New to brewing, just saying hi

Frog 1 · Jan 26, 2020

Hi All, my mates and I had our first brew day yesterday, we're all pretty new to brewing.

Day went great, but I just noticed that as we did 2 brews, the second one is missing an ingredient, so perhaps doing 2 on one day wasn't a great idea, hopefully it'll be okay, we tried to do a chocolate stout, it was meant to have 1kg of flaked oats in and half a kg of roasted barley, well it got 1kg of the roasted barley and no flaked oats, so lets see what happened, it also had maris otter in there and chocolate malt too, around 6kg overall for a 30 ltr batch.... probably shouldn't drink too much Vocation beer whilst brewing.

Great day, great aromas around the house (from the brew).

Anyway, nice to meet you all.

Chippy_Tea · Jan 26, 2020

Welcome to the forum :thumba:

Rodcx500z · Jan 26, 2020

Welcome, it will still be beer acheers.

Pete9586 · Jan 26, 2020

Hi Frog.

terrym · Jan 26, 2020

Frog 1 said:
.... probably shouldn't drink too much Vocation beer whilst brewing.
.

You shouldn't. Look what can happen...
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/dont-take-your-eye-off-the-boil.82773/
Otherwise welcome. athumb..

Winterbournebrewery · Jan 26, 2020

Welcome & enjoy.

Richie_asg1 · Jan 26, 2020

Welcome to the forum. In at the deep end with all grain - well done with that.

Frog 1 · Jan 26, 2020

Yes we wanted to go all grain, my wife bought me a stainless steel fermenter for christmas, so it was her fault I ended up spending a bit more money on the rest of the equipment. I'd been bugging myself to get a grainfather (because I'm a bit of a gadget nut) but didn't want to spend that much, so went for the Klarstein version instead, nice bit of kit actually. Bought a plastic fermenting bin to do another batch, which is probably as good as the stainless one to be true and less than 10% of the cost. So, a session IPA on the go and the chocolate stout, Frog 2 is a refrigeration engineer so he turned up with a fermenting fridge, (converted industrial freezer) thats round at my dads who thought he was going to see a small white under counter fridge, then he saw the behemoth that turned up and is now grumbling because its a bit loud.

Good shout on the safety story, thanks for that, I should probably know better, but we did think through the whole boiling process so were quite controlled.

I'll keep you posted if you're interested.

Cheers.

Frog 1 · Jan 27, 2020

Fridge has gone a bit haywire and heated up a little too much, stout is now moving into the bubbler ashock1

Can I remove the bubbler and give a clean?...... IPA look good tho.

Chippy_Tea · Jan 27, 2020

Moved to general beer brewing as it'll get more views there.

Frog 1 · Jan 27, 2020

Thx mate

Frog 1 · Jan 27, 2020

Quick update, cleaned the bubbler out (twice) so drained a litre or 2 out to make more room for excited beer, must be a helluva party in there.

Frog 1 · Jan 29, 2020

Okay so after the bumpy start everything seems to be going well, the IPA is behaving very nicely, bubbling away steadily. The stout on the other hand has been up and down like a yoyo, but its now practically stopped bubbling but I think it's still active. Gravity has gone from 1.058 to 1.028 in 3 days so I'm going to leave it alone for a few days before I take another reading.

IPA has had similar performance, 1.060 to 1.024, but much more steady.

Uploaded a video of what the bubbler was doing and a few other pics.

Correction, I cant upload the vid, MP4 not allowed.

Hazelwood Brewery · Jan 29, 2020

We all suffer the occasional blow-off so don’t fret about that (sorry vicar). It normally only lasts a day or two at the height of the fermentation. You can just clean up the airlock and replace it or fit a blow-off tube - google “brewing blow off” for examples and videos.

Good luck!

Frog 1 · Jan 29, 2020

Thanks mate, it's all clean now with fresh water and slowed right down so leaving it alone, although I want a glass or 6 now, but I'll be patient.

One other question, is it unwise to taste the brew when sampling whilst it's fermenting or is that fine?

terrym · Jan 29, 2020

Frog 1 said:
One other question, is it unwise to taste the brew when sampling whilst it's fermenting or is that fine?

It's fine if you want to. What could be bad about it? Except it is unlikely to be representative of what you finally get to drink.
And if you get krausen coming through the airlock its usually because the fermentation temperature is set too high and/or there is too much in the FV.

Hazelwood Brewery · Jan 29, 2020

I remember my first brew and wanting to “test” it daily, still do when I’m excited about a new recipe. It’s absolutely safe for you to drink (unless you have a yeast allergy!) but as advised by terrym it’s not going to give you a real beer taste yet. Also, though it’s never happened to me yet there is a small risk of getting something in the beer you don’t want.

Buy a few beers to keep you ticking over until your own brew is ready, you’ll enjoy it so much more then.

Frog 1 · Jan 29, 2020

To be fair, I do have a raft of Vocation beers left over from brew day, but the missus is making me be good on school nights asad1

Hazelwood Brewery · Jan 29, 2020

Frog 1 said:
To be fair, I do have a raft of Vocation beers left over from brew day, but the missus is making me be good on school nights

Rodcx500z · Jan 29, 2020

Making you be good, your setting yourself up here clapa

New to brewing, just saying hi

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