GOOD DAY EH!!

[swankman]

G'day all.

Just found this site. looks great. So i'll get right into it!

So we've (brother in law & cousin in-law) have been makin' heaps of brews for a while now. Just the coopers kits, with the kit yeast. It's beer. It's drinkable. but it's nothing special. we do like 6 cans at a time.

I'm "in charge". Clean the gear and mix it up. watch the temp during the fermentation (we do it in my joinery shop). basically i have the most interest in it.

SO. the time has come. i want to do a few small things and try to make better beer!

1 - After reading here, in the first 5 mins i've decided that we're not using the yeast in the kit ever again. Good idea??

2 - I'm pretty clean now, but I just wash and rinse the kegs & gear with dish soap. No Good??

3 - the bottles. we have ALLOT of ginger beer bottles. like 1000. They're clean, but i'm starting to think they're not up to scratch at all. you see all we do is boil them. we have a big gas copper cray cooker/stand thinger. all we do is boil the bottles in there for 10 mins before we bottle. By the end of a session though, the water is a bit average. Crap from the labels and what not. like i said the bottles are pretty clean to start with. they're not full of crap. we're really good at pouring the beer into a glass, rinsing them with hot water straight away, and putting them upside down in the dish rack to dry. then they get stored in a cabinet i've made at the shop.

Are we way out in left field with this bottle situation people?!?! Do we need to stop this nonsense?!?1 lol Surely the copper pot itself would be ok wouldn't it? it's not stainless steel, but the water lines in your house are copper...

Any feedback would be great.


Cheers,


~Swankman.

[Pogierob]

With the yeast. The first ever piece of advice I was given in relation to making better beer was to ditch the kit yeast and go for a good yeast from the HB shop.

As far as the bottles are concerned,

Boiling them up for ten minutes would make them sterile for sure but if as you say outside dirt and labels are in there too, then that will be going into the bottles in a mass boil up.

If you rinse and clean the bottles as you drink then I can only say that sanitizer and one of these http://bit.ly/UHq3HF
Should not only simplify but make it safer.

I can't see anything wrong with the ginger beer bottles as Long as you get a seal when you are capping them.

Happy brewing!!

[weizgei]

Swankman, welcome aboard mate. Let me answer these in turn:

1. Yep, great idea. Swap out the Coopers kit yeast for something like Fermentis US-05 for any pale ale/IPA type beers you're making. It only costs about $6 a pack and is well worth it, especially if you can keep your ferment temps down around 18 or 19 degrees.

2. Nope, bugger the dish soap, grab yourself some unscented sodium percarbonate, like Aldi's "Disan". Use half a cap of that with around 7 or 8 litres of cool water in your fermenter, with all your gear in it. Shake the crap out of it and let it soak a while. Make sure your fermenter is 'clean' first, i.e. any left over krausen/crap from the last brew has been wiped away with a soft sponge/rag...don't use anything abrasive on the inside 'coz it'll create little scratch crevices for bacteria to hide in. Once it's soaked a while, pour it out, and rinse everything with another 7 or 8 litres of water, twice. When you're done your finger should squeak down the inside of your fermenter, without you being able to feel any soap/slimy residue. Store your fermenter away in a cupboard until you need it again, then follow step 3 to sanitise it before you use it.

3. Once your fermenter is cleaned as above, you want to use a no-rinse sanitiser like Star-san. This stuff is magic...it's re-usable for months. Buy a 500ml bottle, mix it up at a ratio of 1.5ml per litre (I use 4.5ml in a 3 litre juice bottle). Then pour some of that into a clean spray bottle, as that's really handy for on-the-go sanitising of stuff like spoons/stirrers and the like. You can pour the entire 3 litres in your clean fermenter, add your various bits (like bottling wand, valve, o ring etc), shake the crap out of it so it really foams up (don't fear the foam, it actually acts as a yeast nutrient...trust me), let it sit a minute or two, then pour some back into your juice bottle through the fermenter's tap to sanitise that. Then funnel the rest back into the juice bottle. You'll have heaps of foam, again, don't worry about it! Anything that foam touches will be sanitised.

