How to brew your own beer

Good stuff NickK and hope it works well for you!

I'm two weeks in now - 9 days fermentation, now about 5 days in the plastic bottles I siphoned into. It's smelt pretty good after fermentation - like a rich IPA smell.

I've no idea how it's going to turn out, but hopefully xmas will either bring some nice homebrew and not projectile vomiting :D

If it's good, I'll certainly step up my brewing skills to the all grain method here.
 
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Well it's got a 3 inch head on it this morning :D I had a small really thin raft that yesterday evening before I went to bed.
 
NickK said:
Well it's got a 3 inch head on it this morning :D I had a small really thin raft that yesterday evening before I went to bed.
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Yeast certainly is an interesting little beastie. If you're careful once it's done you can save some of the yeast for the next few brews, cutting down on costs.

Look up yeast washing on google
 
Well an update :D

The head has subsided as expected and I've taken my first hydrometer check (sterilised too) - I'm trusting the kit rather than take an initial SG then watch it drop as the sugar gets converted to alcohol.

It's measuring 1020 so that's about 2.5% potential alcohol remaining (hydrometer measures sugar not alcohol). In short the brew is currently 2% ABV (if the kit advertises 4.5%). It's still got till friday before it's put in the keg but I'll watch the gravity daily from now on. If it sticks at 1020 tomorrow after some additional heating today then I'll give it a stir. If it sticks tuesday then I may have to bring forward the kegging to wednesday.

One thing I noted - initially the fermentation makes it's own heat, later on it needs help to maintain the temperature over 20degC. (partly due to my lousy heating).

Also as there was a few drops captured dripping from the extracted hydrometer, I had a taste :D
It's surprising like beer ;) There's a taste of bitter, there's a taste of hops and of course yeast. Once in the keg and given 4 weeks, the yeast taste will disappear so I'm not too worried. From reading it appears that a lot of new homebrewers don't give it that 4-6 weeks so you get that typical 'homebrew' taste with cloudy/yeasty beer.
 
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Well, drank a few bottles of my Bavarian Pilsner last night. The wait paid off as they were nicely carbonated and boy, they seemed quite strong and bizzarely imroved my FIFA skills:confused:

The question is what next, I'm tempted to try a bier blonde sort of lager. Any recommendations?
 
Update - today's reading is:
Sunday 1020
Monday 1018
Tuesday 1014

It certainly tastes (a) more bitter than sunday and less sweet, (b) tastes heavier in terms of alcohol. Noticed a few bubbles rising so it's still going strong :D
 
PaulStat said:
Yeast certainly is an interesting little beastie. If you're careful once it's done you can save some of the yeast for the next few brews, cutting down on costs.
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I do that all the time for similar beer styles. Obviously you don't want to use the same yeasties from a stout in a brown ale. But the method is extremely simple: take a cup or so of the slurry after you've transferred your brew to the secondary fermenter, store in a zip-loc baggie in the fridge, and use within 2 weeks.

edit: just looked up the "washing" option. Never tried it. Looks like a lot of work.
 
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Tonight I labelled my bottles! I'll post some pics in a week or so, when it's ready to test. There is a distinct lack of photo evidence of the outcomes in this thread. We need pics people :)

Wish I'd used glass bottles instead of plastic, but taste over style for me.

It's looking good, a fair amount of sediment in some bottles but not others. I didn't use any 'finings' which came with the pack.
 
Just transferred it into it's pressure keg with a priming of sugar.

I never knew how embarrassing it is to attempt to find a certain Petroleum Jelly product (lots of shop assistant sniggers). Finally managed to find the original stuff and not the stuff with a few additives for lips. Before you ask - it's for sealing the keg O-ring etc :p

So now it's a wait and see!
 
NickK said:
I never knew how embarrassing it is to attempt to find a certain Petroleum Jelly product (lots of shop assistant sniggers). Finally managed to find the original stuff and not the stuff with a few additives for lips. Before you ask - it's for sealing the keg O-ring etc :p
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Erm, shouldn't you be using a food-grade lubricant for that? KY is sanitary, but it's not odourless and might cause an off flavour in your brew. Vaseline is neither sanitary nor odourless.

edit: This should be your product of choice. One tube will last a very long time. It's dirt cheap in the U.S. if you can order from here.
 
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I cracked a bottle open today!

It looks and tastes like London Pride, and according to the reading it's about 3%... a little low. Will it get any stronger the longer I leave it in the bottles?
 
caff said:
I cracked a bottle open today!

It looks and tastes like London Pride, and according to the reading it's about 3%... a little low. Will it get any stronger the longer I leave it in the bottles?
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Is that compared to the pre-fermentation measurement? That does seem a little low.
 
Well that's spooky... I just had a quick half from the keg now it's been in there since saturday.

It's a little cloudy still but no surprise it's still got 2-3 weeks to go. It's got a bitter taste but it's also a tad sweet, I'm assuming that'll drop slowly too in the second fermentation. Tastes sort of like a wheat beer but bitter in the background rather than fruity/wheat.
 
Curse you... I'm now considering getting a boiler and IC.. using malt extract initially and then running with hops.. next year I'll have a mash tun too at this rate.

I have my plan for the oak aged beer - I'll be purchasing the bits on saturday (found a HB shop nearby).
 
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