Home Brewing

Did you by chance have the end of the hose that was in bottle down into the wort? If you did the reaction from fermentation could have caused a siphon effect when it started bubbling in the bucket and started slowly sucking it out and once the flow began it didn't stop. Hard to say with out knowing the full details on how everything was set up. If you could provide more details maybe some other people could provide some insight as well

 

It could be what @TooHopTooHandle described, or it could simply be "blowoff," which is what we call it when the yeast creates so much foam ("krausen") that it pushes up through the tube and out the other end. Blowoff happens to the best of us, but usually it's less disastrous because there's plenty of beer left in the fermenter. (Can still be messy, though.)

Taking a step back, I think there are two questions you should ask yourself. First, do you want to brew beer as a hobby (as opposed to a one-time experience)? And if you do, how much time and effort do you want to invest at this stage?

In practice, the answer to both questions might depend on how your first batch goes, which is why I think your experience is unfortunate. These kits are, to be honest, marketed and designed for people who are only going to brew once in their lives. And it shows: the instructions are terrible or nonexistent, the suggested methods are far from ideal, and there is no engagement with the wider homebrewing world. It's unsurprising when things go wrong, as they did for you. I guess these kits are all right as, like, groomsman gifts or something, but they should almost bear a warning label: "NOT SUITABLE FOR ANYONE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING THE HOBBY."

I have no judgments, by the way. Brewing isn't for everyone, and people who decide to brew can legitimately decide how much time and money it is worth investing.

If you do want to dip your toe in, with a view to getting more serious about homebrewing if you enjoy it, my advice would be to pick up a copy of How to Brew by John Palmer or read the free online version. You don't have to read the whole thing before brewing—the book is modular, so you only have to read the relevant chapters. I would brew a simple extract batch with steeping grains and see how you like it.

Another good way to go is to find a friend who brews or check out a local homebrewing club. Ideally you could tag along on brew day, so you could see how it goes without even buying any equipment.

Sorry for all this unsolicited advice. You might be thinking, "Ummm, I just wanted to know about the beer ending up in the bucket?" I just find it frustrating that these vendors sell shitty kits that probably turn a lot of people off of the hobby right out of the gate. I want to assure you, it sounds as though the kit is to blame, and there are much better and less frustrating ways to learn to brew.

 

This post should be made into a sticky note. Well said, minderbender.

 

Welcome to the BA site and to the Homebrewing forum, johnicraft. We're glad that you're here.

The result of what your first brew would have been if you had not siphoned all of it out of the fermentor would depend on whether you had all of the ingredients in there when you "spilled alot" during the process. I'm guessing that everything was already in there, in which case you would have had beer after it fermented, just half of what it should have been. If you has spilled water but still added all of the malt, you would have had a higher-alcohol beer because it would have been concentrated. Replacing any spilled water would have fixed things in that situation.

To answer your question about equipment, I think you need to decide whether you want to stick with 1-gallon batches or go larger before buying equipment. It doesn't make sense to put money out for 1-gallon brewing equipment only to want to brew larger batches later and have to spend money again for larger items of the same equipment. In that size-decision process you also need to evaluate whether you can brew 5 gallons where you live. It's hard to brew large batches if you live in an apartment where you only have an electric kitchen stove available because you may not be able to bring a large quantity of water to a boil on that stove. If you live in a house you can brew outdoors on a gas burner and larger equipment.

I'll suggest that you do a search of this forum using 'equipment' as your search word, and qualify the search to look only at thread titles, and the results returned in thread format. There are numerous threads on the topic. You can also read John Palmer's book, HowToBrew.com which is free to read online, or purchase the book which is available at good bookstores or online for around $15. The book has a section about equipment.

You also may want to do a search on the pros and cons of small batch brewing vs. the more standard 5-gallon batches. There are past threads on that topic too. Basically 1-gallon batches don't give you much beer to drink (ten 12-oz. bottles) so that you're always brewing new batches. But that can be good too if you want to brew many different styles in a short period of time.

 

So @TooHopTooHandle got it right. The pressure from the fermentation pushed the beer up through the hose and into the bucket.

I agree with @Mothergoose03's thoughts. I'll mention that I've found it to be rewarding to brew in the 2.5 to 4.5 gallon range. I'm a little space constrained in my apartment, and also my gas stove is slightly underpowered for full 5-gallon batches (which are actually more like 6 or 6.5 gallons at the beginning of the boil). But there's no way I could be happy with the amount of effort I would have to expend to get 10 bottles of beer from a 1-gallon batch.

So anyway, you should be aware that it's not an either-or, you can brew successfully along the entire range of volumes from 1 gallon and up. You just have to acquire appropriate equipment. The other thing that is easy for a beginner to overlook is that a 5-gallon fermenter is not actually big enough for full 5-gallon batches. This is because the beer needs some space above it to accommodate the krausen, as you've learned. It's actually a little tricky because different styles and different yeasts call for different amounts of headspace, but I would think that you could generally brew a 5-gallon batch in a 6-gallon carboy, though you would want to drop down to 4 gallon batches in cases where lots of headspace is called for (hefeweizens, for instance, or very high-gravity beers such as Russian imperial stouts). Your kettle should also be bigger than your intended volume of beer, both because there is more wort at the start of the boil and because the boil tends to produce foam that can cause boil-overs.

Long story short, if you have a sense of how big a batch you might like to brew, we can give you more tailored advice as to the appropriate equipment to buy. Unfortunately you are picking a batch size without much experience of what it's like to brew different amounts of beer, and so there is a chicken-and-egg problem. That's a good reason to maybe tag along with another homebrewer on a brew day to give you a sense of what is suitable for your situation.

In terms of future-proofing your setup, I'll mention a couple of factors. If you might want to brew "kettle-soured" beers in the future (this is where you sour the wort with bacteria before you boil it), that weighs in favor of a steel kettle, since you don't want to put highly acidic foods in an aluminum pot. Steel is also a good idea if you intend to use an induction cooktop (note that it would take a very powerful induction unit to boil the wort for a 5-gallon batch in a reasonable amount of time). Otherwise aluminum is fine and has some real advantages (most notably light weight).

Also, as mentioned, for ordinary, "primary-only" fermentations, the fermenter really can't be too big, it can only be too small. So you might think about getting a fermenter at the upper end of the size range you are considering.

Man, my forum posts are getting out of control. I'll stop here. How to Brew is your friend, and if you want to ask something or confirm something before making a purchase, we're always here to help.

 

Oh... and there is the old question of glass vs. plastic fermenters. This is not an issue at the one-gallon level, where glass is probably the near-universal preference. For batches larger than a gallon, a lot of people on this forum, including me, have found plastic to be preferable. It's safer (won't shatter) and significantly lighter, and for beers that aren't aged for extended periods of time, oxygen ingress seems to be negligible for all materials. Buckets are the cheapest option (I think), and they work for a lot of people. Plastic (PET) carboys have the advantage that you can see what's going on without removing the lid, and they are also probably a bit more robust against scratching (this is important because scratches can harbor unwanted microbes). Also, plastic fermenters tend to have large mouths, making it easier to add things like dry hops or oak cubes to the fermentation.

Now all of that said... I feel bound to report that Brulosophy did an experiment and found a striking preference for beer fermented in glass. I personally don't attach much weight to this finding, and in general I think Brulosophy's results should be taken with a grain of salt. But it's a data point, and I think it's only fair to mention it, though I continue to advocate plastic for most applications.