Yet another mr beer.....

[Scott Miller]

This is sort of an update with questions also. I saw a deal on a 3 1/2 gallon heavy stainless stock pot so I grabbed it last saturday, also got a cup of honey and a can of oregon strawberries, so sunday morning I brewed, this time the things I did differently were basically everything, I rehydrated two yeast packets, and then proofed with some sugar, boiled enough water to make the whole wort, used two cans of west coast pale ale beer mix, with the honey and strawberries, no "booster" or extra sugar, chilled in a ice bath, filled and pitched the fermenter, used a plastic bag to seal the threads and shook the heck out of the fermenter.Theres still a 3/4 inch krausen on the surface tonight, this is fermenting totally better than the last batch, it never had anything more than some bubbles on the surface. but theres also alot of trub already. I know this is going to need a little extra time to condition, according to the abv% it should finish 6.5 ,I was wondering if I should secondary this, like into a 3 gallon carboy maybe...also what about the using 2 cans of beer mix? The wort smelled very nice boiling, not over bitter or malty...to me anyways...

[BrewDog]

This will come out very good! 2 cans of West Coast Pale Ale will give you a nice hoppy beer. I did it that way a couple of times and really liked the outcome (no fruit, though).

Secondary would help it to condition. I say, go for it!

[Scott Miller]

I also HAPPILY found a check to me from the fedaral treasury in my mailbox tonight, most will sadly go to paying bills, but there should be enough left to buy myself a nice gift, and I am really leaning towards the northern kit with the keg, it seems like great step towards really making good brew.

[Scott Miller]

wow just looked at the fermenter again and now the floating yeast krausen looks to be at least 1 inch maybe 1 1/4 ich thick, this is so much better fermentation than before!

[Scott Miller]

Holy Krausen! The whole headspace in the fermenter is full of "foam", It is about 2 1/2 inches thick this morning!
I hope this thing doesnt explode while I'm at work!

What did I do that made such a healthy fermentation?
Maybe the extra can of hopped extract?
Or do honey or fruits lead to this sort of thing ?

[ray m]

The fruit & honey both (more so the fruit) is lending to your explosive fermentation. Fruit use is also going to leave you with a lot of trub, so I would definitely recommend a secondary fermentation for a couple or 3 weeks (at least). You may not (operative word "may") see an obvious strawberry taste in your beer, because primary fermentation tends to "scrub" flavors like these away. I am not criticizing you, mind you, just giving you something to be prepared for when you taste your brew.

When you get a few more batches under your belt and decide to use fruit again, try putting it in the secondary fermenter. Fermentation will kick off again, but it won't be so violent in the secondary and a lot more of the fruit flavor characteristics will remain.

Sounds like you did everything right---be prepared to get a blow off tube ready!:)

[Scott Miller]

thanks for the advice guys, tonight the krausen has started to fall back into the beer so I'm not worried about it exploding anymore:D