The New Batch

[jdsaint]

now into the 3rd week with this brew, not that I am complaining the longer the better..... but worried about the whole situation...... already pitched new yeast couple of days ago oh well another week I guess

 

[rackemup]

Hi,
I leave all my brews in the primary for at least three weeks, even longer if im away and so far have not experienced any off flavours from yeast autolysis..I heard that the yeast do most of their work converting sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide in the first week and then in the subsequent weeks they spend their time cleaning up the by products formed during the first week of fermentation, so I feel its important to give them the time to do a proper job and knock out a nice clean beer, yeast are your friends so be nice and patient to them and try to play the game by their rules

Cheers! :beer:

 

[jdsaint]

so you suggest just letting it go and tested with the hydrometre each saturday which I have done so far? I am happy just to leave it, just hope their's no infection in their now seen as though I have gave it a stir a couple of times......
It looks like a calm lake....murky calm lake... so straight up no matter what 3 weeks in fermenter before racking to secondary? I am happy to try that with my next brew...I am in no rush for great tasting home brew, wait yes i am!

 

[rackemup]

so you suggest just letting it go and tested with the hydrometre each saturday which I have done so far? I am happy just to leave it, just hope their's no infection in their now seen as though I have gave it a stir a couple of times......
It looks like a calm lake....murky calm lake... so straight up no matter what 3 weeks in fermenter before racking to secondary? I am happy to try that with my next brew...I am in no rush for great tasting home brew, wait yes i am!

Hi
the only time i use a hydrometer is before i pitch and before i bottle to get an estimate of how much alcohol is in my beer. There are many ways to tell if a brew is fermenting such as bubbling through the airlock, krausen developing, etc and i find that taking hydrometer readings isn't necessary. I recently purchased a glass fermentor and i strongly recommend this as it allows the brewer to clearly see every step of the fermentation process and gives you a good idea of what is going on in there.
You say it looks murky and this is probably due to yeast still being in suspension due to active fermentation. you will notice that when a beer has finished fermenting it will clear up significantly, depending on what yeast you used the times will vary somewhat.

Three weeks in the primary and then you can bottle it, no need for secondary. also if you want the most out of your beer i would suggest to leave them for a minimum 4 weeks before you drink them.

I have been trying to simplify my homebrewing and i think that doing a 3 week primary and then bottling is a good way to go, also sanitisers are overrated - i have been cleaning all my brewing equipment with nothing but boiling water and have had no infections, just healthy and happy yeast fermenting out nice clean beer. Less is more :icon_cheers:

 

[manticle]

Absolutely up to you how you do things - you have your own brewery and your own experience to back you up.

However the idea of recommending to noobs not to use a hydrometer can be really dangerous if they don't have the experience you do. Likewise with the sanitiser - I know Nick JD doesn't use them either and fair enough if that's the conclusion you've come to but you are advising inexperienced brewers, not discussing perspectives with experienced ones.

If you have a stalled ferment, visible signs of fermentation stops. How do you tell?

 

[rackemup]

Absolutely up to you how you do things - you have your own brewery and your own experience to back you up.

However the idea of recommending to noobs not to use a hydrometer can be really dangerous if they don't have the experience you do. Likewise with the sanitiser - I know Nick JD doesn't use them either and fair enough if that's the conclusion you've come to but you are advising inexperienced brewers, not discussing perspectives with experienced ones.

If you have a stalled ferment, visible signs of fermentation stops. How do you tell?

