For other newbies (besides myself):
Being a day late and a dollar short my whole life, I brewed up a Oktoberfest this last Sunday, and since I have only made ales so far (and extracts at that) it was suggested by the LHBS to use wyeast's 1007 German Ale for the brew.
I kept the pack in the fridge until 11am when I took it out and smacked the small pouch inside, then placed the pack on a shelf ... Initially I planned on pitching @ 3pm but instead ended up bbqing prior to me starting to brew (for the first time on a turkey cooker on loan from my brother). As it turned out I didn't end the brew and get cooled down to pitching temp till nearly 930pm... and the pack was nicely buldging by then. I pitched into a plastic bucket, without stiring or shaking afterwards, having only used a hand held mixer to put a little air back into the wart.
Nothing was happening at 2am when I went to bed, nor was anything going on at 8am when I checked on it again... 230pm when I went to work made me wonder if I needed to shake it or something but when I came home at 1130 that eve (Monday) the air lock was churing away at about a burp a second... this morning (Tuesday) I was honored to see what a minor blow off looked like, and after cleaning up the airlock and putting it back on the fermentor I saw I was still getting releases at 1 a sec. It's just now starting to slow down a bit at 1 every other second.
Notes to other newbies:
1. Although the cost is much more for the liquid or smackpack yeasts you might want to brew something and give them a try.
2. Plan your brew time wisely, give the smackpack a good 8-10 hours of time after starting it.
3. If your still cooking on the stove see if you can borrow someones turkey fryer... I had a hard time keeping this one low enough, I did a full 5 gal boil with no problem except keeping the flame from going out because I wanted a smaller flame, what a difference from just trying to get 3 gallons of water to get hot on my gas range!
4. RDWHaHb
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