first brew on Saturday, a couple of questions

[adamK]

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

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.

If you do a full Boil, remember that you will have to lift 40+pounds of boiling liquid into that Rubbermaid. Your going to need a lot of ice and a way to remove the water as the ice melts. Without a chiller, I would do a partial Boil. You're next purchase should be an immersion chiller. Then you do full sort boils.

Regarding the spigot On the primary fermented, I use a Williams fermented with a spigot. I don't ferment in anything else. Every couple of years I replace it (though they recently changed the lids, which I hate). You can buy a spigot and add it, but in a fermented, you're going to mount it an inch higher than it is on the bottling bucket to avoid the trub. You can get an inverted backnut from Williams that will move the "bottom" of the spigot a bit lower. I'm a last phaq and hate, I say, hate siphoning.

For your first brew day, keep it simple (which includes no secondary): concentrated Boil. Once you get your process down, buy as big a kettle as you can afford (with a spigot).

Good luck! Keep us posted!

[grebe]

well, I am brewing right now. I ended up starting with 5 gallons because my pot wasnt as big as I thought. But I have a couple extra gallons of water preboiled on the stove for makeup. I have a big tub full of free ice from the gym ready to cool the wort down.

So far, things have gone smooth! Yeast is ready to pitch waiting on the final 30 minutes of brewing. Thanks for the help.

Grebe

:insert smiley emoticon of reader's choice here:

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

well, I am brewing right now. I ended up starting with 5 gallons because my pot wasnt as big as I thought. But I have a couple extra gallons of water preboiled on the stove for makeup. I have a big tub full of free ice from the gym ready to cool the wort down.

So far, things have gone smooth! Yeast is ready to pitch waiting on the final 30 minutes of brewing. Thanks for the help.

Grebe

:insert smiley emoticon of reader's choice here:

Have fun!

[grebe]

so i ended up using a tub of ice that was big enough to hold my 5 gallons of wort....I was blown away how quickly it melted ALL my ice! It took a couple extra fills with cold water to get it down, but I made it to 65 F in just under an hour. I have a couple ideas on how to improve it next time, but I will probably just go with two batches of ice...or a wort cooler.

Anyhow, it was a success and I have bubbles this morning. Go yeast go!

thanks for again for the help...I am certainly enjoying this learning process.

Grebe

[Ozwald]

To get the wort down below 110-120, just use your cold tap water. Save the ice to help get it from 100 to pitching temp. It'll save you a lot in the long run.

[Adam]

For me, it takes 3 bags of ice with cold water in the sink to cool it below 70. Maybe 15-20.

I put the kettle in the sink, add the extract, then give it a good stir to get a whirlpool, start the cold water and add one bag of ice. When that's melted, I add more ice until the temp is where I want.

[BDawg]

I don't think anybody answered the question about why 1 has a spigot and the other one doesn't.

Most folks ferment in the one without the spigot and siphon in and out. Then they use the one with the spigot as a bottling bucket.

The biggest reason is that you need to carefully clean the spigot and all of its component parts after each use, as all the crevices provide a superb place for spoiling organisms to hide. As a bottling bucket, there is less time for stuff to work itself into the crevices. Plastic will develop scratches and this provides even better places for the nasties to hide. Ultimately, all plastic needs to be replaced periodically. Using the one without the spigot to ferment makes for easier cleanup and one fewer potential sources of contamination.

HTH-