# Muntons Yorkshire Bitter?



## sid (8/11/07)

Hey everyone, I'm quite new to brewing and have a Muntons yorkshire bitter in the fermentor right now. I opened the lid today to have a look at it after 8 days and noticed some yeast still floating on top, there is alot of yeast on the bottom of the fermentor as well. The brew is still bubbling now and again and the hydrometre reading is at 1012.

My question is whether the brew is ruined or not, I have done 4 other brews and never had some yeast floating on top after 8 days, I know some brews can take a while, so when should I give up on the brew?. The temp at pitching the yeast was 24 degrees and the temp in the fermentor over the last 8 days has a steady 22 degrees.........a bit higher than i would have liked. 
I swilled a bit around in the gob and it tasted rather yeasty. but doesn't have any off smell.

Any ideas would apreciated.

thanx, Sid.


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## Muggus (8/11/07)

Doesn't sound like there's all too much wrong with it to me. If there's no real off smells or flavours to it then it should be alright.


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## phonos (8/11/07)

Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.

Great kit too! You're in for a treat


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## Hutch (8/11/07)

Sounds OK to me sid :icon_cheers: 

Many Ale yeasts will do this - flocculate to the top, and sit there in a big fat yeast floaty for several days, sometimes well after primary fermentation has finished. Once you're happy that the SG reading has not changed over a few days, you'll be fine to bottle. You can scoop out the remaining floaties if you like, or just leave it there and bottle as normal, trying to avoid syphoning any of it into the bottle once you reach the last few bottles (unless you like lots of yeast in your bottle that is  

Many brewers transfer to a secondary fermenter, and let this sit for a further week, and this helps to settle out a lot of the suspended yeast. Alternatively, if you can put your fermenter into the fridge for a week, this will really help clear the beer (less sediment in the bottle), while still leaving more than enough yeast in suspension to carbonate your bottles. 

Hope this helps.
Hutch.


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## EK (8/11/07)

It sounds OK to me, ale yeasts being top-fermenting and all.

If you're concern if that it is not finished fermenting then, you could always check it with a hydrometer once a day and see what the readings are...the same reading three times and it's done.

Personally I would leave it in the fermenter for another 5 or 6 days (I usually wait until 2 weeks, from pitching yeast, before I bottle). You could rack to another fermenter if you have one. Have a look at the following for more detail if you're unfamiliar.
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...?showtopic=6496
http://www.brewhaus.com.au/html/Instructions/Racking.html
http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Homebrew#Racking
http://www.grumpys.com.au/m1.php3?manualid=14

After I have let it sit that long (either in the primary fermenter or into a racking fermenter) the beer is usually very clear and ready for bottling.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that time won't hurt it, in fact it will help clear the beer. Just don't keep opening the fermenter too much.


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## sid (9/11/07)

Thanks for all the replies and advice, I'll leave it for another week I think.
After reading some of those links, I'll try racking it off to a spare fermenting bin. I like the idea of having clearer beer with less yeast in the bottles, sounds like the way to go. Hopefully this Yorkshire bitter will turn out to be a good drop. 

I have another brew to put down this saturday which is an all malt brew using a blackrock draught and a blackrock amber malt, will use either saflager s-04 or muntons premium gold yeast, to get an ale type beer, anyone try this combination at all?

Good forum this one, will have to spend some time reading through the old posts to see what info I can pick up off all the other brewers.


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## chimera (9/11/07)

sid said:


> Thanks for all the replies and advice, I'll leave it for another week I think.
> After reading some of those links, I'll try racking it off to a spare fermenting bin. I like the idea of having clearer beer with less yeast in the bottles, sounds like the way to go. Hopefully this Yorkshire bitter will turn out to be a good drop.
> 
> I have another brew to put down this saturday which is an all malt brew using a blackrock draught and a blackrock amber malt, will use either saflager s-04 or muntons premium gold yeast, to get an ale type beer, anyone try this combination at all?
> ...



Sounds like yer coming along in leaps, next time look to get some additional hops too.


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## RobboMC (9/11/07)

sid said:


> Thanks for all the replies and advice, I'll leave it for another week I think.
> After reading some of those links, I'll try racking it off to a spare fermenting bin. I like the idea of having clearer beer with less yeast in the bottles, sounds like the way to go. Hopefully this Yorkshire bitter will turn out to be a good drop.




I've just tasted my Muntons Yorkshire Bitter I made in September, yes it's a great kit, some are saying it's
the best kit on the market, though that's a big call. I added 1 kg of liquid malt and reduced volume to 19 litres.
I racked after 5 days, then 12 more days in the secondary. 
Result was a really superb beer, probably the best I've ever made for such little effort. ( No steeping grains )

Be careful with your racking, don't contaminate such a good drop.

With your coming amber draught, you may find adding a full can of malt to a kit alone will result in a very malty beer, once you get over a certain amount of added malt you'll find the need to add bittering via hops with it. I reckon the limit is about 1kg of liquid malt, but others may disagree.


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## sid (9/11/07)

Yeh i have a goldings finishing hop 12g tea bag here that i can throw into that all malt brew, maybe that will turn the malt taste a bit..........I might as well use it suppose. I should have thrown it into the muntons.

Just racked the muntons, so Hopefully I was clean enough in my preperation and I'll get to taste that bitter ale, will be interesting.

