Home Brewing (Complete Noob)

RedRabbit

hywelg said:

RedRabbit said:

I'd leave it at least a week before sampling. Carbonation should be done by that point and you can decide whether to leave it a little longer or start drinking.

Having just poured my first pint from my pressure barrel I'd suggest not adding any gas until you notice it pouring a little slow.  From just the priming sugar I have, if anything, too much pressure in mine.  Carbonation is fine but the pour results in a couple of inches of head.

TBH you'll not get beer out of a plastic keg without foam unless you have such little pressure that you're sucking air in,and you really don't want to do that. 

It's the nature of the tap. The best ones have a spigot on the inside of the barrel where you attach a piece of tube to the far side of the barrel, right at the bottom. The smaller diameter the better. 

When you finally move to corny kegs you'll use 3/16" beer pipe to control the back pressure to reduce foaming. 

I've already started with corny kegs but I bought the pressure barrel before I got them and thought a porter was a good candidate for it. Might look at upgrading the tap as I intend to keep using it for porters and stouts.

MagicPigDetective

 Caved in and tried a sample tonight after 6 days in the keg. Well, it’s clear, golden, has a light, sweet, golden taste. I can taste some sugar so I guess it needs more time. Not getting any unpleasant flavours. Perhaps I didn’t mess up, it’s looking promising.  

hywelg

Double brewday yesterday. A large mash tun allows me to do 10 gallon mashes, split into two kettles. One a Sabro Simcoe pale ale and the other a Simcoe Rosemary.  Yeast was cropped from the previous DIPA that got kegged mid afternoon, Lallemand American East coast Pale Ale. 

MagicPigDetective

Well here it is, my first full pint of homebrewed St Peters Gold and I am very satisfied. It’s a light, golden session ale, very drinkable. I would have no problem being served this in a pub. There are no unpleasant tastes at all, but it is a bit lightweight and could do with more hoppiness. It’s worked out far better than I expected. 35 pints left! 

RedRabbit

Looks good.  If you do another kit you could consider adding additional hops as it ferments.

I'm about to keg an IPA I've had cold crashing since Sunday.  Wasn't meant to be left that long but I needed a new siphon tube and DPD have been messing about with delivery.

This'll leave the fermentation fridge empty.  Hopefully going to be brewing on Saturday.  All kegs are full at the moment so I'm going to do a lager.  There should be a spare keg needing filling when it's done.

duotone

MagicPigDetective said:

Well here it is, my first full pint of homebrewed St Peters Gold and I am very satisfied. It’s a light, golden session ale, very drinkable. I would have no problem being served this in a pub. There are no unpleasant tastes at all, but it is a bit lightweight and could do with more hoppiness. It’s worked out far better than I expected. 35 pints left! 

Looks great! @MagicPigDetective ;
Lightweight in terms of flavour or ABV?

MagicPigDetective

duotone said:

MagicPigDetective said:

Well here it is, my first full pint of homebrewed St Peters Gold and I am very satisfied. It’s a light, golden session ale, very drinkable. I would have no problem being served this in a pub. There are no unpleasant tastes at all, but it is a bit lightweight and could do with more hoppiness. It’s worked out far better than I expected. 35 pints left! 

Looks great! @MagicPigDetective ;
Lightweight in terms of flavour or ABV?

A bit of both maybe. The readings after fermentation suggested around 4%, not the intended 4.7%. That doesn’t concern me though. Less hangover. A bit lightweight in flavour depth, yes, yet goes down easily. 

hywelg

An easy way to add hop flavour is at steeping time. Cool the wort down to 80°c. Add your hops and let them sit for 15 mins before coolling further. 100g will.get you a decent hop flavour.  Good ones to consider are

Citra, Amarillo, cascade, Simcoe, Sabro, Equanot,  comet, Mosaic, Nelson, Rakau, Waimea.

RedRabbit

Brew day for me.  Nearly ruined before it really started - the extension I had kettle plugged into blew while heating up to mash temp.  Thought it might have been the kettle itself so was relieved to find I just needed to switch the extension lead.

I was going to do a Czech Pilsner and do the full lagering process but I needed to do 2 stage starter and forgot to set it going on Thursday.  Rather than underpitch I'm forging forward using skarer kveik.  It's meant to be a neutral, clean fermentation even at higher temps so should produce a decent lager-like beer.  Going for 30°c for fermentation.

RedRabbit

Brew day complete.  Pretty uneventful other than the exit hose from the coil chiller escaping from the sink and falling on the floor.  Thankfully I was there to grab it and the kitchen floor needed mopping anyway.

First time using the coil chiller - completely changed brew day.  Yeast has been pitched already, would normally be waiting until tomorrow morning.  Think I need to set up a recirculating system though.  I'm very conscious of how much water I used.

