Festa brew kit, first time brewer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Cracken

Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2020
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Hi there so I have never made beer before but I got a kit for my birthday and was given a Festa brew kit (Lager) I have had it in a pale with an airlock on it for going on 5 days here. The instructions say to transfer it into a carboy but I have been reading that I can just leave it in the pale and airlock for 14 days and then bottle. Is this okay to do or should I be doing the carboy thing? Also it says at the end of the instructions that I need to pour the beer into a glass so that the left over yeast is behind. Can I not just drink from the bottle?
 
Hi there so I have never made beer before but I got a kit for my birthday and was given a Festa brew kit (Lager) I have had it in a pale with an airlock on it for going on 5 days here. The instructions say to transfer it into a carboy but I have been reading that I can just leave it in the pale and airlock for 14 days and then bottle. Is this okay to do or should I be doing the carboy thing? Also it says at the end of the instructions that I need to pour the beer into a glass so that the left over yeast is behind. Can I not just drink from the bottle?

No need to transfer to a secondary, you risk oxidation and infection. I would leave it 14 days and take a gravity reading. If it's at your intended FG I would bottle.

You can drink it from the bottle but the yeast in there from the carbonation will be at the bottom and that's not good tasting. Pouring it into a glass and leaving a little behind with the leftover yeast is the best tasting option but to each their own.
 
No need to transfer to a secondary, you risk oxidation and infection. I would leave it 14 days and take a gravity reading. If it's at your intended FG I would bottle.

You can drink it from the bottle but the yeast in there from the carbonation will be at the bottom and that's not good tasting. Pouring it into a glass and leaving a little behind with the leftover yeast is the best tasting option but to each their own.
Thanks for your response! I will leave it in primary for 14 days but I didnt measure the gravity before fermentation, will i still be able to tell when its ready?
 
Thanks for your response! I will leave it in primary for 14 days but I didnt measure the gravity before fermentation, will i still be able to tell when its ready?

If you look at the instructions it should give you a SG and FG. Common sense says it should be done but you never know until you take that gravity reading.
 
To avoid bottle bombs, I always take a hydrometer sample 2 days before bottling, and again on bottling day. And if you're using a standard hydrometer, 3 days between samples is better than 2 days. I use a low range bottling hydrometer and can detect very small changes in gravity. If gravity is stable, I bottle. If it has dropped, it's not done. (It's almost always stable if I've waited 2 - 3 weeks.) Wait a few days and check again - bottle when gravity is stable.
Welcome to HBT.
 
Bottle snot is not very appetizing. Pour carefully and leave just a bit behind. You'll see the blob as you reach the end of the pour. Not the end of the world if some gets in there, but you want to keep it to a minimum.

Fermentation should be done after two weeks. I've never had one take longer, but until you get some brews under your belt to know what's up, take a reading. Don't forget to store those bottle some place cool, but not too cold. About fermentation temp should be fine.
 
Some of us like the taste of the yeast so we drink all the beer. Not everyone does like that taste. Try it both ways and see if you like the beer better drinking it from the bottle or from the glass after carefully pouring it. Then look up information about hefeweizen.
 
Thank you everyone for the replies, I am very excited to be apart of this group now and to make my first batch of beer. Was also wondering for the priming sugar at the end, can I just mix it in the hotwater and pour it directly into the pale and stir it? On the instructions it says to transfer all the beer into another pale but I shouldnt have to.
 
I always pour my home brewed beer into into a clear mug so I can appreciate the color and clarity (hopefully) of my creation. However, when I finish the mug I still drink the yeasty bit that remains in the bottle. That last bit looks about like Sam Adams Summer Ale (and tastes better).
 
Was also wondering for the priming sugar at the end, can I just mix it in the hotwater and pour it directly into the pale and stir it? On the instructions it says to transfer all the beer into another pale but I shouldnt have to.
Some brewers add the priming syrup to the fermenter and stir it up. The trick is stirring it without getting the trub mixed in with it, but still getting the sugar well distributed in the beer. If it's not mixed in well, some bottles will be overcarbonated - with possible bottle bombs. I haven't tried this method for that reason. The more common practice is to gently pour the priming syrup into the empty bottling bucket and racking the beer onto it. The end of the tube lays on the bottom, on a tangent with the bucket to swirl it. After that, some stir gently, and some just let the racking onto the syrup take care of mixing it in. I stir gently to be on the safe side.
 
