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Williams 728
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Hello fellow budding Brewmeisters, I bottled on Feb. 27. I had a few concerns about what seemed to be either corn sugar or yeast gathering at the bottom of my bottles. I ask for advise on a couple of threads. Most of the advise suggested that I need not worry about that if I had added the correct amount of priming sugar to my bottles.
Well, after five days in the bottle most have cleared up completely. I agitated it a little to see how well the carbonation is coming along and I see fizz and bubbles.
It will be two weeks in the bottle on March 14. I will put them in the refrigerator then. After a few days I will realize if my very first batch of beer has made the grade.:D
 
It's OK to put a couple bottles in the fridge at 2 weeks to try, but I would give most of them a good 3 weeks before chilling. Especially in the cooler winter temps which tend to slow the whole process. If you chill them all and they're not carbonated to your liking, you'll have to drag them out again.
Patience is a *****........
 
I bottled about 6 days before you and wanted to try a bottle on my birthday...March 7th. I refrigerated 1 bottle on day 12 and drank the 7th. It was good but not a lot of carbonation.

Hope you are happy with yours but as I have learned from this site....waiting is a good thing!!:)
 
On careful review of bottling records I noticed that I bottled on March 7.
 
On careful review of ........... I actually bottled on March 7.
 
To the OP: If you start a thread on a topic, all discussion on that topic should stay in the same thread. I have merged all 5 of your threads pertaining to this single event.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
To the OP: If you start a thread on a topic, all discussion on that topic should stay in the same thread. I have merged all 5 of your threads pertaining to this single event.
Click to expand...
I guess I'm still getting used to communicating on this Web-site. I don't understand all of the 'ins and outs'. Thanx
 
I have never found or understood carbonation to be visible without a change in pressure (opening of the bottle), maybe I misunderstand the physics of it. Agitation should just facilitate the normalization of pressure between liquid and the headspace, but the headspace is pressurized too, so...

Just something worth noting, obviously you can get a sense of pressure from the bulging of a PET bottle.
 
Learning to use a hydrometer is a mandatory skill needed to make beer. I would also add that fermenting in glass or a better bottle is a simple luxury that allows you to see the process of fermentation which is more important than pulling out the hydrometer all the time. Seeing active fermentation, high krausen, yeast floc and settling tells the story. Once you learn what the process **looks** like the hydrometer comes out very rarely to check if fermentation is done, rather it's used for troubleshooting and to grab a FG at bottle/keg time. I personally don't even use one for that but use my refractometer for the FG. This can be done using a calculator such as Northern Brewer's refractometer calculator and keeping track of the original and current brix. When I first started using this method I would check it against the hydrometer for accuracy.

A light ale could easily be done in 7 days but if it's your first batch you have nothing to compare it to. And no one here knows a thing about your brew day. Things like yeast strain, yeast age/condition, re-hydrated or starter, fermentation temps, pitch rate, oxygen in the wort, and so on will determine how fast the beer is done.
 
fearwig said:
I have never found or understood carbonation to be visible without a change in pressure (opening of the bottle), maybe I misunderstand the physics of it. Agitation should just facilitate the normalization of pressure between liquid and the headspace, but the headspace is pressurized too, so...

Just something worth noting, obviously you can get a sense of pressure from the bulging of a PET bottle.
Click to expand...


Ok. Along the same lines as this thread. I did an extract kit from Midwest and am planning a 14 day primary, no secondary, and then bottle with a 14 days bottle conditioning... Does this sound ok?


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
kylegjohnson said:
Ok. Along the same lines as this thread. I did an extract kit from Midwest and am planning a 14 day primary, no secondary, and then bottle with a 14 days bottle conditioning... Does this sound ok?


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
Click to expand...

that really depends on if the beer is done in 14 days. Remember the beer sets the schedule not you and not the calendar. You won't know if it's done until you test it.

It MIGHT be ready to bottle in 14 days but I've had big beers that weren't done for 6 weeks. I've had lagers that weren't done for 6 weeks, and I've had standard strength ales not done after 4 weeks. you really just can't know without measuring.

