Hello Chaps.
After doing a lot of reading and this forum offering the most worthwhile and appropriate results I thought I would register. I doubt I will be able to contribute anything worth while for a very long time, if at all, but its nice to have a resource of information which has some switched on and informative members. My forum usage is mostly confined to Classic and performance vehicle sites, so this is a bit of a different one for me.
It all started with such a great idea. Given the current climate and speaking with family a lot on the phone we took part in an "Arm Chair Beer Festival". We ordered our beers online, the family had a zoom meeting and we watched the live stream of the virtual beer festival at home. It was a good bit of fun and started a bit of an idea in my head. For Christmas I had been gifted a home brew kit, I had been waiting for the weather to pick up before I started so that I had some better temperatures but was super keen to get it going. In normal conditions we will go to a few beer and cider festivals a year, we have had great experiences with the Ale Train in Alton on the watercrest line and have attended local ones here in Kent and a fair few down in the South West over the last few years and we always thoroughly enjoy them. We have done a few brewery tours but have never dabbled in the home brew idea.
I thought it would be good fun if whilst we are all stuck at home we each had a go at brewing our own beer and then once normality has resumed and we can see our family again, we could all bring our home brews together, have a BBQ and a good bit of fun drinking each others beers. The idea was to also give us another thing to talk about and discuss in these trying times, other than the same old boring thing, I thought it would bring a bit of variety into the situation and brighten things up a bit. So with that in mind I ordered 5 sets of beginner kits and another 5 beer kits of various styles and have dished them out as gifts. My family and all the in-laws now have their own set up in each household, with no rules or guidelines other than "read the instructions and don't drink it all before the BBQ!". As a result there will be a lot of reading and research and possibly the odd question or two. I am sure we will suffer some total losses with some brews but that is all part of the fun and the learning process.
This brings me to my first question.
I started my first beer on Tuesday 19th May. I have read a lot and read that the brewing instructions should be taken with a pinch of salt. The recommended 7 days initial fermentation wasn't ideal so I have disregarded the advised times in the instructions and followed advice on here. I have been watching my air lock intently. It was bubbling strongly for the first few days. This then slowed down until it reached a bubble every 30 seconds. It then reached a point where it stopped bubbling all together this must have been 9 days into the process. I took a sample and measured it, it is showing 1010, advised in the instructions is 1008. I took another reading yesterday and it is showing again 1010. Tomorrow it would have been 14 days in the FV. If it is showing 1010 still shall I begin my bottling process?
I will try to summarise the details here.
Wilko 1.5kg IPA "Thirsty Devil" Tin.
Mixed with 1kg Medium Dried Malt Extract
Cascade hops 50G added on the 4th day in FV
Starting gravity was advised at 1045 I had exactly 1045
Final gravity was advised at 1008, I have had 1010 over 2/3 days now
Like I say I am very new to this process so a lot of it may go straight over my head, so any advice, please explain it as if you are telling a child, I will still probably then miss a bit!
Any help would be fantastic, so hello everyone and thanks for the help in advance.
After doing a lot of reading and this forum offering the most worthwhile and appropriate results I thought I would register. I doubt I will be able to contribute anything worth while for a very long time, if at all, but its nice to have a resource of information which has some switched on and informative members. My forum usage is mostly confined to Classic and performance vehicle sites, so this is a bit of a different one for me.
It all started with such a great idea. Given the current climate and speaking with family a lot on the phone we took part in an "Arm Chair Beer Festival". We ordered our beers online, the family had a zoom meeting and we watched the live stream of the virtual beer festival at home. It was a good bit of fun and started a bit of an idea in my head. For Christmas I had been gifted a home brew kit, I had been waiting for the weather to pick up before I started so that I had some better temperatures but was super keen to get it going. In normal conditions we will go to a few beer and cider festivals a year, we have had great experiences with the Ale Train in Alton on the watercrest line and have attended local ones here in Kent and a fair few down in the South West over the last few years and we always thoroughly enjoy them. We have done a few brewery tours but have never dabbled in the home brew idea.
I thought it would be good fun if whilst we are all stuck at home we each had a go at brewing our own beer and then once normality has resumed and we can see our family again, we could all bring our home brews together, have a BBQ and a good bit of fun drinking each others beers. The idea was to also give us another thing to talk about and discuss in these trying times, other than the same old boring thing, I thought it would bring a bit of variety into the situation and brighten things up a bit. So with that in mind I ordered 5 sets of beginner kits and another 5 beer kits of various styles and have dished them out as gifts. My family and all the in-laws now have their own set up in each household, with no rules or guidelines other than "read the instructions and don't drink it all before the BBQ!". As a result there will be a lot of reading and research and possibly the odd question or two. I am sure we will suffer some total losses with some brews but that is all part of the fun and the learning process.
This brings me to my first question.
I started my first beer on Tuesday 19th May. I have read a lot and read that the brewing instructions should be taken with a pinch of salt. The recommended 7 days initial fermentation wasn't ideal so I have disregarded the advised times in the instructions and followed advice on here. I have been watching my air lock intently. It was bubbling strongly for the first few days. This then slowed down until it reached a bubble every 30 seconds. It then reached a point where it stopped bubbling all together this must have been 9 days into the process. I took a sample and measured it, it is showing 1010, advised in the instructions is 1008. I took another reading yesterday and it is showing again 1010. Tomorrow it would have been 14 days in the FV. If it is showing 1010 still shall I begin my bottling process?
I will try to summarise the details here.
Wilko 1.5kg IPA "Thirsty Devil" Tin.
Mixed with 1kg Medium Dried Malt Extract
Cascade hops 50G added on the 4th day in FV
Starting gravity was advised at 1045 I had exactly 1045
Final gravity was advised at 1008, I have had 1010 over 2/3 days now
Like I say I am very new to this process so a lot of it may go straight over my head, so any advice, please explain it as if you are telling a child, I will still probably then miss a bit!
Any help would be fantastic, so hello everyone and thanks for the help in advance.
