusively use US-05 and it is always done after a week unless I'm doing something different (fermenting really cold, or fermenting a really high gravity beer).

Codfishh, is there still krausen (thick foam) on top of the beer or has it cleared?

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Mon May 23, 2011 7:07 pm

There had been, I can't really see now cause there's a bunch of stuff stuck to the sides. It's a 6 gallon carboy with 4.5 gallons, the krausen hit the top of the carboy in the first couple of days, it looks like it's settling out now.
It's still bubbling once every couple of minutes.

Its in my basement, we haven't had the ac on I think it's around 18 - 20 degrees down there. With the yeast going up into the air lock I figured it was probably warm enough.

Hopefully it's just paranoia on my part.

markaberrant · Post by **markaberrant** » Tue May 24, 2011 8:39 am

With all of that crystal and amber dme, I wouldn't be surprised if your beer has finished fermenting at 1.020. Likely too many unferementables to get down much more than that. US-05 is a beast of a yeast, it is highly attenuative, so 2-packs should rip through the fermentable sugars in no time. I typically get 80% attenuation with US-05 on my all-grain beers.

Another thing to check is if your hydrometer is accurate. Most are calibrated to 60F, so 60F water should read 1.000. Mine reads 60F water as 1.004, so I adjust accordingly.

J343MY · Post by **J343MY** » Tue May 24, 2011 12:52 pm

Really? I pretty much exclusively use US-05 and it is always done after a week unless I'm doing something different (fermenting really cold, or fermenting a really high gravity beer).

Well, the lowest gravity beer I have ever done with it was 1.078 and I ferment at about 60F ambient. I always get a really gentle and slow fermentation with it though, compared to any other yeast I have used.

codfishh · Post by **codfishh** » Tue May 24, 2011 8:27 pm

I just did a quick check of my hydrometer, i used 60F tap water not sure how accurate it will be or if I should have used distilled.

Either way the hydrometer reading was 1.004, so if this can be trusted it puts my OG at 1.054 and my last reading at 1.016, which is a 70.5% attenuation and is pretty close to what I was going for.

I also checked the time between bubbles in the airlock and it seems to be bubbling on avg of once every 90 secs or so.

All in all I guess it's doing what it's supposed to be doing and it was a bit of a false alarm.

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