Beginner Homebrew

almostover

BeerNut wrote: »

Nope, fermentation is fermentation. Now stop opening the lid and go away.

Haven't opened the fermenter, the fermenter plastic isn't quite fully opaque so I can see through it with a torch. This patience malarkey is the toughest part

BeerNut

Nobody likes nosy people shining a torch at them when they're trying to work.

almostover

Going to bottle up this brew later today. Siphoned off a small sample with a sterilized syringe yesterday and tested with the hydrometer. Final Gravity was 1006 so fermentation is complete. OG was 1044 so ABV is looking like 5% which is ideal. Drank down the sample and it tasted fairly good considering it was at 20 celcius. I washed out my bottles (65 x 330ml brown bottles) with the bottling brush and hot water. Worked up a good old sweat at that.

Plan for today is:

- Mix star san solution ~ 15L in the bottling bucket and sanitise the siphon, bottling wand, bottle capper and bottle caps.
- Boil 2 cups of water and add 130g dextrose and dissolve. Got this from a carbonation calculator and will yield 2.5 volumes of CO2.
- Pour out star san from bottling bucket and add sugar water.
- Siphon beer on top of sugar water.
- Siphon beer into bottles and cap.

What are the pitfalls when bottling?

BeerNut

Things to avoid when bottling are splashing and spillage.

I don't think you need to sanitise your capper, but you do need to sanitise your bottles.

almostover

Beer all bottled up. A lot of hard work is the bottling and very messy. I had purchased an autosiphon which was a saviour. Sampled some of the beer and tasted fairly good so hopefully in 2-3 weeks I'll have some good beer. Thanks for all the advice folks

macnug

almostover wrote:

Beer all bottled up. A lot of hard work is the bottling and very messy. I had purchased an autosiphon which was a saviour. Sampled some of the beer and tasted fairly good so hopefully in 2-3 weeks I'll have some good beer. Thanks for all the advice folks

Yea I gave up bottles a long time ago, korny kegs the way to go, way easier, cleaner and less off flavours imo.

almostover

I've about 15L of capacity available in bottles so going to make some cider this weekend. Will be purchasing pressed apple juice in Aldi at 1.49/L. Want to make a good strong medium dry cider at an ABV of approx 6%. The juice is 10% sugar so how much additional sugar would be required to boost the ABV to 6%?

BeerNut

I've found that the OG of store-bought juice varies between 1.046 and 1.054, all of which will give you 6% ABV and higher without any added sugar.

topper_harley2

Following this thread with great interest, going to attempt similar myself in coming weeks. Currently trying to get the equipment together.
@OP, which size auto syphon did you get to go with that kit? There's small/medium/large auto-syphon listed here: http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/beer-wine-equipment-syphons-c-2_30.html?

BeerNut

The descriptions of the small and medium include the amount of liquid they're designed for: at 4.5L the small is designed for demijohns; the medium is 23L, so that's for normal sized fermenters.

almostover

topper_harley2 wrote: »

Following this thread with great interest, going to attempt similar myself in coming weeks. Currently trying to get the equipment together.
@OP, which size auto syphon did you get to go with that kit? There's small/medium/large auto-syphon listed here: http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/beer-wine-equipment-syphons-c-2_30.html?

I actually purchased one off Ebay. But it would be equivalent size to the medium syphon listed there.

almostover

Have put a batch of cider brewing now too. 15L of Aldi juice as previously described with 5g Safcider yeast. OG of 1052 so it's going to be potent when fermented out fully. Sampled a bottle of the Coopers Australian Pale Ale too after one week of bottle conditioning - couldn't resist! The beer tasted good, somewhat similar to Guinness Hop House 13 but more flavoursome. Beer wasn't very carbonated though and had no head retention, hopefully that's just down to time and leaving it condition in the bottle more will improve that.

One question to the cider experts here. I'm aiming to make a medium dry cider. My plan is to back sweeten with apple juice once fermentation is complete. What concentration of apple juice will be required to achieve a medium dry finish?

Carawaystick

almostover wrote: »

One question to the cider experts here. I'm aiming to make a medium dry cider. My plan is to back sweeten with apple juice once fermentation is complete. What concentration of apple juice will be required to achieve a medium dry finish?

How will you kill the yeast that will turn the apple juice into stronger cider?

almostover

Carawaystick wrote: »

almostover wrote: »

One question to the cider experts here. I'm aiming to make a medium dry cider. My plan is to back sweeten with apple juice once fermentation is complete. What concentration of apple juice will be required to achieve a medium dry finish?

How will you kill the yeast that will turn the apple juice into stronger cider?

Will I not need some active yeast to provide cabonation ? or what is the best way to both sweeten and carbonate the cider?

