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syke

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Hi All

After much lurking in this forum for the last few years I have taken the plunge and gotten back into brewing.

I bought off ebay a second hand keg setup with two fermenters and all the kit needed to do allgrain at a steal of a price, so I think im setup now for where ever this takes me! I have so many plans!

Tonight I did two brews to start me off and hopefully have them ready to drink before christmas. Because I am kegging these I'm hoping they will taste good after only a few weeks of conditioning in the keg.

Brew 1 tonight was -

OS Coopers Lager with BE2 and US-05 yeast. It was filled to roughly 22l and yeast was pitched at 25degrees. OG was 1032

Brew 2 tonight was -

OS Coopers Draught with BE1 and US-05 yeast. It was filled roughly to 22l and yeast pitched at 26degrees. OG was 1036

Now everything went pretty well considering it was my first effort for quite a while. I tasted each when I tested the gravity, but wasnt sure if they are correct, do you let the hydrometer to bounce to the side of the tube or hold it up straight? Im not to sure but either way I was expecting them to be a bit higher. I guess worse case is that they will be less alcohol content.

Now I had a minor tragedy when I was placing in the airlock on the draught beer. The grommit from the lid pushed in and is now in my beer. I had a spare grommit and have sealed the lid but didnt want to fish out the swimming grommit as i had pitched the yeast allready. Anyone done this before and do you think it will leave a taste/disolve in the beer? Since this kit was new to me I did sanatize the lid but still has me wondering.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)

Denis
 
Hey and welcome back.


Those gravity readings sound low to me based on the ingredients you listed. Sounds like it wasn't mixed well enough but won't Chang the outcome once the yeast do thier thing.



Choice of US 05 as opposed to the kit yeast was definately a positive move. The temps are a bit high for my liking though, sooner you get them to 18-20 the better.

As to the O-ring, can't imagine it'll cause any problems if it was cleaned and sanitised, though I suspect that may not be the case if it's fallen off at that stage, guessing you hadn't removed it yourself. Fingers crossed it doesn't hurt it.
 
Brew 1 tonight was -

OS Coopers Lager with BE2 and US-05 yeast. It was filled to roughly 22l and yeast was pitched at 25degrees. OG was 1032

Brew 2 tonight was -

OS Coopers Draught with BE1 and US-05 yeast. It was filled roughly to 22l and yeast pitched at 26degrees. OG was 1036

Now I had a minor tragedy when I was placing in the airlock on the draught beer. The grommit from the lid pushed in and is now in my beer. I had a spare grommit and have sealed the lid but didnt want to fish out the swimming grommit as i had pitched the yeast allready. Anyone done this before and do you think it will leave a taste/disolve in the beer? Since this kit was new to me I did sanatize the lid but still has me wondering.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)

Denis
Hey Denis, they are going to be pretty low alcohol brews, those ingredients wouldn't take them up to much more than 3.8% after priming. Should be good summer quaffers though. Maybe next time add some more DME, say 500gm or so, or do it like our US cousins with 5 gallons (19 litres), or even a little less. I don't mind the latter method, yeah you don't get as much bang for your buck, but it does mean you get through your beer more quickly and can move onto the next experiment.

As for your airlock grommet, can't say i've ever had that happen...is it floating on top of your wort? If so just sanitise some tweezers or tongs and go get it. If it's sitting at the bottom of the FV i'd say bad luck, cross your fingers and hope it's well sanitised...it doesn't sound like you took it out of the lid to sanitise it separately, so there's a small chance being a 2nd hand FV that it could be an issue. If it turns out with an infection just chalk it up to lesson learned....
 
I've lost and airlock grommet into the wort. Just leave it, beer will be fine, but do remember to fish it out after kegging!

(Mine was when pushing a thermowell in through the lid)
 
Choice of US 05 as opposed to the kit yeast was definately a positive move. The temps are a bit high for my liking though, sooner you get them to 18-20 the better.

Only a positive move if you can get your temps down to 18-20. If not, you might as well save your 5-6 bucks and stick with the kit yeast.
 
As a wise brewer once told me if youve pitched a nice healthy dose of yeast it SHOULD overtake any bacteria that may have been in the O ring. If ou hadnt pitched yet then you might have problems. Ive done the same thing even dropped a strainer in my brew and it turned out fine.
 
