Sweet beer and San Pel Bottles

[shacked]

Just new to brewing and bottled my first batch about 3 weeks ago. At first taste it's a little bit sweet and I was wondering where I've gone astray.

Here are the specs:

Mangrove Jack Classic Bitter
1Kg of Light Malt
US-05 Sufale yeast
12g of Galaxy hops
5g of copper tun finings (added 3 days before bottling).

I bottled on day 15 with a FG of 1.012 which was stable for the final 4 days. I used copper tun carbonation drops.

I messed up at the start and added 4L of boiling water instead of 3L. As a result, I had to wait 2 hours before adding the yeast. I pitched the yeast at 27 degrees. Fermentation was at a constant 21 degrees.

The beer tastes a little sweet and a bit malty; not very bitter. Could it be that because of the high temp at pitching that the yeast was impacted? Or should i just leave the beer for another few weeks.

Also, I have a bunch of 500ml and 1L san pellegrino crown seal bottles. Should I use them or just stick to beer bottles.

Cheers!!

 

[Red Baron]

As you've added 1kg of Light Malt as your fermentables, you should have some malt sweetness remaining after fermentation (malt is a combination of fermentable and non fermentable sugars). If the mangrove jacks recipe doesn't specify adding this malt, then it may be more sweet than the recipe intends, but if it does, then that is what this beer is supposed to taste of. Pitching at 27deg shouldn't give you too many dramas as you say the rest of the ferment was held at 21deg (try the lower end of the yeast temp spectrum like 18deg for your next ale though). As you will find, the longer you can leave a kit beer, the better it will taste. That is one of the cruel realities of brewing that your last bottle of a batch will often be the best one.......

San Pelligrino bottles are fine to bottle in of that's what you have an abundance of- either look into bulk priming on here so you don't have to worry about priming different capacity bottles, or figure out how much white sugar needs to go into 500ml and 1L bottles (carb drops are the same thing as white sugar, but at 1000x the price!). Keep them out of the light if you think your brews will be around for a long time too, to avoid them being light struck.

Hope this helps, and welcome to the world of brewing.
Cheers,
RB

 

[shacked]

Thanks for the input RB!

I put down a batch of Golden Ale last weekend which I made with a Fresh Wort Kit. Pitched the yeast at 19 deg; we'll see how this one goes.