BeerNut

almostover wrote: »

Will I not need some active yeast to provide cabonation ? or what is the best way to both sweeten and carbonate the cider?

Easiest is to add the apple juice to taste when you serve it.

rubadub

BeerNut wrote: »

Easiest is to add the apple juice to taste when you serve it.

I wondered about doing this. You can get concentrated apple juice in some health shops, so as not to dilute it with too much uncarbonated liquid, though I suppose you could overcarbonate it to begin with.

I also though about setting aside some of the original concentrated kit juice, maybe freeze it.

Lovely Bloke

you CAN pasteurise the bottles after a certain amount of time having backsweetened, but it would be trial and error as to when to do the pasteurisation.

almostover

Right opened a bottle of the Coopers APA that I bottled 3 weeks ago. Fairly happy with the result. It's very drinkable, mild hoppiness and superior to most bottled mainstream lagers that I would drink from the bottle so a success in that regard. Only issue I'm finding is head retention, pours with a 1 cm head that lasts only a minute! Carbonation a little on the low side too so may have underestimated the priming sugar, may switch to the carbonation drops in future. It's very very drinkable though and overall I'm pleased with it as a first effort. Any ideas how to improve head retention and carbonation in future brews?

Also, my Aldi turbo cider is more or less ready for bottling! Fermenting now for 10 days and it'll be next weekend before I've time to bottle so it will be well finished by then. Some posters here have suggested to serve it with the apple juice if it's a little dry for some people which I will do. My question is how will I carbonate it in the bottle?

Lovely Bloke

you can add more apple juice to carb it.

or sugar as with beer.

or honey.

or pieces of actual apple.

anything with sugar in it will re-start the fermentation in the bottle, but with actual sugar you can measure correctly, with apple juice, honey and pieces of apple you won't have an accurate measure of the amount of sugar you are adding, so could end up under-carbed, or with bottles exploding.

rubadub

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

but with actual sugar you can measure correctly, with apple juice,

Most commercial juice will have the % on the side. Most is about 10-11% sugar, so you can work it out from that. You could use a syringe or shot glass or just weigh it if you have a small scale. Or you could prime it in bulk, i.e. add a fair amount of juice to the entire batch and bottle it.

Lovely Bloke

yep, that's right.

irish_goat

almostover wrote: »

Right opened a bottle of the Coopers APA that I bottled 3 weeks ago. Fairly happy with the result. It's very drinkable, mild hoppiness and superior to most bottled mainstream lagers that I would drink from the bottle so a success in that regard. Only issue I'm finding is head retention, pours with a 1 cm head that lasts only a minute! Carbonation a little on the low side too so may have underestimated the priming sugar, may switch to the carbonation drops in future. It's very very drinkable though and overall I'm pleased with it as a first effort. Any ideas how to improve head retention and carbonation in future brews?

Priming sugar is definitely the most reliable way. Did you use a calculator to work out the amount? This one is bang on I find. http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/carbonation.html

Increasing the priming sugar will improve the head retention, adding dry hops too. Other options would include adding wheat or unmalted barley but you need to be doing all grain to do that.

Carawaystick

Not washing your glasses in a dishwasher, or drinking milk in them also improves head retention.

almostover

Bottled the cider and primed with sugar last night. Tastes good, I fermented it fully so it's a dry cider but seems drinkable even at this early stage. Drank more of the Cooper's APA with a few friends Friday night. Bought some new beer glasses and head retention was far better using these. Happy overall with what I've done and have really caught the homebrewing bug. Thanks for all the good advice on here!

mordeith

Carawaystick wrote: »

Not washing your glasses in a dishwasher, or drinking milk in them also improves head retention.

What's the milk thing? I'm a devil for drinking a pint of milk in my glasses

rubadub

mordeith wrote: »

What's the milk thing? I'm a devil for drinking a pint of milk in my glasses

I think the fat in the milk gets embedded in the glass and hard to wash out, especially if there are any scratches. I imagine it also gets stuck in those glasses with the micro etched holes in the bottom to cause the head to stay (hate those glasses). The fat then kills the head.

macnug

almostover wrote:

Right opened a bottle of the Coopers APA that I bottled 3 weeks ago. Fairly happy with the result. It's very drinkable, mild hoppiness and superior to most bottled mainstream lagers that I would drink from the bottle so a success in that regard. Only issue I'm finding is head retention, pours with a 1 cm head that lasts only a minute! Carbonation a little on the low side too so may have underestimated the priming sugar, may switch to the carbonation drops in future. It's very very drinkable though and overall I'm pleased with it as a first effort. Any ideas how to improve head retention and carbonation in future brews?

There is very little you can do to increase head retention with kit beers, just make sure your carbonation is right and glass is cleaned right as been said before, also your choice of glass can have an impact as well, very wide glasses will disperse the co2 quicker due to the wider surface area.