Home brewing kits ....

jimmy321 · 30 Sep 2015 at 21:59

Yeast is happiest at about 34°C unfortunately it's so happy it's spewing off flavors in to your beer if it tastes of solvent it's ruined. You need to keep it below 22°C or 20°C depending on the yeast. Porters and stouts tend to ferment out in a few days but you should give it another week or so for the yeast to clean up.

FrenchTart · 30 Sep 2015 at 22:40

Hopefully the fact that it was only one day means that you'll be okay. With luck the flavours will not be too off. If they are just put it down to experience and don't make the same mistake next time

Raptor · 24 Oct 2015 at 21:41

Christmas brew started today... left it a bit late really, but work has been hectic!
Thought I would revisit my first Home brew, Woodfordes Wherry.

silent · 25 Oct 2015 at 01:44

i have youngs american ipa @ 6.5% bottled 4 wks ago, lovely brew.
stout in the bin noe, 15l @ OG 1065, gone mad for first few days. hopefully a nice 7-8% ish xmas stout.

john_s · 25 Oct 2015 at 11:57

Raptor said:
Christmas brew started today... left it a bit late really, but work has been hectic!
Thought I would revisit my first Home brew, Woodfordes Wherry.

That was my first brew too.

It took quite a while to "smooth out" to be really drinkable.

Stan_Lite · 26 Oct 2015 at 19:30

Porter is drinkable now. Fermented for about 10 days then bunged in the keg with priming sugar. Sat in a warm room for a fortnight and has had a couple of days at cooler temperature.

As I said, it's drinkable but still a little green - another couple of weeks in the keg should see it nicely rounded. Tastes pretty decent (obviously better after aging for a bit). It seems to be pretty clear (although it's so dark, it's hard to tell).

My first kit after about 10 years not brewing so I'm pretty pleased. Got a Woodfordes Wherry Bitter kit arriving tomorrow. Will get that started ASAP.

Raptor · 26 Oct 2015 at 20:08

Looks a nice pint

My WW appeared to have stop fermenting already, did a test and its at 1016, down from 1044 in 3 days...
Going to leave it a few more days before transferring to the pressure barrel.

Stan_Lite · 3 Nov 2015 at 19:24

The wherry has been fermenting 6 days now and has been at 1.012 for 2 days (started at 1.046). I'm going to leave it another couple of days to see if it clears any more before I keg it - still a bit on the cloudy side.

I'm going to have to make a few in rapid succession so I'm not drinking them before they've had a chance to mature. I'm halfway through the porter already. I seem to remember having the same problem when I used to do it back in the day but, once I'd got a few laid up, I had enough to keep me going so I wasn't drinking the green ones.

I'm going to have to get some cooling fridges set up for my kegs as the room They're in is too warm for serving. For the moment, I'm keeping pint dimple mugs in the freezer which is taking the beer from 19.3C to a more drinkable 14.7C. Will keep an eye out for a couple of cheap fridges and get a couple of STC1000s to keep the beer at drinkable temperature. The room is perfect temperature for fermenting but much too warm for serving.

Think I'll be doing another couple of kits and then having a bash at BIAB.

silent · 3 Nov 2015 at 19:32

iirc my wherry was cloudy when bottled. soon cleared though.

my youngs ipa is stunning, the hoppiness has decreased in the 4 weeks since bottling and its really morish.

my stout, which is about to be bottled tonight, is 7.3% and stunning - followed ditch's but brewed to 15 ltrs. really smooth and hardly any bitterness you would associate with a heavy stout. ready for christmas. then straight on tonight to get the youngs pale ale on, also for xmas.

Raptor · 3 Nov 2015 at 19:55

Yeah, I waited a couple of days to see if it cleared a bit, but didn't change much, so in the pressure barrel it went.
Looking for a stout to start now, any recommendations?

Stan_Lite · 3 Nov 2015 at 20:20

silent said:
iirc my wherry was cloudy when bottled. soon cleared though.

my youngs ipa is stunning, the hoppiness has decreased in the 4 weeks since bottling and its really morish.

I'll maybe just keg it tomorrow then.

Was looking to do an IPA next. if the Young's is good, I'll probably give that a go.

Raptor · 7 Nov 2015 at 21:08

So, decided to go with Pride of London Porter as my second brew, all done today!

The Wherry has had a week in the warm and was thinking it's time to move to the garage.

