Clementine
Well-Known Member
I just bottled my first extract brew (until now I have been using kits) and I have some problems....
The Full Story, a bit long sorry.
I live in Hawaii so temps are always high so I built a fermentation chamber. As I have numerous friends who readily help dispose of beer, I'm always suffering from Supply and Demand problems. So trying my first extract (full boil) brew I did a West Coast Styled Pale Ale and used a white labs WPL001 yeast (no starter).
Everything went smoothly with the steeping of the specialty grains, boiling the wort and adding the hops. The trouble started when I knocked over my Hydrometer and broke it before I took a reading and the brew shop was closed so no chance of a replacement. Next problem I had a rough idea of how much 5 gallons looked like in the keggle I was using but not really accurate so when I ran it through my counter flow chiller I found I was about .5 gallon short of 5 gallons. As it had already cooled I did not want to add water also I did not have boiled water too add to it. So I just pitched to yeast and sealed up the fermenter and put it in the new fermentation chamber (getting it out of the closet and into the garage keeping SWMBO off my case). As it was the first time using the new chamber I had no idea how it would work so I just threw some bottles of ice in there and check it the next day. Fermentation took a while (probably did not aerate it enough) but it got going well with a good bit of foam on top. After a week I racked it into the secondary on top of some more hops (cascade .75 oz for dry hopping) and added .5 gallon of boiled and cooled water that was missing from the boil.
Here is the first problem I checked the sg when I racked into secondary and found it to be 1020. I had been keeping the temp way down as my previous beers had a bit of that banana smell to them and every now and again I over did the cooling and it dropped below 60 degrees. So I let it sit in the secondary for two weeks and then let it warm up for a d-rest at 70 degrees when a small amount of foam formed again. so I let it sit for another week at 68 degrees until all signs of fermentation had stop and then last night I bottled it.
When I bottled it I forgot to take a FG reading until after I had already added the bottling sugar. 7.8oz of DME. The FG reading came out at 1020! Now the SG reading came from the bottom of the bottling buck. the real dregs.
So here are the thoughts feel free to add yours:
1) It had not finished fermenting and had become stuck because it was too cold and the yeast went sleep. Effect sweet beer that probably won't carbonate
2) The FG sample was heavy with sugar from insufficient mixing of the beer with the sugar solution, Effect beer bombs from half the brew, flat from the other half.
3) Fermentation was stuck and disturbing the beer in the bottling process wakes up the yeast plus the extra sugar and beer bombs all round.
4) Everything is fine and I'm just a Muppet!
Lets hope it is just 4).
Fixes: - Glued hydro jar to a large piece of wood so two year old son does not knock it over while helping Daddy.
- Better temp control on fermentation chamber (SWMBO does not know but there are two holes in the garage freeze now!)
- Getting O2 system for aeration
- Putting bottles in plastic bin with water in it to absorb shock of possible detonation
Clem
AKA Clementine brewery head Muppet!
The Full Story, a bit long sorry.
I live in Hawaii so temps are always high so I built a fermentation chamber. As I have numerous friends who readily help dispose of beer, I'm always suffering from Supply and Demand problems. So trying my first extract (full boil) brew I did a West Coast Styled Pale Ale and used a white labs WPL001 yeast (no starter).
Everything went smoothly with the steeping of the specialty grains, boiling the wort and adding the hops. The trouble started when I knocked over my Hydrometer and broke it before I took a reading and the brew shop was closed so no chance of a replacement. Next problem I had a rough idea of how much 5 gallons looked like in the keggle I was using but not really accurate so when I ran it through my counter flow chiller I found I was about .5 gallon short of 5 gallons. As it had already cooled I did not want to add water also I did not have boiled water too add to it. So I just pitched to yeast and sealed up the fermenter and put it in the new fermentation chamber (getting it out of the closet and into the garage keeping SWMBO off my case). As it was the first time using the new chamber I had no idea how it would work so I just threw some bottles of ice in there and check it the next day. Fermentation took a while (probably did not aerate it enough) but it got going well with a good bit of foam on top. After a week I racked it into the secondary on top of some more hops (cascade .75 oz for dry hopping) and added .5 gallon of boiled and cooled water that was missing from the boil.
Here is the first problem I checked the sg when I racked into secondary and found it to be 1020. I had been keeping the temp way down as my previous beers had a bit of that banana smell to them and every now and again I over did the cooling and it dropped below 60 degrees. So I let it sit in the secondary for two weeks and then let it warm up for a d-rest at 70 degrees when a small amount of foam formed again. so I let it sit for another week at 68 degrees until all signs of fermentation had stop and then last night I bottled it.
When I bottled it I forgot to take a FG reading until after I had already added the bottling sugar. 7.8oz of DME. The FG reading came out at 1020! Now the SG reading came from the bottom of the bottling buck. the real dregs.
So here are the thoughts feel free to add yours:
1) It had not finished fermenting and had become stuck because it was too cold and the yeast went sleep. Effect sweet beer that probably won't carbonate
2) The FG sample was heavy with sugar from insufficient mixing of the beer with the sugar solution, Effect beer bombs from half the brew, flat from the other half.
3) Fermentation was stuck and disturbing the beer in the bottling process wakes up the yeast plus the extra sugar and beer bombs all round.
4) Everything is fine and I'm just a Muppet!
Lets hope it is just 4).
Fixes: - Glued hydro jar to a large piece of wood so two year old son does not knock it over while helping Daddy.
- Better temp control on fermentation chamber (SWMBO does not know but there are two holes in the garage freeze now!)
- Getting O2 system for aeration
- Putting bottles in plastic bin with water in it to absorb shock of possible detonation
Clem
AKA Clementine brewery head Muppet!
