Adding sugar

[thomascrabs]

Bought basic startup gear second hand off this forum for £65 and I've been making good and great beer ever since.

The cost of going AG has been a big put off for me. In reality I may not get to spend a lot of time doing AG, but that sounds very reasonable! Think I'll take a look at the "for sale" area! :thumb:

From my relatively limited knowledge I guess I can first buy a boiler and do extract then move onto AG later. Seems like a natural progression from kit to AG and you get to learn a part of the process at a time.

Kits may not be great but I do think they are the best introduction to brewing.

(This thread has somewhat gone off topic!)

 

[calumscott]

The cost of going AG has been a big put off for me.

Consider BIAB. I did my first with a 70l pot (about 50 quid delivered from Bergland) on the hob and a bag (about 15 quid to make two) and nothing else.

You could (if you didn't want to brew 40l batches) get a 56l pot delivered for 40 quid I think...

 

[clibit]

If you have a big pan, all you need to go AG is a bag - I made mine with muslin that cost 2 quid and I did my first ever bit of sewing. I used a 15 litre stock pot, made about 15 litres by topping up with cold in the FV from about 12 litres that I boiled, or did a partial mash and made up to 20+ litres by adding DME at the end of the boil and topping up in the FV.

*Mash (soak) grains in the bag in the pan at 65-68C (thermometer required/cover pan with towels/sleeping bag etc)
*Lift the bag out after 60-90 minutes
*Rinse the grains with more hot water either through a colander or by putting the bag in a bucket of a water at about 75C
*Boil all the wort in the pan with hops
*Cool in sink
*Pour into plastic bin through a sieve and pitch yeast.

Top beer, much better than a kit or extract even, much cheaper, and a doddle. Just takes longer, but I reach the end of the boil in 4 hours, and just wait for it to cool to 20C ish and aerate/add yeast. Stirring the wort cools it faster though, while the cold tap runs slowly into the sink to keep the water temp down.

 

[dave0w]

The cost of going AG has been a big put off for me.

Consider BIAB. I did my first with a 70l pot (about 50 quid delivered from Bergland) on the hob and a bag (about 15 quid to make two) and nothing else.

You could (if you didn't want to brew 40l batches) get a 56l pot delivered for 40 quid I think...

where do you get pots at that price?

 

[Fil]

pop over to www.ebay.fr, search for "inox marmite 70l"
french for stainless steel stock pot :) and bergland or bergland24 are one of the major sellers listed with buy it now prices..

they are 1 of a number of sellers, email them on ebay or one or the other similar sellers, and ask for a quote for delivery to your postcode in the UK, you will probably recieve a quote off ebay cheaper than the ebay,fr price

 

[Cwrw Bach]

Ok guys thanks for all your replies with your suggestions and advice.

This is the stage where i am at now.

december 27th first started home brew from a Tom Caxton kit.

until this point it has been in a warm room and i havnt added any more sugar for the second stage.

So correct me if im wrong, but now is the time after sitting there for 10 days that i add the second batch of sugar and relocate the brew into a pressure barrell and store in a cold room, for about 2 weeks?

 

[Fil]

best to check the beer gravity with a hydrometer in a trial jar if u dont have em you can pick em up in wilco's and when u get the same gravity reading on 2 sucsessive days its time to move on..

to take the samples for gravity yu dont want to open the bucket and stand with your head over it, LOTS of nasties can just fall in that way.. so just crack the lid enough for you to get a big sterile syringe or sterile turkey baster in to suck out enough beer for a sample. ( may take 2 or 3 sucks..)

I ould just drop the 80g or so of sugar for the priming into the sterile keg and syphon the clear beer off the yeasty sediment into the keg onto the sugar. You could take a small ammount of beer and boil it in a pan and disolve the sugar in that first if u wanted to, but imho its not necessary.

Dont disturb the yeast sediment in the fermentor u want to leave that behind there will be enough yeast in suspension in the clear beer to eat the sugar and condition (fizz) the beer.

then leave the keg in the warm for a week or 2 before sitting in the cool for a month or so to mature, You can drink it quicker but it will be green beer and not at its best by far.

So start collecting bottles for your second brew, by the end of Feb u shoiuld have beer for life as long as u keep up with yourself brewing.. its the initial dry period u just need to get thru..


enjoy

 

[clibit]

Like Fil says:

*You must be sure it's finished fermenting - by waiting til hydrometer readings are the same 2 or 3 days running.

*The beer needs to be in a warm place after adding the priming sugar so the yeast can convert the priming sugar to CO2. A week or two (it varies) - then moved to a cool place.

 

[MikeK117]

Ignore the instructions :thumb:

The more I read this forum, the more I'm getting this impression! I was going to transfer into barrel from FV tomorrow (the 6th day) but I think I'll leave this until next week!

