uniiqueuser
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 20/6/09
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Hi all, I have been lurking here as a guest and this forum seems to be a wealth of knowledge for brewing, so I finally got around to joining up and announcing my existence.
I usually just make kits, a vast majority of them being homebrand kits from Coles and Safeway, and maybe a few Coopers etc as well. Even in this impoverished form my brew tastes better than most of the average commercial beers (not counting the Heinekens and Grolschs of course) and when I am forced to drink bottled Yarra water or maybe non-Mexican beers like Tooheys they taste rather watery and weak, and I am soon pining for my basic homebrew. After reading some of the other posts regarding the effort that some of you take with your own beers my beer is admittedly very humble, but it offers huge bang for the buck, and a lot of other people think that it tastes pretty good too.
Not that my primary concern is financial, it is more about time. In the future I may look more into adding extracts or even going AG, but with work and the kids, as well as renovations and too many other hobbies it is not possible at this point. As well as my 44 gallon fermenter I still have 2 25 litre fermenters (gathering dust) so the option doing something more ambitious on a small scale is always there.
I usually make 200 litres at a time and this yields around 280+ bottles. I brew in winter to keep the fermentation controlled, and the fermenter has an electric urn element which is controlled by a good quality thermostat. I bottle straight from the fermenter after three weeks or so. I have been doing it this way for perhaps 10 years and only recently have I been hitting trouble- I have been getting what appears to be green 'fibers' (for want of a better word) which appear on top of the head of the beer and float around in the liquid.
I suspect this is caused by infection of the beer, and rather than throw it away when I see a white film on top of the brew after fermentation I have proceded to bottle anyway, and the beer doesn't taste any better or worse than in previous years, especially if I can be patient enough to leave it in the bottles for long enough to mature. Yes, I have cracked a few a couple of weeks after bottling but I was dreading having to buy another box of Fosters longnecks because I had run out of last year's beer. Longnecks of course- it adds to my stock of empties- when you give beer to friends the bottles don't always come back.
(Of course supplies of bottles can always be found at your local tip. You might need to jump in the bin and dig out the good ones, and the broken glass is a hazard, but this is better and cheaper than having to empty out commercial beer!! And most tip workers can be bribed with home brew.)
I suspect this infection is coming from the lid of the fermenter- it is a blue food-grade plastic barrel with a black lid. The lid has a recess around the rim in which there is a rather ancient looking rubber seal, and I suspect that unwanted microbes are hiding under this seal and are surviving my attempts at sterilisation.
Am I correct in this assumption or is it something else?
Up to this point I have only used sodium metabisulphate, until it was replaced in supermarkets by sodium percarbonate, which I have used since. After reading this forum I have since soaked the lid in a solution of bleach and white vinegar as suggested by some of you guys, but I have not yet made another brew. I might remove the rubber seal altogether and try my luck then.
The seal is not used during fermentation as i usually sit the lid loosely on top of the barrel to let the gas escape rather that push it down all the way.
I haven't used an airlock for a long time, and even when I brewed in the 25 litre fermentors I ditched the lid and used cling wrap with a rubber band, with a small hole made with a knife. I never have had an infection this way, and my Dad, who I learnt this trick from, has been doing it for nearly 25 years and only has had a couple of infections. The advantages are less nooks and crannies for microbes to hide, less stuffing about with lids and seals, and no need for airlocks, which are useless anyway if the fermentation blows out the liquid and you are not there to top it up.
I am tempted to buy another drum and try decanting the brew from the fermenter into the second drum for settling. As you can appreciate these drums weigh a lot when full and I am relying on gravity for bottling, so the settling drum option would require a pump, and if I am pumping beer under pressure I may as well install a filter.
Has anyone had success with filtering, and where might I find such equipment? Would filtering remove too much yeast and prevent carbonation in the bottles?
Also,when I do have to go to the bottle shop, why do 750ml bottles of Fosters (etc) cost more that 375ml bottles for the same amount of beer per carton? I have phoned Fosters and they say the price is set by the retailer, and at the bottle shop say the price is set by the wholesaler, and a lot of people just don't know. Any ideas?
