Home brewing kits ....

FrenchTart said:
Lol...I always had that thought when reading about isinglass too.

Personally all the beers I make are extremely hoppy IPAs so are generally best when fairly young anyhow. As such I haven't really worried about things going off. I can understand how it might be a concern though. I think the oldest bottle I've had (where I've actually used gelatin - I don't use it all the time) was probably 4 months or so. It was fine, if a little blah as the hops had faded a lot.
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out of interest as i like my hoppys, what brews have you made and what would you recommend????:D
 
Home brew experts

Hi all I am new to home brewing so I just have a question please.
I am brewing a larger,bitter and a cider and on the bitter and larger there is the yeast scum round the rim but not on the cider.
The cider is giving off gasses but no scum is this ok.
Thank you
 
rubin1961 said:
Hi all I am new to home brewing so I just have a question please.
I am brewing a larger,bitter and a cider and on the bitter and larger there is the yeast scum round the rim but not on the cider.
The cider is giving off gasses but no scum is this ok.
Thank you
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You should really be fermenting them in separate containers.
 
So mine has been in my barrel for awhile now and is fully ready, but my issue is now when trying to pour i think there is so much pressure that it is causing huge head on the beer.

This is possibly making the beer flat, possibly losing all the carb from pouring.

So my question is, how on earth do i resolve this, is there a special tool i can use to check pressure / lower it? my barrel has the co2 top where i can put in more co2.

Cheers :)
 
Having had a kit (fermenter, barrel etc) for a good 3 or 4 years now, I'm finally about to start on the road of home brewing.

I'm going to be starting with a Gone with the Wheat USA style kit, which is gluten free (I'm gluten intolerant or maybe coeliac - diagnosis in the coming weeks) and apparently good if you like American style beers like Bud and Millers.

Just waiting on the kit to come through, which will no doubt have it's own instructions but hopefully it'll be pretty simple.

I'm going to be bottling the beer (though I do have a barrel) as I like my beer nice and cold and short of taking over a whole fridge I can't chill a barrel! :) so bottles are much more practical.

Any advice or tips for a newbie?
 
seabiscuit said:
Clean and sanitise everything very thoroughly. It's easier to bottle with 2 people. But most importantly, enjoy it.
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I got some sanitiser stuff with the kit but was contemplating (having done a fair bit of reading, that I might use Milton tablets...

When it comes to the bottling I'm going to get myself a bottle filler thingy with a valve as I've seen them in action and they seem to make the process a little easier to control...
 
So nearly finished my first brew of a Pale Ale, the sour taste i had feared originally disappeared entirely after leaving it for a extra month before drinking, Friends enjoyed it when i decided to show up with 30 pints :)

So wanting todo my next kit as i can't jump into BIAB just yet, Any recommendations on kits and possibly adapting them with extra hops to make them amazing ? :)

I fancy something hoppy/fresh for the summer.
 
The beer kit I ordered over the weekend has arrived so this evening I'm going to get it started which is quite exciting as it's my first attempt at home brewing! :)

I'm making a Gone with the Wheat USA Style Lager kit which is gluten free...

Below are the instructions:

Congratulations on choosing this excellent beer kit, which is designed to create 40 pints of great gluten free beer

Instructions to produce 22.5 litres (5gall)

1. Clean & sterilise all equipment before use with Heart of England cleaner & steriliser

2. Warm the 2 plastic canisters to soften the extract and make pouring easier. Open the plastic containers and pour contents into your sterilised fermenter washing out each with a litre of hot water, add a further litre of hot water into your fermenter and stir well to mix. *see note on hints & tips*

3. Stir in cold water filling your fermenter to 22.5 litres (5 gallons). The temperature of the liquid should now be below 25oC (77oF). If not allow to cool before proceeding

4. Pour contents of small plastic bottle, hop character into the fermenter and rinse out bottle well. Stir the contents of the fermenter to make sure it is all dissolved

5. Sprinkle the yeast over the top of your wort and stir in.

6. Leave in a warm place to ferment (17-24 oC) for 5 - 7 days. The exact time of fermentation will depend upon the temperature

7. Using a hydrometer, when the specific gravity is constant at or below 1.010 the primary fermentation is over and the beer is ready for transferring to keg or bottles

8. Transfer into bottles or pressure barrel priming with the required amount of either glucose powder or sugar. This is typically a quarter to a half teaspoon per pint bottle or the amount recommended by the manufacturer of your beer keg. To speed up clearing beer finings (not included) can also be added at this stage.

