You're not going to believe me..... but I had a 5 gallon batch of American Lager blow off on day three of active fermentation..... at 51° F.... In a 6.5 gallon carboy.

Who woulda thunk?

I thought it was a fluke, so I cleaned the airlock, re-filled, stuck it in and found it the next morning..... full of Krausen.

It spent the next 5 days with a tube.
It is now fermenting calmly at 51° after 16 days.


I may be digging this blow off on everything idea. It's just easier.
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Wow, excellent advice guys, keep it coming.

Just got the Palmer "How To Brew" book in yesterday and finished about a third of it... great stuff.
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Okay, so I've read "How to Brew," lived on homebrewtalk for the last two weeks (total hours reading threads > total hours spent sleeping), and got what I'm sure is everything I need and then some.

I really only have one question that's still kind of bothering me... Yeast pitching. How many of you use starters, and would you say this is the best way to go? I only ask because (as everything I've read describing it states) it's basically brewing a small beer, and I'm trying to keep down the number of variables that can cause me problems.

So, what say you on the starter?
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I usually use a starter, and always do if the OG > 1.050. The only time I haven't done this recently is when I used Nottingham dry yeast for a pale/blond ale--just sprinkled it over the top of the wort, and that stuff took off in about 8 hours!

But that's just me. If you are using White Labs or other liquid yeast, you can always just pitch it directly into the fermenter and wait. I know a lot of guys go this route and have great results, even if it takes a little while to get fermentation going.
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I've never used a starter and my latest lager was my slowest start at 30 hours.
I usually use liquid yeast though. My Imperial stout took off in 6-8 hours at 1.09something with an activator pack and oxygenation.
I alway say I am a lucky SOB though.
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I never use a starter for dry yeast or whitelabs, but I use a starter for the wyeast smack pouchs
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Thanks again guys, decided to just re-hydrate. Was gonna get started today but I didn't feel I prepped enough, so it's gonna be tomorrow morning (trying to be anal about checklists as to avoid any unnecessary screw ups).
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תמיד לשטוף את התחתונים שלך, לנקות מאחורי האוזניים
Oh, wait... thats Hebrew guidance :-)
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כל עצה תתקבל בברכה

:-)
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http://www.homebrewtalk.com/

Great forum with great people always ready to help.
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Well my first brew was a little, well... flat. And yes, lol, I realize it's not carbed yet, I just mean the taste fell flat. I know, I know, give it time, don't fret. I bottled and we'll see. Can't say I'm not a bit disappointed, but I'm undeterred and will brew again next week as I ordered the agave wit from Austin.

I have a tiny question, though. Is this what the trub on the bottom of my fermenter should look like?
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Yes, exactly. All that spent yeast, that's some good stuff right there!

If you had another beer ready to go, you could just dump the wort right on top of that and be off & running in no time.

I wouldn't worry about the taste right now, unless it was rancid! :-) Unless I dry hop it can be deceiving, almost all of my beers taste pretty much the same straight out of the fermenter (I always drink the left over beer from the measuring cylinder.) What style/recipe did you go with?
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Just a regular nut brown ale. I wasn't really concerned with the style on the first one as I was more interested in getting a feel for the process. It was a basic extract kit, of which I'm going to do a couple more and then maybe try and progress to a partial.
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