Newbie brewer who is super confused

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Ok great, I have copied that and emailed it to myself for when i hopefully graduate to a bigger kettle etc. Thankyou!

And thanks for the book advice DCBC. I have added that to my Amazon wishlist, and as the other half loves Bake Off (I do enjoy it tbf) then I might be able to swing that one as an early Christmas present!
 
Herman Bloom said:
Ok great, I have copied that and emailed it to myself for when i hopefully graduate to a bigger kettle etc. Thankyou!

And thanks for the book advice DCBC. I have added that to my Amazon wishlist, and as the other half loves Bake Off (I do enjoy it tbf) then I might be able to swing that one as an early Christmas present!
Click to expand...

No problem! I hope you find it useful!
 
Morning all!

So yesterday was, in theory, bottling day for brew two. Has been a fortnight since brew day. I couldn't do it yesterday as need the wife to help and out little one is having a bit of a time of it lately so we were otherwise engaged.

It is possible I we can do it on an evening this week but smart money says it will be the weekend.

Is three weeks in the fv an issue? I have read a few different theories on this, and am inclined to think "no, no problem at all" but I would like to check in with you experienced types!

Thanks
 
Herman Bloom said:
Morning all!

So yesterday was, in theory, bottling day for brew two. Has been a fortnight since brew day. I couldn't do it yesterday as need the wife to help and out little one is having a bit of a time of it lately so we were otherwise engaged.

It is possible I we can do it on an evening this week but smart money says it will be the weekend.

Is three weeks in the fv an issue? I have read a few different theories on this, and am inclined to think "no, no problem at all" but I would like to check in with you experienced types!

Thanks
Click to expand...

Three weeks in the FV isn't a problem at all. If you leave your beer on the yeast for ages, like six weeks or more, there is a potential risk of a marmitey flavour which comes from autolysis, i.e. the yeast cells, no longer having anything to eat, breaking their own cells down and releasing a lot of unpleasant flavours back in the beer. I have only read about it and it has never happened to me.

Whilst two weeks is a good rule of thumb, your fermentation may take a little longer or shorter. Get a hydrometer if you don't already have one and see if you get the same reading on three consecutive days. Then you know it's done. The exception here is if your beer finishes way earlier than expected (say 1.020 rather than 1.012). This is called a 'stuck' fermentation and whilst it isn't a major issue (for bottling purposes at least) if it really has finished, it can result in gushing or bottle bombs as the surviving yeast may still be able to consume the remaining sugar, albeit very slowly. There are a few attempted fixes to this such as warming and/or agitation of the yeast, or pitching fresh yeast (often something alcohol tolerant like a champagne yeast).
 
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Ok that's great, thanks. I do have a Hydrometer but I messed up trying to get a measurement on this brew so don't have the info. Will make sure I do that for brew three! Sounds like another week for this brew in the fv will be fine though, thanks for making me feel better!
 
Herman Bloom said:
Ok that's great, thanks. I do have a Hydrometer but I messed up trying to get a measurement on this brew so don't have the info. Will make sure I do that for brew three! Sounds like another week for this brew in the fv will be fine though, thanks for making me feel better!
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Ha, no probs! It is probably worth investing in a refractometer at some point. Instead of having to draw off a column of liquid you just put a spot on a plate and hold it up to the light. Quicker and less waste.

For an 'absolute' reading you need to calibrate it against the hydrometer which means taking the first few readings on both the refractometer and the hydrometer to obtain an accurate correction factor (the presence of the alcohol messes around with the 'pure' refractive index of the wort) but for relative readings - i.e. to find out if the wort is still fermenting - you can still use it without calibration. If it reads '6' for three consecutive days it doesn't matter what the '6' relates to :)
 
Hey guys!

So I bottled my second brew on Sunday. Got six and a half bottles out of this one, which is a couple more than last time. Siphoning went much better this time, so I assume the issues with batch one were down to their being less liquid in the fv, so there wasn't able to be enough pressure generated to get a good siphon going.

Overall that still seems low in terms of bottle from the one gallon brew though, so next time maybe I should top up form the tap once I have transferred from kettle to fv?

Still mulling over what to do for brew three. Get another kit or try to get my own going from a recipe. If I do the latter, I don't think I can steep the grains as the recipes I see from BeerHawk/Northern Brewer don't show what is in the grain mixture. Guess I could get the Malt and the hops though and do one of those, but I guess they would be less flavoursome (particularly if I end up topping up from the tap)?
 
