First Crack!

[fixa4377]

G'day guys, pretty excited here atm, today me and the brother in law had a go at our first kit beer,
We purchased a Copper Tun Freemantle pale ale kit for the local home brew suppliers, Spent about 20/30 mins cleaning and sanitising the fermenter and the tools because the kit had been shed ridden for a few years, I will note a step by step below and if there is anything out of whack let me know, but as she's fermenting away I can't really change it but good notes for next time lol,

Heated tin in hot water 10 mins
Poured the mix into fermenter with 2 litres of boiled water, STIRRRED vigorously
Tipped the 1kg brew enhancer and the 250gram unhopped malt STIRRRRED vigorously
Filled the fermenter up to 20.5 litres with cold water straight from tap but used kettle to transfer water
Steeped 30grams of hops (2 diff varieties) in 500ml of boiled water for 10 mins and tipped the water into fermenter
let brew sit for 10 mins as temp was 26deg
sprinkled yeast on when brew reached 24deg
closed up and filled air lock
now sitting on 20-22deg

Fingers crossed it goes well!

The room it is in i have had a temp gauge in for a few days and varies from 16-19deg, so given that I think the brew will create a bit of it's own heat I am hoping it will sit constantly around the 18-22mark?


Smelt nice straight out of the tin!!


:chug:

 

[CrookedFingers]

Hey fixa !

Sounds to me like you made a beer man !!!
Pretty exciting !
It should work out just fine. Just let it ferment out for a couple of weeks and do your hydrometer readings.
Next you will be adding hops, steeping grains, buying shiney stainless steel things………and………….uh oh, look out, its all down hill from, here dude !!!haha

Good stuff man.

CF

 

[mrsupraboy]

Don't be in a rush with how long fermentation takes. That's what I learnt

 

[i-a-n]

Don't stop there.
What you now have to do is buy another couple of fermenters and kits to go in them, collect bottles like it's going out of fashion and make beer.
Given time you'll have a great stockpile of full bottles maturing nicely.
Then you're on the treadmill.
But by heck it's worth it.

 

[fixa4377]

Yeah I am already thinking about next batch thats for sure!

I have noticed the lid on the fermenter isn't on straight, so threaded tight though, and no bubbles from the airlock yet (brew is 18hrs in @18-20deg), but from what I have read it shouldn't make much difference??

 

[gsouth82]

Dont worry about your airlock. Take a gravity reading in 7 days or so to see how fermentation is progressing.
I noticed in your run down you didnt mention taking an OG (orginial gravity). Did you take one?
Good Luck!

 

[fixa4377]

Dont worry about your airlock. Take a gravity reading in 7 days or so to see how fermentation is progressing.
I noticed in your run down you didnt mention taking an OG (orginial gravity). Did you take one?
Good Luck!

Thanks mate,

I took a reading this morning and the apps sugar per litre reading was in between 104 &117, more closer to 104, and the upper reading meniscus was 42,

think all is going well, apart from turning the tap the wrong way and the carpet copped a soaking oops! hide that one from the mrs!

 

[Foxfire]

haha - welcome to the new brew club. If you're anything like the missus and I you'll be hip dip in fermenters before the week is out. I thoroughly recommend getting your significant other to get involved with mead/cider/beer (whatever they like ;p).

It's much more fun with them encouraging and being invovled.

 

[fixa4377]

haha - welcome to the new brew club. If you're anything like the missus and I you'll be hip dip in fermenters before the week is out. I thoroughly recommend getting your significant other to get involved with mead/cider/beer (whatever they like ;p).

It's much more fun with them encouraging and being invovled.

Agree

Her uncle is majorly into it, he is probably on here actually come to think of it

Good times ahead!

 

[NewtownClown]

Hey fixa !

Sounds to me like you made a beer man !!!

No, he made wort. Yeast makes the beer.

 

[CrookedFingers]

Seriously man ?
Lighten up sunshine, no need to get stupid here.
The way I see it is fixa4377 put the yeast in the wort that he made………….or is there some kind of magical yeast called Brian that appears in the dead of night, opens his own packet and crawls in through the airlock????
I must be missing something. :lol:

Good point foxfire, getting the missus involved does help things go along smoothly !

 

[fixa4377]

I took the initial reading with the hydrometer @104ish sugar per litre , 42 the upper meniscus reading,

11 days on, just took a reading and is - @39 sugar per litre , 14 the upper meniscus reading,

Is this sounding ok ?







Edit; sorry i copied and pasted re the band width :unsure:

 

[pat86]

Hey fixa, maybe use the more standard gravity format for readings such as 1040, etc. As it is a bit hard to understand what you are saying.

If your OG was 1042 and after 11 days is at 1039, then you have a pretty stuck ferment. A normal beer at that gravity would be finished by now and sitting at 1006-1012 depending ...

