First Brew Ever (pics)

Now comes the really hard part...waiting.

One suggestion:
Keep the window over the sink closed when chilling to avoid airborne contaminants from outside.

 

Kudos to you! Great, fresh, and home brewed beer is something that few people can thou say they have had. Welcome to the winding road.

@HerbMeowing is correct. Once you have everything, and I mean everything, dialed in, a lack of patience will still cause problems. Even 10 years into this hobby (obsession), I still have to fight the urge to fiddle with the thermostat or send it to the keg before it's really time.

 

How long did you steep the grains and in how much water? I think the biscuit malt needs to be mashed.

 

It really should be mashed. In fact it should be mashed with a diastatic base malt. Biscuit has a little bit of diastatic power, but not much.

 

I wouldn't sweat it too much. You'll have some starches in your beer, which can be bad for clarity and for shelf life. The good news is that you only used 3 ounces.

 

To extract (potential) sugars from the biscuit malt, you should mash. By steeping you will extract the flavor compounds that were produced during the malting and kilning process. You will likely also extract some starch into your wort by not mashing. However, as you only had 3 oz, I believe the benefits most definitely outweigh any potential downside from not mashing.

In my early extract days of homebrewing I regularly steeped biscuit malt. I never had any problems from doing this.

RDWHAHB (somebody else's)

 

Read "how to brew," has a wort chiller on batch one, plans to wait 3 weeks instead of 2, chose to NOT make at 14.9% ABV imperial stout on his first batch... I'd say he's on track for success.

Q: " the lid on the fermenter is bowing upward" ... airlocks or blowoff tubes are supposed to relieve pressure by allowing gases to ventilate. Might you have an "explosive homebrew" brewing?

q: fermentation temperature control: - 70F ambient room temperature where you fermenter is sitting? It's certainly possible to brew fine beer with 70F ambient room temperature, but ideally I would personally prefer a bit lower if possible. I had a closet that was a steady 68-69F tho when I first started and never had an issue, so you're probably going to be fine. Remember that ambient room temperature is not the same as wort temperature during peak fermentation. Fermentation releases heat which raises the temperature of your fermenting wort. More vigorous fermentation = more heat released. Keep this in mind. My preference is 64F*, but I have a freezer with a controller, so I can specify this exactly. Just thought I'd bring it up, not saying there's any need for panic.

*my generic ale temperature is 64F. this allows me to be lazy and not have to reach behind the freezer to change the controller, and is a good general temperature for the brews I've chosen to make so far. Well, my first lager is in its own separate freezer, so it's not at 64F, but then it's a lager not an ale and thus I digress

 

As long as the blow off hose isn't clogged, your lid will be fine.

As long as your blowoff hose was sanitized, there are no bugs to get sucked bag.

 

yeah if you're bubbling, pressure is being released, and asplosions should probably hopefully maybe be averted. If you're uncertain about the possibility of asplosion, I suggest moving the fermenter into your bedroom, right next to your bed. That way you won't miss any of the hot action when the time comes.

having two fermentation buckets and a bottling bucket/carboy is super important in that you can't have multiple batches going at once if you don't have enough containers. Personally I prefer to use a bucket whenever possible for primary fermentations (way easier to clean). I use my 5 gallon carboy for bottling (or the infrequent times I need a secondary, such as my currently fermenting lager, which will be lagered in the carboy).

If you can find the 8 gallon fermentation buckets (shorter but wider than the 6.5 gal buckets) you might want to go that route. My 8 gallon bucket allows me to have two batches going at once in one fermentation freezer, as the hump where the machinery for the freezer is located prevents having two 6.5 gallon buckets going at once, but the 8 gallon fermenter, since it's shorter, fits. Also a five gallon batch in an eight gallon bucket will need a blowoff tube less frequently. Oxygenation isn't much of a concern since a good fermentation will fill the headspace with CO2, and it's not a huge amount of headspace. If you're using a fermentation freezer it's even less of a concern since the freezer also fills with CO2. Obviously all this goes to shit if you're constantly opening and messing with your beer (leave it alone!).

 

Awesome, thanks for sharing. Wish when I had started that I had documented it so well.

 

That looks great! I am a little jealous of that new, shiny, non-misshapen wort chiller. After 83 batches, mine has seen better days

 

I wouldn't worry about the mashing / no mashing thing at this point - it's not a huge deal and it sure won't ruin the beer - unlike the thoughts on another forum I go to where people seem to think it you look at it funny you're ruin the batch and require drain pour - I swear I'm seen more beer down the drain that would otherwise come out fine on that forum than seems to work out.
You seem to have the procedures down, it will now just come to getting comfortable doing them.
70 degrees may be a touch high, but IIRC, that strain you used will kick out some of the "Belgian'y" flavors and aromas at higher temps than if you used regular American Ale yeast.

 

With the siphon the key is to keep the receiving container below, then just start it and you'll be good. With the bottling, put some of your weight behind it. The bottles can break if you go too hard though. Also, keep some extra caps when bottling. I almost always accidentally bend a few during bottling.