Hi All, newbie here. Had been toying with the idea of giving home brewing a try for a little while and recently got an extract kit – one of BrewUK’s bucket + pressure barrel sets with the Muntons American IPA beer kit. Spoiler alert: somethings not quite right with the beer! So was hoping if I give a bit of a timeline someone might be able to advise if I’m able to rescue it, or if I need to chuck 5 gallons down the toilet!
So first off, got everything nice and sterilised, warmed the tins in a pot of hot water and got them poured into the fermenting bucket along with a couple of kettles of boiling water. Topped up with cold to the 5 gallon mark giving it a good mix, took a gravity reading (1.030, but in retrospect I think I might have misread this) then added the yeast and popped the lid on the bucket, pushing in the airlock. So all done according to the instructions and the helpful video on the BrewUK site, and the bucket was set to rest under my kitchen worktop where the temperature tends to stay within the 18-21 degrees range.
Couple of days pass, not much activity in the airlock so I’m getting a bit concerned the fermentation isn’t going well but sure enough on day 5 when it’s time to dry hop as per the instructions, there is a nice head of krausen on the beer so I take another gravity reading (1.015) before sprinkling in the hop pellets. Four days later the airlock activity has completely stopped so I take another gravity reading, now it’s 1.005. The krausen was almost all gone by this point, just a tiny head of bubbles remain and I opt to transfer to the pressure barrel even though I’m a day earlier than the instructions suggested. Added 85 grams of sugar mixed with a little hot water to the barrel, then siphoned the beer in and capped the keg.
The instructions for the IPA said after transferring to the barrel, place somewhere warm for two days to let the fermentation kick in then somewhere cool for two weeks. This is where the first major screwup happens…I place somewhere warm, sitting in a bin liner just in case of any incidents and lo and behold when I check on it 24hrs later there’s a pint of beer in the bottom of the bin liner! Turns out the tap had leaked so fixed the issue but then though as I’d lost that much I should probably reprime, unscrewed the cap and it had a bit of fizz still but went ahead and added another 40 grams of sugar. So after this no more leaks, and another 24 hours later moved to a cool/cold place. The instructions said this cool place should be 10-14 degrees, but my conservatory was getting down to more like 7 or 8 most nights and we’ve just had this real cold snap so for the last few days I brought the keg inside so as not to get too cold. Anyway the two weeks have passed and I tasted the beer, pretty horrible. It doesn’t seem rotten or anything, but is very dark, very cloudy and doesn’t look a whole lot different to when it came out the primary fermenter. There is an unbalanced sweetness to it, and if you got served it in a pub you’d definitely be going back to the bar with it.
Sorry for the looong post, any advice appreciated on where I went wrong and if this can be salvaged!
Cheers, Mike
So first off, got everything nice and sterilised, warmed the tins in a pot of hot water and got them poured into the fermenting bucket along with a couple of kettles of boiling water. Topped up with cold to the 5 gallon mark giving it a good mix, took a gravity reading (1.030, but in retrospect I think I might have misread this) then added the yeast and popped the lid on the bucket, pushing in the airlock. So all done according to the instructions and the helpful video on the BrewUK site, and the bucket was set to rest under my kitchen worktop where the temperature tends to stay within the 18-21 degrees range.
Couple of days pass, not much activity in the airlock so I’m getting a bit concerned the fermentation isn’t going well but sure enough on day 5 when it’s time to dry hop as per the instructions, there is a nice head of krausen on the beer so I take another gravity reading (1.015) before sprinkling in the hop pellets. Four days later the airlock activity has completely stopped so I take another gravity reading, now it’s 1.005. The krausen was almost all gone by this point, just a tiny head of bubbles remain and I opt to transfer to the pressure barrel even though I’m a day earlier than the instructions suggested. Added 85 grams of sugar mixed with a little hot water to the barrel, then siphoned the beer in and capped the keg.
The instructions for the IPA said after transferring to the barrel, place somewhere warm for two days to let the fermentation kick in then somewhere cool for two weeks. This is where the first major screwup happens…I place somewhere warm, sitting in a bin liner just in case of any incidents and lo and behold when I check on it 24hrs later there’s a pint of beer in the bottom of the bin liner! Turns out the tap had leaked so fixed the issue but then though as I’d lost that much I should probably reprime, unscrewed the cap and it had a bit of fizz still but went ahead and added another 40 grams of sugar. So after this no more leaks, and another 24 hours later moved to a cool/cold place. The instructions said this cool place should be 10-14 degrees, but my conservatory was getting down to more like 7 or 8 most nights and we’ve just had this real cold snap so for the last few days I brought the keg inside so as not to get too cold. Anyway the two weeks have passed and I tasted the beer, pretty horrible. It doesn’t seem rotten or anything, but is very dark, very cloudy and doesn’t look a whole lot different to when it came out the primary fermenter. There is an unbalanced sweetness to it, and if you got served it in a pub you’d definitely be going back to the bar with it.
Sorry for the looong post, any advice appreciated on where I went wrong and if this can be salvaged!
Cheers, Mike
Also need to buy a capper - any recommendations?
