Well, I’m learning. I only hope the cost isn’t a poor-tasting beer. See, because I spent 5-6 hours yesterday preparing my first beer to ferment, and ended up with about a gallon too much liquid (I need to keep in mind how much I’m adding to the boil and the fermenter in terms of water and sugars). This resulted in a fermenter that’s full to the brim.

I am absolutely amazed that within 5-6 hours the airlock was bubbling away with CO2 production. If my sanitation was good enough, that’s mostly, if not all, due to the brewer’s yeast. It’s also noisy, and since the fermenter was too full, colorful. I had to drain some wort and remove the airlock to refresh it with vodka twice. At 4 AM. Much to Alex’s chagrin.

This brew was from a “brown ale” kit containing 3.3 lbs each of amber malt extract and dark malt extract (see “Black Bear Brown Ale” here). My addition, as a first-time brewer, was 16 oz clover honey, 1 lb brown sugar, and 0.5 lb ready oats, boiled and simmered about 30 min. The oats were chunky in the wort as it was heating to boil so I used our strainer to sift out most of the grain matter.

Potential contamination points: the strainer I used to sift out the oats; the spoon I was using to stir as it wasn’t quite big enough for the pot and quantity of liquid, so could have transferred buggies from my hand; the fermenter and its lid may have gotten some contamination between sanitizing with bleach and filling with liquids … and finally, New York water may have provided some buggies of its own.

The chief surprise was that the fermenter doesn’t smell so much as make noise as the yeasties pump CO2 through the airlock. Nothing to do now but wait, and remove a bit of liquid here & there as the pressure increases. Thank goodness the drum tap seal is holding!