Stu's Brewing Blog - Slow and steady does it!

[stu]

I've got far too much brewing and still little to drink (I think this appears to be common)

More updates - Ribena wine, WOW coming on, Stout in Secondary and Zider bottled
Latest update here
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=36529&p=369660#p369660

Nothing much, just a few updates and some gravities to report
viewtopic.php?p=364709#p364709

Stu brews a Stout
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=36529&p=360008#p360008


Why isn't the lager fizzy?here
viewtopic.php?p=359812#p359812


Ikea furniture and Cider here
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=36529&p=353536#p353536


Cider and WOW brewdayhere
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=36529&p=352574#p352574

So here's the original post.

Firstly, I'm probably putting this here more for my sanity than any other reason, but please feel free to add your comments or muse. Recommendations on new music for instance is always welcome. I like everything from Jazz and Classical through to pop, funk, disco, rock, metal and have even been known to enjoy rap. I'm not a great fan of dance or house.

Anyway, I digress.

Saturday before last (23rd Feb), I ventured open the tin, warmed it up, added 1kg of brew enhancer, warmed it up again, added some water and topped it up to ~23L. OG was 1042, exactly as expected. Starting temp was around 22c.

Decided that because it was next to the boiler, it should stay at around that temperature. How wrong I was. By Sunday evening, it had dropped to 18c so quickly ordered up an aquarium heater and bought one of those flexibucket thingies from Asda for £3.

By Wednesday, I had the temperature back up to 22c and eventually it crept up and settled at 24c and bubbled ferociously.
I thought it was a bit hot, but the instructions say 21c-27c so 24c is pretty much in the middle.

Fast forward to Sunday night where the gravity has now reached 1008-1006. By Monday, it's settled to 1006 and the same on Tuesday. I'll leave it to the weekend before I decide what to do next.

So as I put in another thread, I'm not sure what to do next. To put it through secondary fermentation, I'll need to keep it (apparently) at 18c. I'm not sure my heater will go that low, but the house is too cold to ignore it. I'm a bit loathe to move the stuff - with the exception of the kitchen, it's carpeted throughout and SWMBO is already sweating (and it was her idea!)

I think tomorrow I will start on my second lot - a Pear cider. And if all goes well, I may well then start a stout as mentioned in another thread.
In case you are wondering, I have 3 FVs and a pressure barrel. Not to mention 2 food grade 30L water containers which are more than capable. And some bottles (although not enough yet - I have someone offering me 30x500ml PETs and someone else offering 24x500ML bottles which I need to go pick up).

I guess my first question for anyone who actually wanted to bother reading thus far is......

If I bottle my lager, what sort of sugar should I prime it with? I have some regular white sugar, caster sugar and a few different brown sugars.

 

[joe1002]

Just use the regular white sugar. The amounts for priming are small so you won't notice any difference :thumb:

 

[joe1002]

In addition, most ale yeast is best fermented at 18-20c and lager yeast at 9-12c IIRC.

Now I am not familiar with that kit but 24 sounds a bit on the high side.

Finally, most lager kits come with ale yeast to allow home brewers to brew lager without too much equipment (to cool) :thumb:

 

[stu]

I thought that it seemed a little high. It said extreme temps were 18-32c. Surely 32c would kill the yeast?

I have knocked it down to 22c now.

In many ways, a proper lager yeast would have been ideal at this time of the year - I live in a 3 storey place and the ground floor (entrance hall only) seems to average around 10c (which is where I am intending to keep my keg eventually - apparently it stays cool in the summer too).

 

[ScottM]

Don't worry about your temperature for secondary fermentation. We generally just go with room temp so anywhere between 18 and 24 will be absolutely fine.

Have a look at the link in my sig, I wrote a little tutorial on doing kit beer/lager that's reasonably universal. I've had lots of good results following pretty much this exact method. Secondary recommendations as well as bottling are all covered :)

 

[stu]

So following my exploits where I decided I'm not going to bottle straight away but actually put it through a week of secondary.

