First time brewing

Hi,

We have just bought some beer brewing equipment and it hasn't come with any instructions! We've found some on the net for our stuff so thats not too bad. But what we can't find is the appropriate amount of sugar to add to our beer.

We're using a beer kit and making about 40 pints, but we can't find anywhere how much sugar to add, we're using an initial fermenting bin and then a barrel.

Cheers,

Jon and Tim

Should have said, we are making a british style bitter.

Cheers, Jon and Tim

Welcome the the board, guys!

First off, here is an excellent place to start for information: http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

Second, what all do you have on hand so far for ingredients? Typically folks will use malt extracts as oppose to straight sugar.

What kit are you using? Some kits are complete you don't need anything other than some good water, other kits like Coopers are only hopped malt extract and a packet of yeast, you also need 2 or 3 pounds of malt to make it.

We are using a kit called "Young's harvest bitter," which i don't think is complete, i believe it contains a hopped malt extract and a packet of yeast.

It says to add a kilo of brewers sugar and water which from what we have read doesn't sound ideal!

Jon

Yeah.. you probably don't want to add that sugar. You would want to use an additional can of extract (purchased separately) for 5 gallons or make a half-batch with what you have already.

-walker

Buy a bag of extra light dry extract and add a kilo of that to the wort. Store the rest of the bag in a cold dry place. Adding sugar to the primary is a cheap way to boost alcohol levels, but the flavors it would add the the final product don't belong in a bitter.

I got a kick out of the Coopers instructions, they stress how important it is to sanitize everything and then they tell you that you can use hot tap water to mix the brew, hot water lines don't get hot enough to kill bacteria and are from what I've read a breading ground for the little buggers.

We also have a lager (i guess you "folks," accross the pond would call it European style "lager bier,") kit which we think we will now use as a test batch. Could we use the sugar with that? We want to make our own beer but the kits came with the equipment so we want to use them up and get familiar with the techniques.

Thanks for the advice already rendered and anymore would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
Jon and Tim

I'm still new to all of this but I look at it this way, you are going to invest a lot of time in each brew, so you may as well do everything in your power to give it the best possible chance of success. So for another $10 I'd go buy the extra 3 pound can of extract, think of it this way, if the beer isn't any good it will be 6 weeks or more before the next batch is ready.

Where you from jonandtim?

We are two students at university in Cardiff, South Wales (the little Country next door to England for you "folks," in America. We'll update our personal profile now!

jonandtim, I'm in the Little Country next to your tiny one.

Warrington, Cheshire.

The first batch I did also called for sugar instead of another can of extract I just used a second can of extract. So far so good for me. I'd love to do some lagers but don't have a cellar cold enough or and extra fridge to get the low fermenting temps.

Cool stuff, can u give us some idea of the best suppliers of things like malt and hops etc. If we follow the advice of the other guys on the forum we'll need to get hold of some (and not pay a fortune in P&P.)

Jon

I'm in the U.S. not sure where you might find stuff close to you. I use www.gainesvillebeersupplies.com

Try Hop and Grape, they have quite an extensive list of items for the UK. There are about 3 or 4 others online but that's about it.
I have a very good but small suplier in St. Helens (10 miles away) that I use.

I initialy thought that the UK was the home of "real Ale" but the guys in the US have it a lot better than us when it comes to choice and supply.

orfy said:

I initialy thought that the UK was the home of "real Ale" but the guys in the US have it a lot better than us when it comes to choice and supply.

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Depends on what you are talking about. We might have more suppliers for homebrewing, but try walking into a random bar in the US and finding a good ale on tap (or any ale at all for that matter.)

Our bars are plagued by watered down, flavorless lagers.

That's why all of us here are making ales ourselves!

-walker

I'm not sure about the UK, but I'd wager the average beer drinker in the US doesn't know what they're drinking. ie> Me: "Want a drink? House special is Red Ale." Guest: "Is that anything like beer?"

Walker said:

Depends on what you are talking about. We might have more suppliers for homebrewing, but try walking into a random bar in the US and finding a good ale on tap (or any ale at all for that matter.)

Our bars are plagued by watered down, flavourless lagers.

That's why all of us here are making ales ourselves!