If you are talking about a standard gravity wort (~ 1.050-1.060) and you pitch plenty of healthy yeast (like a 11.5 gram packet of dry or a good 2 liter starter with a tube of liquid or 2-3 tubes/smackpacks) and keep the temp steady around 65 for a few days then bump it up to ~60 for another week you could take your first test on say day 10. If you test again on day 13 and the gravity is the same then you will know it's ready to bottle.
 
If LHBSes didn't push so much unnecessary stuff on the new brewer (airlocks, glass carboys), I'm sure we could actually convince these people to buy and use a damn hydrometer. Do nothing, nothing without a hydrometer. The sugar content of your wort and beer is the single most important variable in brewing.
 
kylegjohnson said:
Ok. Along the same lines as this thread. I did an extract kit from Midwest and am planning a 14 day primary, no secondary, and then bottle with a 14 days bottle conditioning... Does this sound ok?


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
Click to expand...

Realistically, what you ought to plan is to take your first hydrometer reading on day 14, then another 4 days later. If they match and are reasonably close to expected FG, it's ready to bottle.

Leave them bottle condition 3 weeks at 70-75*F. If it's cooler, give it longer. High ABV beers and complex stuff (like chocolate stout and strong Belgians) take longer too. That will keep you from starting a thread later here titled "Help! My beer isn't carbing!"
 
fearwig said:
If LHBSes didn't push so much unnecessary stuff on the new brewer (airlocks, glass carboys), I'm sure we could actually convince these people to buy and use a damn hydrometer. Do nothing, nothing without a hydrometer. The sugar content of your wort and beer is the single most important variable in brewing.
Click to expand...

A glass carboy is one of the easiest ways to track fermentation progress. By visually learning what the fermentation process looks like can help tremendously when deciding when the beer is done. An airlock also helps with knowing when fermentation is done. More so with the glass carboy than a bucket that may or may not be sealed correctly. If those are unnecessary one could argue that a hydrometer is unnecessary. Although I would not argue that it's unnecessary, for an extract brewer the need is much less. A hydrometer is useful for troubleshooting, checking a fermentation if you are new or working with a new yeast strain. I use a hydrometer still for OG but the bulk of my readings come from a refractometer, even FG. For a while I used to check against a hydrometer for accuracy.
 
Cleaning. Breaking. Heat tolerance. Expense. Glass is not a good intro fermenter, and if newbies would stop trying to interpret divine signals from airlocks and take a hydrometer reading, we'd never see another "NB IPA KIT IS IT DONE??" thread. Beer in primary will not spontaneously infect or oxidize when you sample it, sniff it or otherwise lift the lid in a sanitary way, and the sooner people get off that notion the more and better beer they'll make. I see more accidental pellicle porn from airlocked glass carboys than I do simple food safe buckets, anyway.
 
A retfractometer is a fine substitute for a hydrometer if you keep good notes and like to make conversions, but it is generally not something a newbie who refuses to use a hydrometer has (or can make sense of), so it is beside the point here.
 
Hello fellow brewmeisters, I've waited a week to see see how well my first batch of beer turned out. I decided to open one after seven days to see if there is going to be over-carbonation. There is still some yeast in the bottom of the bottles.
I opened one slowly about a hour ago. When I first twisted the cap.....a good fizz. When I poured into a glass it didn't foam up as well as expected. The color is also a bit darker than I thought it should have been. However, the taste is really very good, very good!
I'm going to wait until next Thursday 27 to put more in the fridge. Then by Saturday they should be ready for consumption.:mug:
 
fearwig said:
If LHBSes didn't push so much unnecessary stuff on the new brewer (airlocks, glass carboys), I'm sure we could actually convince these people to buy and use a damn hydrometer. Do nothing, nothing without a hydrometer. The sugar content of your wort and beer is the single most important variable in brewing.
Click to expand...


How do I know what the final gravity should be?


