Hey all, My brother and I have finally done it! After a long time of talking, and reading up on brewing beer we finally went in search for home brew supplies yesterday. I was very pleased to find this store had everything we needed and then some. I chose the Serra Nevada IPA as our first. The brew is coming up to the 24 hour mark later today. So far I feel confident we did the step right, the only thing that is a bit concerning is, we didn't have a proper measuring device for the One-step sanitizer.. aka. a teaspoon. Is there any suggestions you guys have to offer on getting prepared for the next steps?
Ditto on the How To Brew. I suggest buying it in print personally. My inlaws got the book for me with some homebrew stuff when I got started and I read the book cover to cover just about, skipping the recipes and such, but got a great idea of what was going on before I brewed my first batch.
I used the online verison of How to Brew for awhile and just picked up the book from amazon for cheap. Next time I would suggest getting a bottle of Star San that has a measurer built into the bottle. It makes life very easy.
Thanks for the info guys, I've gone over www.howtobrew.com, and found it very informative. I do like the idea of having a book on hand better though. I was curious about the different suggestions with siphoning the beer through the racking cane. Most say DO NOT use your mouth, while the instructions I got with the kit says you can. Also will it be a good idea to have sanitizer in the cane when ready to siphon? Checked back last night and the air lock is bubbling away like crazy!
Get an auto siphon it will be cheap and much easier to use. I put the whole thing in a tub of sanitizer. Pump it a few times to run sanitizer through the cane and tubing. Before I use it I pump it again to get all of the sanitizer out of the cane and tubing. I'm not worried about a little foam getting in the beer but I try to get most of the liquid out before siphoning. I'm sure using your mouth to start the siphon won't kill your beer but it might be a pain in the ass that can be avoided for around $10. Congrats on your first brew.
You don't want to use your mouth to start the siphon; there are piles of bugs in there that would love to get after your wort at the expense of the yeast you added. This will be a non-tasty outcome.
Nice video; it can be difficult to make that method work every time though, and there may be circumstances where you dont want to start siphoning with sanitizer (ie the racking cane moves and siphoning stops in the middle of racking your beer). Do yourself a favor and spend 10-15 on an auto siphon. It makes this SO easy. You won't regret it!
The absolute best way to start a siphon (IMO, anyhow) if you're using a carboy: Get a carboy cap. Put a racking cane through the big opening. Put that through your carboy. Blow / pump air into the other opening. You're putting partial pressure into the carboy, which pushes the liquid out the racking cane. Yes you're blowing air in, and maybe a few bugs... if you're concerned, get a sanitary air filter to blow through. (Personally I think the little amount of beer that comes in contact w/ bugs and air never makes it into the next vessel). I'd be much more nervous starting a siphon by putting my mouth on the liquid end (which I've done exactly once . . . this is actually somewhat normal for winemakers, which is where all my initial information came from). I also have a short autosiphon I use for starting the brew kettle into primary.
I guess I must be lucky as I've never had a problem. For me, it's pretty darn simple this way and I would see it as an extra piece to buy, maintain, worry about infection, etc. And I may be cynical, but compare the above video with this, and I get convinced that there are some who want to sell me equipment that I don't need:
In short, everybody has favorite methods. Hopefully the OP is starting to identify his. To me an autosiphon is worth the $10, but of course it can be done other ways. Incidentally, I also use an autosiphon to aerate my wort once it's in the primary. I don't have access to pure O2, so I pump air into the wort using the AS and it works phenomenally. I never worry about being under-aerated
Thanks for the video dgs! Its good to see how it is done before an attempt is made. I ended up picking up an auto siphon yesterday anyways, but now I will always have two siphons if something ever happens. For me, I haven't had much luck siphoning in the past. I tried transferring gas from an old tank to a new one. needless to say, I ended up swallowing quite a bit of it. Later my old boss showed me the compressed air trick, after I humoured him for a bit.
If you DO use your mouth on your siphon rinse with clear alcohol (vodka, gin) first. No joke, everything must be sanitized, and i dont think you wanna starsan your mouth.
I do this all the time and have never had an infection due to it. I try to use carboy caps to do it, but sometimes I have to do it manually. Best practice? No. Beer is more resilient than some of on here make it out to be.
Hey, more power to you. I hope that trend continues for you. For me, between the low cost, ease of use and reduced risk of contamination (even if only a perceived reduction), I'll always use an autosiphon unless I'm forcing it with a bottle of CO2.
