7Enigma
Well-Known Member
A bottle of rubbing alcohol also is a great thing to keep around. It's basically no-rinse because it will evaporate very quickly and should help to santize many different surfaces (and important pieces in a pinch).
A bottle of rubbing alcohol also is a great thing to keep around. It's basically no-rinse because it will evaporate very quickly and should help to santize many different surfaces (and important pieces in a pinch).
Safety
Isopropyl alcohol is oxidized by the liver into acetone. Symptoms of isopropyl alcohol poisoning include flushing, headache, dizziness, CNS depression, nausea, vomiting, anesthesia, and coma. Use in well-ventilated areas and use protective gloves while using. Poisoning can occur from ingestion, inhalation, or absorption.
Long term application to the skin can cause defatting.
Good idea...but you must sanitize the spigot before you use it to drain out the beer....If it sits in water for a week, lord knows what could happen (next time sanitize the spigot, a small plastic baggie, and a couple of rubberbands. Before you put it in the water bath wrap the spigot in the baggie and seal with the rubberbands....then when you're ready, carefully dry off the baggie and remove it...(I'd still probably re sanitize the spigot after anyway.)
Getting some iodophor or starsan (the best 2 no-rinse sanitizers), a spray bottle and some distilled water is a good thing for any brewer to have.
After you remove the fermenter from the bath, dry it off thoroughly then spray it all over with sanitizer...pay particular attention to the inside front of the spigot-the part that sat in the water.
I've always been a little leary about using isopropyl alcohol around stuff that's being ingested. I'm sure in small amounts it would be ok, but I wouldn't personally sanitize my bottles or anything like that with them. I've used it around the lips of flasks, or bottles I'm harvesting yeast from, in a pinch, but I keep a spray bottle of iodophor handy for most surfaces and stuff (including my hands.)
Maybe some vodka or other consumable alchohol would be better.
More flat beer! I've got two more batches in bottles since my previous two 'flat' batches. I primed these the same way: batch prime with 1/3 cup corn sugar. I fermented for 3 weeks and they have been in the bottle for 4 weeks. I refrigerated one beer (American Devil IPA) for a couple days and tried it last night. No head at all and only a little carbonation. Bottles are hard. Am I not using enough sugar for priming or could it be something else? The first few batches I made, I primed directly in the bottle with regular table sugar and they carbonated fine. I've only had this problem since I started batch priming. Can I take the tops off and add more sugar at this point? I need to figure out what the problem is as I've got two more batches ready to bottle. I'm thinking about priming directly in the bottle again. Maybe one batch with corn sugar and the other with table sugar. If there's anything you can suggest to help make my current bottled batches better, I'd appreciate it. I'm starting to get frustrated after 4 dismal batches. One thing I did last night is to lightly shake up all the bottles.It's really really hard to ruin beer...and blowoffs happen all the time...If the beer has flavor and doesn't make you hurl, then it's not ruined, it's just under carbed still.
Ifyou've chilled all of them, then you've pretty much locked them into their carbonation level, for the most part, since you've cold crashed the yeast.
The Cranberry my be becasue it is fruit and needs longer to bottle condition...I don't know what's in the Jamaican, but if it's a "heavier" beer it may need longer as well....If you haven't chilled all of them, then I lay the bottles on their side and roll them back and forth to re-rouse the yeast and shove them back in a warm place for a few more weeks, this should kick up fermentation again to kick up the carbonation....
That sounds like a bit less than I use (AHS kits I think use at least 1/2 cup), but this is the question that will tell the story; when you crack the bottle do you get a hiss (not just from one bottle but all the ones you've opened so far)? It doesn't matter if the beer is not carbonated, you need to know if there is CO2 production. So when you crack it, if you don't get a hiss my first thought would be potentially dead yeast from say chlorine bleach. What is your sanitizer?
Other thoughts would be improper mixing of the priming sugar. Normally I gently mix the beer once in the bottling bucket to be sure the sugar is evenly mixed, otherwise you'll get some bombs and some duds.
But if I had to put $5 on the cause I'd say too little priming sugar.
Only a very slight hiss when opening a bottle. The first few batches I ever made had a good hiss and were carbed very well. These were primed individually in the bottle with regular table sugar. And I only let them carb for two weeks. Anyway I thought I would improve my beer by batch priming. Here's what I do: mix 1/3 cup corn sugar with 3/4 cup water. Boil this mixture and pour into a 2 gallon water jug I bought at Wal-Mart. I then attach a piece of hose to my Mr. Beer fermenter and rake the beer into the water jug. The other end of the hose is at the bottom of the water jug so it doesn't splash at all. I don't stir the beer at all in the water jug. I assumed it mixed well enough on its own. Then I bottle straight from the spigot of the water jug. I've been using 16 ounce PET bottles (used Pepsi bottles). I usually put the bottles in a closet for several weeks. They do get hard. I use the one-step sanitizer that comes with the Mr. Beer kits. I think I came up with the 1/3 cup sugar based on the measurements recommended in the Mr. Beer book. It says 1 teaspoon for a 16 oz bottle which comes out to 1/3 cup for 16 bottles. However, the first few batches that I primed individually in the bottles, I used 1.1/4 teaspoons per bottle. This is almost 1/2 cup for 16 bottles. There are a couple reasons I did this. One is that they recommend 2.1/2 teaspoons for their 1 liter bottles which is 32 ounces so I figured I would use half that amount. The other reason is because the measuring scoop they sent me is made for 1.1/4 teaspoons . I did bottle a batch 10 days ago and used just under 1/2 cup instead of the 1/3 cup. I haven't opened one of them yet as I wanted to let it carb/condition at least another 10 days. Sorry to ramble on so much but I'd like to get this right. It's disappointing to make bad beer after making some pretty decent beer at first. I've also wondered if the used bottles and caps aren't sealing well enough. But I figure if this were the case, the bottles wouldn't be hard. Well thanks for your help.Whoops, forgot what forum this was under. So yeah sounds like you had the right amount of sugar. But it's the hiss noise I'm interested in mmc commenting on. While it may take a long time to carb the beer (CO2 dissolved in the beer), the yeast should consume the sugar in a week or two so at least there should be a nice hiss when opened.
