New brewer - how much can I get wrong?

[wereprawn]

To make 5 ltr just scale down your recipes.

For example : 750 g Light Dry Malt Extract

10 g Saaz Hops boiled for 60 mins

10 g Saaz thrown in with the first hops when there is 20 min left in the boil.

us-05 or Nottingham yeast.1/2 a pack. Ferment at 18-20 c.

With priming sugar the abv should be around the %5 mark.

You could scale down a kit brew but it would be more mucking around than its worth IMO. And You will probably make better beer this way.

Saaz are not a very bitter hop. So if you were using a more bitter hop you would scale the usage down (or up) to achive desired bitterness.

Or use a bit more or less malt extract/Fermentables to suit the abv/flavour/body you are aiming for.

Doing the 5 ltr jobs is a great way to learn. Some will be great others might taste terrible. As you say at least you wont have over 20 ltrs of the same stuff if one does happen to turn out shit while you are learning.

 

[Foxfire]

That sounds really good - with the above recipe do I need a bag of grains or anything to steep and add in? or Just go with what you've written?


With my irish ale - I bottled it the other day, tried one when bottling, slightly sweet, very flat (naturally). I pulled a bottle out today to see what it's like after a few days and carbonation seems to be coming along nicely. It's still slightly sweet, but perfectly drinkable which is great. However it does seem to have some yeast essence (white stuff) pooling in the bottom of the bottles. Is that just like coopers pale ale in a stubbie and you give it a swirl before opening? Or should I be upending the bottles or something to mix it back in. I'm just plastic bottles for this brew so no rust or issues or anything from the cap to worry about there.

 

[geneabovill]

I'd be leaving the bottles to condition for a bit longer before tasting them.. It may be that the sweetness is your priming sugar that needs to be fermented out by the remaining yeast - yes that's the whitish stuff suspended in the beer.

 

[pat86]

For homebrews, unless you are going for a yeasty brew the typical advice would be to chill the bottles for several days and pour off the beer into a glass - leaving the last 0.5 - 1 cm of liquid and compacted yeast in the bottle.

Sometimes yeast should be part of the beer style (think wheat beers) other times you want a cleaner drink. I would pour 90% of bottle conditioned beers like this and do the same for coopers etc too. You will also get extra gassy if you keep drinking yeast dregs

 

[pat86]

What did you gravity end up as btw?

1018 and 1016 are a bit high for a f.g. And dangerous to bottle at unless you have a high starting gravity or a lot of unfermentables

You always want to see 2 or 3 days at a steady gravity read, but you will waste less beer and risk infection less if you don't bother testing gravity until day 10 anyway. There is no rush to get a beer out of primary into bottles, I think anyone would struggle to do 7 day ferments without getting some off and funky flavours.

 

[Foxfire]

I ended up with 1.016 as it was steady there for a number of days (first brew so lots of sg readings due to excitement! ;p).

I used a priming calculator and went with slightly less sugar, also used plastic bottles. So far they've been bottled for almost two weeks and no issues so far. I've tasted some (again first brew so I wanted tastes at all the stages to see what it's doing), and they are definitely drinkable. Not anything I'd rave about, but given the yeast got way to hot on day 1 of the brew, better than I had hoped.

 

[wogdog]

I have done 6-7 day ferments back in bottle days if temp is right an no movement over 2 days depending on beer style put it in a bottle an wait till its crabbed dnt think to much into it at first it's trial an error tho first could be a success... Sterilize clean an make keep it clean an check readings an your in track if u dnt like it change it up a bit till your happy with it.. Get friends to try it too some may hate it some will love it than u no your on the right track