Cool, cool...i totally see your point. but the reason i said that was because if there is signs of fermentation -like airlock activity and foam on top of brew then there really is no need to check for signs of fermentation with a hydrometer, because obviously it is fermenting. I dont see how it could be dangerous, since after 3 weeks in primary at normal temps the chances are very slim that it will still be fermenting vigorously thus causing explosions from being bottled prematurely. But if you did think that perhaps your brew had stalled then take a reading and see what it says, but i have never had a stalled fermentation and unless you let the temps go way down/up then they are unlikely to just happen out of the blue. If a person wanted to take daily hydro readings and log the progress of their fermentation and graph it that is cool, but its not necessary to determine fermentation, just how quickly its occuring or if its occuring at all -but like i said that would already be rather obvious due to krausen/lack of krausen, CO2 or lack of CO2, changing smell, looks, taste etc
As we all know hygiene is paramount in brewing and even more so when not using sanitisers but personally i dont like the idea of no - rinse sanitiser being in my beer and when using other sanitisers you have to rinse them out with water anyway. Its not like there is a superbug lurking in my fermenter that can only be killed with conc HSO4 and bleach, after all, dont we sanitise our worts by boiling them? heat is simply enough to destroy any bug living in your fermentor and i like the idea of only using boiling water for sanitising because you can be sure of no chemical residue being transferred into your beer down the line. The only time i use sanitiser is when i clean my bottle tops since i have heard the seals are sensitive to high temps.
It is my opinion that with strict hygiene control and healthy yeast as well as correct temps, hydrometers arent needed to check for fermentation (which is all i ever said) because there are many other ways to check. but like you said, if you feel something has gone wrong then take a reading and you can know for sure, too easy. Happy brewing :icon_cheers:

 

[manticle]

I agree with most of what you said (or at least accept the possibility). I use boiling water to sanitise some things and generally rinse everything directly before use. I too am paranoid about chemical flavours and residue.

I certainly don't think you need to use a hydrometer every day either - that's simply a waste of beer.

My main point is that you arrived at those conclusions after many brews and much experience whereas a new brewer may see "don't worry about hydrometer" "don't use sanitisers" and not have enough knowledge to back themselves up.

As for the danger thing - if you simply check for alc (OG vs FG) and don't check for stability (and again you are new to the game) you may think it's done when it's not, bottle too early and blow your poodle's head off. Not every new brewer knows about stalled ferments and how to recognise or rouse them.

I understand and accept that YOU know what you're doing but it's a risk and someone without YOUR experience might stuff it up. You get to know how beer works and particularly how your own beer works but it takes a bit of time. Until that time it's best to follow recommended procedures until you decide, with good reason, that they are not for you.

 

[jdsaint]

Just waiting for this brew to do something, will check the hydrometre reading again on saturday, if it's still at 1020 i am going be pissed, temp sitting at 18-20 degrees with nothing happening, no air lock movement, but still looks like its simmering away in the testing tube, no krausen on the top just a flat calm lake :unsure:

 

[rackemup]

Just waiting for this brew to do something, will check the hydrometre reading again on saturday, if it's still at 1020 i am going be pissed, temp sitting at 18-20 degrees with nothing happening, no air lock movement, but still looks like its simmering away in the testing tube, no krausen on the top just a flat calm lake :unsure:

most krausens dissapear after the first 48 - 72 hours so nothing unusual there..other than raising the temp and agitating your beer (telling it bad jokes over and over again) your probably not going to get it much lower. what is the temp its sitting at now? maybe raise it to 25 degrees for 12 hours and see if this gets the yeast back into action. maybe the yeast you were using wasnt very healthy? did you make a yeast starter before you pitched? carefully watch the surface of the beer in your fermentor and look for little bubbles popping on the surface, this is another sign of fermentation.
In homebrewing we normally dont filter our beer so yeast is left in the beer and it continues fermenting (very slowly) for a long, long time after being bottled which is one reason why your beer ages and matures and changes flavours over time and generally gets better with age ( it is possible to carbonate a beer just by bottling it and leaving for about a year - no priming needed, but its alot quicker to just add a little bit of sugar and have a fully carbd beer in 2 - 3 weeks). Most commercial beer has been filtered leaving it crystal clear and ready to drink but over time it will get worse with age, not better. dont stress, just leave it somewhere at a nice temp for a couple weeks and it should slowly drop. Some sugars are fully fermentable (dextrose) and some sugars are not so fermentable (molasses and brown sugar) so your beer will have variable fg's depending on what style it is and what sugars you have put into it.
Oh yeah, about using sanitisers - its your choice if you want to use sodium metabisulphite or iodophor or whatever, or use boiling water as a sanitiser, the only difference is that one is a chemical sanitiser and the other is a physical sanitiser.

