I’ve been brewing for about 9 months now and have done about 20 batches. The last 8 batches have been coming out flat, so in an effort to figure out where I was going wrong, I documented what I was doing as precisely as I could. Turns out the problem was that I wasn’t aerating my beer enough at the primary stage. In this photo journal, you’ll see that I mention to cool the beer with the wort chiller and stir rigorously until you see a foam. That puts oxygen back into the wort, which is necessary for fermentation. Since I had this step by step done, I thought it might be a good idea to just post it for others to see.
8/30/2015
7:45am – smacked the liquid yeast bag to start the yeast. This takes about 3 hours.
12:23pm – filled the boiling pot with water to make the wort.
12:24pm – bagged the crushed grains for steeping.
12:28pm – started the boil with the lid on
1:10pm – when the temp is 170 OR the grains have been steeping for 20 minutes, removed the grains.
1:21pm – poured hot tap water over grains, let it drip then discard.
1:25pm – Return the wort to a boil.
1:35pm – Added Dry Malt Extract, stirring gently.
1:37pm – Added Liquid Malt Extract, stirring gently. Started the fire again. Covered
1:49pm – boil achieved.
1:52pm – Added 2 oz chinook hops. Stirred and set timer uncovered. Stirred every 10 minutes
2:45pm – added .5 oz fuggles hops
2:50pm – remove from heat
2:51pm – made sanitizer .5 oz starsan with 2.5 gallons of water
2:52pm – sanitized bucket. rinsed with cold water.
2:54pm – added 2.5 gallons of water and capped it.
3:00pm – sanitized wort chiller. rinsed in cold water.
3:01pm – sanitized spoon and thermometer. rinsed in cold water.
3:03pm – dropped temp to 80 degrees stirring vigorously to produce a foam.
3:13pm – added wort to cold water bucket.
3:15pm – hydrometer reading 1.046.
3:18pm – sanitized yeast package.
3:19pm – and added yeast.
3:19 sealed the bucket.
3:20pm – temp is 70 degrees in the room.
9/6/2015 – one week later
5:36pm – made sanitizing solution 1 oz of starsan for 2.5 gal of water.
5:39pm – sanitize carboy. rinse with cold water.
5:41pm – sanitize siphon hose.
5:43pm – add dry hops.
5:44pm – transfer beer to secondary fermentor (carboy)
5:50pm – cleaned stopper, sanitized and capped.
9/10/2015
10:30am – washed 50 bottles in dishwasher (no pic)
9/12/2015
10:49am – boiled some water
10:56am – added 6oz of sugar. returned to boil.
11:02am – add .5 oz of StarSan to 2.5 gallons of water.
11:05am – sanitized bottling bucket. Rinsed in cold water.
11:07am – sanitized siphoning tubes rinsed in cold water.
11:11am – siphoned beer (tube filled with cold water)
11:26am – added sugar.
11:27am – took hydrometer reading 1.014
11:31am – sanitized bottling hose
11:32am – prepared bottle sanitizer.
11:33am – sanitized bottles.
11:34am – rinsed in cold.
11:40am – sanitized caps, rinsed in cold.
11:41am – Filled Bottles
1:42pm – placed caps on bottle.
12:09pm – seal caps
09/26/2015 Done!
