Bottling...

[jlg4398]

Hello fellow brewmeisters, I've waited a week to see see how well my first batch of beer turned out. I decided to open one after seven days to see if there is going to be over-carbonation. There is still some yeast in the bottom of the bottles.
I opened one slowly about a hour ago. When I first twisted the cap.....a good fizz. When I poured into a glass it didn't foam up as well as expected. The color is also a bit darker than I thought it should have been. However, the taste is really very good, very good!
I'm going to wait until next Thursday 27 to put more in the fridge. Then by Saturday they should be ready for consumption.

 

[kylegjohnson]

If LHBSes didn't push so much unnecessary stuff on the new brewer (airlocks, glass carboys), I'm sure we could actually convince these people to buy and use a damn hydrometer. Do nothing, nothing without a hydrometer. The sugar content of your wort and beer is the single most important variable in brewing.

How do I know what the final gravity should be?


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[fearwig]

Well, a good rule of thumb is that it should stay the same for about three days (so, at least two readings, three days apart). If for example it was 1.060 original gravity (OG) and it "ends" at 1.018 you should probably be skeptical, though--that's called a stuck fermentation. It's relatively rare. A typical final gravity (FG) for most American ale styles is about 1.010, depending on what you're fermenting and yeast strain.

 

[Croyzen]

Cleaning. Breaking. Heat tolerance. Expense. Glass is not a good intro fermenter, and if newbies would stop trying to interpret divine signals from airlocks and take a hydrometer reading, we'd never see another "NB IPA KIT IS IT DONE??" thread. Beer in primary will not spontaneously infect or oxidize when you sample it, sniff it or otherwise lift the lid in a sanitary way, and the sooner people get off that notion the more and better beer they'll make. I see more accidental pellicle porn from airlocked glass carboys than I do simple food safe buckets, anyway.

If one can't use a glass carboy correctly how about the hydrometer? They are a whole lot more fragile than a carboy. Airlocks are much more reliable using a carboy. The notorious bucket seal is where people get in trouble the vast majority of time. If we are focusing on "newbies" here they should know a hydrometer is not needed when doing their extract kit and checking OG provided they follow the recipe and pay attention to their top of volume. Assume the recipe gravity. In fact, the hydrometer normally leads to questions about why their extract kit gravity is too high or too low. In virtually all cases if the volume is correct, the wort and top up water are not mixed completely. A refractometer is less of a hassle and it's not difficult to simply enter a brix reading into an online calculator, beersmith, etc. That's why I brought it up. A new brewer takes the time and effort to learn to use the hydrometer, it's not a leap to learn how to use one. If a new brewer is strictly doing extract/steeping I wouldn't bother but once the decision is made to partial mash or all grain, it's a must have.

 

[fearwig]

OK, it's not about what they can use, it's about what they can use that both gives them a benefit and is worth the trouble. Glass carboys for primary meet neither criteria. Airlocks meet neither criteria. The main argument you have for using a glass carboy is that the airlock fits the neck. So, it is clear from your paragraph that you think most infections come from airborne bacteria, the only thing an airlock can actually help prevent. That's cool, some people think the Earth is flat. I can let them believe.

Basic microbiology and familiarity with general sanitation practices (as opposed to 1990s homebrew mythology) will tell you almost all infections are coming from direct contact or exposure to grain dust during handling, all of which support the use of a simple loose-fitting lid. The brewer can then focus on sanitation precautions that actually prevent infections.

Back to the point: Every new brewer should have a hydrometer and learn to use it. If they did, 99% of the most ridiculous questions we get would not have to be asked at all. I'm not just talking about OG, I'm talking about FG--knowing when your fermentation is truly done is arguably more important than knowing your actual OG, because having the wrong OG will just mean bad beer and bottling too soon will lead to exploding bottles. Now, if you want, you can say "refractometer" instead, and the principle is the same, but that adds about ten hoops for them to jump through, and suddenly it's not the best advice anymore.

 

[jlg4398]

Beside the fact I don't have a hydrometer, you think the monks of the seventeenth century had hydrometers?

 

[LandoLincoln]

Beside the fact I don't have a hydrometer, you think the monks of the seventeenth century had hydrometers?

The monks of the 17th century distributed beer from barrels. So if you're going to use mini oak barrels instead of glass bottles...please send me one, because that sounds pretty cool.

