First Brew Ever (pics)

Curmudgeon,
I can tell by your enthusiasm that your life has just changed. Brewing will be on your mind at all times. Your performance may decrease in all others areas of your life but you will create incredible beers. Welcome to a community of the most diverse and helpful people on planet earth. Cheers my friend

 

Am I crazy? Isn't steeping grains for 30 minutes @ 160F considering mashing?
When I "mash" for my berliner I'm just holding 6lbs of grains at 145F for 45 minutes. It's in a paint strainer bag, not too different from a muslin bag. What's the difference?

 

It is if there is a base malt as part of the grist, providing enough enzymes to convert starches to sugars/dextrins. Biscuit is not such a base malt. It has very little enzymes.

 

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. So if I understand correctly:
The enzymes from the base malt in the grist will convert the starches of the biscuit malt to sugars. The biscuit malt alone does not have enough enzymes to convert a significant amount of its starches to sugars. So steeping biscuit malt in water will give you some flavor but no additional fermentables.

So now I have to ask, what about steeping it in extract?

 

Extract has already gone through a boil which denatures the enzymes required to make the conversion, so that wouldn't work.

 

Awesome, thanks guys. I love learning about homebrewing here.

 

Yes. Or actually, because biscuit is weakly enzymatic, there would some fermentables from conversion, but not a lot. It will also give you some unconverted starch, which you may not want.

 

I'm no expert as I've only brewed a few batches, counting the watermelon wheat I started today, but I wouldn't freak out at this point. I hated the taste of my pumpkin beer I did last fall when I sampled on bottling day but it turned out sooooooooooo good. I bet it tastes just fine and congrats on your first batch!

 

You'll find that every beer has a peak. There are trends here:

Generally low ABV beers peak quickly (3-6 weeks)
Generally high ABV beers peak slowly (6+ months)
Generally a high hop charge, especially with late hops, makes a high ABV beer very palatable early in the beers life (4-8 weeks)
Hop forward beers are generally best within 6 months
Big beers like RIS, Barleywines, Old Ales, are best from 6 months to 2+ years.

 

First of all, congrats on getting your first brew fermented without major issues

Did you check with your Hydrometer to see whether or not the beer had finished fermenting? 1.021 is pretty highf for something like this. Not saying that it isn't finished (I had a pale ale that died at 1.020 and wouldnt get any lower no matter what), but did you take a measurement over a couple of days, or just once off?

Hahahaha, I remember doing this with my first couple of brews also. You probably just got a face full of Carbon Dioxide, which has a very strong woozy effect.

Being a Belgian ale, you are likely to get some strong smells out of the fermentor, so I wouldn't nessicarily worry about it too much at this stage. With this yeast, I don't think fermenting at 70F is really a problem at all.

One of the major things that I have learnt is that the warm & flat beer out of the fermentor tastes nothing like the chilled and carbonated product that you will sample in a few weeks time.

 

Ok, in that case I'd be carefull, as you may have bottled it before it was fully finished fermenting. Being in the fermentor for 3 weeks at 70F would make me think that it should be finished, but bottle bombs are scary (and dangerous), so just to be certain I would do the following:
- Take a bottle and drink/pour/whatever half of it, and put the remainder in a sanitised soft-drink bottle or something with a screw-cap lid.
- Place the bottle somewhere warm, preferably 77-80F
- Every time you walk past the bottle, give it a good shake (and release any gas present)
- In a week or so, open this sample and make another hydrometer reading.

If you reading is close to the FG, then you're fine and don't need to worry.
If you FG is down to close to ~1.012, then you have some potential bottle-bombs on your hands, and you either need to release some of the pressure or get them refridgerated (once carbed) asap.

 

If you like Orval, you need brett by the way..

 

Just FYI, Orval is far from a typical Belgian Pale Ale. Palm or De Koninck would make for a more meaningful comparison.

 

Don't fret the taste/smell of the slightly warm/non-carbonated brew on bottling day. I recently had a Rye IPA that smelled like jet fuel when I opened the fermenter (albeit only momentarily), and after 10 days in the bottles was excellent. Congrats on an excellent first brew (I hope), and cheers to a new homebrewer.