The Homebrew Experiment

My directions from beer-wine.com clearly state,

9. …check the hydrometer reading. If it has fallen to half the original reading, sanitize your glass carboy with B-Brite…

This being my first time, I misunderstood this direction. My original S.G. reading after combining wort and yeast was 1.043, well according to this direction I was waiting for my brew’s S.G.. to drop to .5215. I checked it on day 3 of primary fermentation S.G.=1.022, day 4 S.G.=1.022, and day 5 (today) S.G. = 1.022. From this I assumed that when the direction above said half I suppose they meant the decimals.

So, I went ahead and sanitized my carboy, siphon, and bung. After about 30 minutes of soaking in bleach and water (2 ounces of bleach for 5 gallons of water) I rinsed and transferred the beer from the primary fermenting bucket to the carboy. No sweat really.

I was interested to see the sediment and what it looked like. Ever chew up a pretzel and look at it? Yeah, that’s about what it looks like. I had about an inch of it at the bottom of my barrel. So after transferring, I placed the bung in the bunghole (sorry I couldn’t resist) with the cap and put it aside with a towel around it. Is the towel needed? I don’t know. But I do remember reading from good ol’ Charlie that light and heat aren’t too good for fermenting beer and are to be avoided, so I wrapped a towel around it.

All in all, the entire process for stage 2 took about 2 hours (about 45 min of which I was sitting around waiting for the carboy to sanitize)

Now, for finding some nice reusable bottles which I’ll need in about 7 to 10 days.