Homebrew Beer Howto

oblivious

Blisterman wrote: »

Measured with a Hydrometer today at 1.014, so it seems fermentation is well underway.

Good work, it may still drop a point or two over the next few day

Blisterman wrote: »

I had tried to measure it on monday, but it actually measured higher than the OG. Is there a reason for that? I must have done it wrong. I measured it twice this time, with different samples, just to be sure.

The density of a liquid especially water is dependent on the the temp of the liquid, you some time need to correct the hydrometer

Here is a correction table
http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixA.html

Blisterman wrote: »

Anyway, I gave it a taste, and I must say, it tastes superb even at this stage. Very like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which is what I was aiming for.
I'm going to leave it in the fermenter for another week before bottling it. Then, let it sit a few weeks to condition. I can't wait to try it when it's done.

I generally give it two to three weeks in the primary to allow the yeast to clean up the beer

Blisterman

I should have mentioned, that each time I used the hydrometer, I used that table to correct for temperature, and still, it came out like that.

That sample was very cloudy from yeast, which the others weren't . Would that affect the hydrometer reading?

oblivious

How much higher was the hydrometer?

Blisterman

1.05 or so. Can't remember the exact figure.

oblivious

I have never had a problem with yeast and the hydrometer, an for the reading to go up would suggest the liquid got denser. The yeast will be using up the sugar reducing the density and producing alcohol with will reduce it further.

Just checking but you check the temp with a thermometer or just the ambient temp of the room?

Strange, chalk it up to experience, keep up the good work

Blisterman

Thanks.
I think I might have just measured it wrong.

oblivious

Blisterman wrote: »

Thanks.
I think I might have just measured it wrong.

Just remember practice make perfect, so get brewing more:P

Themadhouse

I am looking into brewing lager.
Does anyone have experience with this? I hve been looking through some sites at supplies but alot of the packs are ale.
HAs anyone got any recommondations?

Mr Magnolia

Themadhouse wrote: »

I am looking into brewing lager.
Does anyone have experience with this? I hve been looking through some sites at supplies but alot of the packs are ale.
HAs anyone got any recommondations?

Merged with the Homebrew sticky. Plenty of info here for you to start with

oblivious

Themadhouse wrote: »

I am looking into brewing lager.
Does anyone have experience with this? I hve been looking through some sites at supplies but alot of the packs are ale.
HAs anyone got any recommondations?

The problem with lagers is that they need a primary fermentation of 10-14c and a long secondary (lagering 6-8 weeks) at 0-2c. That really requires a dedicated fridge. With out the low temps they can end up a lot of ester, an that not something you want in a lager

A lot of people do pseudos lagers with a very nutral ale yeast such as US-05, to make blond ale (an ale very of clean lager)/golden ales or a German ale yeast to make hybrid style such Kölsch or Alts, the do need cold them but a little more forgiving . Some of those beers can be very close and can be hard to tell the difference to a classical lager.

One version that is becoming popular in the US this time of year is a Mocktoberfest, a very clean ale version of the Munich Oktoberfest Märzen beer,

Hope this is of some help

Blisterman

Blisterman wrote: »

Ok, it's in the fermenting barrel as we speak.

My recipe was as follows

22 pints of water
1.6kg of John Bull Light LME
1.6kg of John Bull Amber LME
64 grams of Morris Hanbury Northdown Harvest Alpha 7.9% Hops
Boiled all together for 45 mins.
Added 20g of Brupaks Cascade Hops 6.8%
boiled for another 15 mins.

Added to 14 pints of preboiled and cooled down water in barrel.
Left in bath to cool down to about 38 degrees (I would have left it cool down a bit more, but it was getting late.)
Added Safale US-05 Dry Ale Yeast, which I had added to preboiled and cooled down water, with a drop of Amber LME.
The OG was 1.046 when corrected for temperature.

My only concern is that the yeast wasn't really foaming when I added it to the water. It fizzed a little upon adding it to the Water and LME. But that was it. No foam afterwards.