Hey Guys thanks all for such a quick response!

Im not too fussed on it having a lower alcohol content, I was hoping for a bit more but c'est la vie :rolleyes: .

I soaked the lids for 30 mins in sanitizer, said to soak for at least 15-20 mins so will see how we go.

It is quite cool in perth for the next few days so hopefully the temperature will come down. I did put them in a water bath to get them closer to 25 degrees but as it is a brand new house (was meant to be painting when i made my brews) I didn't have alot of stuff with me to try and bring it down further. The US05 had 25degree's at the top of the range so hopefully it will be ok.

I am putting them in kegs so hopefully I can drink them in a few weeks and will let you know if the grommit gives any taste or not. It sank to the bottom so I wasnt able to get it out.

Cheers for the input guys! What a great forum this is!

Denis
 
Hey Guys!

A bit of an update, I have both brew's in kegs and they seemed to go ok, they both finished at 1002(not sure if i read correctly) so I am assuming they both fermented fully.

I have a few questions about the keg pressures though, I have a harris regulator and at the moment it in the fridge set to 1bar split over the two kegs. Will this be enough to carbonate them? Or do I need more, I am happy to wait for them do this slowly but not sure where it should be.

After 3 days in the kegs I tried the beers, the Lager will end up like a aussie lager (crown or fosters) and the draught I think will end up like a Swan or Carlton Draught. im not terribly impressed with either to be honest but I know they are both green and I am sure they will improve with time.

What would be a good pooring pressure for 4 foot of hose behind my tap, when I tried to pour a glass tonight it come out as foam so not sure if the beer is overcarbonated or the pressure is just up to high.

Any insight will be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Denis
 
Hi not sure about your beer line length ect but 1 bar is about 14-15 psi. I have a kegerator and my pressure stays set at about 7-8 psi otherwise it gets too carbonated for my liking. Depending how im carbonating my keg I hook mine to gas and leave for a few weeks at the same pouring pressure with no dramas. Never touch my regulator. I would maybe say its just too high pressure for pouring and could be overcarbed being three days at that pressure but I'm not too sure. Hope this helps a bit.
Cheers Chris
 
Have you tested your hydro in cold tap water? Assuming you used the full boxes of BE then you should have come out with around 1047 OG.

Unless you are formulating your own extract - then later All Grain - recipes I see no point in using a hydro at all for OG, I never did when I was doing kits as the quantities are "immutable" and it's really just like buying a telescope to check if it's currently full moon. :p checking for FG is always a good idea if there's still krausen hanging around of course.

The other thing, how did you know that you had 22L ??
Pre marked buckets and barrels are notoriously inaccurate - for example Willow 20L containers notoriously hold 24L <_<
I'd get an accurate kitchen jug and do a test fill then a mark on the side of your fermenter.
 
Hey Guys!

Thanks for the fast responses! I will put the pressure down on my regulator and see if this improves things.

I used a Kitchen jug when I measured out my brew, It was a 2 litre jug though, and it is quite possible that I had an extra 2L in there then I was expecting.

When I kegged it I managed to get 1 full keg, and 6 King Brown bottles, and then still pour out some beer so might have actually brewed at 24L.

I did a cerveza last night and was quite careful with adding water and I know its at 19L, I will mark the fermenter so I know where to stop next time.

After 3 days in the kegs my beer wasn't really carbonated, would being overcarbonated have something to do this, as in when it pours it loses all the bubbles as its a glass of foam before it settles?

Cheers Everyone!

Thanks

D
 
I've never overcarbed so not 100% but yes if it comes out like foam it'll go flat quick smart like any fizzy drink. I started out with really low pressure, started pouring into a jug and turned regulator up untill it was pouring nice. Just make sure if you ever turn the gas down, burp the pressure or disconnect first. If it is overcarbed you may have to disconnect gas and vent pressure a few times over a couple hrs to degas it. Never had these problems so I'm just guessing from what I've read.
Chris
 
Hey All

i backed the pressure of to about 2/3rds of a bar and then bled each keg, after which the beer poured nicely and was nicely carbonated :)
 
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