Homebrew Beer Howto

Hendrixcat

oconn,

As long as you leave the beer for a few weeks to settle and condition in the keg you can serve straight from it. The pressure built up by the secondary fermentation will produce carbon dioxide and you should get a fair bit of pressure when you open the tap. The pressure will die down as you get near the end and sometimes a small CO2 cylinder is handy to repressurise the keg if it has an adapter for it. I had the same worry about chilling the beer in a 25 litre keg. My first brew was ale and was OK straight out of the keg because I brewed it for Christmas and kept it in a cool room and ale is fine at those temperatures. We all know that warm lager is awful, though. There shouldn't be a problem with putting into another vessel and chilling it. Breweries sell their beer in just such a manner in the US and on the continent. I tried it once but the pressure was too great in the keg and the bottle opening too narrow and I got nothing but foam in the bottle. The beer won't be at it's best once it has been removed from the keg and stored in plastic bottles for a long time - I mean days - because of oxidation reactions. But a few hours in the fridge shouldn't do it any harm.

noby

ocoon,

Hendrixcat is spot on with his advice, but if you do choose to keep the beer in the fridge, there's a couple of things you can do to help your temps:

Keep the fermenting bin off the concrete floor. This will suck all the heat out of it.
Wrap it up in an old sleeping bag/blanket, to reduce the temp fluctuations.
You could even put it in a cardboard box too.

There are stick-on thermometers available from most home brew suppliers. If you can pick up a couple of these, and stick them on your bins it'll make your job easier.

conor_mc

Got a bit of a problem with my brew lads.

Went to take a sample over the weekend, only to discover that the cap on the keg had cracked just above the thread, and around about half the circumference of the cap. I can now see and touch the rubber seal inside the cap.

The sample seems okay taste-wise, but is a lacking a bit in the carbonation stakes. Probably would be acceptable for an ale, but for a lager it needs a bit more. I haven't removed the cap in case the seal is still intact, and besides which, unless I can get a spare in short order, there isn't really much point in doing so.

So if I can get a spare this week, would you recommend removing the cap and try to re-prime the lager, or better just to leave it be and accept that it's gonna be a bit flat.

So near yet so far....

bigears

conor,

how long has the beer been in the keg? you won't get decent carbonation for a few weeks anyway. whatever you do don't dump the beer! For now I'd let it sit, get the new cap and then take a decision. I've not used kegs but I wouldn't think it would be ready this soon. maybe someone who has more experience might be able to shed some light on it.

conor_mc

God no! There will be no dumping of this beer! :eek:

Been in the keg 10 days now, thought it'd be more or less carbonated now as I figured once the priming sugar was fermented after a day or two then that was it, it just needed time to clear. Boy, I have a lot to learn!

Actually, now that I know that, I'm just going to leave it be. If there's some carbonation already then it could well be that the seal is fine and that it's working out anyway. There's still plenty of pressure on the rubber O-ring.

Whereas if I open the keg to change the cap, I'll definitely have to re-prime plus I'd be risking oxidisation, no?

bigears

There are a few factors that will affect how quickly the beer will carbonate. First of all how much priming sugar did you use? Depending on the style of beer it can vary. A lager is normally carbonated more than an ale - typically 4 to 5 grams of sugar/glucose for example. Too little priming sugar and it will be flat; too much and you can have explosions....

The temperature will also help determine how quickly the carbonation will complete. It helps if it is stored in a warm area e.g. 18C. The difference in how much fizz you'll get at week three compared to week one is quite high from my limited experience. I bottle my brews and I always sample one after a week just to get an idea of how it changes as it matures. Three weeks is normally the earliest it would approach something decent although it may be different with kegging.

Hendrixcat

Hey noby,

Hadn't considered the concrete floor factor. As it happens the pale ale I'm working on is the first brew since moved into my new house and the fermenter is sitting a concrete floor that has yet to be tiled. Might want to take a look at that......

Does anyone know where I can get some amber malt extract? I want to brew some stout and would prefer to flavour with flaked barley and patent black malt rather than dark malt extract.

noby

conor_mc,

If you are losing pressure through the cap, then just buy a replacement, and re-prime. The beer should be fine. Sometimes people recommend rubbing some vaseline or something on the rubber o-ring (ooh matron!) to help the seal. If you do this you don't want your beer to come in contact with the vaseline (Beer and oil-based product = no head (ooh matron! #2))


Hendrixcat,
I have found when brewing stout that black patent can be a bit in your face. I now do stouts with plenty of roasted barley, to give good taste and colour.

Anyway, www.thehomebrewcentre.com stock amber malt.

Hendrixcat

Hey noby

I must have missed the amber extract on that site. Had a look through it the other day.