Could the yeast be dead? There's no sign of fermentation at the moment but it's less than 24 hours later.

Well, a few weeks later and it's ready.
Here's my initial impressions

Pours with a very thick head. Deep amber colour. Strong hoppy smell.
Very bitter, with a quite a harsh alcohol flavour from it, like cheap vodka. Hopefully if I leave it a couple of weeks, it will sort that out.
After a few sips, you don't notice it so much, and begin to notice a relatively fruity flavour to it. I'm not very good at describing flavours, but it's somewhere between Marston's Pedigree and Goose Island IPA. Not like any beer I've ever tasted.

Overall, it's not really like the American Style Pale Ales I aimed for, but it's nice enough. Other than the initial harsh flavours, it's a perfectly respectable beer. Nicer than many I've had, but not as nice as other's I've had.

I'd give it 6.5/10

I've got another batch using the same ingredients, but having been left for 3 weeks initial fermentation, just been put in bottles, and am brewing a Hefe Weisen as we speak. I couldn't obtain any Wheat yeast for it, so am using an ale yeast instead. Hopefully it'll still turn out alright.

oblivious

Hi Blisterman

That some nice work, the harsh alcohol flavour maybe be cause by letting the fermentor temp get to high, generally 18-21c is about right above that you can get higher alcohols that can come across as harsh.

The ale yeast will work grand in wheat beer, it wont produce the generally Hefe flavor which are yeast derived but people make some very good beer with them. The home brew company has a dry hefe yeast that people have found nice, if you are going to try this again
Safbrew WB – 06

cuculainn

Hi,

Got into homebrewing about 6 months ago, in the hope of being able to brew some tasty beers....Belgian beers/some US beers, Fat tire, sam Adams etc and just generally experiment..

Bought the basic equipment and decided to start with extract kits just to get used to the technique.

The first kit was a Coopers larger, as it was the first time I was expecting things not to go exactly to plan!!

I followed the instructions on the kit...Not from this site as the net was down when I went to check!

1.So I sterilized everything
2.Softened the extract in a pan of water & Disolved the extract in another pan of water ( first mistake here was that the saucepan was not big enough to take the full can of extract so had to get another saucepan to disolve the rest. In the mean time the some of the extract in the first pan burned on the heat!)

3. added the disolved extact to the barrel and topped up with water (Didn't stir it as I read somewhere the wurt is prone to infection at this stage.) Added a kilo of regular sugar
3b. Took a sample for hydrometer reading
4. Added the yeast (didn't hydrate the yeast as I didnt know about it)
Put the bung on the barrel and moved to a room at 21 deg.

5. The water in the airlock rose but never noticed bubbling (is this normal)
6. Left for a week and took another reading ( seemed normal but cant remember the value)
7. Primed the bottles with regular sugar and bottled the next day.
8. left for 3 weeks and then tried. There was a good fizz in bottles with a good head that lasted.
But it tasted pretty bad. It left a bad after taste and was drinkable but I wouldn't ever want to drink it.

So I did some further research on here and other sites and modified the method.

So I had a second kit (wheat beer) and decided to try again with this.

I got a bigger saucepan.
Got another barrel for secondary brewing and got glucose instead of regular sugar.

The procedure was as above with the following modifications.

Disolved the kit in the larger pan which worked fine.
I rehydrated the yeast before adding to the wurt.
The kit asked for 500g of light malt extract+300g of sugar.(I added 300g of glucose).
I stirred the wurt for about 10 minutes.
I took a sample for the hydrometer but didnt take enough so the hydrometer would not float so I didnt have an OG reading.
I added the hydrated Yeast. and put the bung and airlock and moved to a room. I insulated the barrel from the floor and wrapped the barrel in blankets to keep a constant temp of 20 deg.

Again the airlock didnt bubble but the water rose up the airlock.

