First ever Brewday! (Cincinnati Pale Ale)

[escollay]

Finally took the plunge and did my first ever brew day yesterday. Decided to make the Cincinnati Pale Ale recipe from the How To Brew book by John Palmer. So I assembled all my ingredients and got my brew on! Followed the instructions and everything went without a hitch, apart from having an OG of 1.035 instead of 1.040. As its quite cold at the moment I took some advice and used a builders bucket with water and an aquarium heater to maintain to store my FV in.

As of tonight (approx 30 hours) I have no airlock activity but a good thick layer of krausen, which after plenty of googling, it seems is still a sign of fermentation. I think I may have made a mistake with my airlock, I cut a hole in the lid of my container and forced a bung and airlock into it. I also backed it up, by sealing around the edges with duct tape. I have read that the no airlock activity/signs of krausen is probably due to an air leak. I'll keep a (beady) eye over it, but for now some photos...

My ingredients

Weighing the hops (felt like a drug lord here!)

Storage

 

[pittsy]

well done , i wouldn't worry about bubbles in airlock , i don't even use em . The nice thick foam is all you want and you have it , now leave it well alone (no peaking) for at least 10 days . :thumb:

 

[escollay]

Ok so lack of airlock activity has given me first time brewer paranoia! So after many hours googling and reading, the only way to properly tell if fermentation is happening is to have a gravity check. So I cracked open my bucket, got a lovely ale-y whiff, and with a (sterilised) spoon I took a sample. I got a gravity reading of 1.010, so something is happening! I had a taste of the sample, and it is not nice at all, it tastes very very sour/bitter. I hope at this stage that the taste doesn't resemble anything like the final taste.

Here are a couple of pictures, can anyone set my first-time-brewer-paranoia at ease and tell me if this looks anyway normal...

Looks like a nice sediment at the bottom, and I could see the yeast (I presume) moving up & down

Krausen seems to have gone, leaving the hops behind.

 

[mmaguy41]

Looks normal enough to me, dont worry too much about the taste right now, unless it tastes like vinegar then it will be fine in time after the flavours balance out.

 

[RobWalker]

yep looks good. you dont need to worry about your beer not being airtight. many people ferment with just a loose lid, breweries ferment with no lid at all! it's only important for long term storage (over 14 days.)

there's a few hops in there! it's not a disaster but pouring through a mesh bag will sort that next time - otherwise they can block the syphon or worse, find their way into your finished beer and float about. i still have a bottle of bathams clone i havn't had the guts to drink becuase there's hop seeds in there. :lol:

 

[escollay]

Thank you for the replies (and the peace of mind!)

The recipe I used said it wasnt necessary to remove the hops, but I think next time I definitely will. Do you think I should remove what I can now?

 

[GaryG]

Thank you for the replies (and the peace of mind!)

The recipe I used said it wasnt necessary to remove the hops, but I think next time I definitely will. Do you think I should remove what I can now?

I'd leave them in till its time to bottle/keg/or move to 2nd FV. I use the coopers fermentation vessel and it has no airlock. It actually comes in three parts. The bucket, a krausen collar and a lid. The krausen collar is great. You remove it after the krausen has died down. This lets you remove it for cleaning instead of sitting there getting cacked in all week.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


Gary.

 

[RobWalker]

Thank you for the replies (and the peace of mind!)

The recipe I used said it wasnt necessary to remove the hops, but I think next time I definitely will. Do you think I should remove what I can now?

you could give it a quick skim with a sanitized seive right just before you transfer from the fv, but it's not much of a bother at that quantity. either that, or pass it through a sanitized grain bag/muslin bag/pair of tights etc when transferring...

 

[GaryG]

I used a boiled sock to strain out for my ginger beer :thumb:



Gary.