Brewhouse Pilsner : To bottle or not?

Hello,
Im in the midst of brewing my first ever batch of beer. I decided to go with a pre-made wort kit, as I already had wine equipment, and the process seems very similar. I had been following the instructions included, and only left it in the primary for about one week before moving it to a carboy. Its been sitting in the carboy for 2 weeks, and I'm currently sitting at a SG of about 1.019. Im wondering whether I should bottle it, or leave it for another week or so?

I lost the instructions (cant find them online, but have emailed the company). When priming the batch prior to bottling, do I simply rack into another container, add the dextrose, and stir?

Getting excited to bottle it, so that I can give it a try!


Thanks!

-Chris

You should dissolve the sugar in water and boil it and then add it to the bottling bucket. Then rack on top of that. make sure everything that touches the beer at this point on is sanitized! Don't stir or rack roughly! The idea is to prevent oxygen from dissolving into the beer.
Congrats on the first batch!!!

You really don't have to dissolve the sugar in water, but it won't hurt to do so. You could draw off some wort and dissolve it in the wort and add it back. rs3902 is absolutely correct about the stir or rough racking, as you don't want to add oxygen at this critical stage. Yor final gravity appears to be about right. If unsure, watch your hydrometer for a couple days. If it doesn't change, go for it! I have brewed many a Brewhouse kit. You should try Festa as well - no need to add any water, but it does not come with any dextrose for bottling so Bulk Barn is the place. I generally keg mine, but am going to bottle condition a batch in the near future. I am moving east and taking a truck load of Brewhouse and Festa with me, as I won't have time to brew them up here. I also want to make sure I don't run out before locating a supplier. I have instructions and hacks for Brewhouse, so if you want to email me, I can send them to you in PDF format. Also, congrats on your first!

cstacey44 said:

Hello,
Im in the midst of brewing my first ever batch of beer. I decided to go with a pre-made wort kit, as I already had wine equipment, and the process seems very similar. I had been following the instructions included, and only left it in the primary for about one week before moving it to a carboy. Its been sitting in the carboy for 2 weeks, and I'm currently sitting at a SG of about 1.019. Im wondering whether I should bottle it, or leave it for another week or so?

I lost the instructions (cant find them online, but have emailed the company). When priming the batch prior to bottling, do I simply rack into another container, add the dextrose, and stir?

Getting excited to bottle it, so that I can give it a try!


Thanks!

-Chris

Click to expand...

http://https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

Read this sticky!

As for your FG, did you verify it BEFORE racking to secondary, kit instructions are notorious for bad instructions. You never rack a beer off the yeast before verifying FG with two stable readings. That being said there is also the "dreaded 1.020" meaning there is a chance with extract beer to not drop below this reading for really no apparent reason.

If the beer has been sitting at this FG for more than several days it's done and you can bottle, the sticky referenced will provide you the proper instructions to ensure you do it correctly and that your beer carbonates and conditions the way it should and what to expect.

Cheers on your first batch!

Thanks for all the tips. I (stupidly) did not verify the SG before racking into the carboy. At that point, I was following the instructions and just racked after 7 days. Luckily I found this forum, or else I probably would have only left it in the carboy for 7 days as well Im going to check the SG again this weekend to see if its moving.


@elreplica : I discovered festa brew thorugh these forums, and just started brewing a Stout & a Red-Ale (this is already an addictive hobby), do you have any other suggestions? Im not sure how far 'East' you are moving, but if its Ottawa, they have Festa at the 'hop and vine' in the East end: http://www.hopnvine.com/beer_products.htm

duboman said:

As for your FG, did you verify it BEFORE racking to secondary, kit instructions are notorious for bad instructions. You never rack a beer off the yeast before verifying FG with two stable readings.

Click to expand...

Never say never! I generally only take one reading to confirm that the SG is reasonable prior to racking. Unless it's grossly high, I don't think there's a whole lot to be gained from checking again---if there's just a little more fermentation to be done in secondary, it'll happen there just fine. You really just want to avoid moving on with a stuck fermentation.

Note that I also couple this with a lot of patience. I rarely check less than two weeks after pitching, and it's usually 3-5 weeks. I might be more careful if I were really trying to pump the beer through the pipeline as fast as possible. But, if after 3 weeks the beer has reached something within a couple points of where I expect it, chances are very good that it's done.

zeg said:

Never say never! I generally only take one reading to confirm that the SG is reasonable prior to racking. Unless it's grossly high, I don't think there's a whole lot to be gained from checking again---if there's just a little more fermentation to be done in secondary, it'll happen there just fine. You really just want to avoid moving on with a stuck fermentation.