I left for a week and took a reading and then transfered to the secondary barrel.
I left in the secondary for 2 weeks. I dont have an airlock on this barrel so left the lid slightly unlocked on one side of the barrel.
When ready to bottle I disolved 80g of glucose in hotwater and added to the empty (sterilized) barrel and syphoned into this and then syphoned to the bottles.
I left for 3 weeks and tried one last night...It tastes much better than ther previous effort but the bloody thing is FLAT!!

Does anybody have any ideas about this or where I may have gone wrong.

I really want to get this sorted as I have spent a fair bit of money on the equipment.

Also I had assumed that i had the technique sorted so I went ahead and bought grains and ingredients for a partial extract brew...I am reluctant to try again until I find out where I went wrong.

I will post the ingredients I bought to see what people think I could make with them.


Thanks in advance

cuculainn

Hi as I said above here are the ingredients I have for a partial grain extract brew.

Any suggestions on what I can make? I am open to buying extra/different ingredients but would prefer to use these if possible.

They are supposed to be the ingredients for a Flat tire type recipe.

only the hops is not what was listed so I got as close as possible in alpha acid percentage

Thanks

---

1 x Biscuit Malt - crushed grains 500g
1 x Spray-Dried Malt Extract Light 3kg
1 x Carapils - crushed grain 3kg
1 x Chocolate - crushed grains 500g
1 x Crystal - crushed grain 500g
1 x Fuggles Pellets Alpha Acid 4.0% 100g Vacuum packed
1 x Vienna - crushed grain 500g
1 x Irish Moss Coarse Ground 40g - superior grade copper finings
1 x Wyeast 1056 American Pale Ale

oblivious

cuculainn wrote: »

Hi as I said above here are the ingredients I have for a partial grain extract brew.

Any suggestions on what I can make? I am open to buying extra/different ingredients but would prefer to use these if possible.

They are supposed to be the ingredients for a Flat tire type recipe.

only the hops is not what was listed so I got as close as possible in alpha acid percentage

Thanks

---

1 x Biscuit Malt - crushed grains 500g
1 x Spray-Dried Malt Extract Light 3kg
1 x Carapils - crushed grain 3kg
1 x Chocolate - crushed grains 500g
1 x Crystal - crushed grain 500g
1 x Fuggles Pellets Alpha Acid 4.0% 100g Vacuum packed
1 x Vienna - crushed grain 500g
1 x Irish Moss Coarse Ground 40g - superior grade copper finings
1 x Wyeast 1056 American Pale Ale

Hi cuculainn, welcome aboard

Not sure if your are aware but both Biscuit Malt and Vienna malts need to mash, to convert the starch to sugar. If you are unfamiliar you may want to hold back for a little while, its not overly difficult but have a few extract brew done would be valuable experience.

Also the Wyeast 1056 American Pale Ale is a liquid yeast and a starter need to be make to growing them up to correct pitching rate.


But your ingredient do give you a few option such as a porter/stout with the choclate, crystal and DME . Another is a nice pale ale crystal and DME and some generous hop additions or and nice mild with choclate (around half of what used for the porter/stout), crystal ,some Carapils and DME.

Hope this is of some help

cuculainn

oblivious wrote: »

Hi cuculainn, welcome aboard

Not sure if your are aware but both Biscuit Malt and Vienna malts need to mash, to convert the starch to sugar. If you are unfamiliar you may want to hold back for a little while, its not overly difficult but have a few extract brew done would be valuable experience.

Also the Wyeast 1056 American Pale Ale is a liquid yeast and a starter need to be make to growing them up to correct pitching rate.


But your ingredient do give you a few option such as a porter/stout with the choclate, crystal and DME . Another is a nice pale ale crystal and DME and some generous hop additions or and nice mild with choclate (around half of what used for the porter/stout), crystal ,some Carapils and DME.

Hope this is of some help

Thanks for getting back to me Oblivious.

I dont know if you saw my first post but I have done two kit brews with various levels of sucess/failure todate.

I have read up on the liquid yeast.

What do you mean by mash? does this mean the grains have to be crushed? if so they have come crushed.

I might get some more specific detail off you regards the recipes later.

