NivekD
Well-Known Member
i am not a fan of all the cleaning and sanitation
Proper cleaning and sanitation are vital parts of making good beer. If that's not your thing...give up now.
i am not a fan of all the cleaning and sanitation
bottled my first beer today it was a mr beer recipe from a kit that was in my basement for at least a yr
I let it ferment for 2 weeks . it did not foam much but it looked like smelled like beer and tasted like flat beer
I will let it sit for 3-4 weeks in the mr beer 1 liter bottles before i try it
not sure if i want to continue or not with the craft i am kinda 50/50 on the whole thing. had to at least make the effort since my kid gave me the kit but i dont wanna spend any money on equipment since i am not a fan of all the cleaning and sanitation
any thoughts
Ok, winter in texas is mild but my sons closet if he remembers to close it is 66 ambient, add the swamp cooler and you get 60 degree fermentation. S-04 works fine at this temp, nottingham is too dry for my taste. Trying US-05 now
I think most of the highly experienced homebrewers will tell you to pitch 2 packets of dry yeast for 5 gallons as their cell counts are nominal and are likely lower than the stated amount in the real world unless you got the package off of the manufacturing line. For a Mr. Beer batch, you should probably pitch a full packet of dry yeast. A half packet will do the job, but the yeast will be a bit stressed.
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I don't use the mr beer yeast in my normal brews. I use it for smaller trial batches. I feel it's not the same quality.
Whoa hold on, most of the threads on here that talk about wet vs. dry yeast clearly state Dry has a higher cell count, thus the need for no starter vs liquid yeast. The reason they use liquid yeast is the greater customization of the strain vs. what Dry yeast has. Dry yeast is like buying generic, while liquid is like buying custom
Totally on the customization thing, but cell counts are nominal on both types. How long has that dry yeast been in the store?
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Alright, So I bottled on friday. Followed the priming directions for the bottles with table sugar. Didn't have enough dextrose to do all bottles, in hindsight I should have done half and half and labeled them to see what the difference was.
It has only been a few days but I can see that the bottles are firmer, I can still squeeze the bottles a little bit if I apply some force, but the bottles spring right back. There is no way these things are done but they are already pretty firm.
Is that normal?
On a side note, does anyone know where to buy quality recipe kits that will fit in the LBK that are not as expensive as the Mr. Beer Kits... Or are at least worth paying that price? I have heard some good things about coopers, and using midwest kits but cutting them in half.
Well tried my first bottle of home brew yesterday. Been reading and it seemed common to try one at 2 weeks after carbonation then 3 then 4 and so on to see if you notice any difference in carbonation and overall taste.
Well the carbonation was a little lacking but very satified with the taste. The beer was the American Classic Light standard refill from Mr Beer but with the advice from Skitter added a 1 pound pack of DME light and 6 oz. of Carapils. A little darker than a domestic beer and much fuller taste. I could see bubbles in the beer but no head when poured into a glass. Just a tad on the flat side but over all taste I'm happy with.
Now this came from the last bottle which ended up being a plastic 16 oz. water bottle. Didn't have enough to fill the 750 ml plastic bottom that came in the kit. It appeared to carbonate to the point the bottom swelled out a bit. I used the carbonation drops from Mr. Beer and used about 1-1/2 for the 16 oz. bottle so maybe that had some affect on the amount of carbonization. Will try another at 3 weeks to see if it improves much. This will be one of the 750 ml bottles.
So far so good.
Any comments are appreciated.
This is a follow-up from my post regarding a Mr. Beer recipe I tweaked. It's back on post 5493.
I'm a week and a half into the fermentation stage and all is going well. It's at a constant 53 degrees. I've been reading posts every night learning as much as I can and read some interesting things. I do have some questions and I know I'm just doing Mr. Beer recipes but may move onto bigger things this summer.
Here are some questions:
1. With this being a lager and that I added extra malt and used a lager yeast do you think I'll need to let it ferment longer than the basic 2 weeks for Mr. Beer? I watched my first batch and foam and bubbling was done at two weeks.
2. I've read quite a bit on cold crashing. My first batch cleared up during the carbonation process but keep in mind I like my beer out of the bottle. Is this not proper home brew drinking etiquette. Lol! I would like to bottle with the beer clear and not have yeast in the bottle. Can I cold crash my beer in the LBK? If so do I have to worry about air being drawn into the keg during the process?
3. When I bottle and I will be using glass bottles should I go with the Mr. Beer carb drops or get a bottling bucket and add sugar that way? If so how much sugar? Do I have to measure the final amount of beer then add the correct amount of sugar?
Better stop here. Lol
Thanks much.
Good questions. First of all, I raise the temp on my lagers at the end to about 70f very slowly though if you can. This helps clean up fermentation byproducts such as DMS.
1) yes, it will take longer. Also, you boosted the gravity enough to add a day onto the ale fermentation times most likely. What yeast are you using?
2) you can drink homebrew out of bottles. Styles that it works particularly well with are wheat beers, especially German hefs and Belgian wheat beers. The treats are traditionally such as large part of the beer profile they are meant to be consumed and are incredibly healthy for you. I find the wlp410 to be a nice bottle drinking beer yeast. Not sure about the whole air into the keg thing myself, but I suspect it is one way to introduce a potential sour infection from your atmosphere into the beer. Lacto and Brett are common throughout households worldwide. Just speculation here though.
3) I have no experience with the Mr beer carb drops, but if they are just the chippers ones (and I suspect they are) then I've heard negative things. I have used the LD Carlson ones under the Brewers Best brands and like them. They help with head retention too. Just use 3 tabs. Even 4 is to much once the beer is fully conditioned. I've been flipping between the brewers friend and tasty brew p priming calculators and they work fine. Start on the low end of the range for your beer and go from there. If you use a program like BeerSmith, it has its own calculator. Oh, and definitely do it based on the final amount of beer.
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Good questions. First of all, I raise the temp on my lagers at the end to about 70f very slowly though if you can. This helps clean up fermentation byproducts such as DMS.
1) yes, it will take longer. Also, you boosted the gravity enough to add a day onto the ale fermentation times most likely. What yeast are you using?
2) you can drink homebrew out of bottles. Styles that it works particularly well with are wheat beers, especially German hefs and Belgian wheat beers. The treats are traditionally such as large part of the beer profile they are meant to be consumed and are incredibly healthy for you. I find the wlp410 to be a nice bottle drinking beer yeast. Not sure about the whole air into the keg thing myself, but I suspect it is one way to introduce a potential sour infection from your atmosphere into the beer. Lacto and Brett are common throughout households worldwide. Just speculation here though.
3) I have no experience with the Mr beer carb drops, but if they are just the chippers ones (and I suspect they are) then I've heard negative things. I have used the LD Carlson ones under the Brewers Best brands and like them. They help with head retention too. Just use 3 tabs. Even 4 is to much once the beer is fully conditioned. I've been flipping between the brewers friend and tasty brew p priming calculators and they work fine. Start on the low end of the range for your beer and go from there. If you use a program like BeerSmith, it has its own calculator. Oh, and definitely do it based on the final amount of beer.
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I did make a note to raise the temp up in the final end of the fermentation process. Thanks for the reminder.
The yeast is WYEAST brand Bohemian Lager yeast.
As far as cold crashing I was thinking of taping a piece of plastic wrap like a bubble over the cap to keep air out. Just a thought.
I'll look into one of the priming web sites. Are they pretty straight forward?
Thanks much for your help.
Sorry for the double post. The first seemed locked up. Can't see how to delete.
I've heard good things about that yeast. Should give you a nice finished product. I think the priming websites are pretty straightforward. The plastic wrap may work fine. Wish gravity filtering were easy/common. Everything I've been looking into seems to require a keg to push it through the filter.
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I'm happy with dry yeast, my budget and wallet likes it too... I havnt yet come across a beer I wanted to cold crash, I'm more worried about dropping too much yeast out to not carb
Skitter,
I wondered about the amount of yeast left over too but almost everything I've read said there will still be plenty of yeast for carbonation. I guess I'll learn the hard way if that happens.
I just would like to have a clean botle of beer. Well if it fails that will answer my question the hard way. The whole process is a learning lesson.
I bottled my Winter Ale the other day, smelled good. I used brown sugar so we will see how it turns out. Stupid me, I used too much sugar did I ruin the whole batch?
Also, my pilsner tastes good but after two 750ml bottles I didn't even have a buzz how do I figure the alcohol content?
More sugar = higher alcohol content, but thinner, more watery beer
Not necessarily. There are plenty of beers that have sugar and are not thin or watery. In this case I would be concerned with carbonation levels as it sounded like the brown sugar was added at bottling.
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The belgian beers have sugar to purposly thin them out
Sugar thins out a beer. That imperial IPA example would be thinner in body than the same recipe with an equal OG from an all-malt fermentable bill. Yes, low mash temp also helps make a thin beer, but to say that sugar doesn't necessarily thin out a beer is not true. Take 2 beers of any style with equal OG's, same mash temp, same recipe EXCEPT for one has 10% simple sugar and the other is just malt - the one with sugar will be thinner every time.
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