A few beginner questions

[Turbine-Tel]

Hi folks,

I posted this story on beer and brewing discussions, I'm not sure if it was in the right category, or just was just balderdash, I never got a reply.

It's certainly not helping my paranoia.

A return to homebrew after 37 years.

Started with a Youngs bitter kit 21/03/20 and followed the instructions. Started at 1.040 finished after 8 days at 1.010. After a further 2 days in a warm place I syphoned into a King Keg barrel with float and pipe to the tap.
Left for 3 weeks in the garage.
Super clear, plenty of gas, head didn't last long, drinkable but had that homebrew flavour.

2nd attempt

A Geordie Scottish Export started 05/04/20. I wanted to use a crystallised squeezy honey. 576g of actual honey, I miscalculated and put another 300g of normal sugar in too.
Started at 1.035 finished at 1.005. After a warm 2 weeks moved half to garage. After another week remainder to the garage. After another week ist half sampled. Completely different to the first brew, could be pub beer no question, nice and clear plus the head stayed around for a lot longer.
Can't say why it is better, maybe the honey, maybe far too much sugar or maybe just a better kit.

3rd attempt

Started a Coopers real ale 26/04/20.
Tried it with a full bag 1kg of Ritchies light malt extract, started at 1.034, not a clue what I'm doing but it's fun trying different things. I let the tap water stand for two days before boiling 4 litres. It's had 2 weeks in the bucket and I've just bottled it today at 1.007. After reading the Forums guide for the beginer, I intend to leave at 20c for two weeks. I've primed half with honey and half with sugar, just to see if I can tell a difference.

I have some questions if anyone can help please.

1 Can I use stabilised chlorine granules for sanitising, I have 4kg left from using in the play pool last summer?

2. After sanitising is it ok just to rinse in tap water?

3. When mixing in the malt extract do I add it to the wort and boiling water, or do I dissolve it seperately in cold water? I just threw it in the mix while the water was still very hot.

4. Is there a glossary of terms available on the Forum? Members who know what they are doing use lingo that is hard to follow. A chap was describing some new gear he was going to buy. He may as well have written it in chinese

5. When I primed with honey I swirled around a little beer to dissolve, is this necessary? or will the remaining yeast search it out regardless?

I'm enjoying the forum and would love a go at the real thing with raw ingrediants. What I learned today is that I need another barrel. 4 hours to sanitise bottles/priming/syphoning/cleaning up is unacceptable.

Cheers,
Terry

 

[Gerryjo]

Keep enjoying the forum and there's a glossary Forum Abbreviations and Glossary. that you can troll through as for the rest I can't honestly tell especially about the chlorine granules but there is a few about using pressure barrels and doing kits. @terrym might be able to throw some light on the subject.

 

[Session]

Hi Terry!
It sounds like you’re making good beer already. I don’t think I can answer many of your questions but here are the ones I can help with:

2. I have only ever used a no-rinse sanitiser called StarSan. Unfortunately the manufacturers have been unable to bring it into the EU recently due to a regulatory issue, so now I use an alternative called ChemSan. It works just as well. You can get it from many of the online shops such as Brew2Bottle or The Malt Miller.

Once you have thoroughly cleaned your fermenting vessel or whatever it is that needs cleaning, give it a rinse to get rid of any residual cleaning agent then cover it in ChemSan. It will leave loads of foam - this is fine. I like to make up some ChemSan and have it in a spray bottle in case I accidentally touch something and it needs sanitising again.

3. Boiling/hot water is good as it will dissolve easier than in cold.

5. I presume you are ‘batch priming’. This is when you add a sugar solution or similar to a separate bottling bucket, then rack (or transfer) the fermented beer on top of the sugar solution.
I always hated the idea of increasing oxidation by stirring, but there are pros and cons to stirring.
A good reason to stir is to avoid stratification, which is where a heavier liquid sits in a separate layer to a lighter one. Hopefully by racking the beer onto the priming solution it should all mix together nicely like adding water to cordial, but you won’t know until you get a flat bottle/gusher if it hasn’t mixed in as expected.

The main downside to stirring is the inevitable increase in oxidation of your beer. This can lead to a reduction in hop flavour and aroma, and an off-flavour often described as being ‘papery’ or similar to wet cardboard.