I am a bit concerned about the patent black malt, alright. Have some roasted barlay aswell. Will the barley alone be enough the darken the brew if I use amber malt?

conor_mc

bigears wrote:

There are a few factors that will affect how quickly the beer will carbonate. First of all how much priming sugar did you use? Depending on the style of beer it can vary. A lager is normally carbonated more than an ale - typically 4 to 5 grams of sugar/glucose for example. Too little priming sugar and it will be flat; too much and you can have explosions....

The temperature will also help determine how quickly the carbonation will complete. It helps if it is stored in a warm area e.g. 18C. The difference in how much fizz you'll get at week three compared to week one is quite high from my limited experience. I bottle my brews and I always sample one after a week just to get an idea of how it changes as it matures. Three weeks is normally the earliest it would approach something decent although it may be different with kegging.

Used 2oz (55-ish grams) of sugar as per the instructions. I think I'm happy enough now that the seal is okay since there's definitely a bit of fizz in the beer so far. I'll let it go the three weeks I think, if it's not happening by then I'll change the cap and re-prime.

Patience is a virtue and all that....

noby

Hendrixcat,

I made/make a Stout based on a Guinness clone I have in a book. There's 12oz of roasted barley in it, along with light extract/flaked barley etc. (ie the roasted barley is the main 'colour' grain) and it comes out plenty dark, and a nice roasted flavour (obviously), without being too harsh. If you like I can look up the recipe tonight, and post it up.

bigears

noby,

i'd be interested to see that recipe too. i included some chocolate malt and crystal along with the roasted barley. won't sample it for a month or so; i don't know how it'll turn out but it smells pretty good.

conor, 55 grams of priming sugar seems quite low for a lager if you brewed around the 23 litre mark. Have a look at this from HowtoBrew:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

judging from his priming chart you could have used twice the amount (4 oz/110g). were the instructions on the kit specific to lager? some of the kits have standard instructions that normally lean toward ale styles. throw away the instructions that come with the kit and check out the procedure online. ken's instructions at the beginning of this thread are a good place to start. there are also loads of 'first homebrew' links if you google them.

conor_mc

Yeah, they were printed on the inside of the wrapper rather than just being a generic leaflet thrown in under the lid. Pretty much said "no more than 2oz". I was using brown cane sugar too, which would be slightly better judging by that nomograph chart. The keg wasn't quite full either because the syphoning stopped with a few pints left (needed a third hand!) and I didn't want to restart it for fear of messing it up so I just left it - reckon there's only about 20/21 litres in the keg.

*Tripper*

Just want to get a few peoples opinions on the homebrew stuff. Well, whats it like? How does it compare to mainstream beers? How much would a pint cost(roughly) of your stuff?

ferdi

anyone had any experience making homebrewed cider? there are apple trees in my back garden and every year there is about 40/50kg of apples which go to waste cause we cant get through them all. i want to make some cider with them this autumn, anyone have any advice?

noby

ferdi,

Not something I've done personally, but there's loads of info on the net. The main thing is you would have to get your hands on a fruit press. Grapengrain stock them for 185 euro, but you may be able to pick up a secod hand one, or make one. I'd imagine using an ordinary juicer would be a bit of a pain.
After that, you're basically following the instructions for wine making.

noby

*Tripper* wrote:

Just want to get a few peoples opinions on the homebrew stuff. Well, whats it like? How does it compare to mainstream beers? How much would a pint cost(roughly) of your stuff?

Trigger,
Alot depends on what you make - kit wise etc.
At the most basic level you can buy a kit from less than a tenner to about 18 euro, add a bag of sugar, and hey presto. That will make you 40 pints of beer for 25-35 cent a pint. But don't expect to get a premium beer at the end of it(it'll be drinkable alright).
At the other end of the kit spectrum is 3kg "all malt" kits. These could set you back about 24-28 euro. Some of these, like the Woodfordes range, are made by a proper brewery, and the pints compare well to the beers they sell in their pubs, by all accounts. You're still only paying about 65c a pint (plus perhaps a little extra for postage if you don't have a local shop).
Add in a once -off equipment cost (as little as 15-20 euro)

When you move into partial mash/all grain brewing, you need to gather together a little more equipment (can be done on the cheap), but the ingredient costs drop a bit (depending on ingredients etc. you might pay 20 euro or so per 40 pints), and the quality improves.

Now it depends on what you mean by mainstream beers. There are plenty of cans available in the off-licence of perfectly drinkable lager for about a euro a can. You're not going to compete with these.
The easier beer to make for a home brewer is ale. That's not to say you can't make lager.
You can make some excellent (cheap) ale that compares with the real thing.
I have made stout for about 80c a pint (at least a third of which is postage) which both I and a couple of Guinness drinking friends would be perfectly happy to drink on a night in (probably the best compliment I've had so far), and still a lot less than half the price of a bottle of the real thing.

bigears

Tripper,

Definitely there's more involved in making a lager, first of all you'll need patience. A spare fridge for fermenting also helps to keep the temperature down. As noby says ales are easier to brew. Some ales such as steam beers e.g. Anchor Steam and Kolsch beers from Germany are technically ales but they taste like lager. I haven't brewed these styles yet but they are apparently a less involved brew than the full blown lager. I made quite a tasty lager from a kit of Cooper's Bavarian along with some DME (dried malt extract) a little glucose and some hops. I would describe the taste as being like a cross between a Bavarian lager and Budvar but maybe I'm being too generous . It probably cost about 20 to 25 euro to brew for about 40 pints which isn't bad value at all but you can do the basic kit lager for a tenner less.

If you like weissbiers such as Erdinger, Franziskaner, Schneider these are quite easy to brew and turn out really well - you do need the proper liquid yeast though which will add a few quid to the cost. For me the attraction of homebrew is that you can experiment with the ingredients to achieve (hopefully) the style that you like. You can focus on price i.e. make the cheapest pint possible or try to make the best quality brew you can with the best ingredients. Either way it will be cheaper than a commercial brew but the saving depends on the cost of the ingredients and the cost of the beer you're comparing it to. The saving on a one euro can is less than on a 2 to 3 euro bottle of premium beer.

So to answer your question, depending on what you brew and the ingredients you choose you can achieve a beer that ranges from drinkable to downright tasty. And you get to have some fun along the way.

noby

Hendrixcat/bigears,

These recipes are from a book called 'Clone Brews'.

Guinness: 19L (5 US Gallons)

12oz Roasted Barley
4oz Crystal Malt
4oz Flaked Barley
3oz Acid malt (optional. Adds a slight sourness)

Crushed & steeped in 1gallon of 65degC water for 20 mins. Sparge with 1/2gallon water.

Bring to boil. Add:
4lb light LME
1.75lb light DME (This is according to the book. I have made it with 2 x 1.5Kg LME tins (6.6lb))
1oz Target hops 8.5%
1/2oz Goldings 5%

Boil for an hour. Make up to 19L with cold water. When cooled to below 26deg, pitch yeast.

Murphy's: 19L

Same procedure.
8oz Chocolate Malt
7oz Roasted Barley
4oz Crystal Malt
4lb light LME
1lb DME
1/2lb Sugar
1oz Target bittering.(boiled for an hour)
1/4oz Goldings. Aroma (boiled for last 15 minutes)

I haven't made the Murphy's yet, but I've made a few variations of the Guinness, and would recommend it.

p.s. I got the Book from amazon. There's 150 recipes in it (everything from Heineken to Duvel) and each recipe has 3 versions: extract/steep, partial mash, all-grain. Worth getting a hold of.

bigears

Nice recipes, I've taken a copy of them. That sounds like a good book.

For my stout I used Galena as my bittering hop and East Kent Goldings for flavour; I quite like the Porterhouse beers and they use this combination (along with Nugget) in a lot of their beers. The stout was my first extract with steeped grain and I found the process easier than I thought. Once the water had reached the correct steeping temperature I turned the heat off. I expected to have to fiddle around a lot to keep the temperature constant but it held it very well on its own.

Speaking of the Porterhouse has anyone tried their Porterhouse Red? This is really tasty and I'd love to brew something similar. This is how they describe it:

"Porterhouse Red

Alcohol by volume: 4.4%

Grain: Pale Malt, Crystal Malt, Wheat Malt, Chocolate Malt.

Hops: Galena, Nugget, East Kent Goldings.

At last an Irish Red Ale with a traditional hop flavour to balance the fruit character of the yeast and the luscious caramel flavour notes delivered from the malts used, as opposed to artificially added."

This gives me an indication of the recipe but not the breakdown in quantities which is obviously crucial. It's quite a bitter beer which I like, but it also has a nice caramel/fruity flavour to balance it out. Is it Crystal that adds the caramel undertones?

noby

Yeah, I'd love to have a go at a decent Irish Red. I'd imagine the % chocolate malt is small. The crystal malt would give you the colour & caramel flavour. You'd also get a buttery/butterscotch flavour with fermenting at the high end of the temp. scale.

This is what the BJCP have to say about the style:
http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category9.html#style9D

Hendrixcat

Cheers for the stout recipe noby. Where can you get the flaked barley? It seems like an important part of a decent stout. The Porter House's Wrasslers 4X has flaked barley in it and that is perhaps the best stout I've ever tasted. It's a seriously big beer with super bitterness and roasted flavours. A stout is my next venture methinks. I told my mum I was brewing a stout and she was very interested, being a Guinness Extra stout drinker her whole life. She swears by the stuff and apparently drank a bottle a day while she was pregnant with me. I turned out alright...........I think.

