How am I doing so far? When should I bottle?

My first post and beer brew. I sanitised the fermentor and all utensils with vwp. Boiled 1.6Kg of John Bull unhopped Diastatic LME in 4 litres of water for 15 mins. Cooled quickly in a water bath then added to filtered water already in the fermenter and topped up to 23L (5 UK gallons). My hydrometer said the SG was 1.02, which I thought was a little low, but hey what do I know
I had previously pitched the yeast (15g Coopers Brewery pure brewers yeast), covered it and it was foaming away nicely when i put it into the fermenter.

Anyway, snapped the lid on the fermentor and left it for 12 days (fierce bubbling was had). I then siphoned the beer 2cm from the bottom into 5 demijohns and put an airlock on each of them.

That was 3 days ago and not many bubbles seem to be coming out of the airlock, and the yeast has pretty much completely settled since siphoning as far as I can tell. So when can/should I bottle? I was planning on putting a half teaspoon of dextrose into each 330 ml bottle and 3/4 tsp into the 500ml bottles. Is this ok or should I put more or less?

Do yis recommend doing anything different than what I've done for future brews?

Thanks

Duvel said:

Do yis recommend doing anything different than what I've done for future brews?

Thanks

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maybe add some hops?

Heheh.. yeah I was planning that next time. My uncle made some nice ale with just DME so I didn't want to complicate it first time. I have no idea what to do with the hops however. I'm not a big fan of english bitter so didn't want to boil the hops really. How would you recommend using the hops to add flavour without making it too bitter?

Oh just thought of another question. Once I bottle it (still don't know when to do that btw) how long do I leave it before drinking?

Duvel said:

Heheh.. yeah I was planning that next time. My uncle made some nice ale with just DME so I didn't want to complicate it first time. I have no idea what to do with the hops however. I'm not a big fan of english bitter so didn't want to boil the hops really. How would you recommend using the hops to add flavour without making it too bitter?

Oh just thought of another question. Once I bottle it (still don't know when to do that btw) how long do I leave it before drinking?

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you can dry hop - this adds hop flavour without the bitterness. generally you'd let your wort ferment for a week in your fermenter, then rack it into a secondary fermenter (glass carboy) which has a hop sock with about 1oz of hops in it, leave that in for two weeks, then bottle.

as for your bottling question, usually one waits until you have a stead hydrometer reading to let you know the fermentation is complete, then bottle. unless you leave it to condition for a while in a secondary fermenter. as for when it's good to drink - I'm told it's at least two weeks after bottling - although I'm still waiting for my first batch to be done!

Cheers for that man.. Much appreciated, I'll defo do that.

The only place I could get the hops is from beersmugglers.com (they're based like 8 miles from me) as there are no homebrew shops in Dublin oddly. So should I get fuggles or goldings hops? Is there a difference?

Soz for all the questions..

Duvel said:

Cheers for that man.. Much appreciated, I'll defo do that.

The only place I could get the hops is from beersmugglers.com (they're based like 8 miles from me) as there are no homebrew shops in Dublin oddly. So should I get fuggles or goldings hops? Is there a difference?

Soz for all the questions..

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so yes there is a difference between all hops, primarily strains, where they're grown etc, but the major difference is in the bitterness they infer into the wort. this is known as the alpha acid unit contribution (AAU). one alpha acid unit is the amount of acid contained in 1oz of 1% alpha acid hops. eg. 2oz of fuggles hops with an alpha acid rating of 5% (2*5) has a total of 10AAU's. However, even among the same hops, you can large variations in the AAU of a hop, depending on the crop, for example you could have a fuggles crop yielding 5.2AAU one season and 6.1AAU the next. They will always be sold with this indicated on the packaging (or should be). The higher the number, the more 'hoppy'.

A quick down and dirty about using hops in the boil, building off what drvodka said:

Generally, hop additions at the beginning of the boil add bitterness, due to high utilization of the oils and compunds.

Additions at 30-20 minutes (remaining in a 60 minute boil) tend to add hop flavor.

Additions after 20 minutes (again, remaining in a 60 minute boil) tend to add hop aroma. The later you add them, the more aroma you'll get, and the less bitterness you'll extract from them.

They will all add bitterness, but the level of bitterness decreases the later you add them to the boil.

I mean no offense, but you ought to do some reading on the basics of brewing. Plenty of good books out there. A good online primer is www.howtobrew.com.

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

Sam75 said:

I mean no offense, but you ought to do some reading on the basics of brewing. Plenty of good books out there. A good online primer is www.howtobrew.com. Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

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I say that A lot!

homebrewer_99 said:

I say that A lot!

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It might sound funny, but I read Homebrewing for Dummies ($14 at barnes n noble) as my first ever brew book - I found it ridiculously easy to read while constantly reinforcing the key principles so that if you read it cover to cover (two days), it's almost impossible not to have learnt at least the basics that get you through your first brew. Plus it's got some half decent recipes in it as well. I'd recommend it to anyone. It's got three different sections for your level of expertise (newbie, intermediate and beer-geek) so everyone is covered.