Homebrew Beer Howto

BeerNut

No, I think it does require extra fermentables. Though the recommendation here, funnily enough, is to use sugar instead of malt.

10-10-20

I thank you!

oblivious

10-10-20 wrote: »

Am I correct in thinking that this is a mistake or is the sugar/malt in the kit already?

yep but the kit only make 9 liters

kenmc

boopolo wrote: »

Ah well. Will see how it turns out. The Tarwebier I'm about to try is a weissbier. Read a few good reviews on it.

I made that a couple of years ago, it was very nice indeed.

boopolo

oblivious wrote: »

yep but the kit only make 9 liters

Yes only 9 litres. But 9 litres of 8% alcohol :eek:

oblivious

boopolo wrote: »

Yes only 9 litres. But 9 litres of 8% alcohol :eek:

Yep

guildofevil

Ok, this is going to be confusing for the beginners, but sugar is appropriate in that beer.

High alcohol Belgian beer is one of the few times when sugar use is advisable. Sugar, unlike malt, is 100% fermentable, which means that it does not leave anything behind to give the beer body and residual sweetness. In most beers this is a bad thing, as you end up with a thin, watery tasting beer, but when you are making an 8% Vol. Belgian ale, the malt you have already got in there will leave plenty of unfermentable sugars behind. You want to add sugar rather than more malt to prevent the beer from having too much residual sugar, which would make it overly thick and sweet.

I recently made an 8% Vol. Belgian Ale, using all grain methods and I used sugar in it for this very reason.

boopolo

But my Tarwebier (wheat beer) takes spray malt! Right?
Cause I just put it in.:eek:

waiting for it to cool to 23C before I put in yeast. Bit warm in house so I have put icepacks underneath to speed it up. 25C now.

Yeast hydrating, but not gone all fluffy/frothy. Bubbling a bit though.

kenmc

yeah think so. was couple of years ago!

boopolo

It says on the website here that it requires 500G of sugar but for the best results, we recommend replacing the sugar with 500g Munton's Wheat Spraymalt.

That is what I did BUT:

On the instructions with the kit it says 750g of sugar. :eek:

kenmc

it'll be fine, maybe .2 or .3% less alcohol probably.
RDWHA(H)B

boopolo

Well it's bubbling away, so I presume the yeast was ok. Actually it was bubbling after 7 hours.

Room temp is 21C - 23C. So I presume its about 25C (recommended) inside the fermenter.

guildofevil

boopolo, what was the original gravity of your beer?
Exactly what kit was it?

If it is a high alcohol Belgian beer then sugar would have been better than spray malt, for the reasons I gave in my last post. However, that does not mean that the beer is ruined. It might taste fine, if a little lower in alcohol and fuller in body than you might have expected.

On the other hand, you could add sugar now, if you want. That would boost the alcohol further and dry out the beer a little.

If you want to do that, simply take, say 300g of sugar, dissolve it in about 200ml of hot water, in a pot on the hob. Boil this for five minutes, put the lid on, and cool it down to 20 odd degrees in the sink.

Meanwhile, take a hydrometer sample of the fermenting beer and make a note of the reading.

Add the cooled sugar solution to your fermentor and stir gently with a large sanitised metal spoon to mix everything well.

Take another hydrometer sample. Subtract the first reading from the second, so you know how much you have raised the gravity by. Add this number to your original gravity for the purposes of working out your final alcohol by volume.

Only do this if it is a high alcohol beer that you are making and be aware that this will increase the alcohol content of your beer.

boopolo

guildofevil wrote: »

boopolo, what was the original gravity of your beer?
Exactly what kit was it?

If it is a high alcohol Belgian beer then sugar would have been better than spray malt, for the reasons I gave in my last post.

OG was 1.041. (supposed to be 1.052)

this kit: Tarwebier

No it is not one of the high alcohol belguim beers. It's the light wheat one. (ABV 5%). Seeing as my OG is 0.011 lower, how much less ABV% will it be?

It's in the fermenter 22 hours now and I am a bit nervous about opening fermenter and risking contamination by adding sugar/stirring it.

oblivious

boopolo wrote: »

OG was 1.041. (supposed to be 1.052)

this kit: Tarwebier

No it is not one of the high alcohol belguim beers. It's the light wheat one. (ABV 5%). Seeing as my OG is 0.011 lower, how much less ABV% will it be?

