First brew questions

Anything and everything about beer and brewing it.
Post Reply
TomAdam
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 6:37 pm

First brew questions

Post by TomAdam »

I completed my first brew last week. Thanks to everyone that helped me get up and running, especially Eric and Ariel for lending me a chiller. It all went pretty well, but I did make a few mistakes. It was an extract brew, based on http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/rocker-apa with a few small changes. I used US Cascade rather than NZ, and US-05 rather than Nottingham yeast. I also chucked in an extra 15g of Cascade when putting it in to the fermenter, just for fun.

My SG ended up waaay higher than it should have been. Slightly above 1.065 rather than 1.058. Using the "approximate" scale on the fermenter was a bad idea. I just didn't think it would be as inaccurate as it is. I'm also going to weigh in the DME next time - another packet I had was 60g over. Is there anything else that could have caused my SG miss? The wort was also much darker than I expected for a pale ale.

Reading the recipe, I just threw the yeast straight in. Later when investigating the fermentation temperature I noticed that the manufacturer recommends rehydrating it first. I'm a bit concerned that this combined with the relatively high SG may have compromised the yeast. Is there anything I can do if it stops fermenting too early? It started bubbling after the first hour or so, and increased to around every 5 seconds for about 3 days. Now it has slowed down to about once every 20 seconds, but it will have been fermenting for 7 days tomorrow. Sounds to me like its doing fine, but I'm still a bit worried about it. I haven't taken any readings yet as it is a bit of an arse removing beer for measurement.

On a separate note, the hydrometer I have is a beer and wine one. The scale is pretty hard to read - it jumps from 1.065 to 1.080 in about 3mm with no markings between the two. I would like one with a bit better resolution. Does anyone have any recommendations? None of the online stores I have looked at have an indication of the scale, and all look like the Stevenson Reeves one I have.
User avatar
Jeltz69
Posts: 271
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:21 pm
Location: Radstock
Contact:

Re: First brew questions

Post by Jeltz69 »

If fermentation stalls than a stir can help but I doubt there will be any issues. A lot of people just sprinkle in, and while rehydrating is best it doesn't mean that pitching dry is bad.

IMO the SG will be due to the quantities not being what you thought. I'm a little anal about checking and calibrating equipment but at least it removes variables, so yep get a plastic jug weigh 1kg of water and mark it at 1L if its not accurate on the jug (which is highly likely) then get a marker pen and mark your buckets at at least every 5L up to 25L

Equally a quick check on scales of packets is always sensible.

I haven't used one but Murphies sell Sacchrometers 1000-1050 and 1050-1100 which are about as clear as you are likely to find, personally I've asked for a refractometer for Xmas but I'm not sure if it will be fully accurate.
User avatar
steve crawshaw
Posts: 856
Joined: Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:49 pm
Contact:

Re: First brew questions

Post by steve crawshaw »

TomAdam wrote:I completed my first brew last week. Thanks to everyone that helped me get up and running, especially Eric and Ariel for lending me a chiller. It all went pretty well, but I did make a few mistakes. It was an extract brew, based on http://www.brewuk.co.uk/store/rocker-apa with a few small changes. I used US Cascade rather than NZ, and US-05 rather than Nottingham yeast. I also chucked in an extra 15g of Cascade when putting it in to the fermenter, just for fun.

My SG ended up waaay higher than it should have been. Slightly above 1.065 rather than 1.058. Using the "approximate" scale on the fermenter was a bad idea. I just didn't think it would be as inaccurate as it is. I'm also going to weigh in the DME next time - another packet I had was 60g over. Is there anything else that could have caused my SG miss? The wort was also much darker than I expected for a pale ale.

Reading the recipe, I just threw the yeast straight in. Later when investigating the fermentation temperature I noticed that the manufacturer recommends rehydrating it first. I'm a bit concerned that this combined with the relatively high SG may have compromised the yeast. Is there anything I can do if it stops fermenting too early? It started bubbling after the first hour or so, and increased to around every 5 seconds for about 3 days. Now it has slowed down to about once every 20 seconds, but it will have been fermenting for 7 days tomorrow. Sounds to me like its doing fine, but I'm still a bit worried about it. I haven't taken any readings yet as it is a bit of an arse removing beer for measurement.

On a separate note, the hydrometer I have is a beer and wine one. The scale is pretty hard to read - it jumps from 1.065 to 1.080 in about 3mm with no markings between the two. I would like one with a bit better resolution. Does anyone have any recommendations? None of the online stores I have looked at have an indication of the scale, and all look like the Stevenson Reeves one I have.
Always rehydrate your yeast. You can lose 50% of cells by pitching direct and under - pitching is very common for home brewers. I wouldn't add anything to the beer as it enters the fermenter. They say that hops don't make a very good substrate for bacteria etc, but bear in mind that you are adding them to the ideal food source, so any microbes on the surface will start to multiply and potentially contaminate your beer. If you want to dry hop, wait until at least a week into fermentation. I would caution against measuring gravity while you are fermenting unless you can do this in a sanitary way. If you pitch enough yeast into oxygenated wort, it will ferment out in a couple of weeks. Using extract invariably gives a darker wort \ beer than all - grain i'm told, though there are extra pale DME products available which might improve matters. You can get a decent hydrometer from Wilkos for a couple of quid - its what i use. If you used an open boil, this could account for higher gravity than expected. You just need a small vent to let volatiles escape.
steve
I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.
TomAdam
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 6:37 pm

Re: First brew questions

Post by TomAdam »

Thanks for the advice everyone. Lots of changes to make before the next brew.

After the recommendation of the Wilco hydrometer I realised it was the same one as mine. I checked it out again and realised I used the wrong scale! Idiot... It's much more accurate than I thought, and my OG was only 3 points over what it should have been.

Can't wait to get started on the next one.
User avatar
EckersKlein
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 11:42 pm

Re: First brew questions

Post by EckersKlein »

Mystery solved, good to hear!

I brewed with extract for a while before going to all grain, and one of the biggest changes I noticed was the fact that all grain brews attenuate much better than extract. Maybe my Coopers extract had been sitting around for too long, but I was rarely able to get better than 68% attenuation with it. With all grain, my attenuations have been more like 78-84%.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if you find your beer finishing a bit sweet, it may not be the yeast's fault. Instead, there may just be a high proportion of unfermentable sugar. And hey, no matter what, you'll end up with beer!

-Eric
TomAdam
Posts: 53
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2013 6:37 pm

Re: First brew questions

Post by TomAdam »

My attenuation seemed pretty good at 80%. FG was 1.012 - looks like about 6.7% abv. It's a nice surprise that it came out that strong. Maybe I was lucky, but I think you might be right about the old extract.

It tasted pretty bad - the alcohol was very obvious and was pretty bitter without any real flavour. I'm hoping it improves substantially with conditioning.

It's all bottled up now, but I have one more question. I have one bottle I have overfilled - it's really close to the top. Will it explode if there is not really any air space at the top? Sould I open it and pour a bit out? I really wasn't much of a fan of the bottling process - going to have to improve my procedure for the next time. I used a siphon and a filling stick, but the siphon resulted in me only having one hand the whole time as I couldn't put it down. I'm thinking I might stick a tap on an old fermenter I have and use it as a bottling bucket for the next one.
Post Reply