Fermentation advice, first brew

General Homebrew Discussion
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Hey all,

So, did my first all grain brew over the weekend, 3 gal, BIAB. I’ve helped a few friends with some extract brews, and decided I’d just go “all in” and give BIAB a try. Overall, process went fairly well, although I do have a fermentation question.

I had a carboy soaking in a bleach solution for a few days to get some excess gunk off. It wasn’t all that much so I figured I’d be good come brew day. Long story short, it wasn’t. I had the day off, my wife was working so I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, so I decided to march onward. The guy at the local supply shop suggested a bucket, with no airlock, and told me to just leave it in there until bottling. That doesn’t sound quite right to me. To further complicate things, my graduated cylinder was too small to get a gravity reading with my hydrometer.

So, here are my questions.

(1) Is it actually OK to leave my beer in a vessel with no airlock in place?

(2)For simplicity’s sake I wasn’t planning on using a secondary fermenter. If I need to move the beer to something with an airlock, when should I do this? Keeping in mind, I wasn’t able to measure the gravity before hand. Do I follow my ears? I can hear some action in there, so I transfer when it stops?

(3) Did you try to brew rose beer? I offer (deleted) and sometimes a few flowers remain and i think to prepair beer with flowers.

Thanks for helping out a newbie! It only gets better from here.

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  1. That will probably work fine.  As long as the CO2 can get out you shouldn’t have any problems.  The only thing I would do is cover the airlock hole with cheese cloth or a piece of foil to keep any critters out.  As long as the CO2 can escape you should be good.

  2. Don’t bother with a secondary.  The less you transfer the wort the fewer oxygen issues you’ll have.

As far as knowing when it’s done?  Without any idea of what you actually brewed it isn’t possible make any guesses that are worth anything.  If I assume you made a ale with top fermenting yeast I would let it go for a 7-10 days.  Then open the bucket, gently, and see if the krausen has fallen into the beer.  Then give it a few more days for good measure and bottle.

If you can get a new sample cylinder in that time, take a reading and see where you’re at.  If you are close to your estimated FG (a couple .001s either way) you can bottle.  I’d hate to even think about how many hydrometers I’ve broken.

Paul

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I deleted the “Flowers” link because 1) It is advertising as 2) very suspicious first post