Arizona Society of Homebrewers

First Time Brewer Using Brewers Best Hop Nog 2010

Howdy All,

 

I love beer, so I figure why not make some. Went to What Ales Ya this weekend and talked with the younger gentleman for some time. He walked me through the process with their Plastic Starter Kit and then through the Hop Nog 2010 kit(PDF or Recipe has been attached to this post). We choose this Beer Kit as my gal and I love hoppy beer and the guy at WAY felt as a beginner we should be fine getting it done. I want to say that I had a great experience at this store. The guy was very nice and enthusiastic about homebrew and was not condescending in any way.

 

The number one thing that is at the forefront of my homebrewing process is Sanitization. Everyone makes a big deal out of it, yet I have not seen many pictures or videos of people being what I consider to be overly sanitized. I come from a cooking background and have also watched a lot of hospital tv shows. To me I imagine having to scrub up and enter a semiconductor clean room to get this stuff right. Instead I bought a 5 gallon bucket at a local hardware store and used 5 packets of C-Brite to make 5 gallons of sanitizer. I then sanitized my hands and rinsed the insides of the Pot and Fermenter with a half cup each of this solution to ensure everything was covered with it. I did not rinse any of the sanitizer off at anytime. As I worked on the Wort I would re-sanitize my hands and any tool I would be using at that moment. Having the bucket of sanitizer made this very easy and I stayed very mindful of the whole process. Feedback on this would be a great interest, thanks.

 

The wort making process and yeast pitching took about 4 hours. All of the tools used were purchased just for homebrewing except for my spatula and wisk. Would it be a good idea to also purchase homebrewing only spatula and wisk to reduce more chances of contamination?

 

Started off with 2.5 Gallons of Fry's Drinking Water in a 20 Quart stainless steel pot to make the Wort. Getting the steeping temperature to hit 160 degrees before adding the grains was a little challenging. Learning the timing for a proper reading from the thermometer took a few tries. I notice that the thermometer is a floating one but I did not leave it floating in the Wort. Do you just leave yours floating in the Wort?

 

Adding the Extract and then following the timed instructions for Hops and Flavorings was pretty easy. Wrote down the times and used a timer to stay on track of everything. Had to use two burners to get a nice rolling boil going.

 

As instructed from WAY I put the boiler into my sink with ice water and brought the temp down to 100 degrees. Then poured the Wort into the Fermenter through a metal strainer to keep the Hop leftovers out.

 

Adding the additional water was where my biggest concern has come up. I put the additional 3.5 gallons of Fry's Drinking water in the freezer as instructed, but it got a little frozen. When I added the water the Wort got down to about 60 degrees. I did not pour any ice into the Wort. Instead I heated the ice peices up to about 74 degrees and then added it. The SG was within the guidelines at about 1.0570 so I pitched the yeast, sealed it up and put on the bubbler.

 

It is now in our storage room which I have covered the window up with an old sleeping bag. The temperature strip on the side of the Fermenter read 68 degrees about an hour after we put it in that room and has stayed there since Saturday.

 

The bubbler is bubbling but it seems quiet compared to what I have heard and read. I have attached a 30 second video here from this morning. Have a watch and let me know what you think. Am I on my way to having possibly made my own beer and therefore finding new independence from the Man?

 

I have also posted this on my website:

http://bit.ly/eN44JU

Tags: 2010, ales, best, brewers, hopnog, what, ya

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Permalink Reply by Trent Nielsen on February 16, 2011 at 5:23pm

I usually frequent homebrewtalk forum, but just joined today to meet more locals in my area. Rob I see you on that forum as ollo (something like that) as I recognize your avatar picture.

 

Roger, my 2 cents.

 

I started brewing last year, I have done 70 gallons ever since. I brew very frequently and i have no ambition to switch to all grain. I like what I got going on, and I have learned alot. If you have already "Arrogant Bastard Clone" kit from WAY (aka Imperial Pale Ale), that was my first brew and it is great. The longer it aged, the better it got.

 

My problem is usually patience, I have learned to relax and not keep trying it every week or so after bottling. I use iodophor.

