Homebrew Beer Howto

Tube wrote: »

That's too broad a generalisation. Condition a lager at those temps and you'll possibly ruin it. Conditioning is sooo much more subtle than simple A to B fermentation.

Yeah but that type of info can over complicate it for a beginner. It's like telling someone that wants to start running as exercise to go out and buy the best of gear including a heart rate monitor and the latest Asics. Too much too soon.

Me and my buddy (two complete newbies to the homebrewing) have our first kit in the fermentor since wednesday evening, it's a Young's lager btw. We wanted to stick with a kit first time so we didn't make any f-ups. Now I'm starting to read a bit I'm realising that following the kit instructions may not be conducive to making the best tasting beer.

Can anyone give me any tips on how to get the best out of the beer at this stage; maybe it's too late? We had planned to bottle on Monday / Tuesday then wait 14 days before tucking in.

thanks!

BeerNut wrote: »

Keep it cool if you can: 16-18 degrees is perfect. Give it a minimum of two weeks in the fermenter and only bottle when the gravity has stabilised -- rushing it into bottles is more likely to harm it than leaving it a week or two extra in the fermenter. And finally, don't expect it to taste like a lager. For future reference, the darker styles tend to work better from kits.

And never follow the instructions

Thanks alot for the reply BeerNut. If i give it two weeks in the fermenter, how long should i leave it in the bottles? When I check the gravity with my hydrometer should I be giving it a stir or anything?

I was recommended this book (the joys of homebrewing) and the plan is to give it a good going over as soon as it gets here.

Can you or anyone else recommend a recipe for one's first endeavour without a kit?

Dry hop my friend.

Give that thing some flavour.

edit: I'd do a few kits before you invest all that money in AG equipment. If you have a big auld pot you could do extract. If so I recommend one of these to bridge the gap between kit and extract:

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/beercider-kits-hbc-full-extract-kits-23lts-c-1_216.html

So i've had my wort in the fermenter for a week tomorrow, i think i might take a trip down to my local home brew store and try and pick up some finishing hops to place in the fermenter for the next week; is there a difference between finishing hops and any other types of hops? thanks for all the help lads! by the way is brewing sugar the best thing to prime with?

Could I ask where your LHBS is?

I wish I had one of those!

Antisocialiser wrote: »

is there a difference between finishing hops and any other types of hops? thanks for all the help lads! by the way is brewing sugar the best thing to prime with?

As a rule your dry hops should be as fresh as you can get. Check the harvest date on the packet. You should be looking for 2012 harvests (northern hemisphere hops).

The aromatic components are the first to disappear, and these are what you hope to impart with dry hopping.

Hops are a great ingredient, there are hundreds of varieties now, and you should be able to get your hands on any of the 30-40 most available varieties with ease.

Consider that each hop variety can be used in 5 different ways (first wort hops, full boil hops, flavour hops, aroma/flame out/steep hops, and dry hops), you have a bewildering number of combinations. So experience and practice works best.

Hops are the foodie equivalent of spice, in beer. You use them to add a big hit to your beer (bitterness, flavour and aroma).

Saaz is a good choice to dry hop a lager.

Its a subtle hop so it wont overpower, and 37g sounds like a good amount.

If you are worried about sanitisation, what you need to do is get some star san (home brew company stocks it) on your next online purchase. Its pricey, but you only use tiny amounts, so it lasts forever.

Buy or reuse a spray bottle (like a kitchen cleaner bottle). Fill it with star san solution and spray all your gear continuously. I tend to use a large plastic chopping board, and I treat it as a 'clean spot' - so i keep it clean & santitised, and all my gear goes down on it, and nowhere else.

Mostly the gear that gets used a lot, is the mash/stirring paddle, hydrometer, and sample jar. If you rehydrate your yeast you will need to sanitise that container too.

On bottling day, a bottle tree with bottle washer will sort you out, and you also need to keep bottling wand & siphon tube scrupulously clean (which is tricky to do).

1013 wrote: »

Hi

I was hoping to order a few items from www.thehomebrewcompany.ie today, but their site seems to be no longer available.

A technical glitch? Or more serious?

Working fine for me.

rubadub wrote: »

fine here too, using chrome

was on it 3 days ago fine too

Thanks.

Must be a glitch at my end so!

I had a couple of pages open in Firefox for some of the itmes I wanted, but I'm just getting a default page now whenever I go to the site.

Other sites are ok though.

I'll try another browser and see how I get on.

BaZmO* wrote: »

Working fine for me.

I tried IE and it was fine, and today it's good again in Firefox.

There will be beer for Christmas!

elnino08 wrote: »

Howdy folks, first time brewer and started on the St Peters IPA a week ago. Have a Question on temperature if anyone can help.
For the first 2 days it was 18-20 and started to drop then to between 14-16 so I put a heat belt on yesterday and has done the trick and gone back up to 22 now. Did a hydrometer test and looks like its about half way. Plan on leaving it another week then check to see if its ready to bottle. Will there be any effects as the temp was too low for the first 5 days?

no shouldn't be any it just put it asleep until it got to temp to start again.i normally leave it in the ferminator for at least 3 weeks, last ones i left in for 5-6 weeks and are looking very nice.

just make sure its finished before bottling but also try not to go near it too much as that could effect your beer taste by introcucing oxygen into the beer.

You where bang on at 18-20, won't have been hurt at 14-16. Likely won't even have stopped fermenting, just slowed it down.