A couple of newb-tastic questions

[travelingrant]

Hello all. First off, thanks for such a great and helpful forum. I've been finding good solid answers for weeks!

I've recently completed my first solo effort, a 60 Minute IPA clone. It's doing its thing in the fermentor and all seems well. But! It's been over a week (brewed March 24th) and the krausen has yet to fall. I've never had much airlock activity, but the bucket was designed to vent around the edges anyway so I've not worried about that. (Plus the nice inch and a half of foamy yeast cake told me that fermentation was ongoing.) I am a bit worried about knowing when to add my dry hops. My origami thought was two weeks for primary and secondary fermentation, then dry hop a week and then bottle. Does that sound reasonable?

My second question is about bottles. The online supply store I am using sells a great variety of plastic PET bottles for use with beer. I've never heard of this before, and am wondering what the benefits/ problems would be of plastic vs glass.

Thanks so much!

 

[SeraphX117]

first of...Congrats on your first solo brew! I don't know much about dry- hopping, but i know a bit about bottles.

PET bottles:

pro- no bottle bombs, inexpensive, can "squeeze check" to check on carbonation, can't break (by accident)

con: must rinse immediately after using (a brush could scratch the insides and leave places for bacteria to hide), people trust your beer less when in plastic bottles. (just bad presentation, idgaf) Some say you can't age beers in them because )O2 can get in through plastic.(i've never aged in PET so i can't say from exp.)

 

[Ogri]

Unless you managed to pitch exactly the ideal cell count of yeast for the volume and gravity of your wort, then kept fermentation temperatures controlled to within a degree or two of absolute optimum for your yeast, you might find it beneficial to leave the brew in the primary fermenter for three weeks. However, once you've established a stable FG over a period of about three days you could go ahead and bottle. Leave the bottles somewhere warm and dark, about 70f/20c for three weeks will see most average, or slightly heavier, ABV beers fully carbed and quite well conditioned. A few days in the fridge after that will help CO2 absorption into the beer and cive lasting carbonation and help head retention.

Plastic PET bottles are good for beginning with, although I still ALWAYS use some each batch I bottle after a year and a 1/2 of brewing, as well as glass, just so that you can monitor how carbonation is coming along. They won't generally go exploding on you though, like glass ones can, if you overdo your priming sugar, bottle before a stable gravity is reached or lack something in your sanitizing regimen that allows an infection to flourish.

Give it another week from now or slightly more, add the hops in your primary, then bottle after a 4 or 5 day dry hop.

 

[RM-MN]

Hello all. First off, thanks for such a great and helpful forum. I've been finding good solid answers for weeks!

I've recently completed my first solo effort, a 60 Minute IPA clone. It's doing its thing in the fermentor and all seems well. But! It's been over a week (brewed March 24th) and the krausen has yet to fall. I've never had much airlock activity, but the bucket was designed to vent around the edges anyway so I've not worried about that. (Plus the nice inch and a half of foamy yeast cake told me that fermentation was ongoing.) I am a bit worried about knowing when to add my dry hops. My origami thought was two weeks for primary and secondary fermentation, then dry hop a week and then bottle. Does that sound reasonable?

My second question is about bottles. The online supply store I am using sells a great variety of plastic PET bottles for use with beer. I've never heard of this before, and am wondering what the benefits/ problems would be of plastic vs glass.

Thanks so much!

When you get experienced enough that you can dictate to the yeast that they must follow the schedule you set, you can make plans like you have but most of us just forget the schedule and let the yeast do what they want when they want. Give the beer plenty of time in the primary fermenter and your beer will turn out better. If the krausen hasn't fallen in 2 weeks, then you might want to move the fermenter a little to encourage it to fall, then do your dry hopping.

 

[unionrdr]

When the beer hits a stable FG,give it another 3-7 days to clean up by products of fermentation & settle out clear or slightly misty. Then dry hop one week. I use muslin hop socks to contain the resulting grainy gunk from the pellets. One week always gives plenty of aroma to me.

 

[travelingrant]

Awesome. Thanks so much. I took a gravity reading, and plenty has changed since the original reading. I'll take another in a few days and see what, if anything, had changed then. I live in Japan, and this side of the world has yet to discover the glory of the IPA. So I am pretty eager to imbibe some hoppy goodness.

 

[Ogri]

Awesome. Thanks so much. I took a gravity reading, and plenty has changed since the original reading. I'll take another in a few days and see what, if anything, had changed then. I live in Japan, and this side of the world has yet to discover the glory of the IPA. So I am pretty eager to imbibe some hoppy goodness.

There are some pretty good craft breweries in Japan these days so the choice is getting a little better.

BTW, this thread has some good resources and should be quite useful for you