My precious “Brewery in a Box” came today from Northern, and to say I’m excited is an understatement! I have a couple other details I’m wrestling with while I wait for my kettle and burner.
I have 2 glass carboys so I can do secondary. Is this necessary for my first batch? I’d like to do only primary simply so I can get started with a second batch (using my other fermentor) quicker. From what I’ve read, the wheat beer I’m brewing (low ABV, not a clear beer) it isn’t really a necessity.
Since I don’t have an immersion cooler at this point (will be using a swamp cooler or deep sink) to cool the wort, can I get by with only boiling the 2.5 gallons (per the instructions) and topping off the other 3.5 with distilled or purified? I know a full boil is preferred, but considering I don’t have the best method to chill wort yet, the less the better.
Finally, doesn’t anyone just drink the yeast ring? Why all of the avoidance to this?
Yeah, 2.5 gallon boil is fine. You can even use store bought ice to ‘top off’ although that is easier with a bucket then a carboy.
Secondary is not needed, not only because it’s your first batch but because, with exception of a few specialized situations) it’s just not needed. search around on here and you will see lot’s of discussion on that topic.
+1 million on starting your second batch sooner rather than later. you will run out of your first batch faster than you can imagine.
I wouldn’t worry about doing a secondary ever unless your are doing something which needs to age for a long time. A lot of people dry hop, add fruit, etc in the primary after fermentation is completed.
I used to do 3 gallon boils for extract. Your hop utilization will be affected by a partial boil. Make sure your recipe calculator accounts for this.
Are you referring to the settled yeast in the bottle? Definitely doesn’t hurt to drink it (especially for an unfiltered wheat beer or something similar). My main reason for pouring in a glass is to leave as much of the yeast behind so that clarity and appearance are more appealing.
Two carboys means you can brew double! You’ll be able to fill them with that fancy new kettle arriving any day now…
A secondary “fermentation” is just that. Like adding fruit or more sugar- usually done in another vessel. An accepted brewing technique. Conversely, the practice demonstrated by older instructional books and recipes known as “secondary” has fallen out of favor and is no longer recommended by experienced brewers. Do a couple weeks in “primary” and then rack to bottles and condition for 2-4 weeks.
The implied purpose of this secondary vessel is to get the beer off the yeast; it will further clear by the suspended yeast dropping out and to finish fermentation by conditioning. Also, this would be an opportune time to dry-hop.
In addition to the responses so far, in your second question you ask about a concentrated boil and topping off with distilled or purified water. Keep in mind that your brewing water should be sanitary, but not distilled. To keep things as simple as possible, you could buy 3 one gallon bottles of spring water at the grocery store and leave them unopened in the fridge until you have chilled the boiled wort to ~100F in an ice bath. Combining that wort with the 3g of ~35F water from the fridge should get you to the point where you are ready to aerate the batch.
A couple other random thoughts:
The 5 gallon carboy will be a little small as a primary for your second 5g batch. You might want to consider using the bottling bucket for primary fermentation of your first batch because it makes aeration a lot easier and you won’t need a blowoff tube. You can also avoid racking altogether with it. Then you can put your second batch in the 6g carboy.
It looks like you’ve done a lot of reading and already know a fair amount about brewing, so on your first batch, do your best, keep good notes, and don’t be afraid to just wing it. You’ll learn a whole lot on your first batch, so you can tweak your system as needed once you’ve gone through it.
The only thing I would add to all the above good advice is this: Please put your top off water in the carboy first, not boiling hot wort. If you chill first, then don’t worry. But if you plan to chill in the carboy, pour your chilled top-off water in first.
With straight extract distilled, purified or reverse-osmosis as a source for water is perfectly fine. When you start mashing grain or even steeping you want some minerals in the water.
Regardless, one should remove the chlorine from their water first.
1- Most of us I think it would be safe to say unless we are dry hopping or adding fruit or it’s a barleywine or lambic that needs a long age period secondary is not really a concern. I personally hardly ever use a secondary except for my previously mentioned beers. there is actually a benefit of leaving the beer for longer times on the yeast cake as it gives the yeasties a bit more time to clean up after themselves. The benefit though to a secondary though is you will possibly end up with a clearer final product as well as reducing the so called fabled autolysis of the yeast.
2- sure you can do a 2.5 gallon boil and then top off with filtered or boiled and cooled water I would not use distilled water though as the mineral content in spring water is beneficial to the flavor and the yeast health. Just a FYI don’t ever use reverse osmosis water though as it can kill the yeast as the osmotic pressure of RO water is higher than the cell wall of the yeast.
3- Drink the yeast if you like but just a warning you may get a tummy ache as well as a case of the mega farts.
Happy brewing and I hope this was some what of a help !!! welcome to the addiction.
+1000000 to this I learned this the hard way when I first started brewing… it’s no fun cleaning the wort off the floor and picking the exploded YES exploded glass out of every corner of the kitchen. Not to mention the loss of all your hard work.
Speed cooling by giving the wort a gentle stir every few minutes. This will keep temperature gradients from forming against the kettle walls and really speed the process. You can also put your top off water in the fridge to get it as cold as possible. Cool the concentrated wort in an ice bath, then add cold top off water.
Don’t listen to instructions that say “Pitch at 75F” Getting it down to 65F will give you cleaner tasting beer.
Nothing wrong with using distilled water for extract brews. The extract has all the salts of the original wort, and they generally use a modestly hard water in their process.
Are you sure about this? RO water is simply water that has been purified by being forced through a semi permeable barrier. Distilled water has less minerals than RO as it was evaporated and recondensed.
Regardless in an extract batch all those minerals are already in the extract and there is no need for more.
This is a really good point that I hadn’t considered before. I think for most beginners purposes it won’t be the deciding factor whether the beer is great or not, but it would make for an interesting side-by-side experiment - two identical extract batches, one with distilled water and the other with spring or filtered tap water. I would think if a light style of beer were chosen, then the differences could be perceptible.
Good RO is probably only 10-20ppm of salt vs <1ppm for distilled. I don’t think either one will kill yeast in under 15min. Most water is lower than the osmotic concentration inside the cell, thats why its beneficial to rehydrate yeast prior to pitching into a high osmotic strength wort.
Yes, they make wort the same as we do, and the mash has the same mineral requirements.
Ahh yes. I have heard that you should not use RO or distilled for rehydration. However, I would think the osmotic pressure of RO water is, if anything, slightly lower than that of spring of tap. But only very slightly as there are less dissolved solids in the RO than the spring.
Yes I’m sure about the RO water we learned that in school as I went to school for brewing… it is moreso for yeast starters or even in high amounts in fermentation. What will happen to RO water when all and I mean all of the minerals, toxins, VOC, etc are pulled through a thin film cellulose it actually changes the composition of the water and creates what is called osmotic pressure. There have been numerous brewing case studies as well as microbiology studies showing the impact of the Osmotic pressure of H2o on cell walls causing them to implode not explode but implode as the pressure of the water has increased to a level higher than a cell can tolerate. Now distilled water is fine except for the fact that any of the waters character has been removed I love distilled water when I build a profile to a specific region. for extract though you are correct all the monerals and nutrient are already present in the LME or DME.
yes that would be fine though I would either boil it first to get rid of chlorine or use either potassium or sodium metabisufate if your water is treated with chloramines.