I don't pour it in the bottling bucket while it is boiling hot. I let it cool off for about 5 minutes or so first.Rambling is fine. Just put a few blank lines between the paragraphs, so we can follow.
you got the proper Batch priming procedure going...Except do you cool the priming mixture a bot before you pour it in? Or do you pour the boiling liquid in with the beer?
If you are not cooling it, you may be shocking or killing the yeasties...
I don't pour it in the bottling bucket while it is boiling hot. I let it cool off for about 5 minutes or so first.
I thought about that. The batch I bottled 10 days ago, I used all new tops. But I also used more priming sugar. So if it carbonates, I won't know if it was the tops or the additional sugar!I dunno...Have you done the "roll the bottles to agitate the yeast" trick?
Waitaminute....you're using used pepsi bottles? Have you replaced the bottle tops or are you re-using them too? I'm just wondering if it's the seals on the bottles....I know that the 22 ounce mr beer bottles say you can reuse the tops But I'm wondering if the tops/seals on the pepsi bottles aren't re-usable...
What do you think about opening a few of the bottles that have been carbonating/conditioning for 4 weeks now and adding a little more sugar? I've already 'agitated' them again a few days ago.
But, after three and a half liters of the stuff I can say for sure that they have got a good amount of alcohol.
Thanks for all the advice,
Kornbread
Just finished brewing my new batch(#2)last Wednesday,
Dang it smelt good when I was brewing ! can't wait to try it .
Heres the recipe
1 can Octoberfet Vienna Lager
1 can Mellow Amber UME
1 cup of honey
1/2 tsp. cinnamin (ground)
1/8 tsp. cloves (ground)
and a dash of vanilla exract
looks to be about 5.5% abv.
QUOTE]
Jeffrey, how long until you try it? Sounds good, and I have a can of OVL that I have been trying to figure out how to use. Even thought about trying to trade with someone for a can of West Coast Pale Ale, but this recipe looks good!
on the AG brewing, I don't understand the part about rubber-banding the bag. What are you doing exactly? You want to get the grain in the cooler with warm water, right?
I'm just keeping the bag from falling inside the cooler, and keeping the bag open so I can stir the mash every now and then with my paddle.
Then at the end of the mash you dump it in so it goes through the strainer and out the spigot?
Forgive me for being slow here, I've never done All Grain, but I'm looking at your photo and I see what looks like a plastic bag in the cooler holding the grain, which wouldn't act as a very good tea bag! So what have I missed here?
does this
http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_...& Coolers&psid=FROOGLE&sid=KDx20070926x00003a
look like it would do the job?
Update on my flat beer problem: quick answer is the corn sugar I've been using. For more details, read on. After 4 or 5 flat batches, I decided to go back to what worked for the first couple batches I made. Rather than batch priming with corn sugar, I primed each bottle individually. I did half with corn sugar and the other half with regular table sugar. I sampled these a few days ago. The bottle primed with regular table sugar had a good head and was well carbonated. The bottle primed with corn sugar had no head at all and was flat. It didn't taste bad or anything, it was just flat. I bought the corn sugar at the local home brew store. Any idea why it wouldn't carbonate the beer? At least I now know what the problem is. I'm bottling two batches tonight and will be using table sugar!I dunno...Have you done the "roll the bottles to agitate the yeast" trick?
Waitaminute....you're using used pepsi bottles? Have you replaced the bottle tops or are you re-using them too? I'm just wondering if it's the seals on the bottles....I know that the 22 ounce mr beer bottles say you can reuse the tops But I'm wondering if the tops/seals on the pepsi bottles aren't re-usable...
Update on my flat beer problem: quick answer is the corn sugar I've been using. For more details, read on. After 4 or 5 flat batches, I decided to go back to what worked for the first couple batches I made. Rather than batch priming with corn sugar, I primed each bottle individually. I did half with corn sugar and the other half with regular table sugar. I sampled these a few days ago. The bottle primed with regular table sugar had a good head and was well carbonated. The bottle primed with corn sugar had no head at all and was flat. It didn't taste bad or anything, it was just flat. I bought the corn sugar at the local home brew store. Any idea why it wouldn't carbonate the beer? At least I now know what the problem is. I'm bottling two batches tonight and will be using table sugar!
I just purchased a Mr. Beer with a second fermenter.
I followed the first batch pretty much to the letter, to ensure that I understand exactly what the hell I'm doing.
My 2nd batch, I'm going to add 1lb of dried malt to the recipe.
This may sound incredibly idiotic, but the homebrew store 4 miles away has four different kinds of dried malt: light, amber, dark, extra dark.
I'm still using the malt extra syrups that come with the Mr. Beers....am I simply going to have to experiment with the dried malt extracts to see which gives the flavor I want?
Having said that when I buil an extract with grain recipe I usually always use extralight drymalt extract for my base malt...then I get my color and complex flavors from my steeping grains.
Hope this gives you an idea...
In my "inexperienced brewer" mindset, I think you said:
"If you don't know what the hell you're doing, use extra-light dry malt on your first go-around."
Point taken.
In my "inexperienced brewer" mindset, I think you said:
"If you don't know what the hell you're doing, use extra-light dry malt on your first go-around."
Point taken.
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