Hello from NW Pennsylvania

[PABowhunter1969]

Past several years I've been really getting into expanding my palate trying different craft and micro brews.
Been wanting to try my hand in making some myself. The wife bought me a Mr Beer at the end of summer and I finally broke it out and brewed a batch today.
Reading some of the posts here and other research online, I'm finding I should do a second fermentation and ferment longer than the directions say too. If anyone has any advice it would be appreciated.
Also thinking of getting a starter brewing kit, any suggestions?
Lots of good info here and very knowledgeable folks.
Thanks

 

[SupervisingChildren]

Welcome from wny! Depending on what you made, a secondary fermentatiom is likely not going to happen unless adding fruit or more sugars. Checking your gravity with a hydrometer will help you know when fermentation is done, and then you can bottle with a certain amount of priming sugar to carbonate your beer.

 

[PABowhunter1969]

Welcome from wny! Depending on what you made, a secondary fermentatiom is likely not going to happen unless adding fruit or more sugars. Checking your gravity with a hydrometer will help you know when fermentation is done, and then you can bottle with a certain amount of priming sugar to carbonate your beer.

Thanks for the advice. I thought I had read somewhere that racking and doing a secondary fermentation helped 'cleaned up' the beer. That the yeast would start, for lack of a better term, eating some of the by products they produced when converting the sugars to alcohol and CO2. Any truth to that?

 

[SupervisingChildren]

Usually you can leave the yeast on the cake and they'll "clean up" after themselves over time. A lot of people will not rack to secondary due to the risk of infection or oxidation. I only secondary when I'm making fruit beers.

 

[PABowhunter1969]

Usually you can leave the yeast on the cake and they'll "clean up" after themselves over time. A lot of people will not rack to secondary due to the risk of infection or oxidation. I only secondary when I'm making fruit beers.

Thanks for the advice. Hope your staying warm up there.