Hi all,
My first post!
My brother bought me a homebrew kit and I added a keg and brewed my first lager... which turned out ok. Not great but drinkable!
Anyway, after that I thought I needed to continue to use the fermentation bucket and keg to get the most out of my money. So I bought some Coopers Lager and Bitter.
On Thursday (Now being Monday) I attempted to do the bitter, but I'm wondering if there is a problem with it
Skip down to the problem below or read here what I did.
-----
I sterilised my fermentation "bucket" and equipment and washed my hands.
I started off with 2 litres of boiling water in with the can of beer and 1 KG of brewing sugars. I stirred that until the bottom of the "bucket" was no longer sticky (ie, all the ingredients had mixed).
I then topped up the bucket up to the 40 pint mark. I later read I should have done 20, stirred and then another 20. I didn't have a thermometer so I basically tried to get the water to feel room temperature (which was about 19C). The recommended temp was 21-27C.
I then stirred everything together for about 5 minutes.. which made it quite frothy. I checked my gravity which was about 1.38ish (Hard to tell because of the froth!)
I then added the yeast and mixed it for a few mins, making sure it all went below the froth.
I then wrapped a thick towel around the "bucket", sealed the lid and left it in my kitchen which goes from maybe 14C at worst to about 20C. Supposedly with the heat from the fermentation this should bring up the temp to 17-25C or so... which is good enough. (Is that true?)
----
I checked my tub yesterday and saw a lot of like... brown residue at the top of the bucket. It looked to me like the yeast, but much bigger and darker (Like some giant mutant yeast). I gave it a quick stir again...
Today, I still had the mutant yeast stuff at the top, which is sitting on a fairly thick head of foam, but I never had this with my lager.
So my question is simple... is this "mutant yeast" actually yeast thats just floated to the surface and expanded, or is it normal residue created from the process?
If it helps any... I measured the gravity and it was about 1.20, so at least something has happened.
Thanks in advance for your help.
P.s. Is there something better I should be doing with my technique of starting the homebrew?
P.s.s. My biggest failure with the lager was that it would only "fizz" out of the keg for about the first second and then drip out. Is there a way for it to "fizz" out (like in real bars) all the time? Thanks again.
My first post!
My brother bought me a homebrew kit and I added a keg and brewed my first lager... which turned out ok. Not great but drinkable!
Anyway, after that I thought I needed to continue to use the fermentation bucket and keg to get the most out of my money. So I bought some Coopers Lager and Bitter.
On Thursday (Now being Monday) I attempted to do the bitter, but I'm wondering if there is a problem with it
Skip down to the problem below or read here what I did.
-----
I sterilised my fermentation "bucket" and equipment and washed my hands.
I started off with 2 litres of boiling water in with the can of beer and 1 KG of brewing sugars. I stirred that until the bottom of the "bucket" was no longer sticky (ie, all the ingredients had mixed).
I then topped up the bucket up to the 40 pint mark. I later read I should have done 20, stirred and then another 20. I didn't have a thermometer so I basically tried to get the water to feel room temperature (which was about 19C). The recommended temp was 21-27C.
I then stirred everything together for about 5 minutes.. which made it quite frothy. I checked my gravity which was about 1.38ish (Hard to tell because of the froth!
)I then added the yeast and mixed it for a few mins, making sure it all went below the froth.
I then wrapped a thick towel around the "bucket", sealed the lid and left it in my kitchen which goes from maybe 14C at worst to about 20C. Supposedly with the heat from the fermentation this should bring up the temp to 17-25C or so... which is good enough. (Is that true?)
----
I checked my tub yesterday and saw a lot of like... brown residue at the top of the bucket. It looked to me like the yeast, but much bigger and darker (Like some giant mutant yeast
). I gave it a quick stir again...Today, I still had the mutant yeast stuff at the top, which is sitting on a fairly thick head of foam, but I never had this with my lager.
So my question is simple... is this "mutant yeast" actually yeast thats just floated to the surface and expanded, or is it normal residue created from the process?
If it helps any... I measured the gravity and it was about 1.20, so at least something has happened.
Thanks in advance for your help.
P.s. Is there something better I should be doing with my technique of starting the homebrew?
P.s.s. My biggest failure with the lager was that it would only "fizz" out of the keg for about the first second and then drip out. Is there a way for it to "fizz" out (like in real bars) all the time? Thanks again.
