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Well done Davina. It sounds like it’s all going very well, in another week or so you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour. You’ve done nothing wrong as far as I can see. I would also recommend batch priming next time, it’s way easier and ensures an even level of carbonation...

150g for 20L seems a lot to me. That will be fizzzzzzy! I’d drop it down to 100-110g. Have a look at batch priming, it’s where you melt sugar with some water, boil it, wait for it to cool and pour it in your beer before bottling, then stir gently wait 20 mins and bottle. That way it’s evenly...

I have green grolsch bottles for all of my brews (probably over 200 bottles!!) and I store them all in the dark. I’ve never had skunking so just keep them in the dark and it’ll be fine.

Starsan, or chemsan, or whatever it’s sold as now, works by being an acid. Get yourself some litmus paper from eBay and then you can check before you use it. That’s what I do. Undiluted it lasts for years I think, but once it’s diluted just check the acidity.

That’s really interesting Nick, thanks for that.

I’ve seen this kind of thing used, but I don’t use one myself. It’s £10 on this site but you could probably make it with bits for less than £5... I would probably pay the £10 though and not have the faff...

I would pop it back in the warm for another week or two, it could be that it just didn’t have enough time to carbonate in those two weeks. Alternatively could it be that you didn’t prime that particular bottle?

well, mine was so bad it even smelled of TCP towards the end of fermenting...I bottled anyway hoping it would go away, but it got worse :( But that said, I had used chlorine based sanitiser 12-15 times before that with no effects... so who knows. Just wait and see!

well, a diacetyl rest is when you keep it at 18-20C for a few days after fermentation has finished. It’s really only absolutely necessary where you’ve fermented cooler than 18 for the whole of primary. If you’re doing an ale at 21-22 for example, after a couple of weeks I’d be surprised if there...

Two weeks is usually enough to reach final gravity, 1.002 is very low so I’d imagine it’s done if that’s accurate. 1.010 is fine to bottle too providing it has stopped fermenting. And the only way to check that is take readings and when they’re the same for 3 days running. Unless you’re in a...

Hi there! How long has it been in the fermentation bucket? And what was the starting gravity, and what is the reading now? Also, what yeast is it and what temp has it been at? As with most brewing things, the longer you can leave it the better, and the more patience you have the better the...

I’ve regularly put 22g in a 23 L batch before with no ill effects. From my understanding over pitching is pretty difficult, and under pitching is more likely to cause issues to flavour. this brulosophy experiment is worth a read: Link

If it’s a no rinse steriliser like star san or chem san, or another one, then no, just bottle straight on to the foam! I always do and never had a problem. Don’t fear the foam! If it’s a bleach based one like VWP or others then you need to rinse it thoroughly. Even then there’s inevitably going...

Thanks! It sounds like we’re at the cutting edge here... I think I’ll bottle tomorrow and it’ll be closer to room temp, and then just use the calculator to prime it

Thank you. Is that the temperature that you prime and bottle at, or the temperature you intend to bottle condition at? The beer is currently about 5c so do I use that or the temp I’m going to warm condition at prior to lagering for a month or two?

Hi all, thanks for the responses. So I went for it and cold crashed the FV down to 3C for about 36 hours. I’ve now just brought it back in the house. My additional question is do I need to wait until it gets back up to room temp (20C ish) to bottle, or is it ok to bottled while still cold and...

Thanks very much, that’s reassuring

yes, it’s getting pretty cold here too, so perhaps it would be easy enough to pop outside for a few nights...do you put foil over your airlock to prevent nasties getting in through ‘suck back’? That’s probably what I’m most concerned about.

I intend to store for a couple of months a cold temperatures, in the bottle, but not cold crash... surely that’s still a lager? I may have the wrong end of the stick, but genuinely interested to hear people’s thoughts?

I suppose my question was; is a cold crash part of the lagering process, or not?