IPA Brew

[JackDatBoi]

Hello all,

I finally finished my first IPA brew a month or so ago and have been letting it sit under the protection of a few jumpers. I've tried two bottles since bottling and they defiantly taste like beer, but seem to be a tad bit yeasty...

I left them for another week and put one in the fridge for two days before trying, still a bit yeasty with minimal froth!

It's been two weeks since trying my last beer and was wondering if I'm doing anything wrong?

Id it a problem that I'm not getting that much froth??

Cheers

 

[cactusgarrett]

Gonna need a bit more info on this one.

- Did you take gravity readings along the way? OG, FG, gravity at bottling, etc.?
- How did you condition? Did you add sugar in one batch before bottling?
- How much sugar did you use and what was your final batch volume?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Hello all,

I finally finished my first IPA brew a month or so ago and have been letting it sit under the protection of a few jumpers. I've tried two bottles since bottling and they defiantly taste like beer, but seem to be a tad bit yeasty...

Two obvious questions - is the beer clear or hazy? Some yeast settle much more quickly than others - some traditional English yeasts like 1968 will leave crystal-clear beer without any intervention, many others will only clear with the help of eg cold crashing and gelatine. Also how careful were you in pouring? If you've got lots of yeast suspended in the beer, it will taste...yeasty.

Another question, if the yeast is dominating the hops, then one wonders how many hops there were, what was your recipe?

 

[Biscuits]

Are you pouring out the entire contents of the bottle into your glass? If so, the yeast you are tasting is exactly that....the yeast that settles at the bottom of your bottle when you bottle condition. You need to pour relatively gently and leave about an 8th of an inch of beer on top of the trub in the bottle.

 

[ProblemChild]

I would be curious about your bottling process. Reason being it sounds like you have a lot of yeast in the bottle to begin with.

Describe the process from when you hit your FG all the way through bottling.

 

[REPO]

Is there a chance that he didn't get enough sugar? As he says there was very little froth.

 

[JackDatBoi]

Gonna need a bit more info on this one.

- Did you take gravity readings along the way? OG, FG, gravity at bottling, etc.?
- How did you condition? Did you add sugar in one batch before bottling?
- How much sugar did you use and what was your final batch volume?

I sure did. I've put away my final reading somewhere in the basement, but I remember it was at a good, steady reading for over two days before I bottled it.

Instead of adding small amounts of sugar into each bottle, I decided to calculate how much sugar would be needed and added it and gave it a good stir to the entire batch.

I brewed 15 litres and unfortunately forgot how much sugar was added..

 

[JackDatBoi]

Two obvious questions - is the beer clear or hazy? Some yeast settle much more quickly than others - some traditional English yeasts like 1968 will leave crystal-clear beer without any intervention, many others will only clear with the help of eg cold crashing and gelatine. Also how careful were you in pouring? If you've got lots of yeast suspended in the beer, it will taste...yeasty.

Another question, if the yeast is dominating the hops, then one wonders how many hops there were, what was your recipe?

overtime I look at it through the light it looks clear! there is however yeast sitting at the bottle of some of the bottles, so I make sure to leave that out of my glass!

 

[JackDatBoi]

Are you pouring out the entire contents of the bottle into your glass? If so, the yeast you are tasting is exactly that....the yeast that settles at the bottom of your bottle when you bottle condition. You need to pour relatively gently and leave about an 8th of an inch of beer on top of the trub in the bottle.

Nope. There's some yeast at the bottom of some of the bottles, so I avoid pouring all of it. Just can't figure out why its not frothy? :S

 

[kev211]

I sure did. I've put away my final reading somewhere in the basement, but I remember it was at a good, steady reading for over two days before I bottled it.

Instead of adding small amounts of sugar into each bottle, I decided to calculate how much sugar would be needed and added it and gave it a good stir to the entire batch.

I brewed 15 litres and unfortunately forgot how much sugar was added..

Two words... Take notes. Like copious notes. Thats how you progress as a brewer and learn from your mistakes. That way next time you brew you can say "hey the last batch had minimal carbonation/"froth" and this time I want more. I can up my sugar by X amount".

When you say, good steady ready for FG, what was the FG? Just because its steady doesnt necessarily mean fermentation is done. If it was at 1.030 for a few days the yeast probably just stalled but it is definitely not done fermenting.

As others have implied and expressed, the more info you can give us about your beer the more help we can be. What was the recipe? Yeast type? Fermentation temps? How long have they been in bottles for? What temp are they sitting at right now? And what the heck does this mean "sit under the protection of a few jumpers"?

Sounds like you just didnt add enough sugar and that too much yeast got swirled into the bottles. When you pour a beer after refrigerating, dont pour the entire contents into the glass, leave the yeasty sludge at the bottom and dump it

 

[JackDatBoi]

I would be curious about your bottling process. Reason being it sounds like you have a lot of yeast in the bottle to begin with.

Describe the process from when you hit your FG all the way through bottling.

I siphoned the beer from the original brew bucket into a new, sanitised bucket to avoid any or much yeast bits. I did notice that I transferred some yeast into the new bucket :S

 

[ProblemChild]

EDIT - meant to ask a differnt question -

how long did you let the sugar mix in before bottling? Sugar takes a little bit - could have a few bottles with a ton of sugar (bottle bomb) and some with relatively little sugar.

 

[Biscuits]

Nope. There's some yeast at the bottom of some of the bottles, so I avoid pouring all of it. Just can't figure out why its not frothy? :S

Could be a number of things....common causes are the use of dish soap like detergents on your brew gear/glassware.

 

[cactusgarrett]

I think he's lamenting the lack of carbonation, not head retention. I think we're narrowing it down to the bottling/priming process...

 

[ProblemChild]

still pondering - what was the means by which you sanitized the bottles, bottling bucket and lines?