 

I recently bought my kegging system and built it all myself custom, for me I am on a tight budget, but was able to build this bad ass beast http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a31/wulfsburg/IMG_20110107_213201.jpg for 498 bucks. That includes paint (the labor to have my uncle paint it and fix all dents), kegs, tank, gas, diamond plate, temp controller, freezer, draft towers, line, glue and everything else I forgot. . If money is no object to buy a kegging system and you have a fridge I say go for it. Its nice to be able to drink your product quickly , although it will condition with c02 over time as well, but you can go from boil to glass in about 9-12 days (depending on what kind of beer it i), I prefer not having to wait for my beer to bottle carb. Of course for the big beers you will have to. I drink a boatload more now that I have dual draft towers in my kitchen.

 

I started with 45 12 oz bottles. Now I have about 60 22 oz bombers, and about 150 12 oz bottles. I keep trying to fill them up but with no success, I drain it faster than I brew it. (drink i mean :-D )

 

After all those gallons and batches, I have still yet to make certain kinds of beer. If money isnt a huge concern, I would suggest taking it a step at a time. You will know when the time is right to get what.   I recommend a metal thermometer (ditch the floating one! it WILL break!), have 2 6.5 primaries, 1 5 gal glass carboy for my stuff that needs secondary (dry hopping and now being used to condition before kegging).

 

I have bought quite a few Brewers Best kits, and a lot from northern brewer, but recently dont do kits anymore. The best kits I ever done were Brewers best kits.I am confident and comfortable with my knowledge to take recipes from a book/online and tweak them to what I want and I brew from ingredients now, no more kits. 

 

As for the "GO All Grain ASAP" mentality, I dont' want a tiered system or extra work, and I have not been lucky enough to try a stellar AG beer that makes me go... OMG I MUST do AG. A friend of mine brews some of the best beer I have ever had , and he is a straight up extract w/steeping grains guy.

 

I use dry yeast for most, but for certain styles you must you liquid.

I never use a starter.

I always to a 2.5-3.0 gallon boil.

I don't buy fry's water anymore. It adds up. I just did an IPA and a Dunkel this Saturday. I sanitized both my fermenters and filled them at a RO quarter machine right outside of Fry's . Gotta love .25 c a gallon.

I will be going to try to use strictly DME, and will be buying a 50 lb bag from WAY as soon as my tax refund comes in. My beers with all/mostly DME seem to turn out better. I don't know why (there is a lot of myth and fact on LME vs DME and off flavors some claims LME produces)

I buy hops in bulk, its cheaper.

 

My raspberry Kolsch turned out great, i am going to be doing a Strawberry Kolsch this weekend.

 

Anyway, congrats on entering the rabbit hole that is homebrewing. It only gets deeper and deeper. And if you like it as much as I do, make sure you exercise, if you drink at the rate I do , you will end up with a few extra pounds around your waistline.

 

What part of phoenix do you live in? If you are buy WAY then you are probably close to me.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Roger Williams on February 16, 2011 at 5:40pm

Rock on Trent, thanks for the info and feedback. I am on my third batch (India Black Ale) and have the Arrogant Clone bottled and ready to be tried next week, just in time for the monthly meeting on Tuesday night.

 

I dig the kegger my man! Definitely that one is next on the list. My budget is tight as well and I wanna make sure I am saving over buying at the store.

 

For the Kolsch did you have to refrigerate the fermentation at all?

 

I am in central phoenix so tend to use WAY as well. 

 

You gonna make the meeting next week?

Permalink Reply by Trent Nielsen on February 16, 2011 at 8:43pm
I am not sure quite yet. I joined just today and need to do some more research but I would like to for sure. Where are the meetings held?
Permalink Reply by Roger Williams on February 17, 2011 at 7:10pm

Here is the meeting info. I have not been myself, but they seem a good lot of folks so far.

http://club.azhomebrewers.org/events/february-2010-general-meeting-1

Time: February 22, 2011 from 6pm to 9pm
Location: Tempe Womens Club
Street: 1290 S Mill Ave
City/Town: Tempe, AZ
Website or Map: http://bit.ly/ASHMGT

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