RETIRED: briang's OFFICIAL BYO (brew your own) thread! let's talk beer!

Right about now I have no idea. I thought I had done everything right up until about 5 minutes ago. (well except for the whole grommet thing. Now, who knows :shrug:



Would that be something that an instruction sheet would normal ask you check. I do remember something about taking your OG and your FG and multipling it by 131 to get your ABV.

usually they wouldn't use brix in beginner kits... and i just use an online calculator for my abv

I guess I'm just going to have to wait 12 hours till I get home tonight and read the instructions again. Man I hate reading instructions!!! I'm going to be thinking about it all day now.

are you using a triple scale hydrometer? if so, they typically have gravity, balling (brix, roughly), and alcohol %. you can ignore that alcohol % one... it's worthless. i go on gravity. my refractometer uses brix.

are you using a triple scale hydrometer? if so, they typically have gravity, balling (brix, roughly), and alcohol %. you can ignore that alcohol % one... it's worthless. i go on gravity. my refractometer uses brix.

I created a spreadsheet and added formulas to it (hence the name XL Jockey) to keep track of my beer numbers. That way I can enter some numbers real quick and be done with it. Then I'll add some basic notes as to when I brew and bottle and some other things such as the recipe and temps taken and any other notes like "accidentally submerged entire hand into fermentation bucket". What's nice is that my wife printed it out and took it to my LHBS and asked them to create a recipe kit for me for Christmas. It was probably embarrasing though, they probably think I'm a brewing idiot. But I'm learning!

I created a spreadsheet and added formulas to it (hence the name XL Jockey) to keep track of my beer numbers. That way I can enter some numbers real quick and be done with it. Then I'll add some basic notes as to when I brew and bottle and some other things such as the recipe and temps taken and any other notes like "accidentally submerged entire hand into fermentation bucket". What's nice is that my wife printed it out and took it to my LHBS and asked them to create a recipe kit for me for Christmas. It was probably embarrasing though, they probably think I'm a brewing idiot. But I'm learning!

It's pretty cool that your wife would do that for you. My wife came in yesterday and was like, it smells in here. I did take the grains afterwards and made dog treats. They seemed to have turned out pretty good.

just make sure they don't eat the hops

Hmm, not too bad considering it comes with a kegorator conversion kit:
http://philadelphia.craigslist.or...30037.html

if its in the beer...i wouldn't touch it....fishing it out could possibly add more bacteria...thats why i sanitize everything... i wouldn't worry too much if its not sealed super tight... bacteria shouldn't enter as the beer is fermenting and blowing off air, and O2 won't touch it because the co2 will create a safetly blanket over the beer..

two for 10 dolla!

I created a spreadsheet and added formulas to it (hence the name XL Jockey) to keep track of my beer numbers. That way I can enter some numbers real quick and be done with it. Then I'll add some basic notes as to when I brew and bottle and some other things such as the recipe and temps taken and any other notes like "accidentally submerged entire hand into fermentation bucket". What's nice is that my wife printed it out and took it to my LHBS and asked them to create a recipe kit for me for Christmas. It was probably embarrasing though, they probably think I'm a brewing idiot. But I'm learning!

Ok did my first extract tonight, 5 hours from start to finish with clean up.

Did a ton-o-things wrong

Calibrated new thermometer to 32

I started to fill my grain bag over the pot and some grain felt in, not allot but enough to turn the water brown before the official steeping.

Went inside to boil some water for yeast pitch. Recalibrated thermometer to 212F. When outside to check temps, says its 230F its suppose to be 160F. Water is not boiling however.

Go inside again rererecalibrate back to 32F, check out water temp 190F. Turn off heat.

wait....

Wait for water to cool down, at about 165 I start the official steeping. Steeping for 30 minutes between 165 and 155, with no heat.

Add extract and DMEs, and drop in extract bottle. Fish out with tongs. Realize I left the steeping bag in the pot too. Get DME on sides of pot etc. Bring up to boil, add hops. Start reading book on how to brew. Look up, yikes near boil over. I watch it for a while and wham it notices me and starts to rise 3 inches in 3 seconds. Turn off heat and two drips get out. Turn on heat and watch boils slowly go away.

Finally three minutes add hops to hops bag. Hops make it into bag, bottom of pot, and garage floor.

It took about 45 minutes to chill 4.25 gallons down 82F. Adding 55 degree water brought it down to 73F, aerated and pitched. Ice lasted all of three minutes with salt.

Starting gravity was 1.062 for a porter..

any predictions on this?

2 6gal carboys $15 each or both for $25
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/cs...69632.html

If you don't have enough, pick these up Matt. They're in your neck of the woods.

btw the airlock on my current brew officially stopped bubbling this morning. brewed sunday night, bubbling stops thursday morning. that sound normal to you guys?

good deal but i have plenty of those but i don't think i have heard of allied gardens/grantsville....maybe posted in the wrong city

yeah, sounds normal...