I am in the middle of my first brewing process, and it is really fun. I have some randoms questions though, and have searched the forum, but really am not sure of all of the answers.
Being a good Texan and having lived in Munich for a year in college, I like beers like Shiner Bock, Shiner Black, anything Paulaner, Andechs, etc.
So the LHBS guy thought I should get a basic canned kit to start and add some malt to get a "bock" type of beginner beer.
So, Day 1: brewed my wort, which contained:
filtered water
a can of 1.7kg Coopers Lager Extract
1.5 lb Briess Dried Malt Extract (sparkling Amber)
1/2 cup of corn sugar (wasn't sure why, just thought I'd add a little sugar)
yeast packet primed and added after cooling wort. (this came w/ the can)
I put this in my 6 gallon glass carboy to ferment with more water. I thought this added up to 5 gallons, but am not sure now.
Specific Gravity was 1.053 (is that high?)
About 50 hours later, I finally got some signs of kreusen, and for the next 3 days I had some really good kreusen activity, foamy, lots of airlock bubbles.
Day 6, the kreusen was gone, but still lots of air coming through.
Day 7, gravity is 1.0265
Day 9, gravity is 1.020
I moved the brew into a "conditioning" or whatever you want to call it, 5 gallon glass carboy. One, I thought I was supposed to but now am not sure, Two, I want to start brewing another batch of something else!
Questions:
1. Are my gravities too high?
2. My beer is fermenting at about 64 degrees, obviously not at lager temps, so should I have tried a different kit that wasn't lager to do this? I'm not ready to do grains and things yet.
3. In my 5 gallon carboy, the beer only comes up to the 4th "line" on the glass (I'm not sure what this means, the first "line" I'm talking about is really close to the bottom edge. Then there is one more line above my beer right before it starts curving up to the top.)Does this mean I have 4 gallons of beer? How do I know how much sugar to add during bottling so that I add the proper amount?
4. From other posts, it seems like I should have either racked this after another 5 days or so (instead of at day 9) OR not racked it until 3 weeks in primary straight into the bottling mix. So, can I do anything now or will it just have some off flavors?
5. Comments?
Thanks, I am really excited about this, and my husband is deployed with the Army right now, and I promised him some homebrew when he returns. I don't want it to suck too bad.
Being a good Texan and having lived in Munich for a year in college, I like beers like Shiner Bock, Shiner Black, anything Paulaner, Andechs, etc.
So the LHBS guy thought I should get a basic canned kit to start and add some malt to get a "bock" type of beginner beer.
So, Day 1: brewed my wort, which contained:
filtered water
a can of 1.7kg Coopers Lager Extract
1.5 lb Briess Dried Malt Extract (sparkling Amber)
1/2 cup of corn sugar (wasn't sure why, just thought I'd add a little sugar)
yeast packet primed and added after cooling wort. (this came w/ the can)
I put this in my 6 gallon glass carboy to ferment with more water. I thought this added up to 5 gallons, but am not sure now.
Specific Gravity was 1.053 (is that high?)
About 50 hours later, I finally got some signs of kreusen, and for the next 3 days I had some really good kreusen activity, foamy, lots of airlock bubbles.
Day 6, the kreusen was gone, but still lots of air coming through.
Day 7, gravity is 1.0265
Day 9, gravity is 1.020
I moved the brew into a "conditioning" or whatever you want to call it, 5 gallon glass carboy. One, I thought I was supposed to but now am not sure, Two, I want to start brewing another batch of something else!
Questions:
1. Are my gravities too high?
2. My beer is fermenting at about 64 degrees, obviously not at lager temps, so should I have tried a different kit that wasn't lager to do this? I'm not ready to do grains and things yet.
3. In my 5 gallon carboy, the beer only comes up to the 4th "line" on the glass (I'm not sure what this means, the first "line" I'm talking about is really close to the bottom edge. Then there is one more line above my beer right before it starts curving up to the top.)Does this mean I have 4 gallons of beer? How do I know how much sugar to add during bottling so that I add the proper amount?
4. From other posts, it seems like I should have either racked this after another 5 days or so (instead of at day 9) OR not racked it until 3 weeks in primary straight into the bottling mix. So, can I do anything now or will it just have some off flavors?
5. Comments?
Thanks, I am really excited about this, and my husband is deployed with the Army right now, and I promised him some homebrew when he returns. I don't want it to suck too bad.