American displaced in France

[steveorbs06]

Hello all,

I am a US Navy Officer in France currently filling a 2 year post working with the French Navy. I recently bought a homebrew kit from brouwland.fr (very nice kit) and am trying my hand in brewing some brew. Unfortunately my first batch wasn't the best; taste is off and super cloudy. Also some of the little aroma beads got into the bottles.
I have bottled the beer and decided to let it ferment for a while longer (5 weeks in fermenter, and now almost one week in bottles) but the problem is the temperature is never going get above 70F. I assume this will be a problem?

Thanks for any lessons learned from wherever you call home.

 

[BargainFittings]

Welcome to a great hobby!

70F is fine for bottle conditioning ales.

What are aroma beads?

 

[PantherCity]

Aroma beads?

 

[Pdeezy]

What is your fermentation temp? 70F is a little high for fermentation, but is pretty much perfect for bottle carb/condition.

When fermenting you want the INTERNAL temp of your fermentor to be as close to 68F as possible. During the height of fermentation (first 72 hours) the INTERNAL temp can be up to 10 degrees higher than the ambient temp. So 70F ambiet could be up to 80F inside, which would definitely cause some off flavors.

Also you should leave them in the bottles for at least 2 weeks at room temp, then put the bottles in the fridge for a week before you start to drink them.

If you give us some more info we can probably tweak some more of your processes (aroma beads?), but temp control and proper conditioning/carbing time will be great strides towards making some good beer. Chances are your first try will be better than you think after you let it hang out at room temp for a few weeks.

EDIT: I got beat to the punch while typing. : (

 

[steveorbs06]

well, here is a description of the malt package I purchased:
Dark-blonde full-flavoured tripel with a fruity touch and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Alcohol : 7.2 vol. %. Bitterness : 27 EBU. Colour : 23 EBC. Original gravity : 1072. Makes a 10 litre batch

I only ended up getting about 8 litres of water after the hour long boil. There were two hops I put the first in at once the water boiled and the second hops, with the mysterious aroma beads, in 15 minutes prior to cooling down. The cooling down process took about 20 minutes. Next added the yeast, which was cooling in the fridge, and then left the beer untouched in the fermenting jug for 5 weeks. After that added table sugar, 1/3 cup with two cups boiling water, and switched to the bottling jug. Bottled approx. 29 bottles and put them in fridge for one day, then took them out after realizing my mistake; and they have been sitting every since. When I said 70 degrees I guess I meant it will never get that high here for room temperature, so I thought that would be a negative affect. But thanks for all the help and encouragement and I will just sit tight and watch the clear up, which it already looks like it is!

 

[gfyhard]

Hello all,

I am a US Navy Officer in France currently filling a 2 year post working with the French Navy. I recently bought a homebrew kit from brouwland.fr (very nice kit) and am trying my hand in brewing some brew. Unfortunately my first batch wasn't the best; taste is off and super cloudy. Also some of the little aroma beads got into the bottles.
I have bottled the beer and decided to let it ferment for a while longer (5 weeks in fermenter, and now almost one week in bottles) but the problem is the temperature is never going get above 70F. I assume this will be a problem?

Thanks for any lessons learned from wherever you call home.

I am displaced in France too originally from California, where are located, would be down to meet up for a beer?