Help! Back In The Game

[jdsaint]

Hi guys I am wanting to get back in the game after 6 months out of it. Now is this the best way to brew:

boil all my ingredients together (how long?) kits
add them to fermenter with my 20ltrs of water (does boiled mater like boiled then cooled?)
leave this for a week or 2 days after air locked stops bubbling in fermenter
I have 2 fermenters (coopers kit) would it be ok to place in the other fermenter for the next week as I hated the sediment in the bottles it anoyed me to the fact i got out of the game help me get back in now after the 1 week fermenting and second week in second fermenter bottle it now i always primmed individualy stubbies 60 of them with raw sugar I heard about bulk primming how does this work my understanding is putting a amount of sugar into the fermenter befor bottling is this correct?


mainly want to reduce the sediment to get in the game some one help?

 

[Finite]

boil all my ingredients together (how long?) kits

From what i can remember canned extract is already boiled and has hop iso's added. Boiling it isnt going to sanitize it because it already is. It will also boil off some of the isohop compounds and caramalize the wort. If you are doing a steep or using some DME by all means give it a 20min boil but the canned concentrates dont benifit much from it as far as im aware.

add them to fermenter with my 20ltrs of water (does boiled mater like boiled then cooled?)

I assume you mean hot or cold boiled water? You will need to disolve the extract in some still hot boiled water before you top up with cold.

leave this for a week or 2 days after air locked stops bubbling in fermenter

Best guage for fermentation progess is a hydrometer the airlock is ok to get a rough quick idea but you should check the gravity to be sure. Once the gravity is the same for 2-3 days then primary fermentation is done.

I have 2 fermenters (coopers kit) would it be ok to place in the other fermenter for the next week as I hated the sediment in the bottles it anoyed me to the fact i got out of the game

Using a secondary fermenter is very common and many agree it improves you beer alot. Im going to say now that I would NOT sudgest racking your beer if you are new to HB. You have to be very very carefull to to splash your beer or aerate it and make sure everything is very sanitized. In my opinion you can get a similar effect by adding a fining agent to your primary fermenter for a week or at least 3 days before bottling some such as, isenglass, polyclar, gelitine or even a beercraft product called "beerclear" are effective in droping any suspended yeast before bottling. Secondary fermentation is essential for a true lager or high gravity beers but I would advocate against it for your early beers.

I heard about bulk primming how does this work my understanding is putting a amount of sugar into the fermenter befor bottling is this correct?

This involves transfering your beer without splashing to a clean sanitized bucket with some dissolved sugar solution and then once mixed transfering to the bottle.

There are 100 opinions and answers to your above questions and if you have anymore they can be answered by just using the search function on the site.

"improving kits"

"finings"

"bulk priming"

"racking"

and may I also sudgest "temperature control"

will give you more answers to all your questions. In the meantime I would sudgest having a look at www.howtobrew.com which will give you step by step instructions on all of this.

Good luck to you mate and good to see your back into it.

 

[jdsaint]

thanx for your reply mate all anwsers will be considered as i am going to print out some of your comments as research thanx again :beer: