Just A Taste

[akillys]

So my beer is fermenting in a bottling bucket. It has a spigot on the bottom obviously. My question is, could I use the spigot to draw a small about of the brew to see how it is coming along? Or, would it contaminate or mess up the fermentation cycle? I will be transferring over to a secondary fermenter later and will be using a siphon and not the spigot so no beer will come in contact with the spigot again. I know you need to be patient and let it ferment I'm just curious to see how it has developed so fare.

 

[LKABrewer]

Try it. Won't hurt anything but it may not taste very good.

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[b-boy]

I wouldn't. That spigot will get filled with beer and it will be difficult to clean. Those things are germ magnets. Plus you'll probably get a mouthful of trub along with the beer.

If you want a sample I'd use a wine thief and steal it from the top.

 

[Macdonald87]

+1 to b-boy,

The wine theifs are super affordable and great to throw a hydrometer in to do a reading as well!

 

[akillys]

Cool thank y'all

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[norsk]

Bottling buckets have the spigot too low to get a clean sample. The buckets I use for fermentation have the spigot a tad higher with the invert tube turned to the side. Makes drawing samples a breeze...

 

[MindenMan]

I am not sure about the spigots being germ magnets. I always tap/taste from a spigot. Before opening the spigot, I use an old syringe to wash out anything that maybe in there I can't see, and then I use Iodophor to rinse as well. That way, before anything than may have been in the air collecting anything, it is sanitized not allowing any bugs, or what have you into the beer.

 

[akillys]

So, I tasted it and it did not taste too bad. I do have 2 questions though. It is a ginger beer and the ginger came through quite nicely. However, it does taste a little watery is there anything I can do for this or is it normal and as it continues to ferment it will become less watery? Also it is not as sweet as I would like, Is there anything I can put in the secondary fermenter to make it sweeter or could I use an extract like an orange, strawberry, or apple extract during bottling to make it a little sweeter? I would like to stay away from Splenda if at all possible. Higher ABV would not be a bad byproduct either