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew
 
Well, a good rule of thumb is that it should stay the same for about three days (so, at least two readings, three days apart). If for example it was 1.060 original gravity (OG) and it "ends" at 1.018 you should probably be skeptical, though--that's called a stuck fermentation. It's relatively rare. A typical final gravity (FG) for most American ale styles is about 1.010, depending on what you're fermenting and yeast strain.
 
fearwig said:
Cleaning. Breaking. Heat tolerance. Expense. Glass is not a good intro fermenter, and if newbies would stop trying to interpret divine signals from airlocks and take a hydrometer reading, we'd never see another "NB IPA KIT IS IT DONE??" thread. Beer in primary will not spontaneously infect or oxidize when you sample it, sniff it or otherwise lift the lid in a sanitary way, and the sooner people get off that notion the more and better beer they'll make. I see more accidental pellicle porn from airlocked glass carboys than I do simple food safe buckets, anyway.
Click to expand...

If one can't use a glass carboy correctly how about the hydrometer? They are a whole lot more fragile than a carboy. Airlocks are much more reliable using a carboy. The notorious bucket seal is where people get in trouble the vast majority of time. If we are focusing on "newbies" here they should know a hydrometer is not needed when doing their extract kit and checking OG provided they follow the recipe and pay attention to their top of volume. Assume the recipe gravity. In fact, the hydrometer normally leads to questions about why their extract kit gravity is too high or too low. In virtually all cases if the volume is correct, the wort and top up water are not mixed completely. A refractometer is less of a hassle and it's not difficult to simply enter a brix reading into an online calculator, beersmith, etc. That's why I brought it up. A new brewer takes the time and effort to learn to use the hydrometer, it's not a leap to learn how to use one. If a new brewer is strictly doing extract/steeping I wouldn't bother but once the decision is made to partial mash or all grain, it's a must have.
 
OK, it's not about what they can use, it's about what they can use that both gives them a benefit and is worth the trouble. Glass carboys for primary meet neither criteria. Airlocks meet neither criteria. The main argument you have for using a glass carboy is that the airlock fits the neck. So, it is clear from your paragraph that you think most infections come from airborne bacteria, the only thing an airlock can actually help prevent. That's cool, some people think the Earth is flat. I can let them believe.

Basic microbiology and familiarity with general sanitation practices (as opposed to 1990s homebrew mythology) will tell you almost all infections are coming from direct contact or exposure to grain dust during handling, all of which support the use of a simple loose-fitting lid. The brewer can then focus on sanitation precautions that actually prevent infections.

Back to the point: Every new brewer should have a hydrometer and learn to use it. If they did, 99% of the most ridiculous questions we get would not have to be asked at all. I'm not just talking about OG, I'm talking about FG--knowing when your fermentation is truly done is arguably more important than knowing your actual OG, because having the wrong OG will just mean bad beer and bottling too soon will lead to exploding bottles. Now, if you want, you can say "refractometer" instead, and the principle is the same, but that adds about ten hoops for them to jump through, and suddenly it's not the best advice anymore.
 
Beside the fact I don't have a hydrometer, you think the monks of the seventeenth century had hydrometers?
 
jlg4398 said:
Beside the fact I don't have a hydrometer, you think the monks of the seventeenth century had hydrometers?
Click to expand...

The monks of the 17th century distributed beer from barrels. So if you're going to use mini oak barrels instead of glass bottles...please send me one, because that sounds pretty cool.
 
Thanx, I just bottle carefuly from the fermenting bucket. The beer I brewed then bottled March 7 has turned out quite well. I opened one last night after being bottled for one week and it tastes very good!
 
Seventeenth-century monks brewed over, and over, and over again, made meticulous records, and had the benefit of hundreds or thousands of individuals' input. Frankly, a clever brewer of moderate experience and a reasonably delicate palate can probably get away without a hydrometer, because your taste buds make a pretty good hydrometer if you know what you're doing and what to adjust for mentally (fruity esters, etc). But when a fermentation gets stuck, they might still second guess themselves and wonder WTF to do, is it really stuck, did I mash too high, are my bottles going to explode, etc. And here a hydrometer is a light in the dark.