For 2 reasons. Firstly, because it seems like a decent thing to do. But secondly (probably more importantly), I have a regular budget keg, but no CO2. I don't have the bottles (see my other post) although I have a pub contact who can hopefully get me a few dozen magners or bulmers bottles.

Whilst everyone will say "Don't bother, buy a bench capper", my budget is somewhat weaning this week. I've spent rather a lot on HB kit. I need a crown capper so I'll probably go buy one of the "Emily" type. I'm thinking it's going to be better than a Wilko one?

As promised, I've put (rather I will shortly pitch the yeast) on a pear cider. I followed ScottM's instructions almost to the letter - they seem simple enough to follow and make quite a lot of sense. I would have followed them entirely, but I had the free kilo of brewing sugar and I've already used all the sugar we have in the house (see next paragraph).

Whilst I was sorting all that out, I decided to have a punt at making a WOW. Asda had some cheap pressed grape juice (not from concentrate apparently) so I mixed it up with some smart price orange juice. The OG was absolutely all over the place - 1.120 which I'm pretty sure is wrong. I used a PET 5L water thingummy, but followed the instructions properly. I've pitched the yeast, added all the extra ingredients (except for glycerine as I hate the stuff) I'll leave it to see what happens....

Anyway, back to the Pear Cider. When making up my previous effort (Coopers Canadian blonde), I had no issues with temperature - I simply followed the instructions and the temperature was around 23c. Clearly, warming the kitchen up wasn't the best idea. I put it all together as suggested and the temperature was 32c. Obviously far too warm to start playing around with yeast. So I've left it. Only I had to make tea, so heated the kitchen up even more.

It's now 11pm and it's still showing (some 6 hours later) as being 26c. I'll leave it until the morning I guess. It still feels rather warm too. It'll be too cold then, so it'll be an aquarium heater-me-bob which will take most of the day no doubt.

 

[ScottM]

Sounds like it was a good day of brewing anyway

What level did you take the WOW to? 1.120 sounds reasonable depending on your volume. By the time you take rack into a secondary and top up you will be diluting the alcohol anyway. If you only made up 4L with water then 1.120 makes more sense, using juice up to 5l would account for the extra sugar, etc. So we really need to know what method you used, I'm sure there will be a reasonable explanation though.

With regards to your pitching temp with the cider, did you use bottled water? Some of the water needs to be chilled to bring the temp down. I made that mistake many moons ago and had to wait on my temp coming down from the mid 30s because all my water was at room temp. When filling straight from the tap my tap water is around 10 degrees so it pulls the temp of the brew down nicely.

26 is fine to pitch at, as long as the temperature is falling it won't make any odds :)

 

[stu]

Sounds like it was a good day of brewing anyway

What level did you take the WOW to? 1.120 sounds reasonable depending on your volume. By the time you take rack into a secondary and top up you will be diluting the alcohol anyway. If you only made up 4L with water then 1.120 makes more sense, using juice up to 5l would account for the extra sugar, etc. So we really need to know what method you used, I'm sure there will be a reasonable explanation though.

With regards to your pitching temp with the cider, did you use bottled water? Some of the water needs to be chilled to bring the temp down. I made that mistake many moons ago and had to wait on my temp coming down from the mid 30s because all my water was at room temp. When filling straight from the tap my tap water is around 10 degrees so it pulls the temp of the brew down nicely.

26 is fine to pitch at, as long as the temperature is falling it won't make any odds :)

Thanks Scott.

With the WOW, i've made it up to about 4-4.5 litres. I followed the method >>here<<

It's got that horrible caked scum on the top as promised, so it's looking good. The airlock isn't going nuts - should it be?

As for the cider, it did in fact come down to around 24 just before I went to bed, so I gave it a gentle stir and pitched the yeast. It's not particularly energetic (I suppose it probably shouldn't be) but there was a nice soft layer on top this morning so all should be well.

As for the water, I did try and cool it (perhaps I would have been better leaving it outside) but clearly wasn't quite cool enough.

