Fermentation questions for new brewer

I'm very new to brewing. So new that my first brew (extract: coopers lager) tastes like sucking on a stack of pennies, although after 2 weeks of bottle conditioning, it has tamed a lot. I realize that my mistake with the first batch was temperature. It was too high, and although I was able to cool it with some flexible tubing, a wet saw pump, and homemade ice, it never stayed constant, and kept going toward the upper limit. Also, it sat in the fermenter for 11 days at high temp because I didn't know how to use my hydrometer, which is another question i'll save for the end. I've read a lot of these posts about most of the process, and even read a book about home brewing. I've got a lot of stuff floating around in my head, and I even understand some of it. One of the things I can't get a grasp of is fermentation times, or more specifically, fermenter times. I understand how temp plays a role in fermentation times, and yeast plays a role in fermentation times, but I can't get a grasp on how long to keep my brew in the fermenter. So my first question is this:

When my brew hits a constant FG over 2 days, does it hurt, help, or add nothing to leaving it in the primary for say, a month? I understand how the use of a secondary is unnecessary, but would leaving it in the primary help in conditioning? Clarity is of no importance to me, if that helps. Also, if using flavoring such as chocolate or fruit, can this be done ONLY in a secondary fermenter, or can it be done in primary? Wouldn't the fruit sugars lessen the need for sugar, or malt extract? I'm probably going to have a million more questions, so I'm sorry if I sound like a total noob, but my SWMBO gets mad when I buy beer now, since she has me pegged for a professional homebrewer now, but I'd like to ask one more question if I could. How do you use a hydrometer? I read somewhere that it has to float away from the walls of the tube, but that's hard to do without tilting it in some direction of another. So should I just float the hydro, wait for the bubbles to subside, and read the number? Thanks in advance for helping, after all, even the handicapped like to make beer.

Since the is your first batch we cannot simply tell you to RDWHAHB (relax, don't worry, have a home brew). So this is what you do.

1. Get in the car
2. Drive to store
3. Buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
4. Drink them and relax

Cooper's Yeasts are EXTREMELY forgiving. My first batch was Cooper's Euro lager. I pitched it at 103°F (didn't know ferment temps mattered), and bottle aged for 2 weeks (directions said 12). I didn't lager at all.

It was beer, and honestly my friends and I killed those 2 cases in like a week.

With some more time in the bottle you'll be fine.

As far as time in primary fermentation. You'll get tons of different opinions. Some will say a week, a couple weeks, a month, etc.

EDIT: If SWMBO gets annoyed now when you buy beer, wait until you have to run out to pick up dated yeast because it's cheap and you spend $2 on the pack and $10 on DME trying to bring it back to life when you could have just bought a fresh pack for $6.

Your first mistake may have been fermenting too high, but your second was tasting the beer too soon Give it some more time, and see if it doesn't get better.

Fermentation times are much discussed. Normally, the instructions have you rack the beer off the yeast as soon as possible, so you can go buy another kit. Throw those instructions away! The beer will improve if left on the yeast cake, as the yeasties will start to clean up after themselves. That said, if you have already bottled, at least you have beer. Just leave the next one longer. The common wisdom around here is around 3 weeks, longer if it is a lager. Brewing takes patience!

As for the hydrometer: put it on a level surface, and get down to it. Crouch. You want to be looking at the bottom of the meniscus (the surface tension of water "pulls" it up the sides of the glass - ignore this). Wait for it to stop bobbing, and carefully twist so you can see the correct scale. Don't forget to correct for temperature - most hydros are calibrated at 60F. There is a video around somewhere on youtube, but I'm at work, so can't link to it now.

petep1980 said:

Since the is your first batch we cannot simply tell you to RDWHAHB (relax, don't worry, have a home brew). So this is what you do.

1. Get in the car
2. Drive to store
3. Buy Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
4. DRIVE HOME FIRST
5. Drink them and relax

Click to expand...

Fixed that one for you!

BioBeing said:

Your first mistake may have been fermenting too high, but your second was tasting the beer too soon Give it some more time, and see if it doesn't get better.

Click to expand...

I have to disagree a little here, I think it's important, for a new brewer especially, to taste the wort/beer at every step of the process. It really gives you an idea of where, how, and why tastes and flavours develop in the final product. So I suppose the mistake would more be tasting the beer early and expecting it to be done.

I don't rely on my hydrometer to determine when my beer is finished. I leave it in the primary 3-4 weeks, take a gravity reading for my informational purposes and bottle it up. I usually give the fermentor a swirl (not a shake) about 1/2 way through my pre-determined time to kick up the yeast cake and entice the yeasties to gobble up anything they may have missed.

Of course, my way is not the only way, but it's worked for me so far

The first batch is a goner anyway, even though it kinda sucked. I drank it because there was nothing else to drink.

So if Coopers yeasts are very forgiving, does that mean that they're bad and used to make the brewing process easy? Is it accurate to say that if you make a wort and split it in half and use 2 different yeasts, the final product will taste different....or at least different enough to matter? My first batch, and resulting readings of home brewing literature taught me that higher temp at longer periods of time will result in certain tastes, and I witnessed that. Is that the yeasts fault, or is it the Coopers worts fault, or is it the sugars fault? Maybe I'm getting too anal on my first batch, but I'd like to understand what it was that led to the off taste. I guess it'll take me a dozen or so brews to understand different fermentables, different yeast strains, and all the other variables that go into making a great tasting brew. My order shipped today, coopers pilsner and coopers wheat, both with DME instead of straight sugar. I also ordered a capper, bar glasses and caps from Northern, and conemplated ordering some different strains of yeast, instead of using the coopers. Should I have done that, and scrapped the coopers yeast? I know straight extract is hardly worth all the hassle, but I want to understand what my brews are doing before I switch to partial, then all grain. Thanks again for all your guys help.