With it being kveik I'm expecting activity in the next few hours.  Brew fridge is holding steady at 30°c - could push it higher but, despite promises, I'm wary of introducing any esther production in this brew. 

RedRabbit

Just noticed something a bit odd.

I took a sample to get the OG and left it on the side.  It was a little cloudy but not too unusual at this point in the brew.  Went back in the kitchen a little while later and it's cleared really well but the sediment is light and fluffy not like the heavy, fine trub I've encountered before.  Might just be that I've not left a sample out for any length of time before but it looks odd.  I'm assuming it's from the pilsner malt - @hywelg any ideas ideas?

hywelg

If you took the sample out of the kettle then what you've got there is protein coagulate. This is what the protofloc does and yes it is very light and fluffy and easily broken apart. Thats why when drawing off out of the kettle you need to get it sub 30°C to promote that coagulation and let it sit for 15-30 mins for it to settle. If you have efficient filtration out of the kettle it will be trapped by the filter bed formed by the hops as these settle first. As with your mash you need to recirculate a little to establish the filter bed.

RedRabbit

Thought it was probably protein.  Sounds like I should have left it a little longer in the kettle.  Any issue with some of it ending up in the fermenter?

hywelg

RedRabbit said:

Thought it was probably protein.  Sounds like I should have left it a little longer in the kettle.  Any issue with some of it ending up in the fermenter?

No. 

RedRabbit

hywelg said:

RedRabbit said:

Thought it was probably protein.  Sounds like I should have left it a little longer in the kettle.  Any issue with some of it ending up in the fermenter?

No. 

Cheers.

The kveik didn't take off like I expected but it's going well now.  No real krausen yet but I'm hoping it'll develop.  The guy I got the yeast from recommended top cropping the skare.

AndyD

Brew day for me today - Belgian Dubbel - a style I've never quite managed to get right so hoping for better luck this time.

My Proper Job clone from July is beginning to look ok though, another couple of weeks in the bottle and it'll be really good.

Just getting back into brewing after having my brew fridge requisitioned for extra food capacity during  lockdown, will be trying to brew once a month at least from now on.

RedRabbit

RedRabbit said:

hywelg said:

RedRabbit said:

Thought it was probably protein.  Sounds like I should have left it a little longer in the kettle.  Any issue with some of it ending up in the fermenter?

No. 

Cheers.

The kveik didn't take off like I expected but it's going well now.  No real krausen yet but I'm hoping it'll develop.  The guy I got the yeast from recommended top cropping the skare.

Just harvested the yeast.  To my surprise the hydrometer is already showing 1.010.  Going to give it another 24 hours at 30°c but I think it's done - that's just about 50 hours from pitching.  Got a strong citrus smell when I opened the fridge so I'm thinking skare isn't quite as neutral as I was led to believe.  It's going to be cold crashed for a couple of days and then kegged.  

AndyD said:

Brew day for me today - Belgian Dubbel - a style I've never quite managed to get right so hoping for better luck this time.

My Proper Job clone from July is beginning to look ok though, another couple of weeks in the bottle and it'll be really good.

Just getting back into brewing after having my brew fridge requisitioned for extra food capacity during  lockdown, will be trying to brew once a month at least from now on.

Good luck with the dubbel.  I've got some Belgian yeast on order for either a dubbel or blonde.  Can't seem to buy light candi sugar at the moment so I'm going to have a go at making my own.

duotone

Am gonna try that Belgian Wit in the next week. https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/robs-belgian-witt/

Am planning on making 1/4 of the recipe, so 5.75L instead of the 23L, to see how it turns out.  

1) Just want to check that 5.75L of water is what should be adding?

2) Any good advice for reducing the amount of sediment in the bottles?

For the Mosaic IPA I used cold tap water, but this time around I will try bottled water. Cheers!

AndyD

1) Just want to check that 5.75L of water is what should be adding?

2) Any good advice for reducing the amount of sediment in the bottles?

Quantity of water depends on how you are planning to mash to some extent - I would mash in about 4L of water and then sparge (rinse) in about 3L.  This should give you more than 5.75L but some of this will evaporate during the boil.  It's a little bit trial and error, everyone will have slightly different results.

To reduce sediment:
a) Leave in the fermenter for a period after fermentation, so maybe two weeks in total possibly more
b) Chill after fermentation if possible, this will encourage sediment to drop out; and
c) Transfer to a bottling bucket before bottling to leave the sediment behind in the fermenter.

The difficulty with brewing such short lengths is that you will lose a relatively high % to sediment etc.

duotone

Much appreciated @AndyD ;