-walker

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I agree with that. Most pubs over here have at least one or two "Guest Ales"
I have probably sampled at least 200 different ales over the last year. I tried 9 last night all out of the keg with no Co2, And I have to say I think mine tasted as good going in to the bottle as most of them out of the cask. (But I am biased)

did you UK-ize my spelling in that quote? I use "flavorless" your quote says "flavourless".

Sure did..... MS word UK edition.

I spotted it, I wondered if you would! (We invented the Language!)
I need the spell check after 2 pints of Bitter and half a bottle of Cava.

Walker said:

did you UK-ize my spelling in that quote? I use "flavorless" your quote says "flavourless".

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lol, I think he did. Awesome Attention to detail is a virtue for brewing.

LupusUmbrus said:

lol, I think he did. Awesome Attention to detail is a virtue for brewing.

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LOL.

Was that aimed at walker or me?

Walker said:

did you UK-ise my spelling in that quote? I use "flavorless" your quote says "flavourless".

Click to expand...

Fixed.....

orfy said:

LOL.

Was that aimed at walker or me?

Click to expand...

I was wondering that myself half way through typing. Extra points to Walker for non-spellchecker catch

orfy said:

I need the spell check after 2 pints of Bitter and half a bottle of Cava.

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Still have a couple hours of work left before I can start on that!! Still trying to decide what tonight's "flavour" will be, keeping in mind that I want to be able to reuse the bottles. I am thinking that it might be Harpoon or Bass for tonight.

I used to work in the old Bass plant in Runcorn.

orfy said:

I used to work in the old Bass plant in Runcorn.

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Got any swag for your ol' buddy BeeGee?!?

'Fraid not, It now a DIY distibution Depot for B&Q.
They were ripping the last of the plant out when I started about 10 years ago.

We had a massive brewing industry around here up to 15 years ago but now it's all gone.

Guiness is still bottled around here.

You need to give Tim and I some serious tips! We have a good selection of pub's Ale's on tap locally and our bar with over 50 varieties of quality bottled ale and ciders. And a damn good beer festival - (the hangover from the Perry was indescribable though.) As we are now utterly, utterly skint we have decided to brew our own.

So any easy for the amateur recipe suggestions would be heartedly appreciated.

Cheers,
Jon

Actually now I come to think of it, the impossibility of finding a good pub and the prospect of a year on "bud," are one of the reasons why I haven't made any attempt to spend a year studying in America. Our student union building used to have a pub in it but they have changed it into a bar which looks like most of the furniture was bought from Ikea. And the bitter on tap is worthington. I almost cried.

Jon

Okay, serious! (sorry, having a hard time keeping a straight face atm, but I'll try to "keep it real")

- As has already been mentioned, don't throw regular sugar into your beer (wort at this stage), but rather use additional extract for a standard 5 gallon batch. Using cane sugars (ie table sugar) can result in off flavors in the end product.
- Recipe: Make it up. Honestly. A couple cans of extract, maybe a pound of some crystal malts for steeping (and a grain bag if you don't have one), whatever sounds good for hops. As long as you don't go overboard in any department, you'll probably create some decent beer. You can go here http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipes to get an idea for how much to use.
- Tips for reading recipes: SRM is typically used to indicate color, 1 being extremely pale, to 40 being nearly black. Hop bitterness is rated in IBU's, with higher being more bitter. For that recipe database, it's also a good idea to keep an eye on what that individual’s batch size is (I've see recipes for 12 gal batches on there )

Tim (or John)

Get hold of some hops and chuck them in at some stage!
I'll probably get shouted at for this but I use 40 pint kits that say add sugar but make 20 pints without sugar and steep it with grain and add some hops.

orfy said:

Tim (or John)

Get hold of some hops and chuck them in at some stage!
I'll probably get shouted at for this but I use 40 pint kits that say add sugar but make 20 pints without sugar and steep it with grain and add some hops.

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I think that's a fine approach. You would probably get yelled at for making the 40 pint batch with the sugar.

-walker

Exactly. Nothing wrong with making half or split batches, just don't use table sugar for beer (note that using it for priming would be passable). It will result in thin, less flavorful beer.