First bottling day

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DSeibel

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Hey Guys,

I just did my first bottling day. Everything went fine as far as I can tell however there are a few questions I wouldnt mind answered.

-There was a line of brown scum about 1 inch high about 2 inches above the beer line. I am assuming this is leftovers from the feremantation and nothing to worry about??

-I tried the beer and it resembeled the taste of beer but other that that it was not good at all. I am assuming the bottle conditioning, carbonation, and some more time should change that..however not sure??

BTW - It was a coopers lager kit, using SAFlager yeast, fermented 5 weeks aproximately at about 21 Deg C.

Thanks

Dave
 
Hey Guys,

I just did my first bottling day. Everything went fine as far as I can tell however there are a few questions I wouldnt mind answered.

-There was a line of brown scum about 1 inch high about 2 inches above the beer line. I am assuming this is leftovers from the feremantation and nothing to worry about??

Yeah. Normal and expected.

-I tried the beer and it resembeled the taste of beer but other that that it was not good at all. I am assuming the bottle conditioning, carbonation, and some more time should change that..however not sure??

Give it time and let it carb and it will almost certainly improve substantially. Give it a couple weeks in the fridge after it carbs and it will improve even more.

If your recipe used 1 can of extract + sugar, your easiest flavor improvement in the future is replacing the sugar with malt extract.

The next step after that would be moving to regular unhopped extract and boiling it with hops on your own; that's a bit more complicated but it's the point where you really start getting control over what you're making..

BTW - It was a coopers lager kit, using SAFlager yeast, fermented 5 weeks aproximately at about 21 Deg C.

That yeast is best at 10-14 and still good up to 20 according to the manufacturer. It'll probably still be okay, but you're best off trying to keep it a tad cooler next time (find the coolest spot you can, and then putting the fermentor in a pan of water with an old cotton shirt covering it and wicking up the water to cool through evaporation is a cheap and easy method to cool by a few degrees)
 
-I tried the beer and it resembeled the taste of beer but other that that it was not good at all. I am assuming the bottle conditioning, carbonation, and some more time should change that..however not sure??
Dave

Yes, that's perfectly normal. It will get better. There are four main reasons your beer doesn't taste good:
1) It's warm.
2) It has a lot of yeast in it still.
3) It's not carbonated.
4) It hasn't aged.
 
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