Was also wondering for the priming sugar at the end, can I just mix it in the hotwater and pour it directly into the pale and stir it?
I usually mix up the priming sugar with enough water to dissolve it, boil for 5 minutes to sanitize anything in the water, then pour it into a bucket for bottling. When you move the beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket, you can let the beer swirl around to mix the priming sugar with the beer.

It makes for clearer beer when you finally get to drink it, stirring it into the fermenter will mix up all the gunk at the bottom, which is called trub, and makes your beer cloudy, if you're pouring it into a glass, it makes for even less beer to drink when there is a bunch of trub at the bottom!
 
Was also wondering for the priming sugar at the end, can I just mix it in the hotwater and pour it directly into the pale and stir it? On the instructions it says to transfer all the beer into another pale but I shouldnt have to.
If you do that, stir very gently so as not to disturb the residue (trub) at the bottom of the pail. The main point of transfering is to avoid mixing the residue and getting it into the bottles. Also, you need avoid jarring or tipping the pail so as not to stir it up. Sometimes I transfer, sometimes I am just careful.

There is going to be a bit of yeast residue in your bottles no matter what you do. I would not worry about the possibility of having just a bit more.
 
When I bottle, I do because there's too much in the fermenter for a single keg. I'll fill bottles until my fermenter is down to my "keg line" then put the remainder in the keg. To prime I add 3/4 Tbsp sugar to each bottle. Probably not preferred for 50 or 60 bottles. Just another method is all.
 
Thanks everyone again, so from what Im getting is that I should transfer the beer into another bucket or pale to get rid of as much leftover yeast as possible and have the new pale with the dissolved priming sugar. My only problem now is that my only other container is a plastic carboy I got with it, Can I just transfer it into there or should I get another pale so its easier to stir and stuff?
 
When I was bottling, I always found it much easier to transfer the entire batch to a bottling bucket that had a bottling wand attached to the spigot. Once all the clear beer is in the bottling bucket, open the spigot and the bottling wand will prevent beer from pouring out until you put your bottle on it. When the bottle is full, the wand leaves just the right amount of head space and it's ready to cap.
 
UPDATE: Hey guys so It has been 15 days since I have started the fermentation, I checked the hydrometer 2 days ago and It was reading at 1.010 ish and today it is measuring at just under the 1.000 mark so itlooks to be 1.003 or something. is it not finished yet? But why is it reading so low, is this normal and is it going to be 0% alcohol or whats going on? It tastes like good beer but its just so light tasting. BTW No activity at all on the Airlock
 
Update 2: reading is back at 1.010 i think i didn't have enough liquid in it or something idk but im going to bottle it tomorrow or sunday because its been 17 days tomorrow since i started the fermentation.
 
UPDATE 3: Bottled it all, got 54 bottles and still had some left but the whole thing went pretty horrible for me, hope the beer turns out. Will update again in 2-3 weeks.
 
UPDATE 3: Bottled it all, got 54 bottles and still had some left but the whole thing went pretty horrible for me, hope the beer turns out. Will update again in 2-3 weeks.
I have had a couple of bottling sessions that did not go according to plan. I really hate it when I am transferring to the bottling bucket and think it sure is filling up slow. And then look down at the floor and realize that I forgot to close the spigot on the bottling bucket!
 
UPDATE 4: tried some of the beer after 2 weeks and in the fridge overnight, got me very tipsy and its carbed but the carb goes away really fast for some reason and then goes a bit flat, has a slight more syrupy taste compared to store bought beer, going to leave it for another week and try it again and see if it changes.
 
Update 2: reading is back at 1.010 i think i didn't have enough liquid in it or something idk but im going to bottle it tomorrow or sunday because its been 17 days tomorrow since i started the fermentation.

If you didn't have enough liquid (i.e. if the hydrometer bottomed out before sinking as far as it should), the reading would be artificially high, not low.

I suspect that when you measured "1.003" that you may have been looking at the Brix scale, i.e. reading 3 °Bx, instead of the Specific Gravity scale.
 
FINAL UPDATE: after 3 weeks it was getting pretty good, at 4 weeks it was better then a lot of store bought beers ive tried. It turned out great, will try another one in the future
 
Back
Top