Help Please!!

I received a balliihoo brewing kit for Christmas and the instructions that came with it are a bit vague.

I am currently brewing black rock pilsener and it has been in the fermenting bucket for a few days at 16-18 degrees Celsius .

My first question is how do I check the gravity using the hydrometer in the kit? Do I need to remove the airlock and syphon some of the brew out to check? Do I need to do this into a specific kind of jar?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Richard

sherwood_rds said:

Do I need to remove the airlock and syphon some of the brew out to check?

Thanks Richard

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Yep...that's the best way. Use a beer thief or turkey baster to put some in a tall skinny container and take your reading from that.

NivekD said:

Yep...that's the best way. Use a beer thief or turkey baster to put some in a tall skinny container and take your reading from that.

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Thanks for this. I also have another question - once the gravity reaches 1005 and I have syphoned into the plastic 'keg' that came with the kit, how much sugar should I add? The instructions on the black rock tin say add 1 teaspoon per 750ml bottle but this would mean I would need to add 53 teaspoons to the keg before secondary fermentation. Thanks again

first off, you'll want to sanitize anything that comes in contact with the beer. you have sanitizer, right?

brew supply shops sell a "sample jar" which is a long skinny tube. this limits how much you need to pull. you need to submerge the hydrometer sufficiently so it floats.

don't put the sample back into the fermenter once you're done. drink it instead. throwing it back increases your chances of contamination.

bottling sugar, AKA priming sugar: it's better to weigh it instead of going by volumes (cups, teaspoons, etc). volumes can vary - a cup of sugar A can be different than a cup of sugar B. use this to determine how much sugar to use: http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/ (it includes an "amount in cups" number, but weigh the sugar if you can).

I must agree whole heartedly with that!
I tried measuring the sugar a few times and ended up with mildly overcarbed beers. Now I weigh it.

Thanks for this. The calculator suggests appoximately 100g of sugar for my 4.8 gallons of pilsener. Does this seem right?

That sounds about right.
Do you know how many volumes of carbonation you are looking for?
It does have a way to find that by style of beer.

It's black rock pilsener so I selected Czech pilsener in the calculator and 100g of Demerara sugar is what it came up with.

Ought to be close enough.

You are fermenting that cold right? Or are you using an ale yeast?

I checked the gravity and it is not yet at the 1005 that the instructions say I am aiming for. It has been in the fermenting bucket for a week now. Is this going slowly because it is cold in my house?

sherwood_rds said:

I checked the gravity and it is not yet at the 1005 that the instructions say I am aiming for. It has been in the fermenting bucket for a week now. Is this going slowly because it is cold in my house?

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yes, cool temperature will slow fermentation and may even cause it to stall out before you hit your terminal gravity.

you can't bank on hitting 1.005. depending on your process (ex: fermenting too cold), that may be an unreachable goal. what is your current gravity, and has it been stable at that reading over several days? if so, you might be finished.

what temp do the instructions recommend that you ferment at? and what temp are you at currently?

I have checked the temperature and I'm at 16 degrees. The recommendations on the brew tin are 18-26 degrees so I'm cooler than this. I'll monitor the gravity for a couple of days and see how it goes

Have checked the gravity again and its just at the top of the red 'start' area after a week of being in the fermenting bucket. This can't be good can it? Do I just perservere and wait for this to change or have I stalled it with the cold temperatures?

Did you just use the packet of yeast that came included under the lid??

If so, it's, more likely than not, an ale yeast and I'd imagine the temps you are at right now should be fine, even if seeming slightly low. Are you reading those temps from a stick on fermometer on the fermenter or are those the ambient air temps? You can always move it to a slightly warmer environment/wrap some insulation around etc. and get fermentation re-started if necessary.

Did you take and record a gravity (OG) reading before pitching the yeast? (for example 1.042, or similar, which would be just below the orange area, one line down from where you see 40)

Where would you say it was when you first measured and where was it today on the example in this pic.


If there has been absolutely no change, from pitching yeast 'til now, then you might need to think about moving it to a warmer room or maybe even pitching another pack of yeast. Could be that the yeast with the kit was just a bit too old or had been inadequately stored.

Also, one other point. Not sure that I'd prime a Pilsener using Demerara sugar. Plain old white cane sugar will be fine.

Hi, yes just used the yeast that came with the black rock can. The temperature measurements are from a stick on thermometer on the fermenter. The current gravity reading is to the top the red 'start' zone on this hydrometer: http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0022575

Unfortunately I didn't do a reading when I began so don't have anything to compare with.

Thanks for the tip about the sugar, I'll use white cane instead

sherwood_rds said:

Hi, yes just used the yeast that came with the black rock can. The temperature measurements are from a stick on thermometer on the fermenter. The current gravity reading is to the top the red 'start' zone on this hydrometer: http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0022575

Unfortunately I didn't do a reading when I began so don't have anything to compare with.

Thanks for the tip about the sugar, I'll use white cane instead

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Did you use any fermentables other than the can of Black Rock Pilsener? Liquid or Dry Malt Extracts (LME/DME), sugar, honey?

