Newbie Beer.

[Brendo1]

Ok, So I did a little bit of home brewing with my uncle a few years back at the time it was more his interest than mine, out of 6 brews there was only one that I found enjoyable...possibly owing to the fact that we barely had them in the bottles before they hit the fridge, and barely cold before they hit the glasses.
Recently A mate said he was doing some home brewing and got to talking with me about it and as a result I went out and bought the coopers micro brew kit thingy. I've been doing abunch of reading online and bought a little book, went down the bottle yard and got a 100 long necks etc etc etc. When I brewed with my uncle it was something that was literally being done with the weekly/fortnightly shop, kilo of sugar can of coopers from the supermarket and away we went. I plan on doing quite a few beers to get me started so I can leave em sitting in the cupboard under the stairs to age a little and become enjoyable.

My question is, what are the odds that my can and brewers sugar that came with the kit will produce a nice beer. For the moment, and for maybe the first half a dozen brews I'd like to try to keep it pretty simple, and does anyone have any good newbie recipes, im trying to keep it to simple off the shelf stuff I can toss in the fermentor to make reasonable tasting beer. Of course if I can make fantastic tasting beer with simple off the shelf stuff tossed in the fermentor that would be kinda cool too.

[Clean Brewer]

Mate,

The best thing I found to keep it simple is to use your Can, 1kg Light Malt Extract(dry or liquid)and get some US -O5(American Ale) yeast from your LHBS and try keep your brewing temp about 18 degrees.

From this you will get a much nicer beer than using a Can, Brewing Sugar and the Yeast that comes with it..

The crucial things are Sanitation, Malt, Yeast and Temperature control..

Cheers

[warra48]

Yup, what he said.

Also, I suggest you read through this sticky thread. Lots of good advice in there.

http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... f=2&t=1966

[svyturys]

When I started a couple of months ago I bought two coopers micro brew kits. I did one exactly as provided for in the box...it's turned out quite decent. That was my benchmark.
The other one had a slight variation...I substituted saflager s-23 yeast for the one under the lid and brewed at 12-14C.
It has turned out a lot better.
I bottled brews 5, 6 and 7 yesterday. (Yep got meself a third fermenter.)
What I did over the the two months was to progressively adjust my recipes, a step at a time, and this has allowed me to refine my sanitation, temperature control and bottling techniques whilst getting progressively better beers but not risking any great time and cash outlay.
#3 is a great wheat beer and #4 at 3 week tasting is turning out to be a really nice APA (Coopers pale ale can with BE2, safale us 05 and cascade hops)
I'm now using lots of Light Malt extract and playing with the hops.
...and like everybody else says...watch that temperature.
BTW...welcome to the addiction.
Cheers

[Brendo1]

The other one had a slight variation...I substituted saflager s-23 yeast for the one under the lid and brewed at 12-14C.

What method did you use to keep the temperature down? Or is it just cold where you live?

Mmmmkay. The kit beer was bubbling away nicely the morning after I put it in motion. From what im hearing the temperature could be a bit of a worry...seems to be sitting at 25odd degrees, which according to the instructions, is fine, and according to the little book I bought from big W with the kit, its fine, but according to pretty much all of the posts i've read online...its a tad hot.

After getting up in the morning opening the door to the cupboard under my stairs and hearing the lovely sound of the airlock bubbling, I couldn't help myself and dropped by the nearest brewcraft on the way to work. Picked up a Blackrock east india pale ale (CPA knock off), A kilo of brew blend number 15, 500 grams of light dried malt and safale s-04 yeast. So, im all set to drop the next brew when the current one goes into the bottle. I do have a few questions or concerns though...

Firstly the temp of 25 degrees seems a little high to me, and the brew shop guy told me the safale s-04 works at 18-24 closer to the colder end is better. I fully intend to do all the knock up little things that you can do to try to keep the fermentor cold etc and have designs in the future for a fridge with modified thermostat for even greater control, but I think the outside temps are gonna get up over 30 and start to stay there fairly soon, that will probably affect the under the stairs temp in my townhouse, at least till the air con gets fixed. Im a little concerned i've picked a bad time of the year to start brewing beer...But I have...about 200 long necks...And I'd really like to start filling them with beer, Should I bottle the first brew...and then chill out...and wait however long it takes for the landlord to fix the a/c ( then set it permanently at brewing temp for the whole summer). Or would it be ok to just do what I can to keep the temps down, ( wet towel around the fermentor, maybe drop a litre large ice block on top of the towel before I go to work in the morn... etc)

Is 25 odd degrees an ok temperature for bottle conditioning the beer? An old fridge with a modified thermostat is on the cards for the fermentor... But...how far do you go? Buy half a dozen old fridges to keep optimal temperature on all your brews for bottle conditioning? Bearing in mind its gonna get F'n hot in adelaide in summer hopefully i'll have working a/c inside before the real heat hits but even air con can only do so much for 40+ temperatures.

[svyturys]

I keep the temps down pretty much as you suggested. Wet towel. a frozen 2 litre container of water on top of the fermenter...with the top off so that as the ice melts the water seeps out onto the towel. When the required temp is attained, I wrap the fermenter in a doona and just keep an eye on it.
I've read that some people run a fan as well which is the old Coolgardie safe principle.
I keep an eye on the weather forecasts so I have a rough idea of what to expect.
Cheers

[Brendo1]

Well, I just bottled brew number one, the lager that came with the kit, kit yeast and 1kg brewing sugar. OG of 1040 and FG of 1011 constant for 24 hours, only 4 days in the fermentor. The 'yeast cake' was very thin visibly through the side of the fermentor, and by the time I had picked up the near empty fermentor taken it to the sink and got the lid off, it was basically all a murky liquid is that normal? I've read about having to let the fermentor soak to soften the yeast cake but mine wasn't very solid at all. Oh yeah, and after shaking the residue around inside the fermentor and sticking my head in to have a whiff it nearly knocked me out very sharp alcohol/acidic smell, is that normal too?

