Home brewing kits ....

I don't understand :(, it's been bubbling away for ~9 days. Finally stopped the other day. Yet it's still reading around the same gravity(1.06 ish). I'm confused.
 
Glaucus said:
I don't understand :(, it's been bubbling away for ~9 days. Finally stopped the other day. Yet it's still reading around the same gravity(1.06 ish). I'm confused.
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Mine did that and I didn't understand either! I put some more yeast in and it's been bubbling aeway again for a few days now. Will take another reading when this settles down but my last one was 1.000.
 
I'd like to warn you about the online homebrew company. Many of you have probalbly used this company at some point for your kits but since December things have went down hill very rapidly.
They have had constant sales on since then but don't have seem to have the stock there to fulfill the orders.

I and many others have had problems with them. My own story is that I ordered on 20th December while everything was showing in stock. As soon as the order was taken my account showed that the items were out of stock, ( but still showed in stock on their shop ) every email update was putting the delivery back a week. It got to the 13th Jan and my latest update was that the stock wouldn't be in till the 20th ( 1 month after my order was placed ) so I cancelled.
It's now 6 weeks since I cancelled and I'm still waiting for my refund !

They have also been caught out by filtering their reviews on Trustpilot. A system was in place where they had to give you a code to leave a review. Ofcourse these codes were only available to those who they knew would give good reviews. TP are investigating this at the moment but some "real" reviews are now getting through.

There is also a large thread about this crowd on money saving expert, this is the only place we have been able to discuss the issues because in the past they have threatened independent home brew forums with legal action if they let anyone leave a negative review.

So please be warned, there are plenty of other home brew sites out there to use, don't be fooled by their promises and prices.
 
Glaucus said:
I don't understand :(, it's been bubbling away for ~9 days. Finally stopped the other day. Yet it's still reading around the same gravity(1.06 ish). I'm confused.
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Is the temperature the same? Hydrometers are generally calibrated to be used in 20c. Though, for it to give the same reading the temperature difference would have to be huge I suppose.

Tried a different hydrometer? Could be broken I suppose. Or maybe you're using two different hydrometers with a different scale? I did that once at the brewery, went and told the head brewer about the odd reading. We umhed and ahhed for a while and then realized the error. :o

Drop me a message in trust, I'll post you some yeast tomorrow if you want.
 
Mr.E. said:
I'd like to warn you about the online homebrew company. Many of you have probalbly used this company at some point for your kits but since December things have went down hill very rapidly.
They have had constant sales on since then but don't have seem to have the stock there to fulfill the orders.

I and many others have had problems with them. My own story is that I ordered on 20th December while everything was showing in stock. As soon as the order was taken my account showed that the items were out of stock, ( but still showed in stock on their shop ) every email update was putting the delivery back a week. It got to the 13th Jan and my latest update was that the stock wouldn't be in till the 20th ( 1 month after my order was placed ) so I cancelled.
It's now 6 weeks since I cancelled and I'm still waiting for my refund !

They have also been caught out by filtering their reviews on Trustpilot. A system was in place where they had to give you a code to leave a review. Ofcourse these codes were only available to those who they knew would give good reviews. TP are investigating this at the moment but some "real" reviews are now getting through.

There is also a large thread about this crowd on money saving expert, this is the only place we have been able to discuss the issues because in the past they have threatened independent home brew forums with legal action if they let anyone leave a negative review.

So please be warned, there are plenty of other home brew sites out there to use, don't be fooled by their promises and prices.
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Ive ordered from them a few times. My last order took about a month. that was a couple of years ago around the time they were threatening legal action against a few forums. Never again. They are well dodgy now. Avoid!
 
Yeah pure sugar. It shouldn't need nutrients does it? Yeast only needs moisture, sugar and a resonably wide ph level.

Going to pop down the brew shop tomorrow. At least it's a pretty cheap mess up. See what I can find.

4kilos of sugar and yeast.
 
Fortyseven said:
I am currently having issues with my beer not gassing up in bottles.

I know its one of two things, either:
I have become too efficient at removing yeast when transfering into bottles that there is not enough to produce the gas
I am not putting in enough sugar

To ensure its not the latter, how much do you guys usually put in? I aim for around 1/2 teaspoon of sugar per 500ml/pint.
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Give this calculator a bash next time. I use it all the time and its pretty accurate. I had a few ales that i over carbonated with a half teaspoon of sugar. Had an undercarbonated disaster too lol. You should be fine even if you use gelatin as finings. Itll just take longer for the yeast left to work. Unless you filter your beer you should always have enough yeast left.

http://www.brewblogger.net/index.php?page=tools&section=sugar
 
Glaucus said:
Yeah pure sugar. It shouldn't need nutrients does it? Yeast only needs moisture, sugar and a resonably wide ph level.

Going to pop down the brew shop tomorrow. At least it's a pretty cheap mess up. See what I can find.

4kilos of sugar and yeast.
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Yeast does need nutrients, but they usually come from the fruit or malt. Pure sugar doesn't have enough nitrogen for consistent fermentation. I'd bet that is why the fermentation stopped. Chucking some nutrients, and maybe some fresh yeast in might restart it though. Don't go overboard with the nutrients though, otherwise it might end up adding some off flavours.
Wilkinsons sells cheap yeast nutrient if you want to get some.
 
Well got some bog standard beer yeast :( rather than my specially selected last lot. Got some yeast nutrient, which advises 1 tsp per gallon. So just boiled up the sugar and mixed it all in the demijohn. Also started the yeast of separately. Just waiting for that to have very clear signs of life and the demijohn to cool down to correct temperature.

So see how this lot goes.

Also when I do get something working, what's the best plan. I have glass swing top bottles. Or do I save old coke bottles. Also any idea how much priming sugar as I want it pretty fizzy.
 
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Mr.E. said:
I'd like to warn you about the online homebrew company. .
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Thanks for the heads up, I've been putting a list together for some bits and had been browsing there. I've settled on brewuk.co.uk.

Trying to find a kit for a decent german lager in the vein of warsteiner or veltins and was going to order with that homebrew company. I will avoid it now :)
 
Sounds like the yeast never started. How warm is it? Might be worth mixing it up then getting it warm.

To make sure starts are good I tend to put the yeast in some warm water with 1/2 tsp of sugar and leave for 30 mins. Then pour that all in. Also a tsp of nutrient will help due to the lack of other minerals in your brew.

Why are you trying to make it BTW?
 
Root beer. Make alcoholic base. Stir in concentrate and dextr---- something or the other. One which doesn't ferment. Then in bottles with priming sugar.

Yeast had started. One of those funky foil packages which has a tube inside you crack, then allow to puff up for several hours.
And it was also bubbling for a week.
Oh well it's on with nutrients this time.
 
Well it's bubbaling away nicely. Constant small streams of bubbles everywhere, with airlock bubbaling every ~4seconds.

Can anyone find any demijohn heater trays. They all seem to be for 1 gallon demijohns rather than 2gallon ones. Who uses 1gallon demijohns.

Oh wait no wonder my sugar calculations were so off, glass demijohns are only 1gallon. Why did I think they where two.
 
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