Malt extract brewing first timer

[Jimmy5694]

Hello,

Hope you are keeping well. My name is James I'm new here and I'm new to brewing just Thought I'd share what I'm doing to try and learn new tips and tricks.

As it's my first time Im not overly worried about the recipe just to get the method right. I've cooked up the wort and it's been in the primary fermenter with 7 days and I'm planning on bottling on the 28th. In the first few days A white foam appeared on the to which turned brown and then disappeared yesterday. The airlock is still bubbling steadily. I have a stainless temperature probe in the carboy and it's been sitting around 18.0c - 19.1c. According to Young's between 15c to 20c is good. However, I'd like to see it around 17c - not sure if that will make a major difference or not. What I have noticed is that there is a cruddy build up around the temperature probe to which I'm considering to clean.

So I'm brewing 5 gallons.

Method:

Cleaned and sanitised all equipment using VWP cleaner & sanitiser - struggled with this as I had to leave equipment soak for 5-10mins before using and where I needed to repeat sterilisation would have preferred to use something like starsan.

Heated 14litres of water to 68c and added LME and then increased heat to 99c and added the hops in the times below. Struggled here as I was initially using a kerosene stove and the aluminium pot was old and out of shape. So I had to switch to gas.

Cooled the wort down to 24c and topped up with cooled pre boiled water which created the 5gallons. Initial OG reading is 35 honestly I think I used the wrong scale. And added the yeast.

The recipe is for a light lager

6.6lbs Coopers Liquid malt extract Light
100g Herkules 17.4% - 50 mins
100g Southern Passion 11.2% - 40 mins
50g Williamette 5.7% - 20 mins

5g Young's lager yeast

Normal public tap water

Dextrose priming sugar for bottling.
 

[Pheeel]

Couple of hints for next time
1. Get rid of the VWP and get a proper cleaner/sanitizer. Get some unperfumed OxyPowder (Dunnes have some for €3) for clearning and some Chemisan for sanitizing. Starsan isn't available in the EU at the moment
2. Get better yeast. 1x5g of Youngs is nowhere near enough for a batch. You'd want at least 10g of that or switch to W-34/70 or S-23 if doing a lager
3. For your water did you treat it at all? If not next time fill a bucket with water the night before and throw in a crushed Camden table to get rid of the chlorine

[irish1759]

Couple of hints for next time
1. Get rid of the VWP and get a proper cleaner/sanitizer. Get some unperfumed OxyPowder (Dunnes have some for €3) for clearning and some Chemisan for sanitizing. Starsan isn't available in the EU at the moment
2. Get better yeast. 1x5g of Youngs is nowhere near enough for a batch. You'd want at least 10g of that or switch to W-34/70 or S-23 if doing a lager
3. For your water did you treat it at all? If not next time fill a bucket with water the night before and throw in a crushed Camden table to get rid of the chlorine

Great tip, also new to the home brewing. I just ran out of the VWP I got with my kit, ordered some Chemsan. With the Dunnes oxy powder does it say on the tub if it's unperfumed, as I got one before the smelt perfumed even though it wasn't in the ingredient list. Was using it for laundry then.
Was ratio do you mix the oxy cleaner with water or do you just go by the instructions in the tub.

Thanks

[Emot]

Hi James, just a few comments for you:

Cleaned and sanitised all equipment using VWP cleaner & sanitiser

Yes definitely get StarSan or ChemiPro, it makes brew day much easier

Heated 14litres of water to 68c and added LME and then increased heat to 99c and added the hops in the times below.

You don't need to worry about being so exact with the temperatures above when adding the LME. Basically you want your water warm enough to dissolve the LME and then get it up to a rolling boil. If you were steeping grain, that's when you want to be pretty precise about temperature, but again, you just steep it for 30 mins or so at the correct temp and then lob it in to the heating water.

Initial OG reading is 35 honestly I think I used the wrong scale.

You need to do put the reading into calibration software if it's a few degrees off 20C (or whatever temp the hydrometer is calibrated to)
Hydrometer Temp Adjustment

The recipe is for a light lager
100g Herkules 17.4% - 50 mins
100g Southern Passion 11.2% - 40 mins
50g Williamette 5.7% - 20 mins

I think you may have made a mistake in the hop schedule. There's no way a light larger called for 250g of hops. Could you check if the above is a typo or did you actually put in that amount of hops? If you did, that is going to be incredibly bitter.