Rookie Mistake

[MightyStig]

Hi guys,

Managed to pick up a youngs complete brew kit at car boot for £3, minus the tins and thought I would give this brewing malarkey a go.

Purchased some Woodfords wherry and followed the instructions only I put in 27 litres rather than 24. So I spoke to someone at local brew shop who suggested adding more sugar. After some calcs worked this out as 250g.

So 24 hours after starting I crack open my fermenting bucket on kitchen worktop , loverly head I think it's called krausen? So I go and dump 260g of brewing sugar straight in. Cue volcanic eruption and big clear up. Dumped a but more sugar in put lid back on. Now there is 24 litres it's still fermenting but not as well as before and the head/krausen is no where near as big as before.I am wondering if I should continue or just ditch and start again.

Thanks in advance.

Jim

 

[GerritT]

Why not wait 2 weeks? It might become beer after all :)
Have you done some readings with the hydrometer?

 

[-Bezza-]

Continue. Have patience. Don't take the lid off again for the next 2 weeks at least.

You've probably just knocked some of the CO2 out of the beer when you poured the sugar in, which gave you the eruption. That CO2 needs to build up again for you to see bubbles in the airlock etc. I'm sure it'll be fine!

 

[MightyStig]

Thank guys. I have got bubbles fron airlock so I guess it's doing something. I lost 3 litres of liquid during the eruption and obviously all the heady goodness

I made a mistake with my hydrometer when I first took reading so it's guess work from here.

 

[ITMA]

Stop fretting and certainly don't consider binning anything. Many fermentations have a violent first 24 hours (not necessarily a good thing depending on the style you're looking for) before settling.

Number 1 rule of homebrewing: rdwhahb

 

[GerritT]

Thank guys. I have got bubbles fron airlock so I guess it's doing something. I lost 3 litres of liquid during the eruption and obviously all the heady goodness

I made a mistake with my hydrometer when I first took reading so it's guess work from here.

Beer is waiting.
Brewing takes 6 hours, then 2 weeks of nothing.
Bottling takes one evening of racking to bottling vat, IF. Next day 2 hours bottling.
Two weeks of nothing.
Then tasting: yup, it's beer.
Two weeks of nothing.
A lot of brewers sort of skip the last two weeks of conditioning, I mean it gets better in those two weeks but it's also very drinkable.

So relax. Get used to waiting. And get a second fermenting vessel because you're gonna need it!

 

[Nicks90]

Yep, agree with everything said above.
Short periods of stressing about cleanliness and not dropping stuff in your wort - followed by weeks of staring longingly at beer you want to drink, but cant

 

[Zephyr259]

Then you get into brewing big beers and the weeks become months... Good to have a stock to keep you going, I think i'm going to have a glut of 7 - 9% beers in good condition come autumn, must remember to keep the >5% stock topped up too. :-)

 

[GerritT]

Rotating 16L of 4%-ish ales every 4 weeks, throwing a >8% every other month. That's what works with me.