How badly did I mess up?

[datbruce]

Hello everybody. I just brewed my third batch of beer (a scotch ale), just getting comfortable with the whole thing. My first two batches came out really well, but I think I screwed up this time. I had boiled my wort, poured it into clean water in my fermenter, and was hydrating my yeast. I added my yeast, and as I was doing it I realized that I grabbed the wrong, unsanitized, measuring cup. Have I doomed my beer? Should I press on and hope for the best or toss it and start over? Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is a new hobby for me, and I am hooked! thanks

[Tweek]

Yeah your screwed. I recommend boxing up all your gear and tossing it out. Totally kidding.

You wont know until its done. I have made a similar type of mistake a few times. It happens. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose. I would say you have a pretty good chance that everything will be fine. Keep the faith, and keep at it.

Cheers!!

[paul84043]

Tell you what, send all of your beer to me, I'll take on the arduous task of watching it ferment and drinking it and I'll let you know if it's messed up or not, k?

It's really a toss up, you never know. I lost a batch and did nothing that I could identify wrong.
Some of these guys here actually throw ice cubes from the freezer into thier wort to chill it and they still make good beer??

Just sacrafice one of your kids to the beer gods and everything will be fine. If you don't have kids, I would be happy to send you one of mine.....:rolleyes:

[Boto]

I agree with the others. While you need to be almost anal about the cleanliness, you might luck out. Bottle it and hope for the best. Good luck!

[Tweek]

Just sacrafice one of your kids to the beer gods and everything will be fine. If you don't have kids, I would be happy to send you one of mine.....


LOL!

[datbruce]

Thanks for the advice. You guys have definitely restored my hope!

[Richard English]

You can be unecessarily concerned about cleanliness when brewing. The major brewers don't pay so much attention to this aspect as some would believe.

One of the world's classic beer styles, Belgian Lambic, is actually brewed with a deliberate disregard for what many would consider essential. The wort, once prepared, is poured into an open vessel - AND LEFT FOR 24 HOURS - in a room with the windows open. No yeast is added and the wild yeasts and other organisms that naturally float around in the Brussels air, fall into the wort.

The wort is then transferred into barrels and left to ferment. Sterilisation? What sterilisation?

For those who wish to study further the mysteries of Lambic beers, go to http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pvosta/pcrbier1.htm

[Tweek]

Richard, Lambics are made with all the stuff that would make an ale something you would want to throw out. you cannot compare the process of making a lambic to that of making an ale. I think any brewer that is worht their salt will tell you that in order to make consistently good beer there are only 2 definates. 1 always stay clean and 2 always have a vigorous boil. I have never heard anyone saying that it is ok to skimp on either of these. There is a lot more that can be done to make better beer but these are starting points for good beer.

[paul84043]

While on the subject....what does the vigorous boil actually do? and why for an hour?

[Richard English]

I have never boiled the wort when making beer; for wine I use a little sulphate in the must to inhibit wild yeast.

I have had very few failures with wine and none with beer. The vigour of the fermentation seems to take care of any adulterants.

[Tweek]

I have never boiled the wort when making beer; for wine I use a little sulphate in the must to inhibit wild yeast.

a vigorous boil is neccesary to coagulate ( i think that is the word I am looking for) the proteins.

I am not sure how you could have made good beer without boiling the wort. Perhaps you are using one of those MR beer beer in a bag type of kits that are just add water and yeast. If so I suggest that that type of "homebrewing" makes the same level of homebrew that A-B makes in the world of real ale. This is not a personal attack so please do not take it that way. I mearly do not want to mislead the newcomers to homebrewing to think that the most important parts of homebrewing are infact not important. With wine it is possible to let the natural yeast that comes on the grapes make a great wine, look at Ridge Vineyards, I am pretty sure they are exported to your neck of the woods. They use natural a natrual fermentation process and I believe them to be one of the finest wineries in the US, if not in the world. But letting Ales and lagers (lambics aside) ferment out under normal unlclean conditions will almost always result in something most people would not want to consume.

[Richard English]

I concede that I have never malted my own barley; I have always used malt extract - though not beer kits. When I started (nearly 40 years ago) this was the usual way of doing things since much of the equipment we now take for granted was not available. In fact, until 1962 it was illegal to brew beer at home in the UK (although, strangely, not wine). So lacking was equipment in those days that I used to use an old baby-bath to ferment in!

I accept that it is the purists way to malt one's own barley but, in fact, many commercial brewers use extract on occasions. Malt extract does not need boiling although I used to boil my hops. What I believe is most important is for the fermentation to start rapidly and vigorously.

I think your judgement of kits is maybe a little harsh since I submit that there are some very good kits available. I do not think that there are any around (certainly not in the UK) that would produce a drink as awful as and A-B chemical fizz.

So far as wine is concerned, I use the natural yeast on grapes but, as is well known, grape cultivation in the UK is difficult as we are at the northerly limit for grape cultivation. Many of the wines I make are the so-called "country" wines - made from other kinds fruit. Purists suggest that only grapes can make wine but this is rather unfair to the country-wine enthusiasts, since their tradition is probably as old as is that of those countries who make wines from grapes. When making country wines I believe it is best to inhibit the natural yeast since there is no guarantee that it will give a good fermentation; the yeast on grapes usually will.

