Back to the Beginning of the Future

[ronb454]

Hi, I am just getting back into brewing. My living situation required I keep most of my brewing, wine making and sausage making equipment in storage for over 4 years. I did buy some Walmart buckets and a spigot or 2 and brewed some at a friends house, but he must have had mice because there was some beer missing from the buckets.

This Star-San thread is interesting because I just used it for the first time. 1/5 oz per gallon is pretty hard to measure but I could not find a "no rinse" clause in the instructions so I did the best I could. I used a spray bottle and a catch basin and caught the solution for later use. I usually use a no rinse from Mr. Beer but the Star-San seems easier.

This is where the first part left off..........................

(I think I have already tossed my hat in.)

I will be looking around a bit before I toss my hat into the ring because I have to learn some things all over again. I purchased 3 kits over 3 years ago and just got around to brewing them up. One was a Mr. Beer American Porter. It is ok but not great. I also got 2 kits of partial grain kits from Midwest Supplies. One was a Black Dog Ale and the other a Mexican Cerveza. They may not taste perfect after the several years in storage but nothing was opened so I hope for at least drinkable beer. I won't be out anything extra except brew time because if they suck, at least I learned something... and since I had already purchased the kits I figured I should at least try. The Porter is a dark strong beer. It may not have carbonated all the way but it is drinkable. I only had 1 gallon to bottle.

When I finally opened the 2 gallon kit (Porter) the yeast was bad, so I used yeast from one of the other kits. When the brew keg was all settled down after a week and a half I poured it into a small secondary and harvested the yeast, washed it and made a starter for the Black Dog. (For some reason I refrigerated the yeast packet from the Black Dog kit but not the others.) The yeast came alive in the mini beer solution I made to feed it and when I brewed the Black Dog it came alive after a couple hours. I had brewed the Cerveza a day earlier and it had not started to ferment yet...or was just not showing. But soon after the Black Dog started to bubble the Cerveza showed life.

I have some diammonium phosphate from making wine so on day 2 of fermentation I used 1/2 tsp per 5 gallon bucket to feed the yeast figuring after being out of date it may need a boost. Talk about superfoods...It worked great. I bottled the American Porter 2 weeks ago and am drinking a bottle a day. It does improve immensely just leaving it in the bottle. It is now in the fridge and doing well.

I bottled the Black Dog yesterday, 1/13, and the Cerveza the day before. Now I can relax for a couple days. But then back to work. I bought a new kit from Midwest Supplies: a "Beer Simply Beer" Pale Ale. I won't be leaving this sit on the shelf. I learned that lesson also.

I want to up the abv and do not know how much extract or sugar or other adjunct to use. Maybe someone here can give me that info. I will appreciate it. Also, is there a difference in the amount of time it takes to carbonate, priming by the batch and by the bottle?

One site I was looking at said if bottling and priming with Dextrose it will take 2 weeks. I think this may also refer to some carbonation drops. But the Brewers Best Drops are speed demons and the ad states they will fully carbonate beer in as little as 3 days. I found the link. I wonder just how "small" a beer style has to be for the 3 days to be true?

http://www.homebrewohio.com/pd-brewer-s-best-carbonation-tablets.cfm

Is it better to prime by the batch? I know it saves time and gives every bottle regardless of size the same amount of priming solution. But, how does one know just how much to mix up?

Thanks for the interesting info. I now realize how much I used to think I knew but don't.

 

[RM-MN]

Many brewers seem to want to up the ABV of a kit. It wouldn't hurt much to add a little dry extract but adding too much will upset the alcohol to bitterness ratio. I'd suggest brewing the bathes as the kit states until you have enough experience to know how much extract to add.

Carbonation depends on the temperature of the beer but in most cases your beer will have carbonation in 24 to 36 hours. That doesn't mean it will be ready to drink then and opening the bottles too soon will likely cause your beer to gush. Letting the beer have more time will settle out the yeast and mature a bit. I'd recommend that you leave the beer for at least 2 weeks before sampling and longer will likely improve any beer.

Your porter may need more time. I've found quite a change in my porters between 3 weeks and 3 months and I really prefer the 3 to 6 month porters. Lighter beers mature faster. In about 2 weeks your Cervesa and Black Dog will be pretty good, better at weeks 3 and 4 but not much change after that.

