Hi,
Three weeks ago I put down my first all grain pale ale, and it is still apparently doing something active.
Background info:
The day before brew day I made a start using the dregs from 6 bottles of Coopers Pale Ale and mixed it with 1 litre of water and 250 grams of light dry malt extract.
First mistake: On brew day I had an issue with my hot water urn which kept cutting out, which meant that it took over an hour to reaching a boil. Once the boild started and I got the hot break, the constant cutting out made me leave the urn on for 120 minutes instead of the 90 that I originally intended.
The second mistake I made was thinking that I could transfer the hot wort to my bottling bucket in the laundry sink and cool it down with tap water.
Turns out plastic tends to get all melty at high temperatures - a fact I realised as my racking cane warped into a bow.
So I ended up leaving it in the urn with the lid on until the next morning - around 14 hours.
It was only at this point that I pitched the yeast starter. I noticed that the surface looked like it had a very thin layer of white foam before I pitched the yeast - sort of like an under carbonated beer head, but did not smell bad.
The smell it did have was cooked corn, which some research has led me to believe is DMS. While I was not intending to have this smell in the beer, it is not overpowering, and after tasting a sample I decided I could probably drink it if it was carbonated so I decided to keep the beer.
Back to today:
Yesterday the airlock activity went down to one bubble every minute or so, so I moved the carboy from the sink to the bottling bench and took a hydrometer reading.
The reading I got before pitching the yeast was 1.036, and it was now 1.006 which if the Internet calculators are to be believed will result in a mid-strength beer of around 3.8% abv which is a bit lower than I hoped but good enough.
I noticed that after moving the carboy the airlock activity immediately increased to a bubble every 20 seconds or so.
Today took another reading and it appears to be at 1.006 still however it's still bubbling every 30 seconds or so.
I am wondering if I need to leave this for longer, or should I take the chance and bottle it?
If you have read all that, then thank you.
Three weeks ago I put down my first all grain pale ale, and it is still apparently doing something active.
Background info:
The day before brew day I made a start using the dregs from 6 bottles of Coopers Pale Ale and mixed it with 1 litre of water and 250 grams of light dry malt extract.
First mistake: On brew day I had an issue with my hot water urn which kept cutting out, which meant that it took over an hour to reaching a boil. Once the boild started and I got the hot break, the constant cutting out made me leave the urn on for 120 minutes instead of the 90 that I originally intended.
The second mistake I made was thinking that I could transfer the hot wort to my bottling bucket in the laundry sink and cool it down with tap water.
Turns out plastic tends to get all melty at high temperatures - a fact I realised as my racking cane warped into a bow.
So I ended up leaving it in the urn with the lid on until the next morning - around 14 hours.
It was only at this point that I pitched the yeast starter. I noticed that the surface looked like it had a very thin layer of white foam before I pitched the yeast - sort of like an under carbonated beer head, but did not smell bad.
The smell it did have was cooked corn, which some research has led me to believe is DMS. While I was not intending to have this smell in the beer, it is not overpowering, and after tasting a sample I decided I could probably drink it if it was carbonated so I decided to keep the beer.
Back to today:
Yesterday the airlock activity went down to one bubble every minute or so, so I moved the carboy from the sink to the bottling bench and took a hydrometer reading.
The reading I got before pitching the yeast was 1.036, and it was now 1.006 which if the Internet calculators are to be believed will result in a mid-strength beer of around 3.8% abv which is a bit lower than I hoped but good enough.
I noticed that after moving the carboy the airlock activity immediately increased to a bubble every 20 seconds or so.
Today took another reading and it appears to be at 1.006 still however it's still bubbling every 30 seconds or so.
I am wondering if I need to leave this for longer, or should I take the chance and bottle it?
If you have read all that, then thank you.