I usually just make kits, a vast majority of them being homebrand kits from Coles and Safeway, and maybe a few Coopers etc as well. Even in this impoverished form my brew tastes better than most of the average commercial beers (not counting the Heinekens and Grolschs of course) and when I am forced to drink bottled Yarra water or maybe non-Mexican beers like Tooheys they taste rather watery and weak, and I am soon pining for my basic homebrew. After reading some of the other posts regarding the effort that some of you take with your own beers my beer is admittedly very humble, but it offers huge bang for the buck, and a lot of other people think that it tastes pretty good too.
Not that my primary concern is financial, it is more about time. In the future I may look more into adding extracts or even going AG, but with work and the kids, as well as renovations and too many other hobbies it is not possible at this point. As well as my 44 gallon fermenter I still have 2 25 litre fermenters (gathering dust) so the option doing something more ambitious on a small scale is always there.
I usually make 200 litres at a time and this yields around 280+ bottles. I brew in winter to keep the fermentation controlled, and the fermenter has an electric urn element which is controlled by a good quality thermostat. I bottle straight from the fermenter after three weeks or so. I have been doing it this way for perhaps 10 years and only recently have I been hitting trouble- I have been getting what appears to be green 'fibers' (for want of a better word) which appear on top of the head of the beer and float around in the liquid.
I suspect this is caused by infection of the beer, and rather than throw it away when I see a white film on top of the brew after fermentation I have proceded to bottle anyway, and the beer doesn't taste any better or worse than in previous years, especially if I can be patient enough to leave it in the bottles for long enough to mature. Yes, I have cracked a few a couple of weeks after bottling but I was dreading having to buy another box of Fosters longnecks because I had run out of last year's beer. Longnecks of course- it adds to my stock of empties- when you give beer to friends the bottles don't always come back.
(Of course supplies of bottles can always be found at your local tip. You might need to jump in the bin and dig out the good ones, and the broken glass is a hazard, but this is better and cheaper than having to empty out commercial beer!! And most tip workers can be bribed with home brew.)
I suspect this infection is coming from the lid of the fermenter- it is a blue food-grade plastic barrel with a black lid. The lid has a recess around the rim in which there is a rather ancient looking rubber seal, and I suspect that unwanted microbes are hiding under this seal and are surviving my attempts at sterilisation.
Am I correct in this assumption or is it something else?
Up to this point I have only used sodium metabisulphate, until it was replaced in supermarkets by sodium percarbonate, which I have used since. After reading this forum I have since soaked the lid in a solution of bleach and white vinegar as suggested by some of you guys, but I have not yet made another brew. I might remove the rubber seal altogether and try my luck then.
The seal is not used during fermentation as i usually sit the lid loosely on top of the barrel to let the gas escape rather that push it down all the way.
I haven't used an airlock for a long time, and even when I brewed in the 25 litre fermentors I ditched the lid and used cling wrap with a rubber band, with a small hole made with a knife. I never have had an infection this way, and my Dad, who I learnt this trick from, has been doing it for nearly 25 years and only has had a couple of infections. The advantages are less nooks and crannies for microbes to hide, less stuffing about with lids and seals, and no need for airlocks, which are useless anyway if the fermentation blows out the liquid and you are not there to top it up.
I am tempted to buy another drum and try decanting the brew from the fermenter into the second drum for settling. As you can appreciate these drums weigh a lot when full and I am relying on gravity for bottling, so the settling drum option would require a pump, and if I am pumping beer under pressure I may as well install a filter.
Has anyone had success with filtering, and where might I find such equipment? Would filtering remove too much yeast and prevent carbonation in the bottles?
Also,when I do have to go to the bottle shop, why do 750ml bottles of Fosters (etc) cost more that 375ml bottles for the same amount of beer per carton? I have phoned Fosters and they say the price is set by the retailer, and at the bottle shop say the price is set by the wholesaler, and a lot of people just don't know. Any ideas?