New to brewing (Muntons Kit)

[Silvers24]

Hello, this is my first entry into making beer using a kit. Since I am use to making wine, I wanted to try a kit close to it.
Well I chose the Munton Wheat Beer kit, and used CWB Dark Extract.
EDIT: And waited the 4-6 days
upon transferring it over to the 5 gallon carboy from the 4-6 day fermentation, I let it fill all the way to the top before I put the spraymalt in and then started to stir it.
That was when it happened. I know (now) had I just put the stuff in EARLIER.
GEYSERED up and shot out
I think at least lost a half gallon if not more.
But the question:
Now what?
I just put the airlock on top, and now I am here at these forums. Lost. And I dont think it fermented enough to have much alcohol. And I think the yeast that came with this kit seems crappy.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I know (now) had I just put the stuff in EARLIER.

To be fair, the instructions tell you to put the extract in first....

But the question:
Now what?
I just put the airlock on top, and now I am here at these forums. Lost. And I dont think it fermented enough to have much alcohol. And I think the yeast that came with this kit seems crappy.

Just follow the instructions - if you've put everything in including the yeast, you just need to wait a week or two. And then package it.

Yeah, the yeasts in kits tend not to be great - if I was doing a wheat beer kit, I'd replace the kit yeast with Lallemand Munich Classic (not the "ordinary" Lallemand Munich which is now rebranded as a Wit yeast) which is much the best of the dry wheat yeasts. Probably too late now though.

 

[Silvers24]

So to be fair, I did. No where in the instructions, after the 4-6 days, which at the making of this post was, does it tell you to put the Spraymalt, DME whatever the heck this stuff is, in before going into the carboy for second fermentation, or conditioning. I really do not know the terms, but I did do what the intrsuctions said. I poured 3 ouncers of spraymalt down the neck of the 5 gallong, stuck my spoons back part in, and the moment I went to stir. BOOM

And it still caused the geyser, and shooting the sugar up and out,
And the OG from what I could tell went from 1050 to 1030, so even then, it seems the stupid yeast didnt finish out when I did the transfer.
So I am sitting with about over 4 gallons of beer from a kit, that most likely isnt finished, and i cant put the sugar in it, or else it will geyser out.

Did I just waste my 30+ bucks and days of making this?

 

[Silvers24]

So is this what is going on?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/improving-a-muntons-beer-kit.509922/#post-6594972How do I fix it? Because, as you can tell, I used malt extract. So that is what happened? My yeast stalled out?

So then, did I actually have to use spraymalt when I used malt extract? Will adding another packet of yeast at least get this thing fermented enough to drink?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So to be fair, I did. No where in the instructions, after the 4-6 days, which at the making of this post was, does it tell you to put the Spraymalt, DME whatever the heck this stuff is, in before going into the carboy for second fermentation, or conditioning.

Spraymalt is just the traditional British name for dry malt extract (DME), because it's spray-dried. Think of it as beer-flavoured sugar. So if you add 2+lb of it (before pitching the yeast, as one of the main fermentables), it's going to have a noticeable effect on the final flavour compared to using ordinary white table sugar. But that final 3oz of sugar is just to give the yeast a bit of food to turn into carbon dioxide in the bottle, to make it fizzy. 3oz is not going to have a meaningful effect on flavour, so you might as well just use ordinary sugar.

So normally the only time you would add DME would be before pitching the yeast. From your original post before you edited it, it seemed you were talking about this point in the process, hence the reference to this part of the instructions :

We would encourage you to consider using spraymalt in place of some of the brewing sugar, which will increase the final body of your beer...start boiling 3.5 litres (6 UK pints) of water. Open the can and pour the contents into your cleaned and sterilised fermenter.• Add the boiling water to the fermenter and 1kg (2.2lbs) of sugar (preferably brewing sugar).• Thoroughly mix the contents of the fermenter to dissolve the sugar and malt extract.• Add 17.5 litres (31 pints) of cold water to bring thevolume up to 23 litres and stir well.• Sprinkle the yeast supplied onto the surface of the beer (no need to stir).• Cover the fermenter, place in a warm area at 18-21°C (65-70°F) and leave to ferment

But if you're talking about adding the 3oz of sugar at the end of the primary fermentation to create the fizz, then you **must** do this, per bullet point 10 of the instructions :

Siphon the beer into strong bottles or a pressure barrel.

Notice the emphasis on "strong" bottles or a "pressure" barrel. Creating the fizz creates gas pressure, which an ordinary glass carboy cannot hold - in fact doing a secondary fermentation in a sealed glass carboy turns it into a bomb capable of throwing shards of glass at high speed into your face.

This is incredibly dangerous - if you have a gas-tight seal on the carboy (eg a bung) and not eg an airlock then you need to release the pressure as soon as possible.

The other reason for moving the beer into another vessel is that the carbon dioxide gas that gets released in any fermentation can stay dissolved and the wort can become super-saturated with CO2. As you have found, adding nucleation points in the form of sugar crystals allows the excess gas to come out of solution violently, in the form of a geyser.

The act of transferring the beer to another vessel knocks the excess gas out of solution, "defusing" the potential geyser.

But if it is really at 1.030 (have you temperature-compensated your hydrometer reading? Or are you using a refractometer?) then yes, you've not finished fermentation and it just needs more time (and/or a higher temperature) before you even think about packaging it.

 

[Silvers24]

Yes,l but agian, I used this stuff Briess Malt Extracts during p[rimary fermentation.
And from what I read, be ause I used this with the kit, I stalled the yeast.
I am way past the fact that I have to throw this kit out and start again.

And this time, I wont use that CWB ****, as it seems I should of just stayed with the DME. Even though the people at the winery told me to use that liquid malt extract as a replacement.

Eitherway, from what I have found out, I need to throw away and try again. This time I wont use that CMB stuff. Or that liquid extract. Just DME. Thank you

 

[ncbrewer]

I think you would benefit a lot from checking Palmer's website Welcome to How to Brew - How to Brew . Look through at least the Crash Course in Brewing section. This will give you some context when reading kit instructions and making decisions.