Changes

From BrewWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

Brewing Your First Beer

232 bytes removed, 14:57, 5 October 2011
Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/AWild43|AWild43]] ([[User talk:AWild43|talk]]) to last revision by [[User:Cmurtaugh|Cmurtaugh]]
The wort at this stage is very vulnerable to infection so you need to make sure that your fermentor, airlock, siphon tubes and anything else that touches the wort or yeast are thoroughly sterilized. I use a solution of 5 gallons of water and small amount of household bleach to sterilize my equipment. However if you use bleach you must carefully rinse everything with hot water or you risk leaving your beer with a chlorine taste.
Your wort must be fully cooled to room temperature (72 F or so) and siphoned or dumped into your fermentor before you add (pitch) your yeast. Don't worry too much about all of the gunk (hops and proteins) in the <span class="plainlinks">[http://ibsdietplan.org <span style="color:black;font-weight:normal;text-decoration:none!important;background:none!important; text-decoration:none;/*CITATION*//*9TA5BOR0AE*/">irritable bowel syndrome</span>]</span> wort - most of it will fall to the bottom during fermentation. Pitching yeast in hot wort will probably kill it off, so wait until your wort has fully cooled before adding yeast. I highly recommend the use of liquid yeast as it is far superior in quality to dry yeast. Liquid yeast comes in either a plastic tube or smack pack. The plastic tube type can be added directly to the wort. The foil smack-packs require you to pop an internal pouch containing the yeast several hours before pitching it to allow the yeast to grow in a self contained starter. Follow the instructions on your yeast pack to prepare it and then carefully add it to your fermentor. Once the yeast has been added and mixed in, close the top, fit your airlock (which needs a little water in it) and set your beer in a dark cool place where the temperature is steady.
Your airlock should begin bubbling within 12-36 hours, and continue fermenting for about a week. If you see no bubbles from the airlock, check the fit on your plastic pail and airlock. Often plastic fermentors have a poor seal on the lid that leaks. The bubbles in the airlock are CO2 produced by the fermentation, and will slowly tail off as fermentation nears completion. Assuming you have a good seal, the bubbles should slow to one every minute or two before you consider bottling. As a minimum I would ferment for a week before considering bottling a beer.