1st timer, few questions.

Anyone

Hello all,

Just ordered a kit after lots of reading and watching vids. Decided to go the simple route to start with and ordered a Coopers Kit.

Just 2 questions(for now)

(1) Whats our water like for brewing? I live in the Dun Laoghaire area if that is relevant. Anyway, just need to know if I can use tap water or do I need to buy bottled.

(2) Once you have the beer bottled, how do you maintain the temp for the 2nd fermentation? Personally, I can see this being the biggest issue for me, both in the primary and secondary fermentation.

Anyway, thanks for any answers, and tips if available.

BeerNut

Anyone wrote: »

(1) Whats our water like for brewing? I live in the Dun Laoghaire area if that is relevant. Anyway, just need to know if I can use tap water or do I need to buy bottled.

The rule of thumb is that if you're happy to drink your tap water neat it's fine for brewing. Any treatment you give it for drinking (filtering etc) do that for brewing too.

Anyone wrote: »

how do you maintain the temp for the 2nd fermentation?

I leave the bottles in the same place the fermenter was. Room temperature should be fine for both. If it's a bit chilly (consistently below 14, say) just give it more time to ferment/condition.

Just on a pedantic point of terminology, fermentation in the bottle is not usually called "secondary fermentation" - it's conditioning. Secondary fermentation is when you move the fermenting wort to a new fermenting vessel.

Anyone

Thanks BeerNut,

Its not pedantic, its useful. If I am reading something and I think its something else, then stuff can go wrong. So thanks for the tip about it.

evolving_doors

Anyone wrote: »

(1) Whats our water like for brewing? I live in the Dun Laoghaire area if that is relevant. Anyway, just need to know if I can use tap water or do I need to buy bottled.

(2) Once you have the beer bottled, how do you maintain the temp for the 2nd fermentation? Personally, I can see this being the biggest issue for me, both in the primary and secondary fermentation.

Anyway, thanks for any answers, and tips if available.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I usually find I use tonnes of boiling water during certain stages. i.e. rinse the bottles with a little boiled water a few times as I think I can still get lingering whiff of sterilisers... Also it's handy to have hot watery handy to set up the brew at the right temperature once everything is in...also cleaning equipment after with hot water. Watching those old movies when women go into labour and someone is told to get hot water makes me think it's for the husband to get his ass in gear and get brewing.

used spring and tap water...my pallet might be shot but ive never noticed any difference..
Coopers kit...use 2 litres less than recommended otherwise they can turn out a bit weak.

I've parked the 20 l brews for a while and stuck with demijohn brews (cider and wines) just means more varieties and experimentation rather than having forty bottles of shlop if it all goes bunty.(also seems a bit cheaper than buying kits etc)

Anyone

Another thing I just remember, does the kit come pre sanitised? I never ordered any sanitiser with it. I was going to order it with my 2nd order.

BeerNut

You'll need to sanitise everything. Cheapest way is to get some thin bleach and some vinegar and add 30ml of each to 20L of water (separately -- don't mix neat bleach and vinegar). You now have a sanitiser that will sanitise anything with five minutes of contact time and doesn't require rinsing.

sharingan

Armelodie wrote: »

I've parked the 20 l brews for a while and stuck with demijohn brews (cider and wines) just means more varieties and experimentation rather than having forty bottles of shlop if it all goes bunty.(also seems a bit cheaper than buying kits etc)

Well I stopped brewing beers or doing any kind of primary fermentation in DJs - too many stuck brews, too much trub/wastage. No easy way to sample is the biggest problem though. I would prefer smaller fermentation buckets for experiments, and then rack/transfer to DJ.

As for the costs involved, you simply cant get better value than making simple wines. If you are happy with plain sugar, that is ludicrously cheap. I prefer to use honey, which takes the cost up, but we are still talking about < 1e per bottle even if I go to town on other ingredients (soft fruit, ginger etc.).

Nowadays I am getting pretty good at the beer end. Going all grain will typically set you back about £8-10 for your grain (5Kg), £2-4 for your hops (depending on how hoppy you want it), and as much or as little you want to spend on your yeast (£1-£3 or more).

That will get you 40 bottles of beer in 4-5% range.

Cheapest beer I have made is a Cream of 3 Crops light ale, which came in under £10. Now if wasn't such a dumbass and used coarse meal instead of fine, this would be bottled and drinkable now, instead of sitting in secondary waiting for the fine particles of corn & rice to drop out of suspension.

Anyone

Ok, so I got my first brew up and running and mixed it all. Now with the new Coopers Home Brew kits, the fermentor is clear so you can see it. I have only got the thing on for about an hour, and theres a large amount of white sediment on the bottom.

Is this normal? I expect sediment, but so soon??

BeerNut

No. Did you make sure all your ingredients were dissolved before adding the cold water?

Anyone

I stirred the crap out of it yeah, and stirred while adding water. Anyway, I stirred it again will keep an eye on it

Cenotaph

Best of luck with your brew!

Anyone

Right so, it seems(well according to this link) that its normal/ok.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/first-time-brewing-white-sediment-bottom-46849/

Thats how mine looks, and the timeline isnt very different.