Beginners follow the advice from the experts!!!

Firstly, thank you Yooper & Revy for your advice, direct & indirect (previous posts) and to all who helped my brew my best beer yetddc4d

2nd sorry for the long post

I bottled my 1st lager 5 weeks ago, it was a dark lager. I got advice here, from yooper & revy's bottling thread) regarding how to lager correctly and how to bottle a lager, some differing views but the main points were the same. Anyways I bottled the lager using 1/3 pk of notty and conditioned it at a constant 69.5/70 f for 3 wks. Cracked one open 2 weeks ago and was very disappointed to say the least, it kept foaming out the top and I could only get 1/2 (500ml) bottle poured as it just kept foaming. The clarity was s**t the head was dirty and the taste was far from satisfactory (it seemed like it was my 1st brew). I began to worry about gushers & infections in the whole batch. I nearly asked the dreaded "Did I ruin my beer?" but I searched and again yooper & Revy's posts, and other replies, helped put my mind at ease, sort of. I left them another week then put them in the fridge for a week. Last night I cracked one, no foam over, a head the sat beautifully on top of a dark lager with a clarity that a brewery would be proud of. The taste.......well what can I say it had a refreshing taste followed by a subtle flavour from the choco malt used. My best beer to date will be paraded at a family gathering this Saturday... Pics to follow

Beginners (me included) if you ask for advice from experienced brewers like yooper & Revy then follow it and you will not be disappointed

I'd like a sample. PM me for my address

unionrdr said:

We've been preaching about conditioning & fridge times for quite some time for a reason. I found from my own noted observations since I started this that conditioning of the average gravity beer is more like 4 weeks minimum ime. And I found by "happy accident" that two weeks is very good for thicker head & longer lasting carbonation. I've had head so thick that when the glass was jiggled,the head didn't move much.
But here's the latest developement. I've recently noted that when bottled beers sit in a warm room for extended periods,say 3-4 months,the fridge time goes down by 5-7 days. Our last batches of Sunsey Gold APA & Sharie's Summer Shandy sat that long & only needed a week,maybe 8-9 days to get vertually the same result as 2 weeks. I'll have to test the repeatability of that theory with the next two batches though.

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How warm is the room? I'm currently conditioning a Belgian Strong Ale, and plan to do so for a total of 5-6 months. It is in a ~70 room. Perhaps too high a gravity for your results to apply to my brew? It'd be mighty fine to have them perfect less than a week in the fridge...

Brulosopher said:

I'd like a sample. PM me for my address

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No problem, except it might not travel well from ireland to the states

Pics....my "Devil's Sidekick"

Hard to imagine that the veterans know what they are talking about... Good to see you paid attention and it paid off.