I've seen reports that a sugar cube per bottle works well for carbonation. However, I prefer batch priming. Here's what I use for a priming calculator. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html Add the priming sugar to a pint of water that is boiling, stir it in and add it to the bottling bucket. Siphon the beer onto it, then give it a gentle stir to ensure mixing but don't mix in air if you can avoid it.

 

[PADave]

You can play around with this for how much to add to boost abv:

brewersfriend.com

Here's the three calculators that I use for figuring priming sugar:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator
http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

Priming by the batch or bottle makes no difference. Both ways you are adding more sugar for the yeast to eat.

 

[ronb454]

Many brewers seem to want to up the ABV of a kit. It wouldn't hurt much to add a little dry extract but adding too much will upset the alcohol to bitterness ratio. I'd suggest brewing the bathes as the kit states until you have enough experience to know how much extract to add.

Carbonation depends on the temperature of the beer but in most cases your beer will have carbonation in 24 to 36 hours. That doesn't mean it will be ready to drink then and opening the bottles too soon will likely cause your beer to gush. Letting the beer have more time will settle out the yeast and mature a bit. I'd recommend that you leave the beer for at least 2 weeks before sampling and longer will likely improve any beer.

Your porter may need more time. I've found quite a change in my porters between 3 weeks and 3 months and I really prefer the 3 to 6 month porters. Lighter beers mature faster. In about 2 weeks your Cervesa and Black Dog will be pretty good, better at weeks 3 and 4 but not much change after that.

I've seen reports that a sugar cube per bottle works well for carbonation. However, I prefer batch priming. Here's what I use for a priming calculator. http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html Add the priming sugar to a pint of water that is boiling, stir it in and add it to the bottling bucket. Siphon the beer onto it, then give it a gentle stir to ensure mixing but don't mix in air if you can avoid it.

I do want to up the abv, Most of these kits out of the box are under 4% unless I order their boosters. I can use several other additives to boost the alcohol. I just don't know how much of whatever does what. I know Dextrose raises the abv and does not change the flavor much. Malt extract will make it taste less hoppy, which to me is not bad. But I do not want to eliminate the hop effect. But if it is lowered a bit I am ok with that.

I will see what I can find on that subject.
Thanks for the help.

 

[ronb454]

You can play around with this for how much to add to boost abv:

brewersfriend.com

Here's the three calculators that I use for figuring priming sugar:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator
http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

Priming by the batch or bottle makes no difference. Both ways you are adding more sugar for the yeast to eat.

Thanks. I will give the links a look.

 

[max384]

Ron, I agree with RM-MN about increasing alcohol. Recipes are designed to be balanced. First off, a recipe is going to depend upon the style. Once you figure out the style, you will need to build it to roughly fit into the style guidelines. You also must make sure it is a balanced recipe (or purposely unbalanced in some cases). What I mean by this is that if you just increase the ABV, you may be left with too little malt and bitterness to balance it out, and it may end up tasting like paint thinner. OTOH, if you decided that you want to increase the malt characteristic of the final beer, but don't increase anything else, you may end up with a cloyingly sweet beer without enough bitterness to balance it out.

That being said, if you do decide you want to increase ABV regardless, try not to go overboard. Increase it by a percent or so. Unless I'm purposefully trying to dry out a beer, I try to avoid increasing ABV by adding sugar (whether that be corn sugar, table sugar, etc.), as that will lower the FG, which often times doesn't work well with the original intent of the beer (unless we're talking a saison or something).

Use beer recipe software to help you adjust your recipe so that you're not blindly making changes.

The best of the best is Beersmith. You have to buy it, but there is a 21 day free trial. I can nearly guarantee you that after you download it and use it, you'll gladly pay the modest amount they charge for the full version.

If you don't want to spend money on software, there are a few free web-based programs

Brewtoad This one is free to design recipes, but I guess there is some paid content. This is new since I last used it, so I'm not entirely sure. This works well enough, but is missing a lot of the features of Beersmith, and some of their calculations are a bit off.

Brewer's Friend I've never used this one, but their other calculators are good.