Anyway, point is, you're probably not a monk (going out on a limb here). And a new brewer is especially not a monk.
 
jlg4398 said:
Thanx, I just bottle carefuly from the fermenting bucket. The beer I brewed then bottled March 7 has turned out quite well. I opened one last night after being bottled for one week and it tastes very good!
Click to expand...

Glad it turned out well. I was a lot less nervous for you when I found out you were using PET bottles. makes a big difference for sure.
 
fearwig said:
OK, it's not about what they can use, it's about what they can use that both gives them a benefit and is worth the trouble. Glass carboys for primary meet neither criteria. Airlocks meet neither criteria. The main argument you have for using a glass carboy is that the airlock fits the neck. So, it is clear from your paragraph that you think most infections come from airborne bacteria, the only thing an airlock can actually help prevent. That's cool, some people think the Earth is flat. I can let them believe.

Basic microbiology and familiarity with general sanitation practices (as opposed to 1990s homebrew mythology) will tell you almost all infections are coming from direct contact or exposure to grain dust during handling, all of which support the use of a simple loose-fitting lid. The brewer can then focus on sanitation precautions that actually prevent infections.

Back to the point: Every new brewer should have a hydrometer and learn to use it. If they did, 99% of the most ridiculous questions we get would not have to be asked at all. I'm not just talking about OG, I'm talking about FG--knowing when your fermentation is truly done is arguably more important than knowing your actual OG, because having the wrong OG will just mean bad beer and bottling too soon will lead to exploding bottles. Now, if you want, you can say "refractometer" instead, and the principle is the same, but that adds about ten hoops for them to jump through, and suddenly it's not the best advice anymore.
Click to expand...

How is a glass carboy not worth the trouble? Visually knowing what fermentation looks like is HUGE in understanding how the process works. I can look at a carboy and see high krausen. I can look at the carboy and see the krausen drop. I can look at the carboy and see the yeast begin to floc out. I can look at the carboy and see how much yeast/trub has settled at the bottom. After several batches it's very easy to recognize the pattern or when something is off which may warrant pulling that hydrometer out. Opening up the fermenter to get a reading to see if you've hit FG becomes a waste of beer. Add to that airlock activity that is fairly reliable in a carboy. And it's not clear from my paragraphs I think anything you are putting words in my mouth. It is clear from your comments that you feel using a carboy is a waste, when in fact it's a simple luxury to assist with understanding fermentation.

Please explain the hoops you need to jump through using a refractometer? Is it using a calculator that is too hard? Or multiplying by 4 for an estimate? It's easier to use than a hydrometer. List the 10 hoops. I'm all ears.
 
You can obviously see the activity of the beer when you check on it in a bucket. After one or two batches I don't know what the hell you're looking at, either.

I don't think a carboy is a waste if you're willing to overlook all of its disadvantages. I think it is, as you say, a luxury (and from the sound of things, to you, a lava lamp), and that's not how you start a hobby unless you are simply looking for something to spend your money on. Most new brewers will make fewer than ten batches, I imagine--maybe fewer than three. And while the inflow of cheap second hand carboys that results is nice, it's not altogether a kind expense to push on the new brewer. Telling them they have to spend $40 on a glass carboy with a 2" neck that they then must clean dried krausen from with a 3' brush when they don't absolutely have to do any of those things is bad for them and bad for business, because if you give them enough hoops, eventually they're not going to stick it out.

But the key point was the hydrometer, right? I'm sorry I said "ten" when I meant "several", though, I can see that got you excited. However "multiplying by four for an estimate" is not how you get the SG of a beer that has already begun to ferment, and you know that. A new brewer needs a hydrometer. The rest of this conversation is obviously not as much about the subject at hand as it is about your emotional investment in your rig, which is, as I said, understandable and all, so we can leave it here.
 

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