Homebrew Beer Howto

BeerNut wrote: »

No. If it doesn't taste right I'd say something else went wrong.

Is there a standard “infected” flavour or would it depend beer to beer? Like would you know straight away because it tastes bad like gone off food, as this one doesn’t taste rancid or anything.

BeerNut wrote: »

There's a spectrum of off-flavours with different causes. They vary in severity and people differ in their sensitivity to them. A beer is only "off" if you don't want to drink it.

To get proper information on what went wrong with your beers you'd need to bring them to your local homebrew club for tasting.

Ah right, cheers. These are only kits though (haven’t made enough well to warrant getting equipment for the proper stuff yet).
I thought off meant off as in turned but I think this just tastes like crap then

I’ll still give it another couple of weeks anyway before rescuing the bottles.

Any tips on getting kit brews to reach an FG level near what would be expected from instructions? Or am I doing something wrong? My latest one again has levelled at 1.018 for the past 4 days. I have the heat belt on it at all times controlled by the inkbird set at 22 (I’ve never seen it outside 21.5-22.5. It was made exactly to the instructions with nothing else added and I sanitised everything to the best of my knowledge. Does dry hopping stop it or do I need to buy a better yeast and throw away the kit one? (It’s a mangrove jacks pouch one with dry hops). Thanks.

Cheers all for the replies.

BeerNut wrote: »

Yes: reading the instructions. Kit instructions are almost always wrong about everything and should be disregarded immediately.

Tired yeast could be one issue, but once again: with a kit you get what you're given. Investing in better yeast is not worth the time and money. If you're not happy with the results it's time to move on from kit brewing and take more control over your process.

That’s the last thing you’d all need here is me trying to figure out all-grain brewing I have watched a good few videos and I still don’t really understand how people come up with the types or weights/measures for all-grain brews. I’d need to understand a lot more about grains/hops/etc before I could ever come up with it. It’s not that I’m really unhappy with my results so far (apart from the last IPA that went bad some way), everything has been very drinkable especially the dark stuff.
I would like to do it at some stage though yeah, or even partial, but it probably can’t happen until I get a shed as the equipment is too large to be at in a kitchen. As I’m mainly doing it as a hobby I’d like to make some of my own equipment for the craic anyway. I’d easily build the electrical side of things and I wouldn’t mind brushing up on my TIG welding again.

poitinstill wrote: »

you can also brew it a bit shorter. eg instead of 23L that might be mentioned ont he instruction leaflet only do 20 or 21 L

That’s a good idea, and one I’ve seen mentioned before too. I actually had it in my head and forgot last time round but I’ll make sure I only leave out enough bottles of water to remind myself next time.

Another thing I probably haven’t really been doing all that well is getting air into it before I put the yeast in. I’ve seen ones shaking fermenters or at least stirring it vigorously and all I’ve really done was pour my bottles of water in from a height. Is this important or is it only really for all-grain since you’ve boiled the O2 out of it? Can you shake it up after the yeast goes in (immediately after I mean) or is that pointless? I’ve seen some stir it in and some not bother.

There’s no aging in my house

I used brown sugar for a stout before and it was nice. Treacle seems to be very popular for them too.