Early Thanks

[TheBrahmanBrewer]

I have been avid user of this forum and recently took the plunge in brewing my own beer. I started with a Red Ale and Kingfisher (Indian Beer) Lager. It was because of these forums that I dared to make a lager at the first attempt. The reason for early thanks is that I am 10 days into primary fermenting and both batches are done. I hit the desired FGs and took a sample out of the two batches. I cannot believe how good both batches come out at 10 days and hopefully with time and process it will only get better. My attempt to make Kingfisher was ambitious and wanted to create a blend of that beer and Heineken. I seem to have got the flavor profile on the dot.

Beer is still very cloudy right now, but I assume that's normal at this stage. I'll post any and all updates.

cheers!

 

[454k30]

the cloudiness is normal even though you hit a target FG. Let it sit for a while. I never start bottling or kegging until the beer begins or has already clarified. Even when it looks clear there is still plenty of suspended yeast to bottle carb. I even left a porter in the secondary for two months and it still carbed up just fine. Congrats on your first beers. Lagers are more intimadating before you brew one. Really it's just brewing with much lower temps. Make sure you let that lager, lager, for a while. They will taste very good right away but after lagering the flavor profile really jumps out at you. Enjoy!

 

[jonnyp1980]

cold crashing does wonders to clear up your beer...glad youre enjoying the brews..keep us posted on how it turns out

 

[TheBrahmanBrewer]

thanks jonny, i cold crashed the red ale yesterday and am leaving out the lager for the next couple of days while this one is done cold crashing. i'll move the lager to the secondary and put in the fridge for the next month or so. I am planning to bottle the red ale this weekend. I'll report back how my red ale turned out in about 3-4 weeks. ;-) thanks all.

 

[TheBrahmanBrewer]

thanks for the tips 454k30...i plan to lager for about 1 month as per the recipe. bottle condition then for almost 3 weeks. this lager has an insane kick to it because i took a 6 gallon recipe and made 5 gallons out of it. it will be an easy 7.5% lager. I'll report back towards mid-August on lager.

 

[TheBrahmanBrewer]

Updates:

Red Ale - So after 8 days of bottle conditioning at 75F in the closet, I was tempted to try one out last night. I chilled it prior to opening. Without bragging too much about the brew, I have to say that this is one of the best red ales I have tasted in a while...haha...talk about bragging. We brewed this out of a kit, but seriously modified the recipe. Added extra hops, malts, rice, etc. This is a 6 to 6.5% ABV beer. I will let it condition for at least 4 more days and test it again, since I feel that carbonation is only 60-70% of the desired level with very little head. The clarity of the beer is amazing thanks to cold crashing. The bottle looked even more clear than what you see in the attached pic. I definitely poured it the wrong way.

Lager - It's been sitting in the fridge for 8 days at 38-40F and will stay there for another 20 days at the least. I plan to bottle towards the end of the month and then condition for 2-3 weeks and drink towards end of August to celebrate the end of the summer. ;-)

Once again, much gratitude to all who contribute to this forum. As I get more experienced, I shall do the same. I am encouraged to try and modify new recipes, but will stick all extract or partials for now. I am thinking of Dogfish head clone and Tea-Beer with some left over Munich malt I have.

 

[jonnyp1980]

Looks great. Thanks for the updates