New Hoppy Youngs kits.

[leaky74]

My APA has been stuck at about 1012/14 for at lest 3 days. Any advice?

 

[Slid]

What ABV does the kit claim?

Are you removing bubbles from your hydrometer to give you a proper reading?

Since you have asked twice now, I gues you deserve an informed answer.

 

[leaky74]

5.6% (it started at about 1052). The krausen has cleared right down now so reading hydrometer is fairly easy. Kit advocates adding hops at 1010 or less. Can't see it getting there at the moment

 

[Slid]

5.6% (it started at about 1052). The krausen has cleared right down now so reading hydrometer is fairly easy. Kit advocates adding hops at 1010 or less. Can't see it getting there at the moment

It's probably there or thereabouts I should think. Just add the hops and follow the instructions.

BTW, the bubbles I was concerned about are under the surface of the liquid and attached to the surface of the hydrometer. If you have a trial jar, you can give the contents a good shake and then put the hydrometer in when it settles down. Bubbles on the hydrometer lift it up a bit and give you a reading that is too high.

 

[leaky74]

Thanks Slid - I see you're just down the road from me!

I emailed Youngs and they reckon it was good to go in terms of adding the hops too. So, I added them yesterday afternoon; smelt lovely!

What you mention about the hydrometer makes sense; so it was probably closer to the 1010 mark than I was reading. I do have a sample jar but I must admit I've just been putting the hydrometer straight in the FV rather than opening the tap and taking a sample.

To pre-empt my next question; there's now a big slick of hoppy gunge on top - so in terms of taking further readings I'll have to take samples anyway but when it comes to bottling (I'm going to add the priming sugar and bottle from another bucket); should I use some type of filter when transferring from the FV?

Thanks for your help again; much appreciated.

 

[Slid]

Thanks Slid - I see you're just down the road from me!

I emailed Youngs and they reckon it was good to go in terms of adding the hops too. So, I added them yesterday afternoon; smelt lovely!

What you mention about the hydrometer makes sense; so it was probably closer to the 1010 mark than I was reading. I do have a sample jar but I must admit I've just been putting the hydrometer straight in the FV rather than opening the tap and taking a sample.

To pre-empt my next question; there's now a big slick of hoppy gunge on top - so in terms of taking further readings I'll have to take samples anyway but when it comes to bottling (I'm going to add the priming sugar and bottle from another bucket); should I use some type of filter when transferring from the FV?

Thanks for your help again; much appreciated.

I would just leave the gunge to sink to the bottom and not bother the scorers with more hydrometer reading before bottling day.

The reason for getting the gravity down before adding your aroma hops is that if you add too early, the aroma gets blown out with the CO2. In a few days, all the trub stuff is on the bottom and you can bottle without worries.

As a general rule, leaving your beer alone to get on with it is a pretty good idea, but we all kept peeking at it at first :nah:

The Youngs kits have a great reputation and following already and yours will almost certainly turn out well. :

 

[leaky74]

Thanks again; as you say - guess I need to learn to be a bit more hands off :)

 

[penguinarmy]

Ive been brewing my AAA for three weeks in the FV and the SG is 1014 (after three readings the same ) So ive added the hops yesterday the ABV is 4.8% which is a little low as the kit says 5.8% any ideas why ???

thank you

:hat:

 

[ian808]

mine had a SG 1054 and day 12 it was reading 1014, then day 21 1014 so I gave it a stir and hopped it day 25 bottled it and it had moved to 1012 so that's 5.6 what was your SG ? I brewed it with only the sugar for the kit and was 23 litres

 

[leaky74]

Mine's down to near enough 1010 with the hops in now. The hops show no sign of sinking (hoppy layer been sat on top since last weekend). So, running the tap out with a length of hose from one bucket to another (for adding the priming sugar), I'm going to stick some muslin round the end of the tubing to avoid transferring any hops over (hopefully, I'll avoid the tap clogging up), before bottling.

P.S. I tried a sneaky taste of the sample I took - v nice!:drunk:

 

[ian808]

I put my hops in a muslin bag as I had a problem with the pellets when I done the American IPA lost a few litres trying to syphon it ready for bottling. Learn something new everyday eh

 

[beerlover1983]

Pics attached if I've done it right. Two bags of extract (4Kg total), brewing sugar, 100g hop pellets, 20g yeast, a small bag of priming sugar and a nicely printed set of instructions. The yeast and hop pellets aren't named.

How much brewing sugar do you get i would like to get this kit hut not add it.Would rather the saison be closer to 5%

 

[dbg400]

How much brewing sugar do you get i would like to get this kit hut not add it.Would rather the saison be closer to 5%

Sorry, I just got this going a couple of hours ago, before seeing your post, so it's too late to weigh the bag (no weight printed on it)! I think it will have been around 400g. The OG was 1050 at 25C which by my calcs will bring it in around the 5.5% mark, if it gets to the 1.008 target FG.

