First Brew Attempt

[ludomonster]

I'm a little late to the party, but you said this was a lager kit. However, you fermented at 20-21 C. This is on the high end of ale fermenting temperatures. Did the kit come with ale yeast?

How do you plan to lager the beer?

 

[DrummerBoySeth]

There is another difference. After 6 to 8 days, there is a lot of CO2 still dissolved in the beer. After 3 to 4 weeks, there will be much less and this will affect the end carbonation (it will be less carbonated). With the new(ish) Coopers OxBar bottles which are 500ml, this could result in a slightly flatter beer when using one carbonation drop per bottle.

Personally, I rekon Coopers have all this figured out, so I pretty much follow their instructions.

Here's a question re the clear beer: doesn't secondary fermentation in the bottle also cause yeast in the beer and make it a bit cloudy?

The refermentation that causes carbonation in sealed bottles will cause the beer to appear hazy while the carbonation process is occurring, but that yeast will settle to the bottom of the bottle after a couple of weeks and make a mini yeast-cake similar to the one that was in the bottom of your fermenter.

The use of a secondary tank, or leaving the beer in primary for a long time has 2 benefits...

1.) More time in contact with the yeast cake = cleaner tasting beer (fermentation by-products are consumed by the yeast after primary fermentation is over)

2.) Leaving the fermenter still and untouched for an extra week or 2 gives good-old gravity a chance to pull all the extra yeast, hop particles, and other "trub" to the bottom of the fermenter (and therefore out of your beer) this results in a clearer looking (less hazy) finished product

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,mine get bottled when clear or slightly misty. Then from a couple days to a week in the bottles,they're crystal clear.