A little advice

Tefral

Im not new to homebrewing but I am new to brewing beer.

I purchased the Candian Blonde Coopers kit and the enhancer and carb drops.

Left it brew a week, checked the readings: it didn't budge for two days so racked it off to bottles and dropped in my carb drops.

Left the beer two weeks and tried it. Was pleasantly surprised how nice it turned out. It was carbed correctly but I have a couple of questions:

1. The head retention is shocking. Upon visual inspection it appears the bubbles are large and as a result break at the top rather than forming a head. Is there any way to make sure the head stays on the beer through the glass. As I said it defintely is carbonated correctly as its perfect that way.

2. Coming from brewing up wine, a week seems pretty short to me to leave in the Primary. The Kit says bottle it after a week but to the more knowledgable of you out there, is there any pros to leaving it in the Primary for say 1.5-2 weeks? Will it enhance the flavour at all?

3. Is there anyway that I can up the Alcohol strength without affecting the taste too much. (I don't want it too sweet)

Thanks in advance, looking forward to actually progressing in my beer making (I do love my beer) My next brew is going to be Muntons Connoisseur's 1.8 Kg Export Pilsner Beer Kit so looking forward to seeing how that one turns out

BeerNut

cronin_j wrote: »

Is there any way to make sure the head stays on the beer through the glass. As I said it defintely is carbonated correctly as its perfect that way.

Other than making sure your glassware is properly clean and not run through a dishwaser, and that your bottles and brewing equipment haven't been cleaned with detergent, not really. My extract brews always have great head retention even with low carbonation but that's not the case with the kit and all-grain brews I've done.

cronin_j wrote: »

is there any pros to leaving it in the Primary for say 1.5-2 weeks? Will it enhance the flavour at all?

Yes. Always give it two weeks minimum, to let the yeast clean up after itself. Three weeks, even four or five, aren't going to do any hard. Kit instructions are almost always misleading and are best ignored.

Tefral

BeerNut wrote: »

Other than making sure your glassware is properly clean and not run through a dishwaser, and that your bottles and brewing equipment haven't been cleaned with detergent, not really. My extract brews always have great head retention even with low carbonation but that's not the case with the kit and all-grain brews I've done.

Yes. Always give it two weeks minimum, to let the yeast clean up after itself. Three weeks, even four or five, aren't going to do any hard. Kit instructions are almost always misleading and are best ignored.

Thanks for your response. Its a pity that they dont fix themselves. The hardest part is leaving it sit there in the secondary without drinking it all.

I will in time move on to the extract brews but the kits will get me going as a stepping stone. Much prefer the beer making to the wine making.

Bogwoppit

BeerNut wrote: »

My extract brews always have great head retention even with low carbonation but that's not the case with the kit and all-grain brews I've done

I had this problem with my all grain, I now add 100g of crushed wheat for a 5 gallon batch and it's great.

Bw

donacarney

Hi could any1 tell me how much suger I should add to my bottles before I put my coopers large homebrew in, I'm going to use bud bottles think they are 330ml,
Will normal suger be ok, first time 4 me

BeerNut

Answered in the other thread.