New brewer - Questions need answering!

Hi there! I brewed my first batch of blonde pale ale about 6 weeks ago using a recipe from the local brew shop. Turned out really nice despite how basic the recipe was (100g Amarillo hops, 1.5kg light malt extract, 500g light pale malt powder, and 1kg sugar).
However, when I first tested my 'completed' ale, it was cloudy and tasted yeast. Does that mean it hadn't finished fermenting? Or had I perhaps disturbed the product by accidentally nudging the barrel? Had another pint from the same barrel a few days later, and it wasn't cloudy, and tasted lovely! - What's the difference?

I also tried to bottle the beer after I (thought I had) finished fermenting, adding 1/2 teaspoon of sugar per bottle (as the recipe said), but the end product is still cloudy and yeasty, and also explodes when I open a bottle. Why?


Now I've bought ingredients for my 2nd brew, just altering the original recipe I had! I've added an extra hop (so now I've got 100g each of Amarillo and Nelson Sauvin), and I've changed the light malt powder to a 'spray dried light hopped malt' too. I'm not sure when to add specific hops or anything, or if I'll need more, or how much to use in total. Don't know much about alpha acid content, etc. either - was never good with chemistry! All I know is that I'm hoping to create a nice hoppy, fruity ale in the vein of Thornbridges, Jaipur, Kipling, and Wild Swan (to name a few).
Any thoughts, ideas, etc.?

Thanks!

 

The difference is time. When you make beer the activity of the yeast as they eat sugars and excrete alcohol and CO2 stirs up the contents of the fermenter. CO2 is soluble in water but the yeast produce way more than what the water can hold. Some of that goes out the airlock but some remains in the beer and will outgas over time which keeps the beer stirred up. With more time that outgassing slows and the yeast, hops, and any break material will settle out and the beer will become clearer.

When you bottle beer you add sugar so the yeast will make more CO2. When they do that they stir up the beer again. Now you have lots of nucleation points for the CO2 to come out of solution and when you open the bottle and release the pressure the CO2 bubbles out a lot causing your beer to erupt out of the bottles. With more time the yeast will settle out and the beer will no longer erupt (this can still happen if you have too much sugar in the bottle and get over carbonation).

Now is the time to get a hydrometer to check that your beer is done fermenting before you bottle. Leave your beer in the fermenter until two successive readings taken 2 days apart match exactly. That is the only sure way to determine if the beer is done fermenting.

For the most certain way to get the right amount of sugar for carbonation you would rack the beer off the trub to a bottling bucket and carefully weigh the sugar because the amount of sugar can be different done by measuring depending on how packed it it. Mix it in by dissolving the sugar in water, dump it into the bottling bucket and rack the beer onto it, being careful not to let it splash. Once bottled and capped, let the beer sit for at least a week, preferably 3 weeks to allow the yeast to settle out again.

 

No need to beat a dead horse, RM-MN covered everything nicely.

The only think I'd suggest in line with what he said is when you bottle, do as he suggested and rack the beer on top of the sugar/water mix in a bottling bucket. Every 5-6 bottles that you fill, give the beer a GENTLE stir with a sanitized spoon to ensure even mix of beer/sugar. When I say gentle, you just want a little swirl in there, you don't want to go crazy.

The danger if you are not completely fermented out is you get bottle bombs - bottles that randomly explode from having too much pressure built up inside. The hydrometer is the other important part of brewing. This is the only real way to know if you're done fermenting or not.

Welcome to the hobby!