First Timer's with their first brew

[Blueyez]

I have some questions.

For a little history, 3 days ago, I bought all the ingredients for a Sierra Nevada Pale clone, followed the directions carefully. Once the wort boiled and cooled I added it to the fermenter (carboy) and pitched the yeast when the wort cooled to 72 degrees. Everything seems to be going well. Nice and bubbly.

1. I noticed that the water level in the carboy after filling it with the wort is lower than the 5 gallon mark. After reading several post, I noticed one mentioned about "topping off" before pitching the yeast. Is it to late to add more water to it? I'm supposed to be racking to the secondary today.

2. What's the easiest way to learn how to read a hydrometer?

3. I noticed a lot of sediment in the bottom of the carboy. Is it a bad thing? I used steeping bags for all the grains and straining bags for the hops. I also strained the wort as it went into the fermenter.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

:confused: Blue

[BenP78]

You'll be fine if you're not all the way topped up in your primary, but when you rack to your secondary carboy, boil enough water to top off to keep the airspace minimal. Boil the water for at least 10 minutes, cool it and top off. The beer will be ok!

As for a hydrometer... I have no clue. I tried using one for my first two beers, but i just didn't care enough. :p

The sediment is probably just yeast and is harmless. Just like in a bottle of beer, except instead of 12oz trowing a sediment, you've got 5 gallons rockin' and rollin'.

I hope I've been helpful and accurate! Let us know how it turns out!

Ben

[S.F.B.]

You will be fine. Just take a few deep breaths and mellow out.:D

The low water level is not a problem. You can do as Ben suggested and top off. Or, depending on how low it is below the 5 gallon mark, you can just leave it. There should be enough action left to displace any oxygen in the top of the secondary. You just won't have as much beer when you are finished.

You can chalk this one up to experience. You should still have a good brew.

[danno]

Hey Blue, welcome to the obsession, er, hobby...

I, being me, would have a hard time adding makeup water to my beer. Consider this: If you took a pint glass, and poured in 12 oz of beer, would you add another two ounces of water to it, or would you enjoy your beer as is?

For hydrometers, there are two important thing to remember. OK, three. One, if you're doing a partial boil and adding water, make sure your wort is well mixed before trying to get a reading. Two, don't use the tube your hydrometer came in to measure, it will give you erroneous readings. Three, for a FG reading, be sure to degas your sample by pouring it back and forth a few times before measuring....

[Blueyez]

Hi and Thanks for the welcome Danno.

Last night I racked to the secondary. I sampled my brew and it was flat but great! I can't wait for the finished product.

I however have a new question for you seasoned brewers.

If I wanted to clear my wort, how would I do it? Right now it is hazy but a beautiful color.

It's funny, now that I have my first brew in the secondary. I'm itiching to start another batch. Ha! What have I gotten myself into.

Blue :D

[Tweek]

That is the way it starts. Pretty soon youll have a corner of your house bubbling away.

The topic of clearing beer is a big one. There are many ways to go about it from adding clearing agents to your boil to filtering out with a filter. It is very difficult to get a crystal clear beer when homebrewing without filtering. Your beer will continue to clear all on its own as yeast and what not fall out of suspension.

Cheers!

[YamahaXS]

I suggest you ignore the haze.

It will clear with time, though you may always have a bit of haze in the brew.

Next batch, you MIGHT want to add a bit of irish moss to the wort, as it is supposed to clarify your beer some. Also, cooling your wort down quickly should precipitate some of the protiens out, also making your beer clearer.

However, when I brew, I don't care one iota about the clarity of my beer... as long as it tastes good I am happy.

Cheers and Beers!
Jeff

[S.F.B.]

Unless you are going to put your brew into a competition or something, fugettaboutit. The haze does not affect taste. I have tried irish moss with little success. I gave up and now I don't care. Leave the clear beer to the macro breweries.

Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff.:D

[b3s]

worry more about taste. all of my beers are kind of hazy and it's fine...the local brewpub i go to has hazy beer as well. it's part of the charm imo :)

[paul84043]

Hey Blue, welcome to the forum..

It sounds like you need to do a bit more reading up and get the steps striaght in your head, I know there's alot going on and alot of expressions and acronyms that you don't understand yet, you'll get there faster than you think.
You always top up your wort to 5 gallons before taking your original Gravity reading and pitching your yeast. Your gravity readings will end up skewed otherwise because they are designed for 5 gallon batches.
It will have no effect on your subsequent readings though.

Alot of people here don't even use hydrometers, they simply let thier beers sit for ridiculous amounts of time!!
:D
I'm too damn impatient I want my beer ready NOW!
Gravity readings are important, they tell you things about your process that you would otherwise never know.
Plus, they will keep you from making hand grenades in your basement by telling you for sure wether or not your yeast is finished doing it's thing...
If you let it sit long enough, it will finish eventually all by itself, but why let it sit for two or three weeks after it's done? May as well get that stuff bottled and on it's way!

[barley ben]

you seem to have a good idea of what your doing but still dont know what you should and souldnt worry about. i tend to sound like a commercial about this book but it was the first one i ever read and i think it is a god-sent to the first time brewer. the book is "how to brew" by john palmer. this book is amazing. he covers everythimg you could what to know. everything from walking you through your first extract batch to understanding what your local water report means to your all grain mash. the book is pretty much everything from kindergarden to med school all in one book.

his book is also free at www.howtobrew.com

no i dont get paid for this, its just that good!!!!

[michaewa]

I just bottled my first batch today - here are the steps.

Cooked up two gallons of wort, added to three gallons of water in the primary bucket. Sat about 5 days until fermentation died down, then racked to a secondary (5 gal glass carboy). It sat in there another five or six days, and bottled this morning.

My question is I only got 48 bottles rather than the 53 I was quoted by the kit instructions and the guy at the homebrew store. I realize I left volume behind in each racking (primary to secondary, secondary to bottling bucket) but didn't expect to lose quite so much.

How many bottles do you actually come out with from a 5-gal batch?

How many of you 'top off' with water in the secondary?

[Beerconnoisseur]

I have found that the easiest solution is simply to add more water at the very beginning [before I even heat any of the water], rather than trying to top off with potentially contaminated water later.

Usually, I start with 7.5 gallons for an all-grain batch, or 6 gallons for an extract batch. If I'm going to be brewing a batch for a while (like letting the flavoring grains steep for >1 hour), then I use 6.5 gallons to make up for the water that will evaporate.

Hydrometers are read by looking at the reading just below the water line. Water tends to form a meniscus at the surface, so you have to adjust accordingly. Also, the specific gravity will be different at different temps; use a utility like ProMash software to correct for this. Finally, if you just are fed up with hydrometers altogether, get a refractometer instead, and use that.

The stuff at the bottom of the fermenter are yeast cells, but can be other solids that didn't settle out during the cold break. If your beer is still cloudy, you can use a clarifying agent, like Polyclar, to settle more out. Or, if you have two kegs, you can filter between them to remove more solid matter.

Hope this helps. :)

[jsmurphy]

Just an update on my first brew, a West Coast Pale Ale: Transferred to secondary carboy on Tue night. Beer looked and smelled awesome! OG was 1.053 and when I checked gravity Wed. it was 1.015. Hoping it drops a bit more, but it looks and tastes great. Keeping fermenter around 65* and waiting... and waiting...:o

Building a wort chiller and browsing the internet for kegging equip. while I wait.