I agree that this is the way in which vineyards usually promote fermentation and I see nothing wrong in that. In brewing and in country-wine making (and in making mead, as well) a proper yeast is required.

[Tweek]

I was not referring to all kits. I agree there are a lot of excellent kits. but the ones that come preboiled and sealed in a sterile container and all you need to do is add water are not among them. All extract that you get from brewshops needs to be boiled it is sugar that can have any number of critters get on it and contaminate it before it reaches your hands.

[shughes600]

Originally posted by Richard English
... I accept that it is the purists way to malt one's own barley but, in fact, many commercial brewers use extract on occasions. Malt extract does not need boiling although I used to boil my hops. What I believe is most important is for the fermentation to start rapidly and vigorously.

I think your judgement of kits is maybe a little harsh since I submit that there are some very good kits available. I do not think that there are any around (certainly not in the UK) that would produce a drink as awful as and A-B chemical fizz. ...

Malt extract absolutley needs boiled. I am sure that the maltsters are extremely clean, but air can come through that plastic bag that DME is stored in eventually. Everything that goes in my wort will be boiled and everything that touches it will be sanitary. As mentioned previously, the boil also creates a good hot break.

A rapid start to fermentation is very important, but I would guess that the most common failure of initial hombrewers product is infection. The reason that a long lag time should be avoided is to prevent organisms other than the brewers yeast from beginning fermentation. These organisms are not there if proper sanitation is followed. I would conclude that sanitation is more important than anything else.

BTW - I think A/B chemical fizz tastes better than infected homebrew.

[Richard English]

All I can say is that none of the recipes I have used have ever made this stipulation and I have never done it. And my beers have always turned out just fine (and you will know from my other postings that I am quite choosy about what I drink!).

The doyen of home brewing in the 1960s was a chap called C J Berry and his books on home brewing and winemaking were the bibles. In my 1966 edition, under malt extract brews he says:

"Malt Extract - far more economical than true malt brings within the home brewer's grasp a whole range of beers and stouts of all strengths, and obviates all the rather tedious (if interesting) work of boiling and mashing."

"All the home brewer has to do is to infuse his hops or other herbs in boiling water, and then pour the water over his malt extract..."

That's all I have ever done (using both liquid and dehydrated extract) and never have I had a failure. Boil malt extract if you want to, but you don't need to. Try it!

[BluesHarp]

To everybody reading Richard's no-boil posts:

You must boil your hops to get the bittering oils out, if you want to make a hop tea and pour it in, go for it, but the hops MUST be boiled.

[Tweek]

also you must boil your extract to get out the critters. Failing to do so may end up in 5 gallons of what I believe the british refer to as "pure shite"

[Richard English]

If you read my post again you will see that I quoted Berry's words and said, "All the home brewer has to do is to infuse his hops or other herbs in boiling water, and then pour the water over his malt extract..."

Unless you use hop extract (I don't) then you must obviously infuse (boil) the hops to get out the bittering agents.

And I can only repeat what I have said, I have never had a failure with unboiled malt extract. Malt extract is, don't forget, concentrated sugar and, like ordinary sugar, it unlikely to be affected by bacteria until it is dissolved in water and diluted sufficiently for them to survive. Providing your fermentation is quickly under way you should have no problems.

The only failure I have ever had was with Cider, when a rogue spore got in before the yeast got cracking and the wort went mouldy. That could, no doubt, happen with beer but I suspect that the contamination would be from outside, not from the malt extract.

[danno]

there has been a couple of articles in BYO about "no boil" extract techiques. You add your extract at flameout, stir, and for sanitation issues, let it sit for 10 minutes or so before chilling. the claimed benefits of this method: No extract "bite", lighter beer, less chance for carmelization since you can't scorch your wort. I've tried it once, (had no baseline to compare it to, unfortunately) and it turned out just fine... The potential downsides of this listed were: no hot break, so you may end up with a cloudier beer, and irish moss would have less effect in clearing proteins....

I couldn't find these online at BYO's site, but if you have the October 2002 issue, look for these:

The first by Anita Johnson named "Lighten Up"
gives her method of brewing a lighter colored beer by only boiling the extract 10 minutes.

Another by Steve Bader named "Boil the Hops, not the Extract". You add the extract at flame out.

[Tweek]

I could maybe see adding the extract at flame out because there is probabally enough heat left to kill anything that is on it. I still wouldnt do it myself, seems like the possible benifit would be minor and the potential downside is huge.

I think if you use this method and it works for you then great. In the 60s they were also using predominately bakers yeast and I would never do this as well. I dont think it is best practice and I think that brewing has evolved way past this. That is just my opinion and I think we are going to just have to agree to disagree on this.

[Richard English]

I confess I did use bakers yeast once! But never again!

Beer and wine yeasts were readily available in the 1960s but I was too mean to buy one.

[cluckk]

I have, until today, not had a pot big enought to boil a full 5 gallon wort so had to make a concentrated wort and top off with water in the fermenter.

Doing this can greatly lower your hop utilization so I have, with heavy ales, added part (about 1/3) of the DME at the beginning of the boil and the rest at the end. Hop bitterness was greatly increased. This is the only reason I would have for doing the no boil method. As for the others (carmelization, etc.) I have not seen a difference either way.