Thanks

oblivious

cuculainn wrote: »

What do you mean by mash? does this mean the grains have to be crushed? if so they have come crushed.

At around 65-67c the starch in the grain is solublized and enzymes called Amylase go to work breaking it down to various sugars. At its basic from it called Partial Mashing, where you get some of the fermentable sugars from the grain and extract

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Tolley/PartialMash1.shtml

cuculainn

oblivious wrote: »

At around 65-67c the starch in the grain is solublized and enzymes called Amylase go to work breaking it down to various sugars. At its basic from it called Partial Mashing, where you get some of the fermentable sugars from the grain and extract

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Tolley/PartialMash1.shtml

Thanks for the link Oblivious.....

cuculainn

oblivious wrote: »

At around 65-67c the starch in the grain is solublized and enzymes called Amylase go to work breaking it down to various sugars. At its basic from it called Partial Mashing, where you get some of the fermentable sugars from the grain and extract

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Tolley/PartialMash1.shtml

BTW where can I pick up a brew pot large enough to do this? What volume would I need?

Blisterman

I bought mine off ebay. It's 19 litres. Just search "Stock Pot".

Word of advice, Lager is one of the toughest beers to brew as a home brewer Ale or Wheat beer is much easier. Also I'd stick with extract recipes until you have it down to a T.

oblivious

You will need a lager vessel than 19 liter to do a full boil, also for health and safety issues!.

Another alternative is getting an electric boiler such as This

sunnyjim

I hate interupting the flow of conversation, but I gotta butt in!

Basically my plan is to do this on the cheap at first - I want to get a basic brew under my belt before I invest.

So my plan:

Fermenting bin: 20L Tipperary Water-Cooler Bottle or 25L plastic drum (that takeaways get their oil in)
Rubberbung (off eBay, I'll cut it to size)
Airlock (eBay again)

I just need to get the basic beer kit from there - malt, yeast, sugar, sterilizer, and a second bin (don't think I'll bottle it). I'm planning o using this http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055419271 to keep it warm. I'll be making an enclosure (insulated) out of wood to keep the tank in...

I still feel like I'm miles from doing anything! Any suggestions?!

noby

If you want to do it on the cheap, I wouldn' go down the road of thermostats to keep it warm, unless you like building stuff. Wrapped in an old quilt/sleeping bag, in a cardboard box not on a concrete floor should keep your temperatures pretty constant.

As long as your container is food grade you're ok. Water cooler is perfect, make sure there's no trace residue of chip fat in the other one. Don't bother with a bung and air lock - if you use the water cooler cover the top with cling film with a couple of pin holes; if you use a bucket put the lid on loosely.

oblivious

I personally would not use the oil drum the water cooler should be grand

As for the basic beer kit I would avoid anything you need to add sugar to go for an all malt kit for buy some dried malt extract or liquid malt extract (dry is best) instead of sugar

gar1234

looking to start some home brewing myself can anyone reccomend a good starter kit with equipment included

cheers

oblivious

gar1234 wrote: »

looking to start some home brewing myself can anyone reccomend a good starter kit with equipment included

cheers

Here from the homebrew company 70 euro all in

BeerNut

oblivious wrote: »

Here from the homebrew company 70 euro all in

Well, you'll need to buy a kit as well. The dearer the better, I'm told. And some something to put the beer into at the end.

TPD

Pure apple juice + champagne yeast + time = cider?

Does anyone know if this works, and if it turns out drinkable? Seems like a very simple first brew.

oblivious

TPD wrote: »

Pure apple juice + champagne yeast + time = cider?

Does anyone know if this works, and if it turns out drinkable? Seems like a very simple first brew.

Cider can be very simple, I prefer an ale yeast as champagne yeast is very neutral and bland

TPD

oblivious wrote: »

Cider can be very simple, I prefer an ale yeast as champagne yeast is very neutral and bland

May get this set up over christmas. I want to get into brewing, but I'm sinfully lazy, so starting small suits me.