Note that I also couple this with a lot of patience. I rarely check less than two weeks after pitching, and it's usually 3-5 weeks. I might be more careful if I were really trying to pump the beer through the pipeline as fast as possible. But, if after 3 weeks the beer has reached something within a couple points of where I expect it, chances are very good that it's done.

Click to expand...

I really don't agree but you prefaced your come ya by stating you are patient and allow your beer anywhere from 2-5 weeks before doing anything.

Since this is the beginners/extract forum and we are generally assisting impatient noobs with no or very little understanding about the effects of incomplete fermentation I don't think that advise should be recommended here.

IMO I think best practice should be preached and as they become more experienced they can handle their own evaluations better.

Try festas pale ale, and when it comes out in the fall the west coast ipa. The ipa is incredible, as for their stout I have one bottle left I'm saving for christmas, it was delicious.

duboman said:

IMO I think best practice should be preached and as they become more experienced they can handle their own evaluations better.

Click to expand...

That's fair enough, but I believe patience is the best practice.

Reading a hydrometer with the accuracy needed to reliably catch the end of fermentation is a rather advanced skill. Plenty of advanced brewers read them incorrectly, forget temperature compensation, etc.

Plus, a fermentation that's stuck at, say, 1.016 is going to read 1.016 a week later, so you aren't going to detect this by looking at the hydrometer no matter how many times or how accurately you read it. You still just have to decide, based on the expected end point, whether you think it's actually complete.

Finally, drawing samples is an opportunity for infections. Thieves and turkey basters are among the trickier implements to thoroughly clean and sanitize, so I think this particular act is a relatively high risk operation.

So, I do agree that measuring is the only way to be sure that fermentation has stopped, and I won't argue that it's good to know. But I think relying on this procedure is a more, not less, advanced technique. Keep it simple and reliable early on. Most noob brewers would produce better beers simply by waiting. When they get more advanced, they can consider trying to speed up the process.

Just measured SG, and it has dropped to 1.018. Going to wait until Monday before checking it again and potentially bottling

Thanks for.the help

Also took the SG of my festa oatmeal stout at 1.018. Tasted amazing, was tempted to drink it as is!

Wait it gets even better lol, only advice for the stout is to use less priming sugar and carb it as the style dictates. I was lazy and just did as I always do 2/3 cup table sugar. It still rated amazing just a bit to bubbly for the style. Also with every week that goes by it just gets better and better. Got to love getting all grain beer without the hassle. Cheers

What would you recommend for priming the stout? I was planning on using 3/4 of a cup of dextrose

I'm not entirely sure, theres tons of threads on here that have links to the calculators for that kind of thing. I know the 3/4 cup of dextrose gives the same results as 2/3 cup priming sugar. wish I could be more help I'm sure if you started a thread about that question you would get a response fairly quickly.

A stout, made to style, should have a low level of carbonation, between 1.5 and 2 volumes (more or less, depends on whom you ask). For a 5 gallon batch at 1.8 volumes, stored at 65°F, that requires 2.4 oz of priming sugar, or a bit more than half the usual 3/4 cup volume of corn sugar.

One initially surprising fact is that the temperature your beer is sitting at---really, the highest temperature it's been stored at for any length of time since fermentation completed---is important. The colder it's been stored, the more of the CO2 from the initial fermentation will still be in solution, so the less additional sugar you'll need. If you're aiming for a low carbonation level and you've been fermenting at a low temperature, you may need very little sugar; it's even possible that you won't need any, though this is rare.

Some useful explanations are here: http://hbd.org/brewery/library/YPrimerMH.html

My favorite calculator is here: http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

Finally, you're best off measuring by weight, though, because volume measures are unreliable. Investing $10 in a small kitchen scale will make life a lot easier in the long run---it's easier and more accurate for measuring hops, nutrients, priming sugar, etc. (Incidentally, I have and recommend this one http://amzn.com/B0012N1NAA ) You can get roughly the right amount using a measuring cup, though, and if you're not really after a specific carb level, that's probably fine. Still, I find it a lot easier and less messy to pour dextrose into a bowl on the scale until it hits the right mass than to carefully fill a measuring cup.