I had only just got the lid on the FV, having pitched the yeast, when a robin flew into the garage and refused to leave! took me 20 minutes to coax it back out!

 

[leaky74]

I put my hops in a muslin bag as I had a problem with the pellets when I done the American IPA lost a few litres trying to syphon it ready for bottling. Learn something new everyday eh

I fear I may have got a few hoppy bits in some of the bottles I did of the APA on Friday so I think I'll go for a Muslin bag when I do the IPA.

Finally got the Dasher the Flasher on the go now - looking forward to Christmas!

 

[kodak79]

I couldn't wait to try the American IPA so I popped one open tonight after just 3 weeks (recommended is 5). It is everything I was hoping it would be - but in my wildest dreams never expected it to be.
Steady fermentation, finished after 13 days, then added hops for 3 days. Mine finished on 1007, came out at 6.7%.
I had bought a couple of bottles of Goose Island IPA to compare it to but don't need to open them to tell you its a really good match, and at about £1 per litre (rather than the £5 per litre for Goose Island) its a bargain for the quality.
All hail the craft beer revolution.

 

[dbg400]

Checked the gravity on the Saison today and it's 1.006 at 29C (1.008 adjusted) so the hop pellets went in. Although it's slowed down it's still going strong, so hopefully will have finished in time to bottle next Friday.

I've done all the festival kits now, so I'm looking forward to trying the other Young's kits.

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

How much brewing sugar do you get i would like to get this kit hut not add it.Would rather the saison be closer to 5%

I started a double batch of the Saison a week ago, and weighed the brewing sugar bag - it is 500g.

I contemplated substituting this with light or extra light DME, but was advised against doing this by members of the London Amateur Brewers (the reasoning being that the brewing sugar would aid a greater attenuation, which would be desirable for this style of beer).

The SG for the last 3 days has been around the 1.009 mark, so might not be going any further, and puts it just over the 6.0% ABV mark. If I had left the sugar out it would probably have come out at about the 4.6% mark (figure obtained by adding 500g to an unrelated recipe in Beersmith). However, if you're aiming for 5%, I'm not sure if leaving out the brewing sugar would be the right thing to do owing to the properties it gives. It may be preferable to add more water (say, an extra 5 litres), or perhaps a mixture of more water and less brewing sugar (e.g. extra 2 litres of water and half of the brewing sugar). Whatever you end up doing, I wouldn't hold back on the wort in the pouches for making the desired adjustment, though.

 

[Fuzzy-felt]

Checked the gravity on the Saison today and it's 1.006 at 29C (1.008 adjusted) so the hop pellets went in. Although it's slowed down it's still going strong, so hopefully will have finished in time to bottle next Friday.

I've done all the festival kits now, so I'm looking forward to trying the other Young's kits.

It looks as though you and I are at the same point with our Saisons. Last night the SG was 1.007 at 29C (1.009 adjusted), and I chucked the hop pellets in.

I'm doing a double batch. The OG was 1.055 and I'm using Belle Saison yeast instead of the 'Belgian Saison Yeast' supplied with the kit. I tried to find out more about the yeast from Youngs, citing that most home brewers are skeptical about the quality of the yeast supplied with the kit. They would not divulge what the yeast was, but just said "[FONT=&quot]You will not be disappointed with this yeast, it is not the normal run of the mill yeast, it is specially formulated for this particular kit, just like all the yeasts in our boxed American range.[/FONT]"
I kept the kit yeast all the same (interesting that it is a generous 20g packet) as I might use it later once I get some feedback on whether it is any good.

Hopefully we can compare notes (of the tasting variety) later on.

Cheers.

 

[leaky74]

I've had the APA bottled about six weeks total & have sampled a couple the past couple of weeks. Pleased with the taste; nice hoppy and bitter but......the aroma when drinking from the glass is very strong (not an unpleasant smell just slightly overpowering/off-putting).

Is this likely to condition out or have I maybe got something wrong during the brewing process?

 

[dbg400]

I don't think aroma changes that much over time, particularly after six weeks. Possibly the hops were added before fermentation had finished and drove off the biggest hit of the hops??

I'm just drinking a QC bottle of the Saison at present. It's not quite what I was expecting, though I have only had three pints of Saison (one from the Morley Home brew beer swap and two at the recent York beer festival) to compare it to. It's obviously a little early, but it has the potential for being my favourite kit so far.

It was a real pain to syphon, as the hop pellets had broken up but not settled out, and the filter bag on the syphon kept getting clogged. It took over 30 minutes to get it all transferred to the bottling bin, and the sediment got quite disturbed by repeated restarts of the syphon, so much so that the last couple of litres were too mixed up to bother with Rather than my usual 42+ bottles I only managed 37, and some of them have a lot of sediment All will be forgiven if it keeps improving in taste though - it really is very nice :)