I Used a cold water bleach mix in the sink to wash the bottles, then rinsed them all with super hot water and left em sit, shaking out the few drops of water right before I dropped a couple of carbonation drops in. Busted like a dozen caps trying to get them on too, then decided to sit em on the bottle rather than stick em to the magnet. I used white king original bleach, and i thought it was unscented till I read on the bottle that it 'fragrances as it cleans' i read somewhere you're supposed to use unscented bleach, anyone else use white king? or have an unscented supermarket brand they recommend.

Brew number 2 is going down sometime in the next couple of hours after the fermentor etc sits with some bleach in it for a while.

Its a Black Rock East India Pale ale i picked up from brewcraft.
Along with 1kg of Brewblend no.15
500g of Light male band dried
Safale s-04 yeast

As its only my second brew im just gonna treat this like a kit and kilo(which, i guess, it is...hehe), boil 2L water chuck the can and fermentables in the fermentor with the boiled water and 20l of spring water, and toss the dried yeast in on top, quick stir and seal her up...Though possibly have to chuck in a couple of ice cubes to get it down towards 18degrees. According to the thermometer strip on the side of the kit my tap water comes out at like 24-26 degrees,(does that sound high for town water?) im thinking a good quality thermometer might be a good investment.

[svyturys]

Yoicks, Brendo, you seem to have forgotten rule #1 of the elders.
1) Patience
If you leave the fermenter to sit for a week after the finish of fermentation then you are going to get a far better result.
There are those on the forum that can give an explanation of why this is so but I've followed their advice and have had great results.
My yeast cake has always been easy to clean...murky liquid is what I've got. I clean straight away, perhaps others have let it sit for a week or so and got it solidified.
As for bottling, I do all the sanitation stuff the day before and leave the bottles upside down on the bottling tree to drain.
I've been using H2O2 as a sanitiser..."Morgan's Sanitize".
And BTW toss the yeast at around 23C then let it cool and maintain it at around 18C.
Be careful of scented cleansers.
Cheers
The thermometer on the side seems to be OK and is probably good enough to great results.

[Brendo1]

If you leave the fermenter to sit for a week after the finish of fermentation then you are going to get a far better result.

I've also read that if you leave it sit on the yeast cake it can get some bad flavours through it.

[svyturys]

They are talking about a ton of time ..a month or more.
Two weeks is very normal...browse the site.
It's very recommended and it's worked fine for me for 7 brews.

[Smabb]

Brendo,

Give the ice a miss - (put in in your scotch instead ). You are potentially undoing all your good sanitising work by chucking this into your brew (freezers are a good place for bacteria).

It seems you are blending boiled water and room temp water? Just go 100% room temp, that'll get your temp down a bit for starters. If that still isn't doing it, you are going to have to put some water in a pot or similar and put ice and/or ice bricks in a sink around it to lower its temp. This will lower things further without putting your beer at risk.

Cheers

[Brendo1]

They are talking about a ton of time ..a month or more.
Two weeks is very normal...browse the site.

Well, from what I have read, and I've read pretty much everything on this site, people who favour racking their beer do it to get it off the yeast cake and make a clearer better tasting beer, Figured that without going to the extend of racking it, getting it in the bottle as soon as possible after fermentation is finished would be a good thing too.

You are potentially undoing all your good sanitising work by chucking this into your brew (freezers are a good place for bacteria).

I hope not, im kinda watching it closely now its bubbling a bit paranoid about it being infected really, it hasn't frothed up nearly as much as my first brew just a thin layer of froth on top, but the temps are lower and fermentation will be a bit slower im guessing. Just paranoid about that layer of froth being signs of infection, probably not, but we'll see.

[Liz E]

I've seen a few posts now strongly advising members not to use ice cubes to cool the wort and it seems a little bit like overkill. This will be my third summer of homebrewing and I've used ice cubes (tap water - standard fridge/freezer situation) to cool almost every wort thus far in summer time.

No detectable infections to date according to my taste, sight and smell senses so I'll continue this practice. Of course the ice cube trays are kept as far from other foods as possible and nothing is ever placed on top of them.

[warra48]

I agree with Liz on the issue of ice.

Back in my K&K and extract brewing days, I used to freeze blocks of ice in sealed containers, and use them to chill my wort after boiling. It was never an issue with infections.

And Brendo1, there is no need to bottle as soon as fermentation is over. The issue of racking is something which has been done to death on this and other forums, and I'm not arguing for or against it. I rack if there is a specific reason for doing it (I am currently cold conditioning Trough Lolly's Pikantus clone), but generally, I don't rack and leave my beer in primary for 2 weeks and then bottle.

It produces beer that is clear enough, as the yeast has a chance to clean up after itself once fermentation is done.
To give you an example, I have a batch of AG hefeweizen in bottle at present. Unless I stir up the yeast before pouring, I can pour the beer, and it is as clear as a kristalweizen.

Also, don't judge the progress of your fermentation by the appearance or vigour of the kraeusen. Every fermentation seems to take its own path and none of them ever look quite the same. Relax, you'll be fine.