I got round this by dosing each bottle individually with sugar solution and a syringe. You can do the same with sugar cubes (depending on the level of carbonation you want, the volume of your bottles and the amount of sugar in each cube). Any of the decent brewing software packages such as BrewFather or Brewers Friend will be able to tell you how much sugar to use to reach the level of carbonation you want (this can be checked in the BJCP style guide). You can divide the total amount of sugar by the number of bottles and add it with a funnel if you want... but batch priming isquicker and easier, and as long as you’re not prone to overthinking like me a gentle stir should be fine!

 

[terrym]

@Nowtevereasy
Further answers to some of your questions.
1. Mains tap water is safe to drink and safe to brew your beer with so is fine to rinse equipment whether its no rinse or otherwise. And yes I rinse no rinse. Crazy or what?
2. And in my view cheap 1.5kg kits are a throw back to when kits were first introduced in the 1970s. Thats why I stopped brewing when I was forced to have to use them. There's better out there now. You gets what you pay for.
3. When I did kits I just poured the LME into the bottom of the FV and then added some off the boil water and stirred until the LME was 'dissolved' then topped up with cold tap water/ boiled water to get to pitching temperature and final wort volume.
4. PBs; you love 'em or you don't. When they are operating as they should they are convenient and time saving. But they have a tendency to leak from every joint at some time, and the shells split or develop pinhole leaks, and the taps drip. So the choice is yours.
5. I siphon to direct bottles, and add table sugar from a measuring spoon. I sometimes batch prime. For me there isn't much to choose between the two. In the end you do what suits you best.
6. And don't get sucked into the 'oxidation' scare stories. In my view provided you have done your sensible and practical best to minimise oxygen/air contact with your beer at packaging time it is unlikely you will affected by it.

 

[Session]

And don't get sucked into the 'oxidation' scare stories. In my view provided you have done your sensible and practical best to minimise oxygen/air contact with your beer at packaging time it is unlikely you will affected by it.

At a basic level I completely agree with you Terry. I think we can bang in about oxidation as a ‘beer-ruining’ off-flavour far too much. Having said that since switching to a set up with spunding and closed transfers, my beer doesn’t see air until it’s in my glass, and it tastes brighter and with more hop nuance than was ever present prior to the switch. I appreciate however this is a sample size of one, and I’m expecting there to be an improvement so it may all be placebo!

 

[Turbine-Tel]

Gerryjo, Session and terrym. Thank you all for your advice and tips, a great help. I'm starting my last kit today a Youngs defitive bitter, going to use Ritchies dark malt extract.
One more thing, why does it say in the kits not to use non-returnable bottles?

 

[Gerryjo]

Gerryjo, Session and terrym. Thank you all for your advice and tips, a great help. I'm starting my last kit today a Youngs defitive bitter, going to use Ritchies dark malt extract.
One more thing, why does it say in the kits not to use non-returnable bottles?

Because they are normally glass with none sanitary lids that would normally not seal and cause infection /bottle bombs. The ones when I was growing up you could make a few pennies on for sweeties.
That takes me right back nearly half a century....

 

[Turbine-Tel]

Because they are normally glass with none sanitary lids that would normally not seal and cause infection /bottle bombs. The ones when I was growing up you could make a few pennies on for sweeties.
That takes me right back nearly half a century....

Thanks for your reply Gerry, It's probably me being stupid but I don't fully understand your answer.
I'm a similar age to yourself I think, I used to take my dads beer bottles back to a small serving hatch in the local pub bar in the late sixties. I would have thought a glass beer bottle with new crown cap hammered on with the tool would be fine. unless the bottles are a different cap size I guess.
What is a non sanitary lid?
Cheers Terry

 

[Gerryjo]

Thanks for your reply Gerry, It's probably me being stupid but I don't fully understand your answer.
I'm a similar age to yourself I think, I used to take my dads beer bottles back to a small serving hatch in the local pub bar in the late sixties. I would have thought a glass beer bottle with new crown cap hammered on with the tool would be fine. unless the bottles are a different cap size I guess.
What is a non sanitary lid?
Cheers Terry

They are chatting about pop bottles and reusing the lid. Beer bottles with new crown lids are perfect so keep using them. It's also a marketing tactic so as to get you to buy bottles rather than recycling them as most people do.

 

[Turbine-Tel]

Great, Thanks