cyfan964
Well-Known Member
Bottled my first batch yesterday and am noticing a layer of yeast forming on the bottom of the bottles already on the second day. Is this a problem? Should I be worried?
Absolutely. You will brew for years and still have "ohsh/////t!!!" moments. The more you see, the more you read and the more you screw upcyfan964 said:ok I was about ready to start crying. Not really, but it's hard to know if something is wrong if you have never done it before. Hopefully when I get done reading Charlie Papazian's book I will be a little more self confident. I should have just relaxed, not worried, and had a homebrew. The hard part is when you don't have any homebrew to have yet.
Multiple points. I used kits from beer-wine.com (they are my local store, 25 minute drive) for a few years, and I do not any more. If you are ordering off the 'net, there are definitely better places available. My beefs with beer-wine are that they are wine people.....so their beer advice/instructions generally bl0w. Their kits are so/so, and they offer nothing in the way of partial mash or all grain kits. That's pretty weak. I'd say you are better off with www.austinhomebrew.com , www.northernbrewer.com , or www.breworganic.com .cyfan964 said:We did 5 days primary fermentation and 10 days secondary according to the recipe we got with our kit from beer-wine.com. After 10 days our SG was only down to a 1.018 from a OG of 1.042 so I was told that I should maybe try swirling the yeast up to get a bit more fermentation. After I did this I let it clear in secondary for another 5 days, so it was in secondary fermentation for a total of 15days. After the 15 days the SG was still at 1.018, so I guess the plan didn't work. I was then told bottling at 1.018 wasn't a problem. I now find out that 5 days was probably a little too quick on primary, but I didn't know that at the time, I was just following the instructions from the recipe. Hopefully things turn out ok. I guess I'll just leave a little beer in the bottom of the bottle so I don't mix all the spent yeast up. I shouldn't worry too much about bottle bombs should I?? I have them conditioning under my sink at about 68-70 degrees.
cyfan964 said:Thanks for all the superb info. It is great to be able to get information from people that have "been there" and "done that." What a great forum! Here is what my first batch, an amber ale looked like in the bottle. Also I guess I have one quick question. I have heard discrepancies on how much yeast should be added. I saw someone was doing a half batch a while back and multiple people told them to pitch all the yeast rather than cutting it in half. How much yeast should be used and what is too much?
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