I'm still a little concerned about the patent black malt problem. Some of the books I've read say it will result in much better colour and give the colouring of the head seen in bottles stouts. It shouldn't contribute to the flavour a whole lot being burned to a crisp and all.

noby

I got Flaked Barley from wexbrew.com the last time I got some. Although, as I recall it looked like something you might get in a healthfood shop. It aids head retention, but although the book has it in the recipe for steeping it really should be mashed to get any use out of it.

I was concerned about the colour myself, having previously used black patent, but trust me, it came out dark enough.

Hendrixcat

Used Noby's recipe as a template for a stout I brewed up. Had to make do with what I had so used dark LME, roasted barley, Nothern Brewer and Goldings. Didn't have any flaked barley but the stout I'm somewhat prematurley supping on at the moment has good head retention and tastes excellent. It's a sample I bottled straight from the primary fermenter and I'm surprised at how good it is already. I hope to do the proper recipe soon but having problems with suppliers. The Wexbrew guy seems to have forgotten aboout my order entirely. Said he would e mail over a week ago but I haven't heard anything. Also the beersmugglers site is acting up. Got some top hops and yeast from the hop shop in the Uk, though. Will use them in the next brew. How are the rest of you getting on?

noby

I have a cheap stout kit in a barrel that (a) is leaking, and (b) tastes like a cheap stout kit (€5 a tin, so I threw two in together) Kind of a stop gap until I get going again.
I also have a lager in secondary in the fridge for 6 weeks now. When I get a chance I'll bottle it. Hopefully this weekend.

The one positive thing from all this rain/warm weather is that the hop plants I bought from England have kicked into life, and are starting to grow. Another year or two and I'll be self-sufficient in hops!

Hendrixcat

Growing your own hops? That's hardcore. I bow to you, sir.

conor_mc

Just want to check the progress of my lager with you guys.

As you know, the cap on my keg split, so I got a (free!) replacement and re-primed the keg last Tuesday.

Had a tester last night - loads of head on the beer, but it's still flat to drink. I think this is to be expected at 1 week, but just wanted to check.

Taste is okay, but it still smells a bit fruity, like wine rather than lager. Is this likely to change during conditioning?

bigears

My stout has been in secondary for about 3 weeks now. I plan to bottle this weekend (bottling is such a pain!)

I reckon your lager is on its way Conor, i wouldn't expect too much carbonation after a week but I'm not up to speed on kegs so someone may know better. The fruity taste is most likely from the yeast. Lager fermented with an ale yeast will not be as crisp. I even find the Saflager yeast a little fruity. The one I have used is Saflager S23. I believe they have another one called W34 or something - I 've seen references to it on US/Oz sites but it doesn't seem to show up on UK/Irish sites. It's a German style yeast which is supposed to be a little crisper. I plan on trying a liquid yeast at some point over the summer - either a Kolsch or a Budvar yeast. More expensive but I'll give it a try.

I have a question for all you keggers - do you use CO2 cylinders with your kegs? I would like to try kegging a stout at some point with a CO2/Nitrogen mix (used with draught stouts to give the creamy head) but I've only seen one place selling it - www.hopandgrape.co.uk. It's called a Widget system and you can use CO2 or CO2/Nitrogen. Now I don't mind ordering yeast or hops from the UK as the weight is not an issue but I don't plan on ordering this from abroad, especially seeing as refills are on an exchange basis!

Can you use the same gas cylinders that pubs use? And where on earth would you find the suppliers? I'm probably wasting my time but I thought I'd throw it out there and see.

If I do decide to go for a keg regardless what setup would you recommend?

conor_mc

Yeah, figured the fruity smell was from the yeast, didn't want to go with a lager yeast as I reckon a fridge would be more or less essential. Plus I wanted to get this one right before I start spending money on all the fancy kit!

Think it's going fairly well though, I'm happy enough so far.

noby

It kind of came about by accident. After two years in our house we decided it was time to throw some shape on the garden. I was getting some climbers, like ivy, and at the same time reading up about growing hops. Then last month (hop planting season) I came across a guy selling hop plants, through another homebrew forum. He was selling First Gold, which is a relatively new plant, a cross between Goldings and a dwarf hop plant. It should only grow to 12-15 feet instead of about 25 feet.

bigears, to go the kegging route properly (which I woul love to do some day) you're best bet is to try to get hold of some 'cornelius' kegs and a CO2 cylinder.

Here's a link:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jim.dunleavy/cornelius.htm


thehomebrewcentre.com sell a CO2 cylinder. I'm not sure what type, but it's probably like the widget system.