This probably isn't the right hobby for me - I'm very impatient at times, but having left my beer alone for 2 weeks (and I'll leave it until next weekend now), I'm probably doing OK.

If someone could suggest something that doesn't take very long, I'd be might appreciative. It's frustrating knowing that I'm not going to have anything to drink for at least another month.

 

[stu]

Monday update....

The WOW has started bubbling a lot. It's winding the missus up (she keeps thinking one of the taps is dripping :lol: )
I've found that it is in fact warmer up the other end of the kitchen compared with next to the boiler (no idea why but there y'are).

I've moved my entire production onto an Ikea "Expedit" unit like this.

Although I've modified it so that the shelves are only about 20cm from the top. That way, you can get 2 standard FVs in the bottom and 2 on the top but still being able to use the shelves to keep all the other bits and bobs on (it's very tidy!). I'll take a pic when I remember next.

The cider has kept itself bang on 20c so I'm hoping it's all going well. I've checked the seals, but there appears to be little going on, except for a small Krausen on top. I'll leave it until the weekend and check the gravity. From reading other stuff on here, Cider doesn't seem to be as vigorous as other stuff (I'm hoping). I have a second aquarium heater now so I can always warm it up if necessary.

I've kind of fixed some of the bottling issues now. I've got a number of 500ml PETs plus half a dozen Grolsch bottles. In addition, I won an ebay auction yesterday for 3 dozen odd swing-top bottles plus 20 regular brown bottles. I also won a crown capper (for 99p) so I'll be able to at least bottle the beer next weekend. I've still asked my son to tap up the pub for some cider bottles.

I've got a 3 way fridge in the garage (I was going to put it in our camper, but there really isn't the room) so I'll probably dig that out as somewhere to store cold beers. The missus is adamant that she doesn't want me spending any more cash on this at the moment.

 

[stu]

So my cider appears to have slowed right down.

Been on for 12 days now but it's only down to 1006

Any ideas? It's been sat at bang on 21c for the last 9 days. Possibly slightly lower the first couple of days.

 

[ScottM]

So my cider appears to have slowed right down.

Been on for 12 days now but it's only down to 1006

Any ideas? It's been sat at bang on 21c for the last 9 days. Possibly slightly lower the first couple of days.

Could be a couple of things, most ciders (even kits) will hit between 0.998 and 1.002, usually settling on bang on 1.000.

What sort of potential alcohol levels are in the cider? Ie what was your starting gravity? Have you quadruple checked your hydrometer to make sure it's reading 1.000 in 20DegC water (or whatever temp your hydrometer is calibrated to, it'll be on the hydrometer).

If the hydrometer is good I would give it a stir then leave the cider another week and see if it budges. If it doesn't then I guess that's all you're getting from it.

Best to then rack into a clean FV and put out the way for maturing if you can. A month would be great, as cool as possible. After that get it bottled/kegged, primed/conditioned and then drank

 

[stu]

Could be a couple of things, most ciders (even kits) will hit between 0.998 and 1.002, usually settling on bang on 1.000.

What sort of potential alcohol levels are in the cider? Ie what was your starting gravity? Have you quadruple checked your hydrometer to make sure it's reading 1.000 in 20DegC water (or whatever temp your hydrometer is calibrated to, it'll be on the hydrometer).

If the hydrometer is good I would give it a stir then leave the cider another week and see if it budges. If it doesn't then I guess that's all you're getting from it.

Best to then rack into a clean FV and put out the way for maturing if you can. A month would be great, as cool as possible. After that get it bottled/kegged, primed/conditioned and then drank

Cheers Scott. Hydrometer is indeed calibrated.

i followed your instructions except I brewed about a litre short. OG reading was 1050.

I did give it a gentle stir too - I'll keep my eye on it over the weekend. I don't want to bottle it too high.

I was going to throw it into secondary for a couple of weeks (You did say minimum).

I don't have a lot to drink at the moment :whistle:

 

[ScottM]

Could be a couple of things, most ciders (even kits) will hit between 0.998 and 1.002, usually settling on bang on 1.000.

