Hello fellow brewsters.
This is my first post and my first brew is at fermentation end.
I have succumbed to pressure from SWMBO's elderly father to attempt my own liquid creations. My mistake was drinking and admitting to liking his darker ales and now our conversations are largely focussed on the black art of making them.
I'd already bought 60 PET bottles which he filled with a pale and lager. On his advice and with a little reluctance, I bought a Premium Recipe Kit from a South Australian franchise for $125 with ingredients for a Coopers Pale Ale Style (20902) including a Safale S04 yeast, sachet of sanitiser but no bottles. I was disappointed with the fermenter tap not seating & needing three hands to use it but what can I do, I'm hours away from the point of purchase.
Three sets of kit instructions, none complete and all conflicting, I chose what I thought was the best procedure at the time to begin; several boiled kettles & a large insert from a slow cooker at the ready. Heating, stirring and crushing the grain was messy but not hard and as I neared the desired volume temperature-chasing, I realised it was a little hot, 26C, and in cooling it down it ended up being nearly 25 litres. We currently have chilly nights here, the occasional frost and a max daytime temp in the mid teens. The fermenter sat on the fridge and the airlock bubbled at 3 second intervals but after a couple of days I felt it was too hot (23C) and moved it onto the floor (15C overnight) with bubbling at 9 second intervals. Without a constant low ambient temperature and heater, I have not been able to stabilise temperature. I did not take a beginning SG reading. At day 7 things were dormant but down to 15C one night so back up onto the fridge again and within hours she's off bubbling away at 23C, 10 days since starting.
Now the airlock has settled but my SG is 1.015 and a long way from the green line. I havn't got a clue what to do now apart form wait. What worries me is fermenter temperature fluctuation, from 15C to 23C. I don't intend to "rack" it into a secondary fermenter but will bottle it from the first one, just not sure when.
I was undecided on what to use to clean and sanitise and in frustration with limited time ended up buying Morgans Low suds Brewers Detergent 250ml $8 and Morgans Sanitiser 250ml $8 simply to get me started. An expensive excercise but I wasn't clear on the alternatives. I understand many of you use Napisan as your source of sodium percarbonate but I have no idea at what rate of dilution or if it is scented; some of them appear to have added lavender, largely unwanted in beer I would have thought. All I want to do is clean and sanitise beerware following the k.i.s.s. principle.
I will be initially bottling into 750ml PETs but have begun to collect 330ml glass stubbies for a special project I have in mind a few brews later. The capper supplied with the kit is mallet struck but I have a new INART 2-lever capper ready to use when the time comes.
For the next brew, is there anything wrong with using the large electric slow cooker to heat and mix the brew up in as it will save the inconvenience of boiling the kettle multiple times; I don't have a large enough saucepan. I now have an old electric blanket and will put the fermenter out in the shed in an attempt to stabilise temps during fermentation. I already have a lever tap to replace the original unusable twist tap.
Q. Is temperature stability THAT critical even though it remains within recommended ranges?
Q. How does everyone in the real world maintain stable temps if so, without cellars?
Q. Are separate cappers needed for crown and twist caps?
My most urgent question now:
WTF do I do with a SG of 1.015 (fallen from 1.022 three days ago)? I'm very tempted to wait even longer until it settles but that conflicts with some of the kit instructions and the old man's methods.
Fritz.
(HE gave me that name, it amuses him and sometimes when we meet I give him a sample of cheap fritz, considered a delicacy in my childhood but almost an insult to him)
This is my first post and my first brew is at fermentation end.
I have succumbed to pressure from SWMBO's elderly father to attempt my own liquid creations. My mistake was drinking and admitting to liking his darker ales and now our conversations are largely focussed on the black art of making them.
I'd already bought 60 PET bottles which he filled with a pale and lager. On his advice and with a little reluctance, I bought a Premium Recipe Kit from a South Australian franchise for $125 with ingredients for a Coopers Pale Ale Style (20902) including a Safale S04 yeast, sachet of sanitiser but no bottles. I was disappointed with the fermenter tap not seating & needing three hands to use it but what can I do, I'm hours away from the point of purchase.
Three sets of kit instructions, none complete and all conflicting, I chose what I thought was the best procedure at the time to begin; several boiled kettles & a large insert from a slow cooker at the ready. Heating, stirring and crushing the grain was messy but not hard and as I neared the desired volume temperature-chasing, I realised it was a little hot, 26C, and in cooling it down it ended up being nearly 25 litres. We currently have chilly nights here, the occasional frost and a max daytime temp in the mid teens. The fermenter sat on the fridge and the airlock bubbled at 3 second intervals but after a couple of days I felt it was too hot (23C) and moved it onto the floor (15C overnight) with bubbling at 9 second intervals. Without a constant low ambient temperature and heater, I have not been able to stabilise temperature. I did not take a beginning SG reading. At day 7 things were dormant but down to 15C one night so back up onto the fridge again and within hours she's off bubbling away at 23C, 10 days since starting.
Now the airlock has settled but my SG is 1.015 and a long way from the green line. I havn't got a clue what to do now apart form wait. What worries me is fermenter temperature fluctuation, from 15C to 23C. I don't intend to "rack" it into a secondary fermenter but will bottle it from the first one, just not sure when.
I was undecided on what to use to clean and sanitise and in frustration with limited time ended up buying Morgans Low suds Brewers Detergent 250ml $8 and Morgans Sanitiser 250ml $8 simply to get me started. An expensive excercise but I wasn't clear on the alternatives. I understand many of you use Napisan as your source of sodium percarbonate but I have no idea at what rate of dilution or if it is scented; some of them appear to have added lavender, largely unwanted in beer I would have thought. All I want to do is clean and sanitise beerware following the k.i.s.s. principle.
I will be initially bottling into 750ml PETs but have begun to collect 330ml glass stubbies for a special project I have in mind a few brews later. The capper supplied with the kit is mallet struck but I have a new INART 2-lever capper ready to use when the time comes.
For the next brew, is there anything wrong with using the large electric slow cooker to heat and mix the brew up in as it will save the inconvenience of boiling the kettle multiple times; I don't have a large enough saucepan. I now have an old electric blanket and will put the fermenter out in the shed in an attempt to stabilise temps during fermentation. I already have a lever tap to replace the original unusable twist tap.
Q. Is temperature stability THAT critical even though it remains within recommended ranges?
Q. How does everyone in the real world maintain stable temps if so, without cellars?
Q. Are separate cappers needed for crown and twist caps?
My most urgent question now:
WTF do I do with a SG of 1.015 (fallen from 1.022 three days ago)? I'm very tempted to wait even longer until it settles but that conflicts with some of the kit instructions and the old man's methods.
Fritz.
(HE gave me that name, it amuses him and sometimes when we meet I give him a sample of cheap fritz, considered a delicacy in my childhood but almost an insult to him)
h34r:
