Hello from Adelaide!

[KitchenBrews]

Hi all, last christmas my partner bought my a coopers home brew kit which sat in the corner gathering dust due to space restrictions. This has recently changed and last week I put down my first brew (the one that came with the kit). I stuffed up my gravity readings and bottled after 8 days in the wort.. seemed like a good enough day as any lol. They should be drinkable for new years, so exciting! Any way, I am hooked, I will be putting down the next one on the weekend and soon I hope to get another tub to have 2 on the go. As you can probably gather, I am a total noob to home brewing and I am looking forward to learning a lot from every one here!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Hi Kitchen brews.

In the immediate future, to help the quality of your kit brews:

1. Don't ferment at 25 degrees (or whatever). 20 degrees tops, but 18 degrees ideally. Those instructions are wrong. We don't know why they continue to print them.
2. If you're prepared to spend extra on yeast, it'll improve the quality of your beer, combined with #1.

I see you're in ADE and the weather is hot. Find a cooler spot in your house or wait until the weather settles back down again.

 

[big78sam]

Did you bottle in PET bottles or glass? What was your fermentation temperature? 8 days should have been enough for the batch to finish fermenting. Beware of bottling too early in glass or you may have "bottle bombs" on your hands - shards of glass flying around is not a nice thing...

A couple of things all noobs should know:

1. Sanitisation is crucial. Be anal about this.
2. Temperature control while fermenting - aim for 18 to 20 degrees - ignore the kit instructions that tell you to ferment higher. A search will give you some handy tips for keeing fermentation temps down in warmer weather.

If you want to improve your beers:

1. replace the kit yeast with a better one. US05 is a good starting point. It's available from any homebrew shop or you can buy from site sponsors who will post
2. Try adding som finishing hops. Do a quick search and you'll find out how
3. Replace sugar additions with malt extract

Enjoy! It's a slippery slope.

EDIT: Beaten!

 

[KitchenBrews]

Thanks for the fast replies guys! I started it at around 28 and it dropped to 22 after two days and stayed there for the rest of the time. I am using the pet bottles, I have about 40 of them atm but I have been drinking longnecks while I wait for the first batch to be ready... I should have about 3 cartons of emptys by then. Premium yeast is what my mate was saying too, he said it makes the world of difference to the brew. He also uses tea bags of hops bought from the brew shop. I'm really looking forward to experiment and the heads up about temperature is exactly why I am here

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Hi KB (easier to type),

When you go to the brew shop, you'll see 'tea bags' of hops. I think this is what your mate is talking about.

These will add something extra to your brew, but they aren't cheap. You get about 12g of hops for about $5.

Most of us get 50-90g of hops for this same price.

They may also not be fresh (if they're not stored in the fridge, this is definite).

One option to cut costs, if you'd like to use hops is get hops in larger amounts and either buy a pack of tea bags (you can get the 'tea bag' ready to make from shops such as T2) or make it with polyester voile (curtain material) from spotlight or lincraft and some string to tie it up.

You'll reduce your costs down signficantly.

US-05 is a great yeast, Nottingham works well under most conditions. For $4-5 a pack it's worth it.

It's a slippery slope from here. The more you learn and improve, the more you want to learn and improve. It's been 15 years for me since I first bought a kit and now I produce craft-brewery quality beer.

 

[big78sam]

If you can get the temperature down at the start of fermentation it will make a big difference. FYI If you get that "homebrew twang" from this batch a major contributing factor will be fermentation at higher temperatures.

A tip - Don't use too much hot water at the start when mixing the tin up. The more hot water you use, the higher the temperature will be when you pitch the yeast.

 

[big78sam]

One option to cut costs, if you'd like to use hops is get hops in larger amounts and either buy a pack of tea bags (you can get the 'tea bag' ready to make from shops such as T2) or make it with polyester voile (curtain material) from spotlight or lincraft and some string to tie it up.

.

For what it's worth I dont even bother with tea bags. You can just throw the hops in loose. Some people swear by using "hop socks" as Raja has suggested and this has some benefits but it also adds the possibility of adding infection if you don't sanitise the bag properly. There has been much debate here in this topic over the years but just throwing them in is a valid method.

 

[KitchenBrews]

A tip - Don't use too much hot water at the start when mixing the tin up. The more hot water you use, the higher the temperature will be when you pitch the yeast.

I made this mistake, at 23L my temp was 34. I just sealed it up and waited a few hours under the aircon untill it dropped to 28 before pitching the yeast. For my next lot I will be shooting for 20 at 23L.

 

[dubbadan]

If you can get the temperature down at the start of fermentation it will make a big difference. FYI If you get that "homebrew twang" from this batch a major contributing factor will be fermentation at higher temperatures.

A tip - Don't use too much hot water at the start when mixing the tin up. The more hot water you use, the higher the temperature will be when you pitch the yeast.

Another tip: boil up a big pot of water and then chill it somehow (I put the pot in an ice bath in the sink) and keep it in the fridge in PET bottles or whatever. Very handy for brining down the temp of your brew. I will reiterate what everyone else has said thus far: the 3 most important things in getting decent beer are sanitation, good ingredients and TEMPERATURE CONTROL.
Another tip: ask for a noob brewer book for chrissy such as How To Brew by John Palmer.

 

[big78sam]

Another tip while we're on a roll - If you are mixing boiling water and the tins/extracts together do this in a pot, i.e. boil the water for 5 minutes with lid on to sanitise the pot, add the tins etc, then put the pot in the laundry tub or sink for 10 minutes or so, replacing the water a couple of times. Then add to the fermentor and top up with water. It's much easier to cool down a few litres of boiling water than to cool 23 L of wort at 25 degrees.

 

[KitchenBrews]

I do have a quick question about gravity readings (I stuffed mine up). I basically filled my tube enough to float my hydrometer and took a reading straight away - og was 1.035 The second reading I took I got one number (cant remember what it was, I'm not at home) I left the hydrometer sitting in the beer for maybe 5 mins and looked at it again and the reading was different.

So my question is, how long do I leave my hydrometer in the beer before I take the reading for it to be accurate?

 

[big78sam]

The reading should be accurate straight away. The reading will change with temperatire but the difference we be minimal at the temerature we're talking about here (if you are measuring straight from a mash tun at 65 degrees you will need to allow for this).

I generally allow time for any bubbles on the surface to disappear then give the hydrometer a spin. I can't recall the exact rationale for this, something about ensuring no bubbles are attached to the side of the hydrometer which will stuff your readings.Also ensure you throw the first little bit away. You may get some wort sitting in the tap that has more sugar in it as the first wort you put in the fermentor is much more concentrated (you haven't topped up with water at that stage)

An OG of 1.035 seems a bit low. This is the initial reading before fermentation starts. I would have expected an opening reading of around 1.045 and a final reading of around 1.010 to 1.012. What did you add other than the tin of goop?

Does someone want to link to the kit and extract spreadsheet? I don't use it as I'm AG now but it's a great starting point.

The important thing to remember is that if you get a steady reading over 2 to 3 days and the FG is below 1.015 (unless you've started with a crazy strong wort) you're good to bottle.

A simplified explanation to help you understand the science a bit more - you should expect to get about 75 percent "attentuation", i.e. the yeast should convert 75% of the sugar to alcohol and co2. Water has a gravity of 1.000. Readings above 1.000 indicate sugar in the wort. If all of the sugar converts to alcohol you will get a final reading (FG) of approximately 1.000. If you start at 1.040 and end up at 1.010 this means an attenuation of 75%, if the SG is 1.020 you only have 50% attenuation, i.e. half the inital sugar is left. Make sense?

 

[KitchenBrews]

I added the tin of goop and 1kg of coopers brew enhancer 2. I will have to do the spin thing as I remember seeing bubbles on the side of it.

 

[MaltyHops]

Another tip while we're on a roll - If you are mixing boiling water and the tins/extracts together do this in a pot, i.e. boil the water for 5 minutes with lid on to sanitise the pot, add the tins etc, then put the pot in the laundry tub or sink for 10 minutes or so, replacing the water a couple of times. Then add to the fermentor and top up with water. It's much easier to cool down a few litres of boiling water than to cool 23 L of wort at 25 degrees.

To take this even further, if you can pre-chill some boiled water in the fridge, you can get your wort to yeast pitching temperature even quicker.

What I used to do is pour all the extract into a big enough pot, use water from a kettle to rinse out the tins and top up the pot to around 5-6 litres and boil it all for a little while. If you put a lid on the pot, you can leave it until it's cooled enough that you can tolerate touching it (this should keep it reasonably sanitised).

Then if you've managed to chill the remaining amount of water needed in the fridge, pour the boiled extract in the pot into your fermenter and then pour the chilled water on top of it, trying to agitate the wort in the fermenter as much as you can. This should bring your wort down to pitching temperature quite easily.

Since your're in Adelaide, you can get good 10L (actually 11L) HDPE cubes from Gaganis Bros in HIndmarsh for about $9 each. You can pour boiling water into these, let them cool to room temp and fit one or two into the fridge. Even of you can only put one into the fridge, keep one at room temp and chill one down and this will also help getting your wort to pitching temp easily and safely.

 

[MaltyHops]

I do have a quick question about gravity readings (I stuffed mine up). I basically filled my tube enough to float my hydrometer and took a reading straight away - og was 1.035 The second reading I took I got one number (cant remember what it was, I'm not at home) I left the hydrometer sitting in the beer for maybe 5 mins and looked at it again and the reading was different.

So my question is, how long do I leave my hydrometer in the beer before I take the reading for it to be accurate?

This sounds like your wort might not have been evenly mixed when you took the sample - a blob of extract could have been in the fermenter tap (assuming it has one)

I'll PM you a copy of a collection new to brewing posts from the past that might be useful.

 

[ben_sa]

Just be careful throwing plugs in loose KB. Im trying to work out how to keg my beer that i dry hopped with plugs :-(

 

[KitchenBrews]

@Ben I have been using the teabag sort for now although I do have 90g of loose pellets waiting to use.

 

[dubbadan]

@Ben I have been using the teabag sort for now although I do have 90g of loose pellets waiting to use.

You can get little mesh bags from brew shops which are perfect for that. I use a big mofo BIAB bag for boiling hops in my 70L pot.

 

[KitchenBrews]

You can get little mesh bags from brew shops which are perfect for that. I use a big mofo BIAB bag for boiling hops in my 70L pot.

That's not a bad idea, I will have to have a look next time I am there. I guess if I boil the hops in it for 10 mins or so I wont have to worry about sterilising it before chucking the whole lot in the wort.

 

[boardman]

Hey guys.

first post so please forgive the question if it has already been asked.. Does the temp at start of fermentation make a difference when doing cider? (the mrs got me a cider kit for chrissy)

thanks in advance.