First Homebrew Started!

[morpheus]

Very good point. It looked like overnight the water was bubbling up out of the lock so i refilled it again to the lines in the lock. Also wrapped a clean dish cloth around the base of the lock since there was moisture on the rubber. If its low again i will use vodka. I will need to invest in a second lock just incase. will be at the brew store sometime this week.

The dining room is a very low traffic area of my house, so not much light on/off. windows always have the shades drawn too, so only what light gets through those.

[originalhandy]

What homebrew store do you frequent here? Are the prices decent?

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[morpheus]

Honestly, since I am just starting out, I dont know how prices compare to websites or other stores. Here is the website.

They are right off of I-10. Get off at Fry Rd and its the intersection of Fry and Morton (behind the Walgreens). I have only bought basic stuff at the store (thermometer, caps, sanitizer - Star San).

http://www.texashomebrewers.com/

My actual kit, kettle and spoon were bought online at this site:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/

[morpheus]

The beer is bottled as of saturday! and only one bottle casualty...damn capper snapped the top right off the bottle. i cant wait to try this stuff...here is to hoping i didnt screw anything up!

[originalhandy]

Sweet! Lemme know how one tastes on Saturday so

How did you do the sugars? Did you put it in the bottle or did you mix it all in a pale then bottle?

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[morpheus]

The instructions said to just boil a cup of water with the 5oz of dextrose, let it cool, then pour it in the bottom of the bottling bucket. then i siphoned the beer out of the fermenter into the bottling bucket. i didnt siphon out the really cloudy dirty looking dregs in the bottom of the fermenter (last inch of liquid or so i hope i was right in not including that stuff)

it said putting the sugar in the bottling bucket would mix the sugar more evenly.

[originalhandy]

Yeah thats the best way. I started by just putting it in bottles, surprised I had no explosions tbh!

Do you have a seperate bottling bucket ? I don't have a bottling bucket, I use my spare carboy to bottle. Its more efficient since I needed a 2nd carboy for my secondary fermentation anyways.

Do you have a bottling wand? If not you should be able to pick one up cheap. I used to guesstimate before I got mine.

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[morpheus]

yeah i was about to ask if you had any explode haha

the kit i bought had one bucket for fermentation and another for bottling (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/brewi...pment-kit.html).

i am assuming what i used was a bottling wand (they labeled it as a bottle filler). it was a plastic tube with a button on the bottom. i connected it to the bucket spout with an air tube. pressing the button on the bottom of the bottle let the beer flow from the bucket, and pulling up stopped the flow.

i was still just guessing how far to fill each bottle because if i kept the button pressed it would just keep going. i left about 1-2 inches of clearance from cap to beer.

[originalhandy]

No explosion but I got lucky I think.

I fill the bottle to the top then pull the wand out, ot leaves sufficient space.

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[morpheus]

cracked open the first few last night after 2 weeks of bottle conditioning....and it tasted pretty good. carbonation could be better, but that will come with time. I cant be sure of the ABV since I didn't record the SG before fermentation, but overall I think a success for my first try. already bought a witbier kit for my next batch.