What sort of potential alcohol levels are in the cider? Ie what was your starting gravity? Have you quadruple checked your hydrometer to make sure it's reading 1.000 in 20DegC water (or whatever temp your hydrometer is calibrated to, it'll be on the hydrometer).

If the hydrometer is good I would give it a stir then leave the cider another week and see if it budges. If it doesn't then I guess that's all you're getting from it.

Best to then rack into a clean FV and put out the way for maturing if you can. A month would be great, as cool as possible. After that get it bottled/kegged, primed/conditioned and then drank

Cheers Scott. Hydrometer is indeed calibrated.

i followed your instructions except I brewed about a litre short. OG reading was 1050.

I did give it a gentle stir too - I'll keep my eye on it over the weekend. I don't want to bottle it too high.

I was going to throw it into secondary for a couple of weeks (You did say minimum).

I don't have a lot to drink at the moment :whistle:

A couple of weeks will be better than nothing lol. It's always hard when you're running out of booze, it'll be fine though

 

[stu]

So as I had some time today and it's been on 1006 for a couple of days, I filtered it into secondary.

More than 1 reason.

Firstly, because it was probably due for a change - it'll still continue fermenting (if it needs it) in the secondary FV.

Secondly, because it was looking very sludge like on the bottom (My lager didn't).

Finally, and most importantly, it's my main primary FV. I'm going to start a Stout later (or tomorrow, depending on when I can get to my LHBS)

I have 3 FVs, but they are all setup differently.

Primary is set up with an air lock and a heater glued in via the lid

Secondary is set up with just a heater and glued in via the lid

The other is a spare, but it's a wine one in so much as it has a tap on it so I can tap the wine straight from it if I wish.
I tend to use the actual bucket part of it if I want to move things around too as well as a bottling bucket.

 

[stu]

Oh and my 16 year old son is home today.

He is hoping I might let him have some of the cider.

So whilst I was moving it, I put a sneaky couple of mouthfuls in a glass, just for quality testing purposes of cause.

He caught me so I let him have a sip.

"Blimey Dad, that tastes strong. It's like wine"

Just shows, he's only ever used to that weak fizzy stuff you get in a 2 litre bottle (and yes, we were all 16 once!).

 

[GaryG]

Oh and my 16 year old son is home today.

He is hoping I might let him have some of the cider.

So whilst I was moving it, I put a sneaky couple of mouthfuls in a glass, just for quality testing purposes of cause.

He caught me so I let him have a sip.

"Blimey Dad, that tastes strong. It's like wine"

Just shows, he's only ever used to that weak fizzy stuff you get in a 2 litre bottle (and yes, we were all 16 once!).

I gave my 16 year old a taste of my first ever bottle of homebrew. He video'd it on my iPhone so it was half a class each. He said it wasnt too bad :thumb: after onlu 6 days i the bottle. Will be great in 2 weeks. TBH it tasted better than most lagers in the pubs.

Gary.

 

[stu]

6 days in the bottle?

Wow! And there was me toying with the idea of opening one 2 weeks after being in the bottle (plus 2 weeks primary and a week in secondary)

 

[stu]

So this got me thinking.... was my lager worth opening just to see what the score was?

It's been bottled nearly a week now.....

So I opened one to see if it had any fizz at all.

Barely a pop from the top, almost entirely flat.

So as Scott says, probably didn't leave enough gap at the top (I left an inch or so).

Any ideas? Is it all over? Or should I open them all and remove another inch, shake and leave for a couple of weeks?

Answers on a postcard (or in here) please.......

 

[GaryG]

how did it taste stu. I know you said it was flat, but was it still nice. Mine was beautiful. Cant wait to see it in a couple of weeks.

See if you leave it on a secondary for another week, wont that use all the yeast that the bottles need to carb?

Gary.

 

[stu]

Have to say, it did taste good.

I followed Scott's instructions here

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=34254

He didn't imply it would go flat, and I bottled it (but individually with 4g per 450ml so should be slightly fizzier than he recommends batch priming)