Too bloody excited at the prospect of my own beer - I need to exercise some control!

 

[Fil]

kit instructions especially those on the outside of the packaging are designed to sell u the idea brewing at home, and therfore promise a quick turnover. i expect many potential home brewers would be put off by instructions which indicate a few months elapsing between start and supping the first pint. however once you have tasted the difference between a green beer and one which has had a good maturing period patience or control isnt that hard to develop :)

try it yourself fill a couple of bottles with your beer and sit on em for a few months and compare the quality between the aged and green beer.

PS we probably all supped our first kit a bit green

 

[Cwrw Bach]

Ok here goes.
Today i picked up the hydrometer, testing jar, turkey baster suringe.
Ive just sterilised the syringe and put a sample in the testing jar. Popped the hydrometer in and it has just sunk to the bottom. What does this mean? Have I left it ferment too long?
Oh and I havnt added the second batch of sugar yet either.

 

[NickW]

Make sure there's enough beer in there!

 

[Cwrw Bach]

Ah yes your right. I only had the testing jar 3 quarters full. Once i added more beer the hydrometer floated. So for future reference i will put the same amount in the testing jar each time.
Well i have taken the reading and noted it down. The reading is in the top yellow part on the meter, where it says bottle or add sugar. So if i have the same reading tomorrow and saturday then i shall syphon the beer to a sterilised barrell and add sugar and leave in warm room for about two weeks? Am i correct?

 

[bigboots]

When reading your hydrometer, first search for 1000.....it will be up near the top! Then drop your eyes down slightly to the next big marker down (it will probably read 10). That is where you are ideally aiming for your beer to finish. A couple of points higher (ie closer to 20) is not a disaster......but do check several days in a row. This is important as you want to make sure the beer has finished eating all the original sugar. This means that when you add more to carbonate you are creating a measured (controlled) pressurisation inside your bottles or keg..
Then a good 2 weeks in the warm as the ambient temp is not great atm, then out into the cool/cold for as long as you can resist the temptation.(Good luck with that!!!!!!!!!!!!)
HTH :

 

[clibit]

So if i have the same reading tomorrow and saturday then i shall syphon the beer to a sterilised barrell and add sugar and leave in warm room for about two weeks? Am i correct?

Yes, correct. Make sure you have the right amount of sugar.

 

[Cwrw Bach]

Ok guys i have located the pressure barrell into the cold room now. Swansea City play Cardiff City in 16 days time. I hope it will be ready for that.
Nah seriously though, is there any final checks i should be doing now? Or just leave it in cold room?

 

[dave0w]

give it a day or 2 the run some sappy water would the seals to make 100% your have good air seal

 

[Cwrw Bach]

it taste's great!!!!!!


Thanks for all the advice guys

 

[beerhunter]

your first brew tends to be your worst, due to inexperience & impatience, so as the song says, things will only get better!

 

[ericmark]

Hi Small beer (Cwrw Bach) like you I wanted cheap beer with minimum of effort. And yes time is a problem slightly cooler and takes a lot longer so I tried using an old body warmer. If done to start with the heat produced by the fermentation was enough to add the few degrees required.

I use a anti-freeze hydrometer to fill the test jar with as it means I don't scoop up any froth so easy to read. It has never been used with anti-freeze. I did wonder why you could not buy a beer hydrometer in the same stile so easy to suck up a sample but when I tried the anti-freeze hydrometer I realised the problem is bubbles. Spinning the hydrometer will detach bubbles from the side giving a true reading can't spin hydrometer in a tube with bulb on the top.

As to all the better brewing methods the question is are you brewing to get cheap beer or as a hobby? To me I want cheap beer, looked at the next stage but it's just too much messing around. To make 40 pints takes me around 2 hours in total from mixing to transferring to second fermentor to reduce sediment and finally bottling so around 3 minutes a pint. Reasonable cost £2 a pint cheapest I can buy minus 25p per pint DIY = £35 per hour for my time well worth the effort.

Factor in cost of time and all the other methods end up more expensive OK agree may be a better pint but unless you enjoy doing the making of beer the humble kit must be cheapest way to make beer.

As to time yes I have learnt that leaving what at first seems a not so good of a pint a month does seem to improve it. I have poured just one bottle down the drain. Clearly not cleaned out bottle well enough had held Ballies Irish Cream and it was just like coloured water.

Biggest problem was collecting enough bottles now use pop bottles.

Yes I will try some slight experiments tried to lager a beer which failed it needed heating up again. Which I will admit puts me off going away from simple kit. I had three kit failures where I had to add more yeast they just would not kick off. So now I would not touch Coopers with a barge pole. Their Ginger beer did in the end taste good but just too much messing around so will never buy another Coopers kit. Just a simple learning curve.