Never used a pressure barrel, Do I have to add any CO2 yet, or is that meant to be added as you drink it to top the pressure up?

seabiscuit · 8 Nov 2015 at 07:51

Did you add priming sugar to the barrels? If so that should add enough CO2 to carbonate the beer and allow for it to be dispensed. If you didn't prime it then yes, use CO2 cartridge to do that job, otherwise just use one later to maintain the pressure.

Raptor · 8 Nov 2015 at 09:33

I did prime it.
Cheers I was hoping I read it correctly

Stan_Lite · 10 Nov 2015 at 22:44

Put the shelves up in my brew room today and had a bit of a tidy up so I took a photo.

The King keg you can just see to the left is the Woodfordes Wherry which is conditioning. The middle King Keg is the Pride of London Porter which is nearly finished

The empty keg on the right is for the Youngs APA (I meant to order the American IPA but failed) which is gurgling away nicely in the FV under the black bag to the right of the photo.

Evidence of it gurgling - if you look closely, you can see the bubbles in the perfectly timed photo (apologies for the dust, I was drilling holes in the walls to put up the shelves):

Wort temperature isn't clear from the photo but it's currently at about 22.5C. It has been warm today so the temperature should drop a degree or two from tomorrow when the weather cools down. It's only on its second day so at least another week in the FV - probably more. Starting SG was 1.048 and looking for below 1.008 Finished SG. Should give me an ABV of about 5.5%. Will be dry hopped when the SG reaches 1.010 as per the instructions.

silent · 10 Nov 2015 at 23:24

very nice, i'm jealous of the brew room. my youngs pale ale is going bonkers still after 1 wk!

the ips is even better the longer its left. lovely pint, my best ever.

Stan_Lite · 11 Nov 2015 at 00:22

silent said:
very nice, i'm jealous of the brew room. my youngs pale ale is going bonkers still after 1 wk!

the ips is even better the longer its left. lovely pint, my best ever.

Having a whole room (albeit small) to brew in is very handy - one of the many perks of living alone

I did a bit of looking on the web for info about the IPA/APA and about the shortest fermentation was 10 days and the longest was 5 weeks (I think I'd have been concerned long before then). The happy medium seemed to be between 2 and 3 weeks. Funny how some beers are so different. The London Porter was nearly a fortnight but the Woodfordes Wherry was only 6 days.

FrenchTart · 11 Nov 2015 at 08:25

22.5C is a little on the warm side but if it's an APA I assume it's probably a yeast with similar properties to Safale US-05 - i.e. can take a bit of punishment without giving pumping out off flavours/smells/acetone.

Out of interest, why do you have a black bag around your FV? Is it in case it leaks or something?

Stan_Lite · 11 Nov 2015 at 09:07

FrenchTart said:
22.5C is a little on the warm side but if it's an APA I assume it's probably a yeast with similar properties to Safale US-05 - i.e. can take a bit of punishment without giving pumping out off flavours/smells/acetone.

Out of interest, why do you have a black bag around your FV? Is it in case it leaks or something?

I'm actually using Safale s-04 which is OK up to 25C (ideally 15-20C). Temp is now down to about 21.5C and still dropping. My last two brews sat at 19-20C for most of the time and I expect this one to do the same once it settles down.

I've read in many places that light can affect beer quality and many people recommend fermenting in a dark place. The black bag is to keep the light exposure to a minimum. I'm not sure how much it would affect it but it costs next to nothing and only takes a few seconds to put the bag on it so I figured, why not?

FrenchTart · 11 Nov 2015 at 09:13

Stan_Lite said:
I'm actually using Safale s-04 which is OK up to 25C (ideally 15-20C). Temp is now down to about 21.5C and still dropping. My last two brews sat at 19-20C for most of the time and I expect this one to do the same once it settles down.

I've read in many places that light can affect beer quality and many people recommend fermenting in a dark place. The black bag is to keep the light exposure to a minimum. I'm not sure how much it would affect it but it costs next to nothing and only takes a few seconds to put the bag on it so I figured, why not?

Ah yeah. 04 is a little less forgiving than 05 (though still quite forgiving) and a lot of people don't like how tasteless 05 is. As you say, temp is coming down and it's pretty normal for it to be a lot higher during the initial and most vigorous fermentation.

I'd say the bag is overkill personally but it won't be doing any harm (aside from maybe increasing FV temp by 0.1C

). Perhaps if you had the vessel sat in direct sunlight all the time or if you used a demijohn I'd be more concerned

Home brewing kits ....

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