If its sitting at 1014 it could be done but seems a little high since you don't have a lot of unfermentables, I would try raising the temp several degrees and give the FV a swirl to see if you can bring it down a few points.

 

[fixa4377]

Hey fixa, maybe use the more standard gravity format for readings such as 1040, etc. As it is a bit hard to understand what you are saying.

If your OG was 1042 and after 11 days is at 1039, then you have a pretty stuck ferment. A normal beer at that gravity would be finished by now and sitting at 1006-1012 depending ...

If its sitting at 1014 it could be done but seems a little high since you don't have a lot of unfermentables, I would try raising the temp several degrees and give the FV a swirl to see if you can bring it down a few points.

Thanks mate Sorry I actually did numbers wrong -_- ,, the reading initially was 1042 and reading 11 days on was 1014,

I have just done another reading, been in the fermenter for 16 days, and the reading is still 1013/1014, been there since last Wednesday,

It had been around the 18deg mark for most of the fermenting,, should I wait it out still or bottle at this 1014 mark?

Thanks in advance from the newby fellas!

Also just noticed the longer the hydrometer is left in the higher the reading becomes :/

 

[beercus]

Thanks mate,

I took a reading this morning and the apps sugar per litre reading was in between 104 &117, more closer to 104, and the upper reading meniscus was 42,

think all is going well, apart from turning the tap the wrong way and the carpet copped a soaking oops! hide that one from the mrs!

Meniscus...... You make an old science teacher smile

Take readings often and taste as you go... get an idea for the process...

Read this: http://www.howtobrew.com/

and go and buy a BigW 19L pot..... after a couple of kits, get onto extracts....

 

[fixa4377]

Well,,,

we bottled up the brew 2 & 1/2 weeks ago, Kept them at fermenting temp for that time,

Excited this weekend we took 3 long necks away with us!,,

Open the first bottle, and a very minor hiss made its way out of the bottle, poured into glasses, it was pretty much dead flat!

Thinking that maybe one bottle got away from our carb drops, nup, the next 2 were flat also! ,, taste was nice!! very happy but, flat beer! no!


We used Morgans carb drops, 2 per 750ml bottle and capped straight away, using black caps on Coopers pale ale long necks,


Very disappointing

Any ideas where somethings gone skew here???

 

[barabool]

Hey Fix
A great step forward in the fantastic journey of beer making is the bulk prime. That means moving your beer from your primary fermentor to as secondary 'bucket' - its sometimes called 'racking'.
The best benefit is that instead of putting 1-2 carb drops in each bottle - you put 130-180 grams of sugar in the whole beer.
Get yourself a second 'bucket' - siphon your beer from your primary 'bucket' into the secondary 'bucket' - mix in the 180grams of primary sugar, then bottle as usual.
Best thing about it is it doesn't matter what size your bottles are as the sugar is already mixed. Check out the million you tube videos - here is one picked at random - .
There are also heaps of calculators to work out the level of carbonation you can get in a beer. Some beers like being fizzy - others like a slower bubble.
I suggest you search in the forums for the 'KIT & EXTRACT BEER DESIGNER' - this is an excel spreadsheet that really rocks.

Good luck
(P.S Flat beer can still be okay)

 

[Burt de Ernie]

Hey Fix
A great step forward in the fantastic journey of beer making is the bulk prime. That means moving your beer from your primary fermentor to as secondary 'bucket' - its sometimes called 'racking'.
The best benefit is that instead of putting 1-2 carb drops in each bottle - you put 130-180 grams of sugar in the whole beer.
Get yourself a second 'bucket' - siphon your beer from your primary 'bucket' into the secondary 'bucket' - mix in the 180grams of primary sugar, then bottle as usual.
Best thing about it is it doesn't matter what size your bottles are as the sugar is already mixed. Check out the million you tube videos - here is one picked at random - .
There are also heaps of calculators to work out the level of carbonation you can get in a beer. Some beers like being fizzy - others like a slower bubble.
I suggest you search in the forums for the 'KIT & EXTRACT BEER DESIGNER' - this is an excel spreadsheet that really rocks.

Good luck
(P.S Flat beer can still be okay)

This^^

 

[fixa4377]

Thanks guys!

Will check youtube out

I've looked through that spreadsheet, bit hard to understand atm but learning as I go,

I've considered kegging also, bit frustrating if the whole batch is flat

good learning curves anyways

 

[barabool]

Fixa, never underestimate the process of uncapping a couple of the beers and putting in a small amount of sugars in each bottle and recapping. Leave it for a couple of days and see if its the lack of sugar was your problem. When sterilized - beer can be a bit forgiving. Same can occur is over fermented. If you ever get a couple of bottles blow through over fermenting. Uncap the rest then cap again. Amazing what you can get.
Cheers