First batch questions???

[o2bwest]

#1 Water; Our water is pretty good, a little on the hard side with lot's of good minerals. It does have a hint of chlorine. How will this effect my beer? I assume most of it will gas off during the boil, but the brewing 101 dvd from NB says to add cold water to the carboy to get the total wort volume to 5 gallons. Do I need to get the chlorine out of that water? Will letting the water sit in the bottling bucket for a while let the chlorine out?

#2 Bottling; The NB guys leave 1" of head space when bottling. I have heard Tasty say to always cap on foam. I don't understand how to brew on foam if you need to leave head space. Do I really need to leave head space or can I fill the bottles until the foam crowns out?

Thanks in advance I am sure I will have more questions as brew day approaches.

[LukeD23]

Hey there, congrats on starting your first Brew! Its the best hobby out there.

As far as water goes, if this is your first brew don't worry about water. The chlorine with boil off mostly, but worrying about water hardness or ph when starting off can make you miss the most important parts of brewing.

1 - Yeast health and pitch, make sure you pitch enough yeast....check out MRmalty.com yeast pitching calc.

2 - Sanitation, clean everything really well, then sanitize with Star SAn or Iodaphor

As far as bottling, capping on foam should kinda just happen on its on if you are useing a bottling bucket with a bottle filling hose and filler. When filling bottles that are bottle conditioning (adding priming sugar to carbonate) having equal head space in each bottle is the most important thing, other wise you will have inconsistant carbonation.

Focus on your fermantation and your sanitation and you will be on the way to good beer in no time.... Pick up a copy of Brewing Classic Styles and brew those recipes, they are really good

Cheers

[Adam]

Capping on foam refers to bottling from a keg, where the beer is already carbonized and you simply want to maintain that carbonation.

[o2bwest]

As far as pitching rate goes, I only have the one smack pack that came with my extract kit. Should I make a starter?

And thanks for the info on the bottling. I am with ya now.

[LukeD23]

As far as pitching rate goes, I only have the one smack pack that came with my extract kit. Should I make a starter?

It depends on the Original Gravity of the beer you are making, but it might be a better idea to just get an extra smack pack. If you are above a 1.050 OG I would get an extra smack pack, you will make a much much better beer that way.

[spiderwrangler]

As far as bottling, capping on foam should kinda just happen on its on if you are useing a bottling bucket with a bottle filling hose and filler.

I disagree. The whole 'cap on foam' thing that they are always saying is only relevant if you are capping beer that is already carbonated, such as filling from a keg using either the Tasty method or a Blichmann beer gun or counter pressure filler. In those instances, you can tap the bottle a bit to cause some of the carbon dioxide to come out of solution, and produce foam that will push any air out of the headspace, reducing the chance of oxidation. When filling from a bottling bucket, your fermentation has completed, and the majority of your carbon dioxide has come out of solution. Foam produced in this case is largely from turbulence at the valve of your filling wand, which will be foam comprised of AIR. I would argue that you are more likely to oxygenate your beer if you are working on getting lots of foam in the bottle when filling, same reason that you rack to the bottling bucket gently under the surface. I've been purging my bottles with CO2 before filling to reduce this effect, then purging the headspace before capping using a handheld CO2 dispenser.

[animaldoc]

No disrespect but I disagree with Luke --

Worry about the water.

If you can smell or taste chlorine, there will be some level of off flavors in the final beer and maybe ALOT of chlorophenol/band-aid type tastes.

I presume from your post you are doing a concentrated boil then diluting in the fermenter. Use bottled water for dilution or preboil some water then cool it to drive off the chlorine.

Many people say just leaving it out overnight will allow the chlorine to outgas.

[spiderwrangler]

Campden tabs will drop out chlorine