Brew #2: A comedy of errors

Krusty_Clown

Rather than learning from my previous kit-brewing experience, I decided to opt for complete inexperience when putting on my second kit last night: a St Peters IPA, with the following mistakes:

1) Forgot to sterilize the can-opener so stuck it in recently boiled water for 10 minutes. Hope that covers that one.
2) Didn't pitch the yeast, just scattered it on top of the wort. Didn't stir it afterwards. Will it still do it's job? If I don't get any fermentation within the next few days, could I get a second sachet of yeast, pitch it properly, and add it to the wort?
3) Forgot to take a sample of the wort until after I'd thrown in the yeast. Now given that I took a sample afterwards (from the tap at the bottom of the bucket) and I never stirred the yeast which more than likely was still sitting at the top of the bucket, I presume the specific gravity reading is probably alright (even if the brew is knackered!)? I presume the reason that you take your sample before adding the yeast, is that you don't want to pour off any of the yeast in your sample?

Thanks all. I pledge to learn from my own mistakes at some point in the future. By the way, the St Peters IPA kit came with a hop sachet, so I included that, as well as a hop tea-bag, before adding the yeast. The plan is to add a second hop tea-bag (dry-hop) closer to bottling day.

mayto

It will be fine , home brewers I know just sprinkle the dried yeast on top of the wort and never had any problems. The can opener should be fine, adding boling water to dissolve the extract should keep any nasties at bay anyway.

Baneblade

did my first one on saturday and more or lese did the same as you.

1) washed everything except the can opener :rolleyes: dont think it came in contact with the extract anyway plus it was poured into boiling water

2) from everything i saw you can sprinkle it on top and leave it or stir it in, makes no real difference. i sprinkled mine on top and left it for 10mins or so then stirred it in.

3) realised after sprinkling on the yeast i never took a sample too.

when i got up this morning there was a nice head of foam on it so its a safe bet you should be ok too

wet-paint

Just after bottling my first batch, but I'm pretty pissed off with Coopers/the home brew shop. They could have mentioned not to sterilise the caps by immersion in boiling water, the plastic seals in them all curled up and withered and fell out of the caps.

I'm glad that I'd already ordered a second batch of extract, bottles and caps, so I had spares to cap my bottles with, but that's something that should have been mentioned at some stage.

Krusty_Clown

Happy to say it's bubbling away merrily now, at 19'C. If I avoided infecting the brew, we're all set!

covey09

wet-paint wrote: »

Just after bottling my first batch, but I'm pretty pissed off with Coopers/the home brew shop. They could have mentioned not to sterilise the caps by immersion in boiling water, the plastic seals in them all curled up and withered and fell out of the caps.

I'm glad that I'd already ordered a second batch of extract, bottles and caps, so I had spares to cap my bottles with, but that's something that should have been mentioned at some stage.

Yeah i got a bit paranoid on one of my batchs when i saw moisture behind the plastic seals, that i took out all the seals and then put them back in, after that i when to the local and bought 50 bulmers bottles for 6 euro and have never looked back. I the plastic bottles are handy but the glass bottles look the part.

As we are talking about errors, i did tried something on my second batch, which im going through now which did'nt work the way i had planned, when filing the bottles i filled them right to the brim thinking that if i left no head space i would have better carbonation as water can not be compressed, that any co2 produced would go straight in to solution instead of building up in the headspace first. Well the carbonation on those bottles is woeful and almost flat, so there you go, head space is vital for good carbonation when bottle conditioning

hardCopy

covey09 wrote: »

Yeah i got a bit paranoid on one of my batchs when i saw moisture behind the plastic seals, that i took out all the seals and then put them back in, after that i when to the local and bought 50 bulmers bottles for 6 euro and have never looked back. I the plastic bottles are handy but the glass bottles look the part.

As we are talking about errors, i did tried something on my second batch, which im going through now which did'nt work the way i had planned, when filing the bottles i filled them right to the brim thinking that if i left no head space i would have better carbonation as water can not be compressed, that any co2 produced would go straight in to solution instead of building up in the headspace first. Well the carbonation on those bottles is woeful and almost flat, so there you go, head space is vital for good carbonation when bottle conditioning

At least you didn't end up with bottle bombs!

Askim

why bother with a reading before if brewing from kits, is it not just to work out ABV ? if you follow the kit instructions on how much sugar etc, should the ABV not be about what is on the box ??

i just do a reading at the end to see final gravity

Krusty_Clown

Askim wrote: »

if you follow the kit instructions on how much sugar etc, should the ABV not be about what is on the box ??

Because it confirms that you followed the instructions properly?! This kit for example (St Peter's IPA) is a 23 pint kit, which I understand is a little unusual. Ok, so if you added 40 pints of water to it, there's not much you could do to recover it, but at least you'd know you screwed up at the start instead of having to wait 7 or 8 weeks.