Vienna Lager Fermenting

Quick Update: The Vienna Lager continues to ferment! It took nearly 4 days to start bubbling which had me researching if I had killed off all the yeast. Turns out I just needed patience. I read that many experienced home brewers enforce a policy of not evening visiting their beer for 3 complete days, 72 hours. I still visit everyday :) Here is some footage from one of my recent visits.



Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpV70wHyprM.

My (Southern Son's) First Brew Day

Sunday, January 9th 2011, was my first brew day. I brewed from the Brewer's Best Vienna Lager kit. It took about 3-3.5 hours to go from cleaning supplies to fermenting beer. Granted, there was a lot of "first timer" time built into those 3.5 hours. I stuck to what I learned in How to Brew, the Northern Brewer instructional video, and the included directions in the kit.

Here are the steps I followed with caveats for improving efficiency.

1. SANITIZE EVERYTHING. So much of the advice I've received from other home brewers and all instructional materials stress the importance of good sanitization (80% of brewing is sanitization they say). I realized this by probably overdoing the sanitization a bit - I used half the easy clean sanitizer that came with my brewing equipment - about 3 times more than i probably needed. Anything that was going to come in contact with ingredients, the wort or beer. This includes the pot, the fermenter, stirring instruments and even scissors to open the packaging. Throughout the brew day I kept my bottling bucket and a large mixing bowl filled with sanitizing solution to store equipment until it was needed. I immediately returned equipment after use to the same sanitizing solution (a tip i picked up from Northern Brewers video).

2. Get Water in the Pot on the Heat. The directions suggested using 2.5 gallons ( i eyeballed this and wished I had measured it out in the end). The Vienna Lager kit came with some steeping grains that steep as the water heats for 20 minutes.

3. BOIL. Turns out a watched pot will eventually boil. Who knew? I kept constantly measuring the temperature and added my malts around 200 degrees cause I wasn't patient enough. Next time, I will be patient, I will be patient, I will be patient. The Vienna Lager called for a 60 minute boil time.

4. ADD HOPS. The Vienna Lager had both bittering hops and aroma hops. The bittering hops were added early in the 60 minute boil, right away. With 5 minutes left I added the aroma hops.

Optional Step 4.5. Consume beer and gaze in awe of your laboring. While the wort boils and you monitor for boil overs turns out to be the perfect time for a beer. Again, who knew?

5. Immediately following boil time the wort needs to be cooled to 60-70 degrees. Doing this quickly, my reading informs me, prevents bacteria growth. I placed the brew pot directly in the sink with running cold water and ALL the ice and ice packs I could find. I quickly got the wort down to 80-85 degrees before I ran out of ice. I will definitely be grabbing a back of ice or making sure I have ice reserves in the future to make the last 15-20 degrees a bit faster.

6. To the Fermenter (and beyond). I added the wort to the 6.5 gallon carboy (fermenter) using the supplied funnel. Previously (during the boil) I measured and drew a line at 5 gallons on the carboy. This was helpful and adding cool water to the wort bringing the volume up to 5 gallons. I took an initial gravity reading (OG - Original Gravity) at 1.060. This was a little high so I added more water and got it down to around 1.052 (still a little high, but I thought close enough for my first go - we'll see).

7. Add Yeast. Lastly I added the yeast and shock the fermenter vigorously. I placed the bung in the top of the carboy and added a airlock bubbler. I moved the fermenter to the garage where it is about 55 degrees lately.

8. Don't forget to clean up. I found other residents to appreciate a cracked window and burning candle at the conclusion of my brew day.

In the end, getting the experience of my first batch will definitely help subsequent batches. I know now that having more ice ready and being even more precise with measurements will also help. I can't wait to try it! In case you were wondering what it tastes like on brew day... sugary hops with luke warm water.

Step Three: Ingredients or Recipe Kit

The final necessity for brewing: Ingredients. There are any number of ways to build your own wort from an all extract kit to intermediate kits mixing extract and grains to all grain kits. Santa dropped off an intermediate kit for my first batch. The kits are definitely the way to go to get started. They have nice easy-to-follow instructions and the ingredients are all measured out, except for the water.

The ingredient kit I started out with was Brewer's Best Vienna Lager. More on brewing with this kit in my next post.

Brewing kits are available from the local brewing supply store, for those times when Santa is off duty, or any number of online supply stores. My hope is to brew through enough kits to get a feel for how much of this and how much of that goes into each type of beer before I eventually venture out on my own.

Step Two: Obtain Equipment

The Southern Son chose to start not too small but not too big either.

I went with the Deluxe Starter Kit from Northern Brewer. Not only was the price fairly competitive they also have a great shipping deal; $7.99 Flat Rate! They even have a YouTube video overviewing each piece of the kit. I found this particularly helpful when selecting which kit I wanted. Northern Brewer also throws in a nice little How to Brew DVD with brewing instruction geared towards the select kit... perfection. I haven't watched it yet, but I anticipate being thrilled by watching somebody brew with the same equipment I now have myself.

There are two pieces of equipment that did not come with the starter kit that I had to obtain elsewhere: a brew pot and bottles. I found a great deal on a 4 gallon brew pot from homebrewing.org. Obtaining bottles has been a bit more laborious. Instead of purchasing bottles I have elected to create my own empties. The toughest part of this task is that you have to buy beers that aren't twist offs. So, unfortunately I, with a little help from the wife, have been consuming some great microbrews... for the sole purpose of rounding out my equipment gathering. Sam Adams, Dogfish Head, Flying Dog, and Allagash have all been kind enough to market and sell brewing supplies pre-filled! One last note, the how to brew book recommended brown bottles to reduce the light pollution hitting your beer as it conditions in the bottles.

Step One: Reading

By far the most recommended book was How to Brew by John Palmer. This book has been a great introductory read thus far and has kicked off the new year right! Palmer's got a web site to go with the book that is work checking out too, http://www.howtobrew.com/. The first half has been a quick read and enough to get me to the point where I feel ready for Step Two: Buy Equipment.

Perhaps step 3 should follow quickly, maybe "Form a Plan"...