9. Place in a warm area for 3 days to condition before removing to a cool place for clearing and storage. When clear your beer is ready to drink but will improve with some keeping.
Gone with The Wheat ®
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and some tips on the reverse


Hints and tips for brewing gluten free beer

While brewing gone with the wheat kits is very similar to making other premium beer making kits there are a few small differences that you may notice we hope these hints will help to enhance your brewing experience and help.

*While it is not necessary to boil or simmer the extract, simmering the Sorghum extract only with 2 litres of water in a saucepan for 20 minutes will result in a firmer sediment on the finished beer*

Being a 100% gluten free extract this means that you may notice less of a head during fermentation than a malt beer and it can be less of an indication of fermenting, however you will still hear the same hissing from the fermentation if you listen to it.

We recommend the use of a hydrometer as with all beer as the best judge of how a beer is fermenting.

Occasionally the fermentation can be a little slower than a malt beer again as long as the beer is protected in a correct brewing container this is not a problem, if this is the case please check the temperature is warm enough ideally at the upper end of the recommended scale.

Without the malt and therefore the gluten the sediment will be lighter and more easily disturbed when pouring if in a bottle and although sometimes a little slower to clear will drop to complete brightness and the sediment will settle firmer the longer it is left.

One technique if bottling is that a couple of days before the end of fermentation ie when the hydrometer reading has a few points still to drop then add beer finings to the brew stirring in to mix this will not only mix the finings in but also keep the yeast mixed in then when bottling a few days later the finings will be mixed in with the beer and aid clearing.

N.B. the most common fining agent for beer is isinglass which is derived from fish but please check upon purchase

As a guide the longer a beer is in the fermenter after fermentation the less sediment will be in the bottle but the longer it will take to condition (gas) as there will be less yeast in suspension plus a beer also becomes susceptible to infection the longer it is left in the bucket at the end of fermentation s0 as a rule ideally bottle within 48 hours of the fementation being over.

We hope these hints help but remember you are welcome to contact us or your supplier of thiskit with any questions and for advice.
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It seems to be fairly straight forward though I do have a few questions:

1) In steps 1 & 2 when it says 'hot water' How how are we talking?

2) I've read mention of filtering the water, does this make much of a difference and is it worth taking the time to do so?

3) In the tips where it mentions simmering the extract for 20 minutes, is that worth doing?

4) Bottling....

I'm intending to bottle my beer as I want to chill it and can't do that really with a barrel. could someone please give me more of an idea about the process of bottling?

4a) Does the tip on adding the beer finings seem like a good idea?
4b) how do I go about adding the priming sugar? - do I stir it in to the whole lot of beer just before I bottle? Doesn't this disturb any sediment which will then end up in the bottles?


I'm sure I'll have other questions too but I shall see how I get on.
 
Well, I made a start last night, got the kit mixed up with the water and yeast and it's now sitting at about 22C and I'm keeping my fingers crossed...lol

How will I know it's doing anything, it looks like it's just sitting there at the moment...lol
 
While we've not done a gluten free kit, I'll try and answer what I can based on other beer kits, but other people might have different experiences/advice.

1: We use just boiled water from a kettle. It's pretty hot to dissolve the malt syrups, where cold or warm water will be much much harder to mix.
2: It will depend what your water is like in the first place. If you filter it to drink a glass of water, then I'd say use a filer or bottled water for your brew. If your water is pretty good anyway shouldn't be too much of a necessity. We've done kits using supermarket value water, which worked out about 10p a liter. We then used those empty water bottles to bottle some of the brew too, but I wouldn't suggest them for long term storage.
3: Hmm, honestly can't advise on this one, but if they recommend it I'd follow their experience.
4a: Finings can be a good idea to aid with clarity of your beer. But time and gravity will do the same job, only slower.
4b: Yes, stirring it into the beer would mix in all the sediment. Many people will rack the brew into a separate container before mixing the priming sugar in so that this doesn't happen. Alternately you could add the priming sugar evenly into the bottles, or use carbonation tablets, eg. http://www.tesco.com/direct/coopers-carbonation-drops/213-3925.prd
We've started to bottle more of our brews now, giving us more choice. We've got a dedicated bottling "bucket", with a bottling tap, so we can rack the beer into this off the yeast bed, and then batch prime (add the priming sugar to the whole batch of beer) before bottling. For this we picked up a cheap fermenter from Wilkos, reduced where someone had stolen the lid and added a "Little Bottler" (http://www.brewbitz.com/Little-Bottler__p-1068.aspx?gclid=CIubivrOncUCFRHLtAodxn8A9Q).
 
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