The Great Brewing Adventure, Hour 21

Well, the beer is looking ok… but I’m worried I killed the yeast when I put it into the fermentor. Yeast has needs, apparently, and I am just not the person to supply those.

Basically, after my happier post last night, I proceeded to take the advice of two of the three instruction books I had for the beer brewing and did not chill the wort before pouring it into the fermentor (plastic bucket)  filled with cold water. Some poeple suggest chiling the wort to 70 degrees before mixing with the rest of the water, but I didn’t want to wait, thinking the cold water would insta-cool the wort.

Turns out, it doesn’t.

And I spent the next 4 hours waiting for the wort-water mix to cool to a tempature at which yeast can survive (below 75 degrees, according to Charlie Papazian). Once that tempature was achieved, I poured the yeast into my cool wort mixture and went to bed, fitting on the fermentation lock and lid.

Tonight, it still has no visible signs of fermentation. There are some slight bubblings, but nothing too big. Many of them are tiny and probably just from the air interacting with the water.

Please start bubbling soon so I know you're fermenting

I’m holding out hope that these bubbles might mean that fermentation is starting, but I don’t know yet.

Last night I learned an important lesson. It’s just beer. I was nervous making my first batch that I would ruin it, and you know what? I just may have, but I’m learning. So that’s something.