In the last 8 weeks a mate and my self have put down 18 kit beers to test out which ones we like, the most expensive one being and all malt Mac's beer, a "saaz pale ale" from NZ, that was a 3.4 kg kit, The rest of them muntons, coopers original, lion, blackrock, cascade and brewtech.
we have found the muntons conneisuers range to be one of the best so far, but I'm now playing around with adding hops, adjuncts etc to see what i can come up with. 
I found the brewcraft converters lowered the % off alchohol by about 1% in a 1.5kg malt kit, so will have to top them up in the future with a small amount of dextrose if i want a 4.5% beer.

Next year we'll have to start AG at some stage. can't wait. But for now just modifying kit beers.

Talking of beer, I'm about ready to have one, cya's


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## brettprevans (9/11/07)

Sid

finishing hops wont balance out the sweetness/maltyness enough, you need bitter hops (is hops boiled for a longer period of time). 

also a slightly pedantic point...when you say all malt brew are you meaning 'ive added nothing but extra malt' which means no dex, maltdex etc or are you reffering to an extract brew? An extract brew is using dry/liquid malt as a base (no tins of wort). Using a can wort and adding malt is not an extract brew. 

congrats on putting down so many kit beers, its a good way to see what you like and rack up brewing experiance. but how the hell did you do 18 in 8 weeks. thats 2.25 kits per week resulting in 396L of beer (528 longnecks or 44 slabs or stubbies). you must have a massive amount of equipment, bottles etc.


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## sid (9/11/07)

citymorgue2 said:


> congrats on putting down so many kit beers, its a good way to see what you like and rack up brewing experiance. but how the hell did you do 18 in 8 weeks. thats 2.25 kits per week resulting in 396L of beer (528 longnecks or 44 slabs or stubbies). you must have a massive amount of equipment, bottles etc.




Yeh i mean that I've added malt to to a kit brew no dextrose.

Got five fermenting kegs, there is two of us doing them, either one of us can have 2 each going during the week, had a carton of PET bottles delivered, I think thats 200 litres worth, heh, 168 1.25ltr bottles and we have 13 doz big bottles, so it adds up.
It'll slow down down once we fill these up though, and we still have to learn how to brew a good beer.........that'll take some time.


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## Boozums (27/11/07)

citymorgue2 said:


> congrats on putting down so many kit beers, its a good way to see what you like and rack up brewing experiance. but how the hell did you do 18 in 8 weeks. thats 2.25 kits per week resulting in 396L of beer (528 longnecks or 44 slabs or stubbies). you must have a massive amount of equipment, bottles etc.



Sid had a 2 week head start on me but I made up for lost time by ramping up production almost as soon as I got underway. I'm currently running 3 fermenters but want to get my hands on at least another 2 as soon as I can. The graphic below contains all the labels of the kits I've done in the last couple of months. And to be completely fair, even the Coopers Draught I threw out was better than any of the beers Sid has bottled ;-)


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## sid (28/11/07)

Boozums said:


> Sid had a 2 week head start on me but I made up for lost time by ramping up production almost as soon as I got underway. I'm currently running 3 fermenters but want to get my hands on at least another 2 as soon as I can. The graphic below contains all the labels of the kits I've done in the last couple of months. And to be completely fair, even the Coopers Draught I threw out was better than any of the beers Sid has bottled ;-)



heh, hey now, your around here drinking my beer every week, so it can't be too bad. 
You must have spent a while scanning in those labels,... I would place my order for a pint of 10 or 11, but I know they aren't ready.
That picture is a good alround example of the K&K available to us in NZ.


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## Fatgodzilla (28/11/07)

sid said:


> heh, hey now, your around here drinking my beer every week, so it can't be too bad.
> You must have spent a while scanning in those labels,... I would place my order for a pint of 10 or 11, but I know they aren't ready.
> That picture is a good alround example of the K&K available to us in NZ.




What Kiwis do when the Rugby season is over !!!!!!!!!!!

Might need to come for a holiday !!!!!


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## RobboMC (28/11/07)

sid said:


> Yeh i mean that I've added malt to to a kit brew no dextrose.
> 
> Just because you haven't added any 'sugar' doesn't necessarily guarrantee that the kit maker hasn't.
> 
> ...


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## sid (28/11/07)

RobboMC said:


> Some kits proudly state "no added barley sugar" on the package.
> 
> I've brewed 4 such kits in the last 12 months and you CAN really taste the difference.
> Obviously these kits are the more expensive ones.
> ...



hey ya RobboMC, yeh I put down an all malt kit 4 weeks ago, It was a "Macs, saaz pale ale", thats my first all malt, I think it was 3.4kg. Thought I'd give it a go, cracked open a taster bottle the other day and it was still too young, I find the thicker malt beers quite odd tasting, but thats because I've never really drank them before. I'll get used to it........ I have 22 litres left.

Do the full malt beers take longer to mature?



> What Kiwis do when the Rugby season is over !!!!!!!!!!!



heh,yeh more so this year with a bad result in the world cup.


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## clarkey7 (28/11/07)

Just wanted to add another comment about Muntons Yorkshire Bitter.

It took me 80 brews to finally stumble across it. I was going for a Kilkenny Copy.

kit + 500 LDME + 250 CS + 250 Dex + Fuggles + Goldings Hop Teabags in fermentor.

I wish I found it sooner. Superb beer - in my top ten.

I don't think it's turned out much like Kilkenny......It's better.

PB


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