Hello BA Homebrewers, I finished my first brew day this past Monday, but already have some concerns about the results. For some background I'm working with the "Go Pro" 1 gallon starter kit from Northern Brewer which comes with Chinook IPA extract kit and am using my own 2 gallon pot. It hasn't been a full 48 hours, but I haven't seen much fermentation activity yet. The reason I'm concerned is because I had a bad boil over (realized afterward to never cover the pot) and so I added extra water to the fermenter (not to the boil pot) to get it up to the 1 gallon mark. What impact will this have on the final beer? Besides doing your best to prevent boil overs, what should you do if one happens anyways? Refill the pot or just let it keep going knowing that you'll have less in the end than you expected? I've read through some of "How to Brew" and my copy of "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing", but didn't see anything about what to do in this situation other than how to prevent it from happening in the first place. It also took me over an hour to cool down the pot after the boil. I didn't realize how much ice I was going to need and needless to say, four trays wasn't enough. So I'm concerned about possible contamination or other bad side-effects during that time. I've definitely learned a lot from my mistakes on this first batch and am excited to brew again, but was wondering if this first batch is likely a lost cause? Thank you for your help, Sean
For any other first time homebrewers who may stumble across this thread, I found some answers to my question in this related thread (didn't see it earlier): https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/how-long-to-wait-for-signs-of-fermentation.40810/ It addresses some of the common issues that I ran into: not cooling fast enough, pitching the yeast too early/too high a temperature, and potential problems with the airlock. Here's an attempt to summarize the responses on that thread: 1.) It may take up to 72 hours to see active fermentation. A lot of this depends on temperature. 2.) Speaking of temperature, it's very important that you pitch the yeast at the right temperature even at the expense of taking longer to cool it down (my directions said wait until it's cool to the touch, but it was around 82 degrees when I added the yeast which was too hot). Lots of good info in that thread talking about what's going on at different time frames of the fermentation that gets glossed over in beginner's instructions 3.) Make sure air lock has enough water (there should be a fill line) Some of these things I can't change now, but I'll double-check the airlock tonight and otherwise be patient.
When did you pitch your yeast? 82˚F should have been fine. It's probably just a slow start. For subsequent batches I'd look into doing a yeast starter, it's probably the number one thing you can do to improve your beer at this point.
1) Check your lid on your fermenter and make sure its tight. That's often the issue. 2) 82 is fine 3) Boilover is a mess to cleanup but won't kill the beer. Adding a little water is fine.
Your beer should be okay. It sounds like you're learning from your mistakes, and passing on the info to other new brewers. Good Karma to you! When you have a boil-over on a 5-gallon batch the loss of liquid is not so great as a percentage of the total amount of liquid, so I've always added water after the boil is finished, which helps to cool down the wort. (Boiled-and-cooled water with no chlorine in it.) With a 1-gallon batch, depending on how much water you needed to add, your beer will be noticeably weak on the ABV and taste, so probably should have have cut your losses and not added the replacement water. But it's too late now and you should wait for fermentation to start and finish what you've got.
Thank you for all of the responses so far. I added about 2 cups of water to the 1-gallon fermenter--between extra evaporation during prolonged cool-down time and boil over I lost a decent amount--so I'm sure you're right about it being a weaker beer in both flavor and ABV. I'll double-check the things I can still change (e.g. airlock, tightness of the seal, etc.) when I get home. It's been about 40 hours since I originally pitched the yeast and the "active" fermentation may have already occurred either over night or while away at work and I may have just missed it. Thank you again for all of the help! I'll post back here in about a month about what it ends up tasting like. Hopefully this helps other first timers who might find themselves in similar situations.
"..."active" fermentation may have already occurred either over night or while away at work and I may have just missed it." - somehow I don't think so! The best may be yet to come if that yeast takes off!
