Beer is comming

[Tugnut]

Hi guys long time no posts from me. Well Christmas time i did a list of what i needed equipment wise and then when any of the family asked what i would like i asked for the bits i needed to finish and start making beer :) . Well a few weeks ago went out and got all the ingredients i needed and IT began was sooo excited, and the recipe is from An Enthusiast's guide to homebrew beers by Sam Calagione.

and the A to Z recipe as its all broken down in to steps and easy to follow.

Things went well i think... A few hiccups like finding that my Hydrometer had a crack in it and had to run down to alder shot to get a new one (only to find that Tesco extra had them lol) any ways nice to spend the money in a beer shop than a super market.

It was also nice though the cooking stage all the different smells and the look of the wort as things progressed was great.

and using the slap pack and in the end watching the beer to be bubbling away :) i work nights and when i came home in the mornings the house is silent and all i could here was the beer bubbling :) and opening the cupboard and the smell that had built up :)

now this brings me to the point i am now and would love some advice... starting gravity on the 18th feb was 1.066 next check on the 21st feb was 1.030 and today the 3ed march its down to 1.012 target for bottling is 1.010 do i leave it for 2 days or so and check gravity again if its the same continue and bottle up or is there some thing else i should be doing :/

any help would be great.

 

[pittsy]

hi i would check it tomorrow and then bottle on tuesday if it still hasn't dropped or around 3 days after it has stopped , hope it's a good beer for you .

 

[PD]

What brew is it ? From your gravity reading your looking at a strength of 7 - 7.2% abv which is a good strong beer.
Your ageing will take a couple of months after the brew is bottled...( its usual to give a week for each 10 points of the gravity )...and that's the minimum.

Look forward to having a few bottles in summer, the rest save for Christmas ...he hee.
So get another brew on

 

[Tugnut]

What brew is it ? From your gravity reading your looking at a strength of 7 - 7.2% abv which is a good strong beer.
Your ageing will take a couple of months after the brew is bottled...( its usual to give a week for each 10 points of the gravity )...and that's the minimum.

Look forward to having a few bottles in summer, the rest save for Christmas ...he hee.
So get another brew on

It is A to Z from a book "An Enthusiast's guide to homebrew beers by Sam Calagione." its called a to z as there are 26 steps to it.

Thanks guys will check tomorrow and bottle if no change. 8 weeks! tell its ready :shock: been on a beer free since the newyear ready for my own lol will not do a new batch tell i have tried this and see if all is good. also i want to get a better brew pot as mine is a 20litre wide pot and i want the 33litre tall pots as will help get a good boil on and easyer to use in a water bath to cool down.

Have wanted to make my own beer for a long time now and did not want to do the beer kits as to me feels like a cheat. so far loved doing it and smelling the beer today and it smelling as beer made me smile big time. i hope i not done any thing to spoil the beer and looking forward to trying the end product (So are a lot of my friends that have shown a lot of intrest in me making beer for some reason lol)

 

[Tugnut]

There was no change i could see on the gravity test on Monday so today was bottling day. took all day as had to do every thing clean bottle and sanitize them and bottling buckets (so glad i am not on a water meter)

28 brown 500ml and 4 375 ish ml bottles done... have to say that was a very low point in this cleaning bottles never seem to end lol

but back to the high priming and filling, used a bottling bucket with one of them bottle fillers the one you push the bottle up and it fills it was very handy and capping them loved this job could do that all day was great fun.

now a long wait tell drinking day

did a test taste to :) yummy

 

[pittsy]

have a test around 2 weeks in , it will be green (not the colour ) but give you an idea of what will follow. p.s have a look for a bottle tree and rinser , it can get your bottle cleaning down to about 20 mins if you use star san sanitiser too

 

[Tugnut]

have a test around 2 weeks in , it will be green (not the colour ) but give you an idea of what will follow. p.s have a look for a bottle tree and rinser , it can get your bottle cleaning down to about 20 mins if you use star san sanitiser too

Ok 2weeks and had a bottle today... it may be green but its sooo nice and strong 500ml bottle and i was in a very happy place :)
2 bottles i think i would of been on the floor lol.

 

[pittsy]

nice to hear it's a good 1 , so now you know to start brewing more beer :thumb: