Festa Brew Cream Ale [emoji481]

[PapaGanj]

Started my first batch of beer! Thought it would be nice to start out with a kit, and ease into the passion if home craft beer.

Very pleased with how things are going so far with my kit. If you're not aware the Festa Brew kits come with 19L (I think) of brewers wort, ready to go. Just clean your equipment, add the wort to your primary, and pitch yeast! (Pretty hard to mess this one up)

I started mine yesterday evening around this time and it is going to town already.
Has a beautiful aroma to it. Very similar to Miller Genuine Draft.

Very excited to see how it turns out. And according to the instructions, it should be quite drinkable in about 5 weeks only. And as always, improves with age.

Does anyone have any experience with the time it should take to achieve a nice cream ale? How long in your opinions until it hits its sweet spot mellowing?

Also, I don't wanna start a riot on here, but the brew kit instructions say to rack to secondary after about 3 or 4 days. I've seen a lot of posts on craft beer forums kind of saying that, in fact that does more harm than good. (Oxidation, and added chance of contamination) What do you folk think about this?

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Also kind of separately, i picked up some Root Beer Extract. What are your thoughts on possibly adding a drop or two for some after taste, with this kind of ale. Thought it may be interesting, but again, what do you experts think. [emoji5]

Cheers and enjoy your weekend!

[emoji485][emoji485]

 

[RM-MN]

Does anyone have any experience with the time it should take to achieve a nice cream ale? How long in your opinions until it hits its sweet spot mellowing?

A lot of how good the beer becomes has to do with the temperature at which it is fermented. I've learned to start the fermentation cool (low to mid 60's) and after 5 to 7 days let it warm to low 70's. This limits the esters produced and creates a clean flavored beer. With that temperature management, my light colored beers are usually ready to bottle on day 10 but I often leave them longer as it lets more yeast settle out. I often also open a bottle at one week to see how the beer has progressed, knowing that it will get better from there. A cream ale will probably be at its sweet spot by the end of the third week. Darker beers and beers with higher alcohol content take longer, sometimes much longer. I expect my imperial stout to peak flavor at the end of the second year.

Also, I don't wanna start a riot on here, but the brew kit instructions say to rack to secondary after about 3 or 4 days. I've seen a lot of posts on craft beer forums kind of saying that, in fact that does more harm than good. (Oxidation, and added chance of contamination) What do you folk think about this?

Much of what we do as home brewers has been taken from commercial brewing and the idea that a beer needs to go to secondary is one that applies to commercial brewing but not to home brewing. I'd suggest you skip it unless you know why you should and have had experience to know how to do it to your advantage.

 

[PapaGanj]

Hey there! Thanks a lot for your reply. Thats a very good bit about temperature, as I thought I should aim for something like mid to high 60s - low 70s near the start. This brews been sitting at the higher end since start. So that's at least something good to know for my next batch.