hello, my first thread here and happy to immerse myself in zymurgy.
I bought a cooper's english bitter kit 2 months ago. Done the brewing part but with mistakes ( or it seems to me so.. )
1- didnt check the temperature at all before pitching the yeast, I didn't have a thermometer at that time, and just guessed when I thought it was right and ready. The brew, made from tap, city water, was a bit warmer than room temperature as I felt it on the plastic keg from what I remember. I did a hydrometer reading after pitching the yeast ( 5 or 10 minutes afterwards) and lost the written note. So my reading was false because I did not know at that time that calibration of hydrometer readings ever existed.
2- when I pitched the yeast, at unknown temperature, I mixed it in completely with the spoon instead of letting it sit on top of the liquid malt. I thought the yeast needed to be aerated this way.
3- the plastic keg's lid did not closed perfectly. So throughout all of the primary fermation stage, the adaptive and attenuation ( i think ), I only let the lid sit over the plastic keg without any airlock. The lid was not closed. After a day, I could cleary see a thick krausen that lasted a few days... when I opened the lid, of course, at least a dozen times.
4- when the krausen appeared to have subsided, I racked with poor performance the liquid into a glass keg ( with and airlock, now). My saliva probably came in contact with the beer at this point. There was still a bit of krausen at this stage inside the glass keg. The liquid was very opaque, dark brown.
5- the brew was sitting in my wardrobe for 7 to 8 weeks, forgotten, as life was busy... the airlock displayed me a very unnerved bubbling. And thereupon I thought it was in conditioning stage, still in the glass keg.
Now the brew is clear, dark red brown. I guess there is trub at the bottom of the fermenter. It smells nice and tastes like beer. More like a flat beer with no alcohol. But the malt taste is there and there a small but still noticeable carbonation happening when tasting. I made 3 hydra readings all rendered up to 1,002.
The anonymous liquid is still to this day in the keg waiting for something..
My concerns are what follows. I saw froth in the very first days, it means the yeast has necessarily converted sugars into alcohol, no? even though I did not take a hydrometer reading. It doesn't take a hydra reading to make alcohol ( lol ). Is my yeast dead? Is the brew contaminated ( no sign of contamination, mold ) ? Should I re pitch new yeast in ( the same type of yeast ) ?
Thanks in advance. I know some of you might say '' just dump it and buy a thermometer ''. I'm getting a thermometer tomorrow anyhow. But I want to know if there is a solution in order to get something out of it. I hope the usage of brewer's vocabulary in this post is in order as well.
I bought a cooper's english bitter kit 2 months ago. Done the brewing part but with mistakes ( or it seems to me so.. )
1- didnt check the temperature at all before pitching the yeast, I didn't have a thermometer at that time, and just guessed when I thought it was right and ready. The brew, made from tap, city water, was a bit warmer than room temperature as I felt it on the plastic keg from what I remember. I did a hydrometer reading after pitching the yeast ( 5 or 10 minutes afterwards) and lost the written note. So my reading was false because I did not know at that time that calibration of hydrometer readings ever existed.
2- when I pitched the yeast, at unknown temperature, I mixed it in completely with the spoon instead of letting it sit on top of the liquid malt. I thought the yeast needed to be aerated this way.
3- the plastic keg's lid did not closed perfectly. So throughout all of the primary fermation stage, the adaptive and attenuation ( i think ), I only let the lid sit over the plastic keg without any airlock. The lid was not closed. After a day, I could cleary see a thick krausen that lasted a few days... when I opened the lid, of course, at least a dozen times.
4- when the krausen appeared to have subsided, I racked with poor performance the liquid into a glass keg ( with and airlock, now). My saliva probably came in contact with the beer at this point. There was still a bit of krausen at this stage inside the glass keg. The liquid was very opaque, dark brown.
5- the brew was sitting in my wardrobe for 7 to 8 weeks, forgotten, as life was busy... the airlock displayed me a very unnerved bubbling. And thereupon I thought it was in conditioning stage, still in the glass keg.
Now the brew is clear, dark red brown. I guess there is trub at the bottom of the fermenter. It smells nice and tastes like beer. More like a flat beer with no alcohol. But the malt taste is there and there a small but still noticeable carbonation happening when tasting. I made 3 hydra readings all rendered up to 1,002.
The anonymous liquid is still to this day in the keg waiting for something..
My concerns are what follows. I saw froth in the very first days, it means the yeast has necessarily converted sugars into alcohol, no? even though I did not take a hydrometer reading. It doesn't take a hydra reading to make alcohol ( lol ). Is my yeast dead? Is the brew contaminated ( no sign of contamination, mold ) ? Should I re pitch new yeast in ( the same type of yeast ) ?
Thanks in advance. I know some of you might say '' just dump it and buy a thermometer ''. I'm getting a thermometer tomorrow anyhow. But I want to know if there is a solution in order to get something out of it. I hope the usage of brewer's vocabulary in this post is in order as well.
