New Member, New Brewer.

[Chevorelli]

Hello friends,

I have recently been introduced into the world of home brewing. I have always had a love of great beer and it is such a pleasure to explore the realm of various exciting beers.
It was only till a little while back that I wondered if i was able to make my own beer and be able to become creative with it.

Thank you to the internet, for i was able to discover that it is actually quite a do-able process at home with the right kit and processes.
SO here i am, with my first batch of lager currently approaching it's bottling stage.

Today i opened my batch to try and take a specific gravity reading. (A method which is new to me) and I believe that it read 1.010 or 1.008. It did smell kinda like a lager, however as i plummeted my nose deeper into the vessel, the smell had a strong punch which caused me to withdraw..the smell.
I did taste my lager as it was in the trial jar...it didn't taste too bad..it definitely had a lager taste...kinda like a lager that's been left out for a while? Perhaps that may change as it's primed in the bottle.

If anyone here has anything similar and can perhaps offer advice? I would love to know if I am on the right path to a drinkable lager. I definitely don't want to have exploding bottles and **** lager.

It's all trial and error, right? Beckett once said "try again, fail again but fail better".

Thank you,
Tommy.

 

[Banbeer]

Hi there, welcome to the forum. the smell you are on about might be like rotten eggs? this is normal in a lager especially the Eurolager kit by Coopers, now you don't mention whether you are an All Grain brewer or a kit brewer, as for knowing if fermentation has finished then take a gravity reading over the next few days and if it's consistent then it's time to bottle/keg unless you're cold crashing?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum Tommy

 

[terrym]

Welcome to the forum.
Most homebrewed beers take at least a month from bottling before they start to come good. Some can take months. During that time the flavours should improve. So after a two week carbonation period after bottling find a cold place if you have one in which to store your bottles for two more weeks before you sample the first one. Even then it might not be ready. And if you are doing the Coopers Euro lager the instructions recommend keeping for three months.
As far as exploding bottles are a concerned provided the SG has bottomed out (check over two to three days), the SG is where is expected to finish say about 1.008 to 1.010 ish, and you haven't overdosed with priming sugar, there is little chance of that happening.

 

[Gerryjo]

Hi and welcome to the forum...

 

[Chevorelli]

Hi there, welcome to the forum. the smell you are on about might be like rotten eggs? this is normal in a lager especially the Eurolager kit by Coopers, now you don't mention whether you are an All Grain brewer or a kit brewer, as for knowing if fermentation has finished then take a gravity reading over the next few days and if it's consistent then it's time to bottle/keg unless you're cold crashing?

Hey! :)

It's a kit lager, from a band named Simply. The smell doesn't come off as rotten, it does have a somewhat flat lager like scent.

What is Cold Crashing?

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it! :)

 

[Banbeer]

What is Cold Crashing?

Cold crashing is when after fermentation you put the fermenting vessel in a place that is cold, this will clean up the debris in your brew, yeast, any hops you may have added etc, it clears it basically before you bottle/keg.