It's in the fermenter 22 hours now and I am a bit nervous about opening fermenter and risking contamination by adding sugar/stirring it.

That O.G. is fine I would let it ferment out as is

guildofevil

Agreed. If it was supposed to be a trippel or something it might be a good idea to add sugar, but this beer won't need it.

boopolo

Thank you guys. Will ask Shane from thehomebrecompany to ammend his webpage from 500g to 750g.

So I take it that I can expect an ABV of about 4%?

guildofevil

Or 500g DME and 250g sugar for a lighter bodied beer. Sugar is OK if you don't overdo it.

Your ABV will depend on the yeast, but around the 4% mark sounds right.

boopolo

Will leave it as it is with the 500g of Wheat Spray Malt this time.

If I get the Final Gravity down to 1.010, I will have 4.07%

oblivious

Looking good boopolo:)

boopolo

A little worried that the activity has slowed down today after such vigourous 'bubbling' yesterday. 46 hours since pitching in FV now.

Will leave for 2 or 3 days more and check gravity.

guildofevil

It is perfectly normal for the fermentation to slow down after the first couple of days. Don't fiddle with it. Leave it in the fermentor for a least a week before taking a hydrometer sample.

boopolo

Okay. Will do that guildofevil. TY

arse..biscuits

Hi all, my first kit has been a success. Had 2 bottles last night after just over a week in the bottles and they were lovely. This was the kit

http://thehomebrewcompany.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_13&products_id=19

I'm looking at which kit to get next.
Has anyone tried this one?
http://thehomebrewcompany.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_9&products_id=47

My first kit was €27 and this one is €17, is it a case of get what you pay for? Any reccommendations?

oblivious

arse..biscuits wrote: »

I'm looking at which kit to get next.
Has anyone tried this one?
http://thehomebrewcompany.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_9&products_id=47

I would look at replacing the 1kg sugar with DME or other malt extract

kenmc

arse..biscuits wrote: »

My first kit was €27 and this one is €17, is it a case of get what you pay for? Any reccommendations?

By and large you tend to get what you pay for. By going for the all malt one you don't have to add any extra fermentables. That said I've never actually done an all malt one, and still had great results. I figure if you stay away from the cheapest of them you'll be fine - middle of the road upwards is the way to go I reckon.

boopolo

Have just taken a hydrometer reading after 6 days and no noticable activity for 3 days.

It's approx 1.011 (0.5 mm under black band). The sample has little brown bits floating around. Will these sink after a few days?

It is very light in colour. Not so sure about the smell. Smells like flat beer. Tastes okay.

Will leave in FV for another few days I suppose.

_________________________________________________________
Brewfern Tarwebier. OG was 1.041. (supposed to be 1.052) due to only 500g spray DM instead of 750g. Started 22 March.

mayordenis

first brew done yesterday, made a few rookie errors for sure

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37978346@N02/

Rookie errors:

took the hydrometer reading when it was still above 20C so may not be accurate,
and some water has definately gone back in through the airlock

other than that we should have a beer on hour hands I hope.

oblivious

Nice work:)

You can correct the hydrometer temps, here is a program to do so

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html?11138826

brickmaster

Hey all, long time lurker first time poster and all that.

I've been homebrewing a while using these very basic Mr Beer kits I used to get every time I went to the US. Had ok results but got bored with it.

I bought myself all new equipment and am currently I'm brewing a brewferm wheat beer kit using spraymalt and brown sugar.

The problem I've encountered is I think my yeast is dead. The container with the beer is airtight and the air lock isn't bubbling. I don't know what I did wrong. I hydrated the yeast in 150 ml of boiled water which had cooled to exactly 25 degrees. I left it for 10 min and then pitched to the beer. There is 500g spraymalt and 250g sugar in the beer so it has plenty to ferment. The beer is being kept in the hotpress that has a fairly constant temp of 21-24 degrees.

I'm thinking of adding more yeast. Does the type of yeast make a huge difference to the beer?

Also, since I started the brew last sunday, I was thinking of moving the beer into the second container this weekend. Should I still do this even if i've just added the new yeast or should i allow it to sit another week before moving?

Thanks