My friends are brewing beer

[Dinner]

Just put the lid back on. If the Krease is still there (I think that's how it is spelled; I'm talking about the foam on top of the fermenting beer) then there is a 90%+ chance your beer is fine. Just remember no matter what you do it will never be perfectly sterile so just make a best effort and if the lid comes off, and they do blow off from time to time, then put it back on but less tight so that the gas can maybe escape through the threads. The idea is just to give the beer yeast a head start. Just follow the directions (and 12 hours of boiling seems a really, really long time), then let the stuff cool and using a thermometer pitch the yeast when the temperature is right. The beer will do the rest.

BTW the foam makes a nice barrier which protects the beer so don't worry about the lid being off as long as it isn't off for hours and hours.

[Dinner]

If you're really concerned about keeping things sterile then buy a bit of rubber gasket and one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermentation_lock

You can pick the whole thing up at a brewing supply store for around $5-$10. A fermentation lock uses a water trap to prevent outside air from entering the sterile fermenting beer chamber but still allows excess gases to bubble out. Just drill a small hole and put the lock in the hole with the rubber gasket around the tip to keep things tight.

As long as the lock doesn't get clogged (like it did with my scrumpy) then you won't have any blow ups.

[KrazyHorse]

Apparently our lid blew off.

Help?

JM

Why am I not surprised?

[Jon Miller]

We had an airlock.

JM

[Dinner]

BTW you said your first batch's fermentation got stuck (meaning the fermentation process didn't seem to be continuing or at least continuing at a very slow pace) and there are lots and lots of reasons this could happen. The yeast packet could have been old so that the yeast had died before you put it in, you might have pitched the yeast into the wort while the wort was to hot thus shocking the yeast, some of the sterilizing agent you used to sterilize your equipment might have left a residue which shocked or killed the yeast, you might have over cooked the wort caramelizing the sugar instead of simply breaking the grain starches into simply sugars, etc... There are as many reasons as there are people brewing beer.

Unsticking fermentation can usually be easily done though. Add fresh yeast, maybe a bit of sugar & yeast minerals (which promote yeast growth) and give the whole thing a good gentle mixing (don't aerate the beer though as getting outside gases mixed into the beer can introduce bacteria or fungus; just a good gentle steering) and 90% of the time that will restart fermentation.

Here's some more advise on unsticking fermentation: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/un-s...ntation-55150/

[Jon Miller]

Pretty sure we shocked it.

We had two batches of yeast the second time, I think the first was dead before we did anything.

I haven't been at fault for any of this mess. I am mostly just advising from the background as I fail at writing my thesis.

If they had read before they tossed it, I bet we could have recovered. They didn't though.

I hope everything is going smoothly again right now.

JM

[Dinner]

How full did you fill your carboy? If it gets to full then when it starts bubbling and foaming solids might block the tip and prevent gases from escaping. Did that happen?

[Jon Miller]

We did 5.5 gallons and we should have done less, like 5.

JM

[SlowwHand]

I take it that all of you aren't sitting around dry, waiting for this to happen.
Also, I wouldn't want to be the first to drink it.

[Jon Miller]

One guy had it in his closet.

The rest of us were in our homes.

JM

[SlowwHand]

In your homes or not, A) Is everyone abstaining until it's ready? B) Then I guess the guy with the closet is taking the first drink?

[Dinner]

I take it that all of you aren't sitting around dry, waiting for this to happen.
Also, I wouldn't want to be the first to drink it.

Providing you follow the directions and adiquetly sterilize everything with a bleach water solution (making sure you use cold clean water to rinse it thoroughly) then it's kind of hard to totally screw it up. It's like baking a cake or bread or something. Most of the mistakes are because someone didn't follow the directions exactly. It's really not a complicated process, people have been doing it for thousands of years after all, but you do have to make a few goes of it before you learn the process inside out.

[Dinner]

In your homes or not, A) Is everyone abstaining until it's ready? B) Then I guess the guy with the closet is taking the first drink?

I doubt that. You have to let it ferment for about a week and then you have a flat brew with alcohol in it but you still have to bottle it (or go through a week of secondary fermentation if you want to clarify it a bit) and add a bit of priming sugar to the bottles before you cap them so that you get a nice carbonated beer.

Even if the wort gets infected there is very little which can go wrong which a nice long cellar aging can't solve. I had to age my scrumpy for about a year (stuffed it under the stairs) before it became drinkable but that's mostly because the recipe called for raw meat and raw meat is not sterile.

[SlowwHand]

I've thought about trying it, off and on, in the past. I'm heading towards on again.

[Caligastia]

Do it! I've been homebrewing for a few years now, so if you need help you can always ask. Sounds like Oerdin knows what he's doing too.