 

[jlg4398]

Thanx, I just bottle carefuly from the fermenting bucket. The beer I brewed then bottled March 7 has turned out quite well. I opened one last night after being bottled for one week and it tastes very good!

 

[fearwig]

Seventeenth-century monks brewed over, and over, and over again, made meticulous records, and had the benefit of hundreds or thousands of individuals' input. Frankly, a clever brewer of moderate experience and a reasonably delicate palate can probably get away without a hydrometer, because your taste buds make a pretty good hydrometer if you know what you're doing and what to adjust for mentally (fruity esters, etc). But when a fermentation gets stuck, they might still second guess themselves and wonder WTF to do, is it really stuck, did I mash too high, are my bottles going to explode, etc. And here a hydrometer is a light in the dark.

Anyway, point is, you're probably not a monk (going out on a limb here). And a new brewer is especially not a monk.

 

[morticaixavier]

Thanx, I just bottle carefuly from the fermenting bucket. The beer I brewed then bottled March 7 has turned out quite well. I opened one last night after being bottled for one week and it tastes very good!

Glad it turned out well. I was a lot less nervous for you when I found out you were using PET bottles. makes a big difference for sure.

 

[Croyzen]

OK, it's not about what they can use, it's about what they can use that both gives them a benefit and is worth the trouble. Glass carboys for primary meet neither criteria. Airlocks meet neither criteria. The main argument you have for using a glass carboy is that the airlock fits the neck. So, it is clear from your paragraph that you think most infections come from airborne bacteria, the only thing an airlock can actually help prevent. That's cool, some people think the Earth is flat. I can let them believe.

Basic microbiology and familiarity with general sanitation practices (as opposed to 1990s homebrew mythology) will tell you almost all infections are coming from direct contact or exposure to grain dust during handling, all of which support the use of a simple loose-fitting lid. The brewer can then focus on sanitation precautions that actually prevent infections.

Back to the point: Every new brewer should have a hydrometer and learn to use it. If they did, 99% of the most ridiculous questions we get would not have to be asked at all. I'm not just talking about OG, I'm talking about FG--knowing when your fermentation is truly done is arguably more important than knowing your actual OG, because having the wrong OG will just mean bad beer and bottling too soon will lead to exploding bottles. Now, if you want, you can say "refractometer" instead, and the principle is the same, but that adds about ten hoops for them to jump through, and suddenly it's not the best advice anymore.

How is a glass carboy not worth the trouble? Visually knowing what fermentation looks like is HUGE in understanding how the process works. I can look at a carboy and see high krausen. I can look at the carboy and see the krausen drop. I can look at the carboy and see the yeast begin to floc out. I can look at the carboy and see how much yeast/trub has settled at the bottom. After several batches it's very easy to recognize the pattern or when something is off which may warrant pulling that hydrometer out. Opening up the fermenter to get a reading to see if you've hit FG becomes a waste of beer. Add to that airlock activity that is fairly reliable in a carboy. And it's not clear from my paragraphs I think anything you are putting words in my mouth. It is clear from your comments that you feel using a carboy is a waste, when in fact it's a simple luxury to assist with understanding fermentation.

Please explain the hoops you need to jump through using a refractometer? Is it using a calculator that is too hard? Or multiplying by 4 for an estimate? It's easier to use than a hydrometer. List the 10 hoops. I'm all ears.

 

[fearwig]

You can obviously see the activity of the beer when you check on it in a bucket. After one or two batches I don't know what the hell you're looking at, either.

I don't think a carboy is a waste if you're willing to overlook all of its disadvantages. I think it is, as you say, a luxury (and from the sound of things, to you, a lava lamp), and that's not how you start a hobby unless you are simply looking for something to spend your money on. Most new brewers will make fewer than ten batches, I imagine--maybe fewer than three. And while the inflow of cheap second hand carboys that results is nice, it's not altogether a kind expense to push on the new brewer. Telling them they have to spend $40 on a glass carboy with a 2" neck that they then must clean dried krausen from with a 3' brush when they don't absolutely have to do any of those things is bad for them and bad for business, because if you give them enough hoops, eventually they're not going to stick it out.

But the key point was the hydrometer, right? I'm sorry I said "ten" when I meant "several", though, I can see that got you excited. However "multiplying by four for an estimate" is not how you get the SG of a beer that has already begun to ferment, and you know that. A new brewer needs a hydrometer. The rest of this conversation is obviously not as much about the subject at hand as it is about your emotional investment in your rig, which is, as I said, understandable and all, so we can leave it here.