Questions from a new homebrewer

Jos3h2r, JrGrt brings up a good point that I did not catch in my earlier reply, that one week period of fermentation. Your high fermentation temp can lead to fast fermentation, but a week may be too quick, regardless of what your recipe's instructions say. You may have bottled your beer with some unfermented sugar still available (only the use of a hydrometer or a refractometer will give you an answer to that, or if you are willing to wait 3-4 weeks before bottling to be sure the beer is done fermenting), plus you added your priming sugar, so yes, you may have some bottle bombs. If the plastic bottles feel firm, test one next to your sink to see if it gushes. Have a glass ready too so that you can salvage some of the beer to taste it. If one bottle is over-carbonated, then the rest of them probably will be too. Refrigerating them will stop the fermentation so they don't get worse, and letting them rest in the bottle may help to improve the flavor, but with the warm fermentation and the likely off-flavors from it, you may have a beer that is not salvageable. Let us know what happens when you test one of the bottles.

P.S. I would NOT put any of this beer into a glass bottle and hide it in the basement.

 

I didn't see your above replies before my answer, so thanks for that update. I think the best thing for you right now is to read howtobrew.com or get the newest edition book (you can write notes, highlight, etc. your own copy of the book). Palmer does an excellent job describing the brewing process, and that's why his book is recommended so often in these threads. It's too had to learn the brewing process on the fly.

 

You need 2 gallons, plus...
- the amount that will be absorbed by the grains
- the amount that will be absorbed by the hops
- the amount that will boil away
- the amounts that will be left behind in any dead spaces in the mash tun (if doing all grain) and/or in the kettle, and/or in any pumps/hoses used to move wort around.

 

Even though brewing is a science, it's not rocket science as far as precision is concerned. If you are brewing a 5-gallon recipe (just for an example, but adjust my comments for your recipe) and you have a brew kettle which is large enough to handle a full boil plus some extra water, then allow about an extra gallon for boil-off for a 60 minute boil. If you can't do a full boil, then your partial boil should be as large what your kettle can handle, yet allow for extra kettle space to help with managing any boil-over. After your boil you will still have time to add water to the fermentor to get to the liquid volume that your recipe requires. This add-in water can help immensely to cool your wort after the boil. You don't need to be precise on this measurement in the fermentor, but as close as you think is reasonable. (You'll still want to allow extra water for whatever trub that will be in your fermentor too, so pay attention to how much is in there.) But you intentionally should be a little bit short, and you will still be able to adjust at the time of bottling because you'll be boiling your priming sugar with some water that will be added to your bottling bucket. (I usually use about a quart of water for my sugar boil.)

So, like VikeMan says, ideally you'll add water at the start of a full boil to allow for boil-off, grain and hop absorption, etc. but you will still have opportunities to add water later to get to where you need to be. Figure out ways to estimate your volume amount in your boil kettle, buckets, carboys, etc. and use a marker pen or other method to graduate that container. Be as close as you can at the time of bottling, but if you're off a quart, no big deal. And it's better to be short on your estimates rather than too much though.

 

Boil Off is not really a function of a percentage of total wort. Think of it in terms of volume lost per hour. This will be essentially the same volume lost, regardless of your original wort volume (assuming the same kettle, heat source, etc.)

 

Sure. But you don't need a whole hour. You can measure the boil off following a boil of "X" minutes. Then multiply the volume lost by 60 / X to get the hourly loss.

 

Sure does sound that way!?!

Cheers!

 

Not sure I've ever tasted a good beer a mere five weeks from brew day.

Two or three weeks in the fermentor + Two weeks carbonating + One week cold-conditioning = Meh
Two or three weeks in the fermentor + Two weeks carbonating + Two weeks cold-conditioning = More better
Two or three weeks in the fermentor + Two weeks carbonating + Three-Four weeks cold-conditioning = Primo!

 

I think you have learned that homebrew will taste better with some additional conditioning time in the bottle which happens to be true.

Cheers!

 

Didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has already been brought up, but can you use the 'swamp cooler' method with a conical? Since it has a spigot that would be submerged, wouldn't you run the risk of contaminating with your swamp water?

 

I'd like to know this also, I use a cooler to keep my bucket fermentors cool. I'd like to put spigots on them, but fear there will be seepage from the cooling water.

 

I use spigots and wouldn't submerge them in swamp water. Spigots usually seal fine. Occasionally, a very small amount of beer seeps out of the spigot, like maybe a few drops. This is with the common red spigot.