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Could you give me some advice, I did'nt take a hydrometer reading at the start of the brewing procesS, It's been 3 day's should i take a reading now & then on the 7th and next day to see if the reading's are the same??..
And if I leave my lager to ferment more than the 7 day's, would this improve the lager?.

Thank You Sean...

Hi Sean,

Yeah leave it for 4 days, test the FG and test again the next day. 24 hours I should say......

If it has not moved, you can bottle.

Before taking the test it is always good to get the malt out of the tap, as this will throw out a odd FG. Let the liquid flow fast through tap, tip this out and do another reading.

Cheers

Boonie

You can bottle as soon as you get the same reading 24 hours apart but...

It would be advisable to leave your brew for at least 7 days before bottling, in fact home brew author John Palmer recommends:

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

Noodles wrote:You can bottle as soon as you get the same reading 24 hours apart but...

It would be advisable to leave your brew for at least 7 days before bottling, in fact home brew author John Palmer recommends:

Leaving an ale beer in the primary fermentor for a total of 2-3 weeks (instead of just the one week most canned kits recommend), will provide time for the conditioning reactions and improve the beer. This extra time will also let more sediment settle out before bottling, resulting in a clearer beer and easier pouring. And, three weeks in the primary fermentor is usually not enough time for off-flavors to occur.

That should get things going. And about time, too.It`s been too quiet here lately. Far too bloody quiet.

And Sean.
If it really is a lager, made with lager yeast and brewed at lager temps, it will take a lot longer than 7 days.

ryan wrote:That should get things going. And about time, too.It`s been too quiet here lately. Far too bloody quiet.

I didn't realise Palmer was so controversial. Should I be reaching for my flame retardant body suit?

Nah, it's just that there's a lot of opinion floating around re: to rack or not to rack.

OK, now I understand, do you want me to get it started?

It's a proven fact* that racking does little to improve beer clarity and leaves you open to all types of infection and oxidization.

*fact not actually proven

Proven facts are only proven as far as the people putting forward the hypothesis. As human being are fallible, we are incapable of knowing whether anything is a true fact, an unproved fact, or a false fact. However, it is a well known fact that the more people you can find to back up your theory, whether or not they know anything about your subject or not, the truer it becomes. If you are able to point to some empirical research, you are well on the way to proven your fact as truer than it was before you did your research. It doesn't matter that you surveyed 200 of the neighbourhood dogs and cats, it is the numbers which are important. As cats and dogs can't speak, you are at liberty to assume their answers would have supported your theorems.
The factuality of your fact also depends on the veracity with which you state your case. The more convinced you appear to the general public, the more proven your fact must be.
So it is a proven fact that racking beer does improve the beer for some brewers, but also a proven fact that racking does nasty things to other brewers beer.
Hope that's now as clear as the trub in the bottom of your fermenter.

well, that was a good read

But I think it confused me more, or less, not sure yet, but I am.

But it still does not explain the hidden weapons in Iraq

FWIW, I think it improves my beer and I get to dry hop at the same time.

Also good if you want to put into a 20L cube to lager, the.... um Lagers in the fridge.

My 6 cents as I think I have done my 2 x 2c on the other "to rack or not to rack" threads

Cheers

Boonie

warra48 wrote:Proven facts are only proven as far as the people putting forward the hypothesis. As human being are fallible, we are incapable of knowing whether anything is a true fact, an unproved fact, or a false fact. However, it is a well known fact that the more people you can find to back up your theory, whether or not they know anything about your subject or not, the truer it becomes. If you are able to point to some empirical research, you are well on the way to proven your fact as truer than it was before you did your research. It doesn't matter that you surveyed 200 of the neighbourhood dogs and cats, it is the numbers which are important. As cats and dogs can't speak, you are at liberty to assume their answers would have supported your theorems.
The factuality of your fact also depends on the veracity with which you state your case. The more convinced you appear to the general public, the more proven your fact must be.
So it is a proven fact that racking beer does improve the beer for some brewers, but also a proven fact that racking does nasty things to other brewers beer.
Hope that's now as clear as the trub in the bottom of your fermenter.

You obviously missed my footnote warra.

ryan was right- it did liven things up

i dunno, it seemed pretty tongue-in-cheek to me

Yeah, but at least it was *something*

Noodle wrote:You obviously missed my footnote warra.

I did see it, but just thought I'd do my best to back up your argument.
And yeah, it was meant to be tongue in cheek.

warra48 wrote:I did see it, but just thought I'd do my best to back up your argument. And yeah, it was meant to be tongue in cheek.

Thanks for your support warra.

I think racking to a secondary help improve the beer too. I did my first lager recently. I rackeded to a secondary before storing in the fridge at 3 degrees for 3 weeks. I was amazed at the yeast cake that formed in the secondary. It was a big as in the primary. The beer that I bottled was very clear and the taste test was awsome.
I was actually worried it would have enough yeast left to carbonate in the bottles.

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