Condensing your beer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Husher

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
308
Reaction score
29
Location
Toronto
I mentioned to a HB Shop owner that I use can kits and that I use the 23 liter glass carboys for it. He cringed when I told him I just make the kit to 20 liters and let it ferment on the yeast cake.

Is this another shop owner that doesn't know much about making beer outside his own process (met a few of those - one guy told me it was good to keep the lid of a fermenter so oxygen could get at the wort during the entire fermentation process - wow. Had the shop for 25 years and never understood aeration).

Anyways. The first guy seems to be convinced you needed to use a secondary, a tertiary and quartiary (that right?) for all beer every 5 days or it would be horrible. Condensing it was also supposed to make horrible beer.

So...Am I wrong in assuming no ill affects from condensing my beer? I've done it since day one so how would I know the difference, but I'm assuming it just gives you a richer taste and a stronger ABV. Am I right?
 
If your LHBS staff isn't keeping up with the hobby, ignore their input...

Also, what the hell is condensing beer?
 
You're right about having no ill effects, generally those kit and kilo beers make a pretty light tasting brew. By adding less water you will get a higher ABV and more flavor, you will get even more flavor by substituting the Dextrose for DME/LME. As for racking beer 4 times if I understand thats what you said, that just adds to much risk of oxidization and infection and so on and so forth and just isn't necessary. I started doing 1 week primary 2 week secondary than bottling. Now I usually do 2-3 weeks primary so the beer sits on the yeast cake giving the yeast a better oppurtunity to finish up, than rack to secondary for a few days to a week to clear it up a bit. You don't need secondary at all but it's just what I like and feels gives me a cleaner beer with next to no yeast cake in the bottle. So yeah ignore your brew guy and go by what you know works for you.
 
Also, what the hell is condensing beer?

What I mean is, the can kit requires you mix in water so the final solution is 23 liters. I add less water so the final mix of wort is only 20 liters before I pitch my yeast.
 
What I mean is, the can kit requires you mix in water so the final solution is 23 liters. I add less water so the final mix of wort is only 20 liters before I pitch my yeast.

Oh ok, so you are just making a slightly higher gravity beer from the kit... just making a little less of it? I don't see anything wrong with that.
 
Yeah....bad but understandable title.

Rather than condensing, you are mixing it a little strong.

Hoped for a new dicussion of eisbocking or distilling;)
 
you will get even more flavor by substituting the Dextrose for DME/LME.

Currently I add half a kilo of dextrose and half a liter of LME. That recommended or do you think I should go with a full liter of LME instead?

I tried a full liter of LME on one of my brews but it'll be a few months before I know if it's a successful experiment. I have yet to go into a home brew shop that knew anything about brewing at home. All they want is you to do is brew on premises using their techniques. They don't sell kits or know how to brew at home (pet peeve. I'll stop my rant here...)
 
It sounds like your brew shops are stuck in the 1980's. Use them for ingredients nothing else.
 
The less dextrose you use the better the beer, although you need to use more dme by weight than dextrose, and more lme by weight than dme. Due to dme being less fermentable than dextrose and lme having % 20 water weight. Although Until recently none of the shops around my neck of the woods had nothing but dextrose, and the kits i made were still drinkable. Your off on the right foot by starting to substitute some of that dextrose, cheers.
 
The less dextrose you use the better the beer, although you need to use more dme by weight than dextrose, and more lme by weight than dme. Due to dme being less fermentable than dextrose and lme having % 20 water weight. Although Until recently none of the shops around my neck of the woods had nothing but dextrose, and the kits i made were still drinkable. Your off on the right foot by starting to substitute some of that dextrose, cheers.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with this.
Using an excessive amount of dextrose will almost certainly result in an inferior beer, so will using an excessive amount of DME or LME.
I usually prefer beers made without any added sugars, but have had a few brews that were too malty when made with only malt fermentables, but had a better balance when I reduced the malt a little bit, and added some dextrose or even sucrose.

-a.
 
he meant dextrose for beer bottling. he said it backwards the way he meant was to substitute the Ellen me your DMV for the dextrose or for bottling priming.......

(I left that cause it was so god damn weirdly laughable..using the mic;))

what he meant was to substitute dme for dextrose in priming bottles.... otherwise I would have really jump his shlt.
 
he meant dextrose for beer bottling. he said it backwards the way he meant was to substitute the Ellen me your DMV for the dextrose or for bottling priming.......

(I left that cause it was so god damn weirdly laughable..using the mic;))

what he meant was to substitute dme for dextrose in priming bottles.... otherwise I would have really jump his shlt.

Que? :D
 
he meant dextrose for beer bottling. he said it backwards .......

Actually, no, I said what I meant. It was recommended (on this forum) before to split the extra fermentables between dextrose and LME, so as to avoid the too malty effect, though I guess opinions vary. I have one batch going with y LME as the only extra, so we'll see how that works in a month.
 
I'm not sure where you picked up the advice to split the fermentables between extract and dextrose. The old kit and kilo brews are the reason a lot of people don't like homebrewed beer. Unless I need to dry out a beer, I never use simple sugar.
 
Yeah, sorry I mis-understood......and I won't jump your case!;)

I too would like to see where it was recommended here.

Usually out of date crapola gets shouted down so fast somebody gets offended, sorry it didn't get sorted out before you brewed!!
 
Yeah, sorry I mis-understood......and I won't jump your case!;)

I too would like to see where it was recommended here.

Ah hell I don't know, It' was a WHILE ago. Probably came across bad advice based on a google search.
 
It won't ruin your batch. I wouldn't fret, but next time know that less is more when it comes to all but dark candy sugar.
 
OK, so Am I safe in assuming it's best to replace all sugar/dextrose with LME. 1 Kilo of dextrose is roughly 3.3 Lbs of LME or 1 liter? For some reason the sugar shop sells by the kilo and the brew shop sells LME by the liter.

BTW, I started out brewing with sugar, and the cutting of DME/LME and sugar was an improvement. It just wasn't as good as going all the way I guess.

Thanks.
 
So...Am I wrong in assuming no ill affects from condensing my beer? I've done it since day one so how would I know the difference, but I'm assuming it just gives you a richer taste and a stronger ABV. Am I right?

I'm missing something here. Are you saying that you are making 5 gallon batches into 20 liter batches? How is that condensing?
 
Back
Top