A few basic brewing questions

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Edindie

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Hi all,

I've been reading a few of the posts on this forum recently and I've got a few questions which I think will help me make better beers in future. Just for background, I've made two beers to date (both using the Festival Golden Stag kit) one is a couple of months old now and the other one has only just been bottled.

The beer which has finished its brewing process is very nice, much hoppier than I expected and also cloudy unless poured very carefully. The Golden Stag kit comes with a packet of dried hops which you add five days into (an estimated) ten day brew. I left mine brewing for about 14 days as the gravity hadn't stopped dropping until then, meaning the hops had nine days in the beer rather than five. Would this be a reason why it tastes very hoppy? Testing this is the reason I brewed the same beer again. I'm thinking about doing the Festival IPA next after reading good reviews on this site; this has two packets of hops to add at different times. Why do you add them at different times and how does time affect the flavour of hops?

Secondly I want to understand about clarity of beer. I don't mind cloudy beer - I know it changes the flavour, but I quite like that flavour so I probably pour the whole bottle (inc sediment) about 50% of the time. However, I know other people think cloudy beer gives you hangovers / bad stomach etc, so I'd prefer to make clear beer if possible as I give half of it away. I've read on this site that leaving the beer in a secondary fermentation phase somewhere cold clarifies the beer. Is this before or after you add the sugar to make it fizzy? Before I assume. When decanting into a second bucket to allow this secondary fermentation, I assume you would filter the beer to remove the majority of the detritus?

In both my brews I have gone straight from the first fermentation to the bottles (using a second bucket to evenly mix in the additional sugar). The bottles are now in the garage to age. This means they've probably been at between 10-20 degrees during this ageing process, but now the cold weather is coming in, I assume they'll drop to 8-15 degrees. Is this colder temperature going to aid clarity? Should I really be storing them in the fridge?

Any answers to my multitude of questions would be appreciated, and I'm sorry for writing such a page of text for a starting post!
 
Edindie said:
Hi all,


Secondly I want to understand about clarity of beer. I don't mind cloudy beer - I know it changes the flavour, but I quite like that flavour so I probably pour the whole bottle (inc sediment) about 50% of the time. However, I know other people think cloudy beer gives you hangovers / bad stomach etc,

Only if you're drinking the finings as well.
 
Edindie said:
the hops had nine days in the beer rather than five. Would this be a reason why it tastes very hoppy?
Longer contact time for you dry hops will result in more hop oils getting into the beer up to a point at least. The worry is that if you leave the hops in for too long you end up with vegetal tastes getting into the beer

Edindie said:
Why do you add them at different times and how does time affect the flavour of hops?
Not sure about this for dry hopping unless you are keeping the hops in a bag and removing them. I guess this would be one way of getting more hop oils into the wort without so much risk of vegetal flavours.

Edindie said:
. I've read on this site that leaving the beer in a secondary fermentation phase somewhere cold clarifies the beer. Is this before or after you add the sugar to make it fizzy? Before I assume. When decanting into a second bucket to allow this secondary fermentation, I assume you would filter the beer to remove the majority of the detritus?
Over time heavier particles (yeast and protein) will drop down. Cool temperatures seem to help this. If it is cool the yeast will become inactive and so drop out faster. Some yeasts compact and stick to the bottom of the bottle better than others. If transfering to a second bucket you should try to leave as much of the yeast trub behind as possible to avoid off flavours from autolysis. Be careful not to introduce any oxygen into the wort when transferring. Personally I don't go to secondary, I never filter at all and I don't use any auxiliary finings.

Edindie said:
Should I really be storing them in the fridge?
The other thing to consider in terms of clarity is that some proteins come out of solution at low temperatures causing chill haze. Storing in the fridge can help with getting rid of this but if you are going to be drinking at cellar temperatures that shouldn't be an issue.
 
Hi there Edindie,
As you are probably beginning to notice fermentation is a 3 phase activity - 4 if you include making and bringing on a saved yeast from a previous brew,

Firstly the yeast grows in the brew in order to reach a sufficiently high number of yeasts to brew the amount of wart that you have prepared, during this phase it can seem that the yeast is not doing anything and can last maybe as long as 36 hours dependent on how much fermentable materials are present in the brew.

The second phase generally occurs with a load of froth growing on the surface of the brew, this can be quite a lot maybe 3/4 inches deep depending on how much Oxygen there is in the brew - yeast needs oxygen at this stage to operate, you can give the brew a good stir with a paddle, I use an electric air bed pump with a length of pie attached to the outflow. This vigorous ferment might last 5/6 days.

Phase 3 occurs when the froth (Krausen) dies down and you can see little bursts of brew on the surface of the brew. Its at this point that its worth while moving the brew into a clean/sterilized FV, either another bucket with a good fitting lid or a bucket with a 4 inch screw on lid with an airlock fitted. A good healthy brew will keep the airlock active maybe 2 or 3 blurps a second. This will eventually die down, its during this period that the yeast now starts to clean up after itself and you should see some evidence of the brew beginning to clear. Towards the back end of this phase which can take another 5 or 6 days you need to take a gravity reading with your hydrometer. I believe most kits come to a halt at around 1008 but the important thing to do at this time is to check the SG every day, if you find that the SG remains steady for 3 consecutive days then the beer has completed and you can now transfer the beer to your bottling bucket if batch priming or to your primed bottles. I find batch priming is the best approach as each bottle tends to get a fair share of sugar - use 5g/L as a guide line for most bitters this can be varied for stouts and lagers.

Once bottled the next step is to condition the beer by keeping it in the warmth (room temp) for about a week then moving the brew into the cold of a garage or shed for a month. This will inject some fizz into the brew.
A handy tip is to use 1 PET coke bottle is your set of bottles - because it has soft sides you can give it a squeeze to see if it is firming up, this will indicate that the conditioning is working.

Hope this answers your questions and gives you a bit more information. If not just ask more questions.Best of luck with your brewing.
 
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