beer machine?!?
- Thread starter ceezo
- Start date
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Green apple or sour?
In any case, I have one and it works fine when using normal ferment schedule. The super quick 10 day idea they recommend is not too good. Leave it for six weeks at 65-70 degrees. Then a week in the fridge. It takes 7 or 8 weeks for most beers to get done.
It will taste sort of like beer in this rig at two weeks....and it will be fully carbonated. But it is far from good tasting beer. You can let it ferment and age for the normal time. Beer needs to age.
In any case, I have one and it works fine when using normal ferment schedule. The super quick 10 day idea they recommend is not too good. Leave it for six weeks at 65-70 degrees. Then a week in the fridge. It takes 7 or 8 weeks for most beers to get done.
It will taste sort of like beer in this rig at two weeks....and it will be fully carbonated. But it is far from good tasting beer. You can let it ferment and age for the normal time. Beer needs to age.
Beers are rarely ready in 10 days. I would suggest you ferment the beer for about 3 weeks, add the priming sugar for carbonation and wait another 3 weeks at about 70 degrees then cool for 24 hours or more then try it.
BridgewaterBrewer
Well-Known Member
Agree 3 wks + 3wks works well. Even longer in the bottles will help depending on the type of beer.
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - Fermentis - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [1 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fVGNh6JfL._SL500_.jpg)
That's good news. Maybe it was stuck and you freed it up. So pour a little water on top and see if bubbles are flowing. And is the pressure running in the green zone?
Let's stop it from blowing up. The relief may have been installed wrong. If necessary, unscrew the cap and re-install the relief bubble per instructions.
It takes quite a bit of water on top to show bubbles. You could let it go a ways into the red zone. But don't let it sit on the maximum for any length of time. Hopefully it will bubble somewhere in the middle of red and then get broken in and drop to green.
To a limited extent, yes. I'd guess that fruit might not drop with all the carbonation present and could clog the tap.
If you are talking about dry hop - it worked fine for me but I did move it to secondary to get the hop particles to drop out.
When you let off the pressure at this point, it is gonna foam up big time. So let the pressure off a little at a time to avoid an overflow.
Did your pcv start working?
If you are talking about dry hop - it worked fine for me but I did move it to secondary to get the hop particles to drop out.
When you let off the pressure at this point, it is gonna foam up big time. So let the pressure off a little at a time to avoid an overflow.
Did your pcv start working?
This one is a bit different. It is intended for all functions - wort prep, fermenting, carbonating, and serving. Dry pre-hopped mixes (no boil) are the OEM offering, but any ordinary OG 2.5 gallon recipe can be loaded.
Tank pressure stays at about 5 or so psi after the ferment completes and uses small CO2 cartridges to keep the pressure up after serving some. Small enough to fit in the fridge.
[ame]http://youtu.be/_hjrpyygKgE[/ame]
I have not tried that yet. But I read here that lots of guys pitch new batches on top of the previous yeast cake when they do 5 gallon batches. I guess it works!
And you do not need to add more yeast. There is lots of yeast in there afterwards, much more than what you put in there the first time.
I have one here sitting on the kitchen counter that is at day 7 of the ferment. The pressure started rising overnight and it bubbled good for 4 days. I'm gonna leave it there for two more weeks and then put it in the fridge for 2 weeks. That's a similar schedule to the keggers. It might work, it might not.
Let me know how the tasting goes. I bottled the first batch with this machine after one week in the ferment. It was full of green apple flavors until it hit 6 weeks in the bottle....then - kapowie! It was awesome after that!!!
And you do not need to add more yeast. There is lots of yeast in there afterwards, much more than what you put in there the first time.
I have one here sitting on the kitchen counter that is at day 7 of the ferment. The pressure started rising overnight and it bubbled good for 4 days. I'm gonna leave it there for two more weeks and then put it in the fridge for 2 weeks. That's a similar schedule to the keggers. It might work, it might not.
Let me know how the tasting goes. I bottled the first batch with this machine after one week in the ferment. It was full of green apple flavors until it hit 6 weeks in the bottle....then - kapowie! It was awesome after that!!!
Here's the best instructions that I know of:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11.html
If you already know how to bottle for standard brewing, it is pretty much the same. You'll need to let off the carbonation pressure so that you can move the beer to a bottling bucket or carboy. That will take an hour or so. Do it slowly so that it doesn't overflow. You might do it the day before. It's pretty hard (and messy) to bottle when the beer is carbonated. You can transfer it to a carboy it will go flat in a day or two and be ready to bottle. A 3 gallon carboy works well.
And that article by Palmer goes a long way to explain things much better.
The Beer Machine is more like "mini-keg" than it is a fermenting bucket, for sure. Bottling is harder than normal since it is already carb'd. The bottling accessory for it does help a lot with bottling the carb'd beer, but it is a handful to use it.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11.html
If you already know how to bottle for standard brewing, it is pretty much the same. You'll need to let off the carbonation pressure so that you can move the beer to a bottling bucket or carboy. That will take an hour or so. Do it slowly so that it doesn't overflow. You might do it the day before. It's pretty hard (and messy) to bottle when the beer is carbonated. You can transfer it to a carboy it will go flat in a day or two and be ready to bottle. A 3 gallon carboy works well.
And that article by Palmer goes a long way to explain things much better.
The Beer Machine is more like "mini-keg" than it is a fermenting bucket, for sure. Bottling is harder than normal since it is already carb'd. The bottling accessory for it does help a lot with bottling the carb'd beer, but it is a handful to use it.
