TwoHearted
New Member
I wish I'd come across this website sooner. It's fantastic.
Eleven days ago I received a gift of a brew kit and extract recipe. So excited, I went straight to work brewing my first batch (a BB English Brown Ale with Notingham yeast) without first reading up on this very tricky hobby or buying all of the necessary tools. Based on the directions, I anticipated having cold beer by Christmas.
I stored the primary fermenter in my basement. The airlock bubbled nicely for about four days, and then has remained dormant for the past five or six days. I don't have a hydrometer yet, and the instructions said one week, so I went ahead and bottled last night (ten days in primary), hoping to leave about three weeks in the bottles before Christmas.
While I was racking into the bottling bucket, the beer in the primary seemed to start fermenting again -- little bubbles in the wort. Is this normal, or is it possible that fermentation was incomplete?
After doing some reading and thinking, I realized that maybe it was too cold in the basement. Although the basement temperature was about 65 degrees when I began fermentation, a cold front brought the temp down about ten degrees -- right around the same time as the bubbling subsided. Did the fermentation kick back in because I brought the primary up to room temperature in the kitchen to begin bottling?
Having already racked the beer onto the priming sugar, I figured it was too late to turn back (i.e., ferment longer in the bottling bucket). So the beer is now bottled. A sample did not taste horrible (I don't think it was contaminated), but it was very bland and seemed quite thick in texture.
A long night of research (mostly on these forums) has taught me a lot about this process, and I will correct a bunch of things with my next batch, including lengthier primary, warmer temps, and use of a hydrometer to ensure that fermentation is complete. But for the batch currently in bottles, I am wondering if it's salvageable and wondering the best way to make it work.
My first question: Have I created bottle bombs? Does the reactivation of the yeast suggest that my fermentation had merely gone dormant in the basement, and is ready to kick back in now that the beer has been bottled? My second question: What is the best tempterature at which to store the bottles? They are currently in the basement -- 55 degrees or so -- but I could use a space heater or something to warm them up if that will help things along.
Any guesses on whether I will want to serve this swill to my holiday guests? (The folks who bought me the kit are expecting something great!)
Thanks!
Eleven days ago I received a gift of a brew kit and extract recipe. So excited, I went straight to work brewing my first batch (a BB English Brown Ale with Notingham yeast) without first reading up on this very tricky hobby or buying all of the necessary tools. Based on the directions, I anticipated having cold beer by Christmas.
I stored the primary fermenter in my basement. The airlock bubbled nicely for about four days, and then has remained dormant for the past five or six days. I don't have a hydrometer yet, and the instructions said one week, so I went ahead and bottled last night (ten days in primary), hoping to leave about three weeks in the bottles before Christmas.
While I was racking into the bottling bucket, the beer in the primary seemed to start fermenting again -- little bubbles in the wort. Is this normal, or is it possible that fermentation was incomplete?
After doing some reading and thinking, I realized that maybe it was too cold in the basement. Although the basement temperature was about 65 degrees when I began fermentation, a cold front brought the temp down about ten degrees -- right around the same time as the bubbling subsided. Did the fermentation kick back in because I brought the primary up to room temperature in the kitchen to begin bottling?
Having already racked the beer onto the priming sugar, I figured it was too late to turn back (i.e., ferment longer in the bottling bucket). So the beer is now bottled. A sample did not taste horrible (I don't think it was contaminated), but it was very bland and seemed quite thick in texture.
A long night of research (mostly on these forums) has taught me a lot about this process, and I will correct a bunch of things with my next batch, including lengthier primary, warmer temps, and use of a hydrometer to ensure that fermentation is complete. But for the batch currently in bottles, I am wondering if it's salvageable and wondering the best way to make it work.
My first question: Have I created bottle bombs? Does the reactivation of the yeast suggest that my fermentation had merely gone dormant in the basement, and is ready to kick back in now that the beer has been bottled? My second question: What is the best tempterature at which to store the bottles? They are currently in the basement -- 55 degrees or so -- but I could use a space heater or something to warm them up if that will help things along.
Any guesses on whether I will want to serve this swill to my holiday guests? (The folks who bought me the kit are expecting something great!)
Thanks!