Botting a lager

[Heyzy]

Can anyone help?

I have just bottles my lager straight from my FV to my bottles by putting the sugar in the bottles first but as its my first brew i think i may have made a hicup by putting 1 teaspoon of sugar in 500ml bottles by mistake.

Does anyone know what will happen as this is to much sugar. Will they explode or will the brew be ruined?

Also, its a bit cloudy now will this clear whilst its conditioning in the bottes if its not ruined

 

[Dave1970]

1 tsp in 500 mls should give you a fizzy beer but it's not way too much...in fact for lager it's probably about right. For an ale you'd be looking at half a teaspoon/500ml.
The cloudiness should clear with time as well so nothing to worry about :thumb:

 

[Heyzy]

Thanks for the reasurance, im defo going to get a bottling bucket for my next brew as there is sediment already settling at the bottom of the bottles and hopefully this will get rid of this. I think it will anyway.

What a great hobby this is.

 

[Baz Chaz]

....... Also, its a bit cloudy now will this clear whilst its conditioning in the bottes if its not ruined

Patience, this is the hardest bit, leaving it as long as you can bear before drinking

Sometimes I've left a brew for as long as a week :lol: which is not long enough at all have a weekly sample then you should see a difference each week, it should come good :thumb:

Instead of putting sugar in each bottle, which is a bit of a parp, I'd recommend batch priming, far easier and quicker :thumb:

 

[Heyzy]

Yes defo going to batch prime next time but need to get another bucket as i only have one at the minute. Going to get one with a tap and maybe a little bottler. Just deciding on what to brew next. Think i fancy coopers european lager with a beer enhancer in it.

 

[shocker]

Rather than a beer enhancer , if you can , just buy the ingredients - light dry spraymalt and glucose . The Brewing Sugar that is sold by HBS is just regular Dextrose , in other words....glucose . Which you can buy cheaply enough in superdrug or some supermarkets and save on the extra kilo of mail order delivery costs .

Coopers kits are very popular and most who have done them like them very much . I think the Euro Lager comes with a real Lager yeast so you will need to able to keep it cooler than normal and wait longer....but have a look at Coopers website and forum to know for sure....

http://www.coopers.com.au/the-brewers-g ... ernational

...have a look around the site , theres all sorts of info and recipes . But do bear in mind they tell you to use their products in all the recipes when a local equivilent will do just as well !

 

[Heyzy]

I will have a look at the website and hopefully can make it better with your advice. Once my bottles have conditioned in a months time is there anyway of getting the lager out of the bottle without disturbing the sediment that is going to be at the bottom or is it just going to mix? How long do people leave it in the second FV before bottling to stop this sediment problem?

 

[shocker]

True lager is a whole bugger of a ball game in itself as I am finding out at present ! But the kit style shouldnt be too much of a sod to make a good job of .

I put all brews into a secondary vessel , be it DJs (£1 each at asda complete with mineral water for next brew) , bucket or whatever with an airlock on top . I generally leave them at least a week to settle out . I never used to use finings but these days there are more types available and are easier to use . I tend now to use a chitosan based one like Youngs and add it a bit at a time as I syphon the wort into the secondary so its spread throughout the brew without having to stir . If leaving it for over a week or two I tend to crush a campden tab and throw that in for safeties sake but you dont have to .

When it comes to bottling , if the brew has been rested and fined , and especially with lager , I try to get some yeast back into it immediately prior to the transfer . If thats the case I would probably be batch priming in a bottling bucket . The yeast can be done a few ways -

the ideal is to have saved a bit of the trub from the first FV in a sealed bottle or jar in the fridge and let a bit of that come up to room temp naturally and pitch a teaspoonful into the bottling bucket . This has the benefit that since its a lager yeast it will make for a bottom hugging sediment in the bottle .

otherwise you can prime each bottle with 2 grains of dry yeast compound (or lager yeast if you have it) and sugar prime the bottles at the same time .

or a combination of the above,eg; batch pitch yeast and sugar , batch prime sugar and yeast in bottles , batch yeast and sugar prime bottles....you get the picture .

One thing , though , is that if you use a bottling bucket and batch prime sugar and yeast you may have a reaction on your hands and have it froth up right away . This isnt a problems , just gently rock the bucket and it will calm down soon enough for you to bottle .

If you DO use a bucket to bottle , and you DO prime and pitch in the bucket you DONT want to leave it hanging around as it will start its conditioning ferment right there in the bucket ! Bottle it ASAP .

 

[shearclass]

Got to say that i disagree with the adding extra yeast to lagers or other fined brews. However, I am a relative newbie to all this.

i have lagered two brews at about 0C for a month or so and both became very fizzy when they were bottled. I fine nearly all brews as a matter of course, and they carb absolutely fine too.