Herman Bloom said:
.........., so there wasn't able to be enough pressure generated to get a good siphon going.

........
Click to expand...

Er .... the act of "syphoning" uses atmospheric pressure.

A liquid can be moved from a higher to a lower level if there is a solid column of liquid between the higher inlet and the lower outlet of a tube.

If your tube kept filling with bubbles (and thereby stopped the syphon from working) I suspect that the brew hadn't finished fermenting and the cause was CO2 that came out of solution and broke the "solid column" described above.

IF this was the case you MAY have bottled an unfinished brew and produced potential "bottle bombs".

Enjoy!
 
It wasn't filling up with bubbles, it wasn't filling up with anything. The liquid would not get over the top of the first part of the siphon, just halfway up and no further.

Anyway, that was the first brew which was bottled, and drunk with decent results so there wasn't a fermentation issue. This second brew, with more liwuid in the fv, siphoned just fine, which was nice!
 
Herman Bloom said:
It wasn't filling up with bubbles, it wasn't filling up with anything. The liquid would not get over the top of the first part of the siphon, just halfway up and no further.

........
Click to expand...

There are limited reasons for the above:
  1. The syphon tube has a leak in it.
  2. If you are using a "syphon gadget" then it isn't working properly so refer to 1. above.
  3. If you are sucking it up yourself then refer to 1. above OR go to your GP to get relevant medication.
  4. The liquid is so "gassy" that CO2 is coming out of solution before a syphon can be established.
  5. The height at which you are trying to pull the syphon is higher than that at which a vacuum is formed. (For water this is +/-10 metres depending on purity, temperature and altitude.)
Enjoy!
 
I am a bit baffled as to why it happened, as we used two different siphon tubes and gadgets, the liquid didn't seem gassy, and we had the fv on the worktop and the bottles on the kitchen floor (well on a small stool my kid uses). I tried, my wife tried and later on the father in law gave it a whirl (who is far more adept at these things and finished the job with a shrug and "no idea why the hell that wouldn't siphon right")

Either way, same exact set-up in terms of position and equipment for the second brew siphoning and it all went fine, so hopefully it was a one off, whatever the reason!
 
Sorry, but I can never understand why anyone would use a "gadget" to do something as simple as sucking liquid up a tube!

Okay, for stuff like Tetraethyl Lead (which is terribly toxic) or petrol (which tastes foul) I can understand it; but never for water or beer that I intend to drink anyway!

If you are worried about infecting your brew with spit then sanitise a 40mm length of tubing and put it on the end of a tap before starting the process. The liquid can then be stopped at the tap, the tap turned "Off", the 40mm length of tubing removed and "Bingo!" a sanitised syphon that can be controlled by a tap and used to fill bottles.

Alternatively, just use the tap if you are transferring the brew into a PB and remove the tap to let the brew flow more freely.

Enjoy!
 
It came with the kit I was given as a gift, so I just went ahead and used it. Neighbour had one as well, so I used his when we couldn't get the one I was given to siphon properly.
 
This is my own arrangement ...

Copper Syphon Tube.jpg


The clip allows me to push the solid tube down to the bottom of the FV and then keep it up against the side of the FV; which allows me to tilt the FV over to get the last few millimetres of brew out.

On the very rare occasions when the filter has blocked up, all I have to do is to lift the tube and let the brew flow backwards into the FV and clear the filter before restarting the syphoning.
 
GerritT said:
About the foaming and the boil-over: it's the foam that causes the boil-over. I carefully spoon the foam off into a cup or whatever lies around until it boils (without the dreaded boil-over), then I feed the foam back, carefully. Works every time, wish I'd think of it every time though :laugh8:

Keep on brewing lads, a brew mistake is not really a mistake if you learn from it!
Click to expand...
Don't bother stirring your foam back into your wort - it's just hot break material.
How do I know this? - well with my boiler I have a lot of trouble getting the wort to drain with certain recipes, ones that contain very low levels of hops like brown ale and honey ales. So one day I thought I'd give skimming a try as I vaguely remembered that it was just the hot break proteins. Result was very little hot break gunk left in the boiler and the wort drained properly through the filter. And there was no noticeable affect on the taste of the finished beer.

I just use a table spoon to scrape off the thick creamy stuff just before the wort starts to boil, being careful not to get too much wort at the same time.
 
Except it does - not nice to be faced with 5 gallons of hot wort in your boiler and the filter clogged solid. Oh and by the way, last time I skimmed I had a taste and it was really tasty so I made a loaf of bara brith with it. Lovely.
 

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