Happy brewing :icon_cheers:

 

[jdsaint]

Still sitting on 20 degrees yeast used was just a kit yeast and no I never made a yeast starter

 

[manticle]

Butters has a good trick. Take a sample and allow it to arm up to high 20s/low 30s. Leave it for a bit and see how much it ferments out. That is the potential your beer has to ferment out.

At a rough guess with all that malt I reckon you should be aiming for around 1016.

 

[jdsaint]

got close enough with that brew still at 1020 so I just had to bite the bullet and bottle..............

My next batch is 1 can of IPA Thomas coopers
1kg brewers sugar coopers
250grams LDME
and the bottem qaurter of a CPA stubbie
along with the can yeast

went for something simple this time round, sg 1040 hopefully it gets to around 1006..................

I have continued using this same thread for all my KK's................ rather then 100 different threads, which can be a pain...... and also, it's get for revising (easier to find)

 

[jdsaint]

So with the ingredients I have above(post above) I would like to double hop it when I go to rack for flavour any ideas on some ideal hops, trying to have like a fat yak type of brew?

 

[Fatgodzilla]

So with the ingredients I have above(post above) I would like to double hop it when I go to rack for flavour any ideas on some ideal hops, trying to have like a fat yak type of brew?

What hops you got (if any) ? Cascade is a too easy answer (the Toyota Corolla of hops). Really any hops will be good at racking as no bitterness will come out. Saaz, Hallertau, Amarillo etc. Find the Dr Smurto Golden Ale thread (last week it rose again) for suggested hop additions in a kit and extract brew.

This brew will be a good candidate to enter the NSW Xmas swap if you can make it - the feedback you'll get from the fellow swappers is great for novice brewers - you'll learn far more from blokes who have tasted your brew and are happy to offer good constructive comment.

 

[jdsaint]

sounds good, would love to be able to get into the swap and chat to a few brewers about my mistakes or improvements i could make,...

would these hops I am adding in need to be boiled at all? as I would like them for flavour more so then aroma?

 

[jdsaint]

Ok so from post number 32 with the coopers IPA kit this brew is doing something wierd to me.....
It has stopped bubbling through airlock, but in the morning for last 3 days its been bubbling ?????stops during the day bubbles during the night when I am asleep, almost tempted to call this Jdsaints Owl Ale, is the yeast waking up at night? :huh:

 

[boingk]

Never trust the airlock. Number one rule in brewing after keeping everything clean.

What temperature is it sitting at? Anything below 18'C and it'll be slow, anything under 16'C and it'll be asleep.

CHeers - boingk

 

[jdsaint]

Sitting at 20 degrees now , I gather at night it drops to around 16-18 degrees but thats when it starts...its stopped again now air lock is level, but tomorrow morning sure as hell it'll b bubbling!

 

[bradmcm]

Once the beer is approximately 1/4 of the original gravity and the SG has been constant for 2-3 days, it's done.
Don't confuse change in temperature/barometric pressure as fermentation.

 

[jdsaint]

Ok my dust storm ale has been in the bottle for 16 days now so I decided to crack one, Taste fruity, did lose the head straight away but overall if i had to compare this to a beer, I would say Hogarden ale , would like to have a bottle of hogarden to compare but 1st mouthfuls says hogarden.........
I have a 5 ltre universal keg for my beermate full of this stuff for xmas its only 3.1% but will go well for xmas.
Will leave for another 2 weeks now and compare notes then.......