If so, you could put the values of them into a recipe calculator of some sort and approximate your Original Gravity, see if there has been any change (a drop in gravity points), or not, to your present reading. Then you could decide if you need to pitch more yeast and/or just move it to a warmer environment, or take some other course of action..

Alternatively, write up the details of your brew here and you'll get help.

Thanks Ogri, I used the Black Rock Pilsener, the yeast that came with it, and the amount of sugar that the kit recommended. I'll have a go with the recipe calculator so thanks for this. I don't have anywhere warmer to put the brew so can I compensate by adding other ingredients to help things along?

sherwood_rds said:

Thanks Ogri, I used the Black Rock Pilsener, the yeast that came with it, and the amount of sugar that the kit recommended. I'll have a go with the recipe calculator so thanks for this. I don't have anywhere warmer to put the brew so can I compensate by adding other ingredients to help things along?

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Not so much other adding ingredients. If your gravity hasn't dropped at all since pitching the yeast I'd recommend looking into some method of warming the brew up a little. Do a search for "son of fermentation chamber", or maybe even try something simple like placing the fermenter into, for example, a cardboard box with a light bulb in a tin box/paint can for a bit of warmth. A blanket, or some other kind of insulation could be used to maintain temps once a bit of a raise had been achieved. An adjustable temp electric blanket, would be good if you can find one, for a few hours to raise the temp to, say, 18 or 19 deg. C and see if that leads to any signs of fermentation. If, a day or two after trying that, there's no signs of any action I'd try to aerate the wort a good bit, pitch a fresh pack of dry yeast and see how things go over the next couple of days.

sherwood_rds said:

I don't have anywhere warmer to put the brew so can I compensate by adding other ingredients to help things along?

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you can't add anything to make up for lack of heat, unfortunately.

you can, however, add heat in ways other than warming the whole house. you could buy a brew-belt or a fermwrap (ex: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/fermwrap-heater.html, available at all online shops) and control it with either a dedicated temp controller/thermostat or a timer. you could put the carboy in a big bucket of water and put an aquarium heater in there. you can build an insulated box and use a light bulb to heat it, as described above.

you need to be able to get your beer into the optimal temperature range if you want to control fermentation - and hence make great beer. in the summer you need to cool (look up "swamp cooler" if you don't have a dedicated fridge), in winter you need to heat.

I've bought myself one of these to see if I can warm the brew a little http://www.balliihoo.co.uk/electric-wrap-around-brew-belt-heater-p-2.html Snow is falling outside so temperatures indoors without the heating on are quite low. The gravity of my brew seems to be improving but at a slow rate - we're heading towards the 'bottle' maker on the hydrometer. Thanks for all your help guys

Hi Guys, I transferred my pilsner brew to the barrel, added sugar and left for 5 days for secondary fermentation in the pressure barrel. I took a little out the other day to try and its not very fizzy at all, like I presume a Pilsner should be. Will this improve if I leave it a couple of weeks like the beer kit suggested? Or should I be poppong more yeast or sugar in there to perk it up? Thanks for your help

It takes 2-3 weeks (longer is better) for conditioning, which is when the yeast is converting that priming sugar into CO2. After that you need at least 3 days in the fridge to force that CO2 into the solution (beer), though a week is better, and longer seems better than that.

I'm not familiar with making lagers, and those time frames may be even longer than they are for ales, but unlikely to be shorter from what little I understand.

"...I transferred my pilsner brew to the barrel..."

Obviously my reading comprehension was lacking. You won't get a carbonation until you bottle/keg it. I'm not familiar with what you did.

rodwha said:

"...I transferred my pilsner brew to the barrel..."

Obviously my reading comprehension was lacking. You won't get a carbonation until you bottle/keg it. I'm not familiar with what you did.

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Quite a few Brits and/or Aussies seem to be using these "Pressure Barrels" which is probably like having your beer in a sealed cask with a spigot. I imagine they are used for carbonating and conditioning the beer and then you could drink, poured, directly from the keg or bottle already carbonated beer. Not sure but maybe they have an attachment to take a CO2 canister so that, as the beer level in there decreases, the headspace is taken up by CO2, although that's purely speculation on my part. Have definitely heard them mentioned a couple of times on here.

sherwood_rds said:

Hi Guys, I transferred my pilsner brew to the barrel, added sugar and left for 5 days for secondary fermentation in the pressure barrel. I took a little out the other day to try and its not very fizzy at all, like I presume a Pilsner should be. Will this improve if I leave it a couple of weeks like the beer kit suggested? Or should I be poppong more yeast or sugar in there to perk it up?

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As long as you primed using a suitable amount of sugar, around 5 to 6 Oz for a UK 5 gallon batch, and give it 3 weeks at about 20*C you should have decent levels of carbonation. It might actually be perfectly carbed in less time though, so keep on testing a bit at a time until it seems a little too fizzy at 20*c, then cool it off to serving temp, or slightly lower, for a few days, the CO2 will get absorbed into solution and your beer/Pilsener should be satisfying.