As for your bottles, you're already doing the right thing rinsing them after each use. Once the bottle is dry from being upside down in your dish rack, store it away somewhere closed where crap won't get in. Then on bottling day, use your starsan mixture, and if you don't have a bottle rinser, just 1/3rd fill a bottle with starsan, give it a good shake with your hand over the opening, then pour the starsan through a funnel into the next bottle. Repeat on every bottle. If you don't have a bottle tree, don't worry, just pour the last little bit of starsan out of each bottle just before you fill it. If you have a bottle tree and bottle rinser, it's even easier....half fill the rinser with starsan mix, give each stubby one or two squirts, and hang it on the tree.

You can also put your crown seals in a cup of the starsan solution to make sure they're all sanitised too.

Job done I think!

[Pogierob]

Oh and normal dish washing liquid should be avoided. I'm sure someone else can give you a more scientific answer but my understanding is that it at the least affects head retention.

Go the sanitizer option.

[swankman]

Swankman, welcome aboard mate. Let me answer these in turn:

...As for your bottles, you're already doing the right thing rinsing them after each use. Once the bottle is dry from being upside down in your dish rack, store it away somewhere closed where crap won't get in. Then on bottling day, use your starsan mixture, and if you don't have a bottle rinser, just 1/3rd fill a bottle with starsan, give it a good shake with your hand over the opening, then pour the starsan through a funnel into the next bottle. Repeat on every bottle. If you don't have a bottle tree, don't worry, just pour the last little bit of starsan out of each bottle just before you fill it. If you have a bottle tree and bottle rinser, it's even easier....half fill the rinser with starsan mix, give each stubby one or two squirts, and hang it on the tree....

ya we have a couple trees. the problem is though is that bloody ginger beer bottles don't sit nicely on the tree. the necks are short and the bottles fall over a bit....a bit of the solution would pool in the bottle.

so would just shaking the rest out be ok? would a little bit of this starsan ruin the bottle of beer? it's winter now...plenty cold....do the bottles need to dry COMPLETELY?

[CrookedFingers]

Hey swankman,
I'm a bit of a noob here too, but, welcome !
Starsan is a no rinse steriliser, so if you are cleaning your bottles then bottling your brew immediately, don't stress if there are traces of it in the bottles.

Sounds like you boys drank A LOT of ginger beer !!!!

[Oliver]

Hi and welcome, Swankman.

The advice given so far seems pretty sound.

Also, you might want to check out the thread about simple things that make HB better, if you haven't already. There are plenty of good ideas in that to improve your brews.

As far as cleaning bottles and other equipment goes, have a look at the thread on oxyper (sodium percarbonate, as referred to above) and cleaning bottles, in particular this thread you will realise what a wonderful cleaner it is. Sodium percarbonate is the active ingredient in Napisan, but make sure you use the non-scented variety, or get the pure stuff from your homebrew store.

I use iodophor, which is a no-rinse sanitiser. You just have to coat all the surfaces, a bit like the Star-san referred to by weizgei and the contraption that pogierob mentioned makes it really quick. The only thing with iodophor is that it cannot be reused and has lost its efficacy when it loses its light-brown colour after half an hour or so. A bit of sanitiser left in the bottles is no problem. I generally sanitise them then give them a final turn upside down. I don't use a bottle tree.

Regarding boiling bottles, I'd be a bit worried about the repeated heating weakening the bottles and making them more prone to breaking under the pressure of the beer.

Cheers,

Oliver

[weizgei]

so would just shaking the rest out be ok? would a little bit of this starsan ruin the bottle of beer? it's winter now...plenty cold....do the bottles need to dry COMPLETELY?

Nope, not a problem whatsoever, as starsan is a no-rinse sanitiser. This is the same for any no-rinse sanitiser too...a little of it left in the bottle will not affect your beer in any way. My bottles are never dry before I fill them. In fact, if they're dry, you'd technically need to re-sanitise them. I've even read that drinking properly diluted starsan is less harmful than a can of coke!

[CrookedFingers]

Looks like I found a substitution for my cocacola addiction..