Brew Target I've never used this one, but it looks pretty good.

 

[ronb454]

Thanks for the links. I am mostly experimenting here and I want to do one improvement/addition at a time. I have added some fermentables in small amounts but the abv did not change nor did the flavors that I could tell. Now I want to boost the abv by about 3% to see what it tastes like. I need a chart to say this or that added will boost the ABV by .xx%. I found what I need on the Midwest Supplies site, posted in another forum. I will experiment with the flavor hops and other stuff on the next go around. I need to know what each step will do to my beer but I won't know anything until I taste it. (And if the taste sucks I have many "friends" who will happily help me slug it down)

 

[jrcrilly]

I just don't know how much of whatever does what.

One pound of DME in five gallons of wort will boost abv by about 1 percentage point. It will goof up the balance, but not by a huge amount. Adding greater quantities of DME will further distort the balance, probably by too much

 

[ronb454]

One pound of DME in five gallons of wort will boost abv by about 1 percentage point. It will goof up the balance, but not by a huge amount. Adding greater quantities of DME will further distort the balance, probably by too much

That's what I need to find out. I have never added a lot of dex or dry malt to any of my batches so as long as they tasted ok and I liked it I know I need to add more whatever. But that balancing act has to have a +/- starting point that will say...this is good, this is ok, or this sucks...call the neighbor. You just gave me a good place to start.

Not being extremely experienced in this (not a raw beginner but I have not brewed for a few years and at 66 I am becoming forgetful) I need to rely on others to give me a place to start.

When I brewed the Mexican Cerveza I used a cup of dme and a cup of dex.

In the Black Dog I just dumped in 2# medium dme. The Black dog is the first time I ever went over a pound. I tasted both before bottling and even w/o any carbonation they were very tasty. And both according to Midwest should have been tossed and replaced because they were over 2 years old.

I don't waste anything so I brewed them and so far, I am glad I did. I think with the amounts I added to these, they will be good. They may not raise the abv a lot but the 2# of dme may change the Black Dog's flavor.

However, if it is as good after it carbs up as it was all flat in the secondary...I will drink it slow and hide it from intruders.

 

[max384]

Thanks for the links. I am mostly experimenting here and I want to do one improvement/addition at a time. I have added some fermentables in small amounts but the abv did not change nor did the flavors that I could tell. Now I want to boost the abv by about 3% to see what it tastes like. I need a chart to say this or that added will boost the ABV by .xx%. I found what I need on the Midwest Supplies site, posted in another forum. I will experiment with the flavor hops and other stuff on the next go around. I need to know what each step will do to my beer but I won't know anything until I taste it. (And if the taste sucks I have many "friends" who will happily help me slug it down)

The reason I posted the links was so that you could plug in the kit recipe, and then add different ingredients, and it will tell you exactly how much they will affect the ABV (and other parameters).

Trust me when I tell you this is a much better way to do it than trying to find a chart and add things up. You can dial in the recipe to hit whatever ABV you're targeting. It takes a little bit of time to get used to the software, but once you do, it's worth it.



I think you said your boxed kit was under 4%. Increasing that by 3% will be unlikely to result in positive results if you don't change anything else (but who knows, it could also be great!)... But even if it doesn't taste great, it will still be drinkable, and you'll certainly learn from it!

 

[ronb454]

Just haven't got a chance to give them a workout yet

 

[PADave]

Instead of using a kit or whatever you are using and just adding sugar to increase the abv, why don't you just buy the ingredients and brew a bigger beer? There are a ton of recipes listed here that will get you where you want to be.

 

[ronb454]

Instead of using a kit or whatever you are using and just adding sugar to increase the abv, why don't you just buy the ingredients and brew a bigger beer? There are a ton of recipes listed here that will get you where you want to be.

The beers I like do not come with ingredients to make it "bigger." That is why I make them bigger.

 

[PADave]

The beers I like do not come with ingredients to make it "bigger." That is why I make them bigger.

I don't think you follow what I'm saying. Instead of buying a kit, find a recipe of the style that you like, buy all the ingredients separate, and brew. What kind of beer do you like? I will find you a "big" version of it for an example.

 

[ronb454]

I get ya. I will look in to it. Good idea.

Thanks