I'm making my 1st beer from a kit. There's not much to the instructions so I'm guessing this must be easy. I've been making wine for about 1 year. I'm wondering if I've already messed up on the beer. I put a lid with an airlock on the primary fermenting bucket. I started the beer yesterday & the airlock started bubbling immediately. Tonite it has really slowed down. I was planning to transfer the beer to a secondary carboy with an airlock tomorrow & let it go for a few days before bottling. Any recommendations?
1st beer kit
- Thread starter elkayr
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As long as it has slowed you should be good. I'm guessing your referring to putting the lid and airlock on the beer compared to just covering the wine for 24hrs? Anyway when you take the lid off if you can see on the side of the bucket where the krausen has dropped you should be fine to transfer. If you still have a big head on your beer I would not transfer, sometimes with those buckets the lid could not be sealed good, or leaking letting the CO2 out of the lid instead of the airlock. at room temp an average beer 4 or 5 days it should be dropped but I have had those miricle beers finish overnight. Good Luck Keep everything clean you will be rewarded in the end...Good Luck
let it sit at least a week in primary before transferring to secondary. no sense in rushing it. really you should take a specific gravity reading before you transfer so you know it's finished fermenting.
Ok thanks for all the input. My starting SG on 7-1 was 1.046. I checked it today & it's 1.018. So I'll leave in primary for the week as suggested. Can you calculate alcohol just like you do with wine? If so, this is about 4% rignt now?
3.6 % ABV right now, probably still a little ways to go, depending on your recipe. You're only at 59% attenuated and depending on your recipe and the yeast you used, you could probably expect more like 75% which would be around 1.011.
ABV is calculated by this way: (OG-FG) x .131
Most people recommend the 1-2-3 method; 1 week primary, 2 week secondary, 3 weeks in bottles. The secondary term in beermaking is really a misnomer- since no fermentation should actually be taking place. It should be called the "clearing tank" since that is when the beer is aging a bit, letting the spent yeast flocculate and the trub fall out. I know making wine is a bit different and there is actually fermentation taking place in the secondary with wine. All the fermentation should be done in the primary with beer, and the fg should be reached before transfer.
If you're a winemaker, you already know about patience! I starting making beer about 15 months ago, after finding out that beer is so much faster than wine! Six weeks (more or less) for beer vs. six months (usually alot more!) for wine. No contest for me!
ABV is calculated by this way: (OG-FG) x .131
Most people recommend the 1-2-3 method; 1 week primary, 2 week secondary, 3 weeks in bottles. The secondary term in beermaking is really a misnomer- since no fermentation should actually be taking place. It should be called the "clearing tank" since that is when the beer is aging a bit, letting the spent yeast flocculate and the trub fall out. I know making wine is a bit different and there is actually fermentation taking place in the secondary with wine. All the fermentation should be done in the primary with beer, and the fg should be reached before transfer.
If you're a winemaker, you already know about patience! I starting making beer about 15 months ago, after finding out that beer is so much faster than wine! Six weeks (more or less) for beer vs. six months (usually alot more!) for wine. No contest for me!
your calculations are accurate almost 4%. it needs some more time 1.018 is too high for the OG (only 61% attenuation)
the best way to do it is when you think it is done (after a week or more) take a reading every day for several days. if the reading doesn't change, youre done fermenting
this is assuming it's gotten down far enough...at 1.014 yours would be at 70% attenuation, but i'd expect it will get down even further.
EDIT: Yooper beat me to the post!
here is a little spreadsheet i made for calculating ABV and Attenuation. you may find it comes in handy: ABV Calculator
the best way to do it is when you think it is done (after a week or more) take a reading every day for several days. if the reading doesn't change, youre done fermenting
this is assuming it's gotten down far enough...at 1.014 yours would be at 70% attenuation, but i'd expect it will get down even further.
EDIT: Yooper beat me to the post!
here is a little spreadsheet i made for calculating ABV and Attenuation. you may find it comes in handy: ABV Calculator
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