Ceezo - how about an update on that brew you did with your beer machine?
I let the APA mix brew on the kitchen counter for the last three weeks. Into the fridge tonight for some taste trials this weekend. I drew a warm sample into the tasting glass for the first time last night. Taste is pretty fair, hard for me to tell how good until it is cold. It is on the cloudy side and I hope that changes as it cold crashes. Natural carb is very impressive.
I let the APA mix brew on the kitchen counter for the last three weeks. Into the fridge tonight for some taste trials this weekend. I drew a warm sample into the tasting glass for the first time last night. Taste is pretty fair, hard for me to tell how good until it is cold. It is on the cloudy side and I hope that changes as it cold crashes. Natural carb is very impressive.
Continued.....
After refrigerating for 4 days, the tasting results from 3 tasters (other than myself) had the following to say.
Taster #1. It's good to go and was ready for more.
Taster #2. It's young and should have been aged some more.
Taster #3. Not my favorite. Boozy, flavor is off.
The carbonation after refrigeration was low. I added CO2 pressure each day to try to keep it in the middle blue zone, but each day it would drop to yellow. I'd guess that the relief valve is temperature sensitive and is weaker in the fridge compared to room temperature. At room temperature the relief holds indefinitely in the high blue zone.
The inability to hold pressure in the fridge appears to be a design flaw. Need to come up with a simple way to fix that.
After refrigerating for 4 days, the tasting results from 3 tasters (other than myself) had the following to say.
Taster #1. It's good to go and was ready for more.
Taster #2. It's young and should have been aged some more.
Taster #3. Not my favorite. Boozy, flavor is off.
The carbonation after refrigeration was low. I added CO2 pressure each day to try to keep it in the middle blue zone, but each day it would drop to yellow. I'd guess that the relief valve is temperature sensitive and is weaker in the fridge compared to room temperature. At room temperature the relief holds indefinitely in the high blue zone.
The inability to hold pressure in the fridge appears to be a design flaw. Need to come up with a simple way to fix that.
Continued 2...
To review, this Beer Machine APA mix was pitched, allowed to ferment for 19 days at room temperature, then chilled and tasted. It was young at that point, and when chilled the relief valve was not strong enough to hold good carbonation even with continued Co2 cartridge additions twice per day.
I let it ferment/condition for an additional 11 days at room temperature. Worth noting is that the relief valve does work "OK" at room temperature. It maintained pressure at 7 psi for the duration with just one blast from the cartridge.
I filled a growler at room temperature and chilled it for an hour. All carb was lost as it chilled.
Tasting side-by-side with Bud Light as a reference point, this home brew was aged well and without any off flavors. It is on the sweet side, and there is a slight bitter. It is a little too sweet to be a favorite for me, but I think that many would love it. Of course, without carb; things are skewed and it is likely even better when carb'ed.
I'll conclude a few things at this point for the Beer Machine:
1. There is no magic ultra speedy fermentation miracle here
2. The mix made a decent beer after aged for 4 weeks
3. There is a design flaw in the relief valve operation when chilled.
I'll add a feature to fix the relief valve so that it holds pressure when chilled. The next batch for it will be a BIAB APA.
To review, this Beer Machine APA mix was pitched, allowed to ferment for 19 days at room temperature, then chilled and tasted. It was young at that point, and when chilled the relief valve was not strong enough to hold good carbonation even with continued Co2 cartridge additions twice per day.
I let it ferment/condition for an additional 11 days at room temperature. Worth noting is that the relief valve does work "OK" at room temperature. It maintained pressure at 7 psi for the duration with just one blast from the cartridge.
I filled a growler at room temperature and chilled it for an hour. All carb was lost as it chilled.
Tasting side-by-side with Bud Light as a reference point, this home brew was aged well and without any off flavors. It is on the sweet side, and there is a slight bitter. It is a little too sweet to be a favorite for me, but I think that many would love it. Of course, without carb; things are skewed and it is likely even better when carb'ed.
I'll conclude a few things at this point for the Beer Machine:
1. There is no magic ultra speedy fermentation miracle here
2. The mix made a decent beer after aged for 4 weeks
3. There is a design flaw in the relief valve operation when chilled.
I'll add a feature to fix the relief valve so that it holds pressure when chilled. The next batch for it will be a BIAB APA.
Hey sorry i never got back to u been very busy. Anyway so my first batch came out bad. Idk what went wrong. I just started my second and i dont no why i cant keep the pressure under the red zone.i have tried messing with the rubber seal on the contole velve. I cant figure it out
RhodySeth
Well-Known Member
Hi all, first post, great site. Like others, I received the infamous Beer Machine for Christmas and once I started to do some research realized that this was not the ideal product for brewing. I found this site and began to scour the threads, looking for any glimmer of hope that this thing might produce a drinkable product.
This thread seemed to provide that hope.
So I'm bumping it in order to share my recent blog post about my Beer Machine adventures. I hope you enjoy laughing at my mistakes. One thing I will say is that just fumbling around with the Beer Machine ignited a passion for home brewing. I now realize that this is something I can actually do and I'm really looking forward to giving it another go with better products.
Have at it if you like: My Beer Machine blog.
This thread seemed to provide that hope.
So I'm bumping it in order to share my recent blog post about my Beer Machine adventures. I hope you enjoy laughing at my mistakes. One thing I will say is that just fumbling around with the Beer Machine ignited a passion for home brewing. I now realize that this is something I can actually do and I'm really looking forward to giving it another go with better products.
Have at it if you like: My Beer Machine blog.
