Popping my home brewing cork!!

[Adgeo]

Hi all,
I'm new to the forum and new to home brewing, so I hope to get some good advice from all you learned brewers out there.
I have just kicked off with my first brew, the Beerworks Presidents Sierra APA LME kit, which has been in the FV since Friday morning and is bubbling away nicely (I'm hoping that's a good sign!).
What I was wondering is, do I follow the kit instructions to the letter or is there better advice in anyone's experience?
The destructions say to add the hops on day 5, bottle on day 10 then a further 7 days secondary fermentation followed by 2 weeks conditioning.
I have the FV stored in our unfinished en-suite diy project (which has pleased the Mrs no end!) It seemed a bit cool in there so I have wrapped the FV in a blanket and it seems to keep a fairly constant 23 deg C.
I used tap water for the brew and since have read how this might taint the beer?
Any advice greatly welcome.
Cheers,
Andy.

 

[cushyno]

Welcome to the forum. I'm not familiar with that kit, but the principles are usually the same. For an APA you want a crisp clean brew and 23°C seems a bit high. Aim for 19-20°C which should give a cleaner flavour more suited to the style. Also, I would allow 2 weeks for what you call secondary fermentation - carbonation in the bottle. I find 1 week can be not quite long enough.

 

[Dutto]

Welcome to The Forum!

 

[Dull Boy]

Is your beer 23°C or the room? Water becomes a major factor when you go AG, with kits not so much as the producers have already treated the water for the extract. If you're new to brewing just go with the instructions, you'll adjust your working practice as you read up & gain more experience.

 

[terrym]

I agree with @cushyno that you should lower the fermentation temperature to 19*-20*C. I also suggest that you leave addition of the hops until the primary fermentation has more less died down, although if you have had it at 23*C this may well turn out to be 5 days. I also suggest you put your beer in a cool place for the last two days of the dry hop to help clear the beer ready for packaging. After carbonation in a warm place (one week, better two) find a cool place for a week or two then sample. You may find its ready to drink, although it may improve with keeping. Finally I assume that you have made provision to filter out the hops from going forward into your beer at packaging time.
PS And as far as tap water is concerned, if it's good enough to drink without a second thought i.e. no significant smell or taste it's good enough to brew kits with. I use tap water for brewing as do many others on here from what I understand.

 

[Adgeo]

Thanks for the replies.
I’m on day 5 and have just added the hops, 50g Citra. The temperature where I’m brewing is about 17 to 18C, it’s still bubbling away in the FV. I’ve just ordered another FV and tapped bottle filler and my intention is to siphon into this ready for bottling when the time comes.
I’ve not got much in the way of temperature control yet but I’m picking an old freezer up from my mums tomorrow with a view to making a brew fridge.

 

[terrym]

Irrespective of what the instructions tell you, and how long your hops have been in, you must ensure that the primary fermentation has finished before you bottle. You will know you have finished when the SG readings are the same on two or better three consecutive days, provided the SG is roughly where you expect it to be, which is often around 1.010.
I assume you at least have a hydrometer to take SG readings , if not, my advice is to buy one soonest.
And if you bottle too early there is a danger you will end up with overcarbonated beer in your bottles after priming and carbonation, alias bottle bombs.

 

[Adgeo]

Cheers for that.
The instructions say to bottle on day 10 but I was intending to leave for 2 weeks minimum after reading many posts here.
I do have a hydrometer and the SG of my brew was 1.050.

 

[terrym]

Since you have already put the hops in on day 5 you should probably bottle as soon as the beer is ready, after the 5 day dry hop is finished. There is a view that leaving hops in for longer than a week introduces unwanted flavours, although its not an exact science.
Next time you dry hop I suggest you leave the beer alone until its nearly finished fermenting irrespective of when that is and then add the hops for the recommended period.

 

[Adgeo]

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind on my next brew.

 

[Dutto]

............ I do have a hydrometer and the SG of my brew was 1.050.

I sincerely hope that this was the SG when you started the brew!

 

[Wondering Brewer]

Hi Adgeo

My first post on here and this is only my second brew. First was a Cwutch which was a total failure.

I've recently made this and it turned out really good. I fermentented in an initial FV for two weeks then put it in a secondary with hops for a week. I put most of it in a PB but had about 8 500 CL bottles too.

I've started drinking it after around a week to ten days. I did have a sneaky bottle/glass from the PB beforehand but it was incredibly sweet. The sweetness has mellowed now and the bitterness balances it out.

Good luck.

 

[Adgeo]

Ok so my APA has been in the FV for 11 days, hops added at day 5, seems to have stopped bubbling so checked the SG - around 1.013 vs 1.050 at the start. I’m going to check again tomorrow and hopefully it will be ok to bottle. Drank the sample and it was surprisingly nice, if a little lacking in flavour (maybe that will develop whilst conditioning?). It looked like beer too!
My plan for bottling based on what I’ve read here is to siphon into a bottling bucket with little bottler fitted, mixing the sugar with some water to make a syrup and adding to bucket prior to siphoning from FV, then fill bottles. Does this sound about right? Any last minute advice for bottling / sanitising at this stage would be much appreciated.
Thanks,

 

[Dutto]

An FG of 1.013 is a bit on the high side and if the brew hasn't been in a temperature controlled environment then it may still be fermenting. Even in a Brew Fridge I leave my brews for a minimum of two weeks before I even take an SG.

Don't let the apparent lack of activity fool you! If you have a leaky FV, the only indication you may have that the brew is fermenting at all is a build up of trub at the bottom; and one bubble per hour through the air-lock means that it is still fermenting, so did you watch it that long?

The rest of your plan is perfect. Make sure that everything is sanitised and that you don't over carbonate and you should have a decent brew by Christmas!

Enjoy!

 

[terrym]

@Adgeo
If your SGs are correct you have managed about 73% attenuation which is at the lower end of what you can expect from a yeast assuming you used the kit yeast. As @Dutto said you might get a bit more out of it, two points lower will give 77% which is more like it. But don't package until its done. A couple of days or so over the five days dry hop won't be the end of the world.
And as I said in post #5 you need something to filter out the hop bits from your beer if you just added the pellets directly into your beer, unless you used a bag.

 

[Adgeo]

Ok I’ll leave it a little longer before I bottle. As regards filtering the beer before bottling, the kit came with a small muslin type bag to go over the end of the siphon. I had planned to siphon into bottling bucket using this as a filter, then bottle straight from the bucket.

 

[terrym]

Ok I’ll leave it a little longer before I bottle. As regards filtering the beer before bottling, the kit came with a small muslin type bag to go over the end of the siphon. I had planned to siphon into bottling bucket using this as a filter, then bottle straight from the bucket.

Brill. If the small bag is like mine (originally from a Festival kit) it really does the job

 

[Adgeo]

Great stuff. Thanks

 

[Adgeo]

So, I checked SG again today - 48 hours since first check and it was the same at 1.013. Taking on board what’s been said about this reading being on the high side, I checked a reading in tap water and it was 1.005, so it looks like the calibration might be slightly out on my hydrometer and I guess this means my beer could be closer to 1.008?
Any who, I tasted the sample and it tastes nice with a slight bitterness and looks good too! I’m planning on bottling tomorrow which will be 14 days after it went into the FV.