first brew on Saturday, a couple of questions

[grebe]

Howdy all,

Like I said, my first crack at home brewing is coming up Saturday and I am prepping things up....which brought up a couple ???

First off, I am doing a "better beer" brown ale kit with a new kit by same mfr. I was going thru the parts today, and thinking about the process as described:

1) I am using a turkey fryer with burner and I am very capable of boiling 6 gal of water. Should I go the full boil route, or go with the boil with 3 gal, then add water to make up route? I can see merits in both.

2) They recommend second fermenting. Should I heed, or just roll with what I got? If second fermenting....glass carboy???

3) So, one of the buckets in the kit has a hole for a stopcock valve. Is there any reason why the other does not? Like...is there some bad things that will happen if you have a stopcock on the primary fermenting tank...like the yeast will go hide in it or something...I dont know. And yes, I did use the word "stopcock".

4) Would there be any reason to strain the wort while transferring to primary?

Alright, thanks for the help, guys.

grebe

[TheDarkSide]

1. If you can handle a full boil, do it. However if you are doing a 5 gallon batch, you'll want more than 6 gallons to account for boil off, trub loss, etc. I used the method from the Jamil show...6 gallons at the end of the boil, 5.5 gallons to the fermenter, and 5 gallons to bottle/keg.

2. Unless you're adding additional fermentables, like fruit or plan to dry hop but want to reuse the yeast, I'd skip the secondary. It's just another chance for oxidation and/or contamination. I'll even dry hop in primary if I'm not reusing the yeast.

3. The bucket with the hole is your bottling bucket. You should have a spigot that you'd connect vinyl tubing and a bottling wand to when you are ready to bottle.

4. Straining the wort will remove protein and break material, giving you cleaner wort. If you do a full boil, stir the wort into a whirlpool and transfer from the edge of your kettle after the whirlpool has settled. The whirlpool should create a pile of trub near the middle and even though you'll still pick some up from the side, it's fine. If you do a partial boil, you can pour your wort through a strainer as you are adding it to your top off water. But don't pour too fast because that strainer will clog up with break material.

Best of luck in your inaugural brew!!!

[spiderwrangler]

1. If you can handle a full boil, do it. However if you are doing a 5 gallon batch, you'll want more than 6 gallons to account for boil off, trub loss, etc. I used the method from the Jamil show...6 gallons at the end of the boil, 5.5 gallons to the fermenter, and 5 gallons to bottle/keg.

3. The bucket with the hole is your bottling bucket. You should have a spigot that you'd connect vinyl tubing and a bottling wand to when you are ready to bottle.

4. Straining the wort will remove protein and break material, giving you cleaner wort. If you do a full boil, stir the wort into a whirlpool and transfer from the edge of your kettle after the whirlpool has settled. The whirlpool should create a pile of trub near the middle and even though you'll still pick some up from the side, it's fine. If you do a partial boil, you can pour your wort through a strainer as you are adding it to your top off water. But don't pour too fast because that strainer will clog up with break material.

Best of luck in your inaugural brew!!!

Couple additional points...
1. If doing full boil, you are going to need to chill that down. If you don't have a chiller, you may want to consider going half boil and doing and ice bath.
3. You wouldn't want to ferment in the bottling bucket typically. Ferment in the one without the hole, then bottle with the other.
4. Straining can also help to remove hop material in addition to protein and break.

[Adam]

Couple additional points...
1. If doing full boil, you are going to need to chill that down. If you don't have a chiller, you may want to consider going half boil and doing and ice bath.

Could do a full boil, dump half into a smaller vessel, and do an ice water bath with both vessels.

If you're doing this kit: http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1016 ... Recipe.pdf I would just steep the grains, do a full boil from there, and add the extract at flameout. It will be hot enough maintain the cleanliness of the extract, mix well, and won't change the color. The extract has already been boiled and you're going to boil it longer otherwise. Steep the grains and boil the hops per the schedule, then at flameout add the extract, cool, and pitch yeast. Stir the hell out of the extract for it to mix.

Things you should be focused on: sanitization, process, relaxation. Have fun, don't freak out, you're going to get beer when it's all done with.

[grebe]

OK, so I am going to do a full boil and chill it in a rubbermaid with ice water (I think....no big deal here, I am straight with option 2 as well)

no secondary fermenting...got it.

Straining...check.


3. My point here is why dont BOTH buckets have spigots? It seems that it would be easier to transfer from fermenter to bottle bucket with a valve instead of the syphon. Or, is there a reason why this would not be optimal?

Thanks to all for helping me out.

Grebe

PS, that is the kit I am using, Adam. I screwed up the name pretty good there.

[EllisTX]

3. My point here is why dont BOTH buckets have spigots? It seems that it would be easier to transfer from fermenter to bottle bucket with a valve instead of the syphon. Or, is there a reason why this would not be optimal?

You're fermentation vessel whether glass, plastic, or stainless should be one of the most sanitary pieces of equipment you use. The addition of a valve gives bacteria and wild yeast little nooks and crannies to hide in that may be difficult to clean. Another tip when using plastic is when cleaning never use more than a soft sponge to clean. A good soak in oxiclean, PBW, or what ever cleaner you prefer will do wonders. Anything stronger than a soft sponge may scratch the surface of your fermenter giving bad things a place to hide in.

Good luck and go make some beer!

[Ozwald]

It can be done, but it's a much larger PITA than what it's worth. Since you've got a bucket without, just use it. But if someone were to ferment in a bucket with a spigot, fight the urge to use it as a sample cock. Take the gravity readings from the top & only open that spigot 1 time - transferring to the bottling bucket. It's still not as good of an option as doing it correctly in the first place.

[spiderwrangler]

If you were to transfer from a bucket with a spigot to another bucket with a spigot, you're gonna end up pulling a lot of settled yeast and other trub over into your bottling bucket.