Brewing kits

[Rich27]

My son in law this evening persuaded me to crack open a bottle of the MJ pink grapefruit IPA after just 2 weeks in the FV, 2 weeks in a warm room then 3 days in the cold garage.

I have to say it's turned out very nice but not as I expected. There are no off flavours or odours, it's very smooth and very easy to drink. My only disappointment is, it's not very citrussy and tastes nothing like Elvis Juice which it was supposed to be almost identical to.

I'm going to leave the other 30 plus bottles in the garage fro another couple of weeks and see how they turn out after that.

 

[Kenboy]

I made a 'Make Your Own' American IPA kit on Sunday and after about 12 hours the airlock was going crazy.

It stayed like that for about 24 hours but now there's no activity in the airlock that I've noticed. I've also noticed the temperature has dropped from 22c down to 18 but then our hallway is getting colder at night and we haven't put the heating on yet.

I don't think it's stalled as there is still a fair amount of co2 in the bucket as the lid is still quite convex and if I put slight pressure on it the airlock bubbles.

I've put a blanket around the FV but, I'm wondering, do I need to I need to artificially bring the temperature up a bit or is 18 fine?

Do a gravity check and see where it is. I've had a kit get down to 1.012 in two days (still left it for two weeks).

18c is the lower end to where you want to brew. So yeah try and raise the temperature. If your fermentation is stuck, it will probably pick up once temp is up. Hopefully you gave it a good bit of airation when you mixed it?

 

[Drunkula]

What I do not understand is how adding acid and heat to dissolved sucrose syrup would create invertase. So, anyone have any more biochemical insight?

Alight, lad - missed this reply. If you look up inverted sugar you'll find how the heat/acid thing do the split. Yeast just vom out enzymes to do the same job. Same but different. I found something about invertase used as an additive and perception levels but it was pretty vague and no use to see if it is a element of le twang.

I've shortbrewed kits to 2 gallons without sugar and still got twang and with the kilo of sugar plus all grain thing definitely not being twangy I still think sugar probably isn't the devil in all this. We need to open some charity shops to get money to fund proper research.

 

[Rich27]

Do a gravity check and see where it is. I've had a kit get down to 1.012 in two days (still left it for two weeks).

18c is the lower end to where you want to brew. So yeah try and raise the temperature. If your fermentation is stuck, it will probably pick up once temp is up. Hopefully you gave it a good bit of airation when you mixed it?

The day after I posted this I actually bought a small reptile heat mat from Facebook for £3. I put it under the FV with the blanket around and it brought the temp back up to 22c and has kept it there perfectly until now.

The gravity had dropped to 1006 after just 3 days and the colour was a very strange yellow with a green tint. I thought it must be contaminated but after tasting and smelling it I quickly ascertained that it wasn't. The colour must have been due to the extra cascade hops I put in and put them all in from the start.

I drew off a small amount the night before last and it has a great hop punch with a crisp bitter after taste. I plan to keg it over the weekend and put it in a warm room for 2 weeks followed by 2 weeks in the garage.

Hopefully this will be a real cracker.

 

[johncrobinson]

Heat and acid does invert sugar,But most yeast produce invertase anyway.So i am not certain how usefull this is.Also as i understand it brewing sugar is glucose not sucrose and can be used by the yeast directly.
I make wine rather than beer but if i had ONE secret to pass on its this Keep the fermentation temp STEADY at all costs.

 

[An Ankoù]

Yes I read that also. Turning sucrose into Golden Syrup before adding to beer (or Invert Syrup as the Old Recipes say) saves a few precious hours in a commercial beer. Makes little difference to HB'ers, but I enjoy making GS nonetheless!

What I do not understand is how adding acid and heat to dissolved sucrose syrup would create invertase. So, anyone have any more biochemical insight?

Invertase is an enzyme which breaks down complex sugars into simple monosaccharides. Warming sucrose in the presence of some acid does roughly the same job, roughly.

 

[Drunkula]

I had a quick squint to see if I could find the thing about invertase taste levels I found before but I couldn't find it.

I knew it's used to soften the centre of sweets n things because I saw a show about After Eights, think it was a Greg Wallace / Cherry Healey** thing - an the middle bit is a plank of minty sugar with the enzyme in, you coat it - wait a couple of weeks and it turns to goo inside. They do the same thing with lots of chocolate coated sugary filth like creme eggs and liqueurs.

So do After Eights, Creme Eggs and chocolate liqueurs have homebrew twang? Probably not that you can tell... but you'll be checking!

So invertase in the food industry is generally derived from yeast, which I didn't know, never thought about it, but I feel like it's treachery it doing work for anyone but ME, I means us, I mean boozers. Been out all night, have ya?? Been hanging round with the baker and the bon-bon man, have ya? You'll be giving my wife and infectio.... anyway, enough of that.

** Cherry likes her booze and is quite funny straight from someone I know who's worked with her. I like that. But sadly John Terode and Greg Wallace don't hang out outside Masterchef. I so wish they went on the lash after a belly full of scallops and girroles(??!) but apparently not. They probably just drink cans of Strongbow alone in their caravans.

Yeah, I'm pissed. Delete as necessary. Mwah! xx

 

[johncrobinson]

Its actually to do with the direction of rotation of polarised light.An inverted sugar solution will rotate light in the opposite direction.What has this got to do with fermentation??? Well yeast will invert sugar so the theory goes by pre-inverting the yeast are given a helping hand.Im afraid the science is really complex and i cannot explain it in a more simple manner if others can please be my guest.!!
I allways invert my sugar for making wine the process for making syrup does this automatically.

 

[dad_of_jon]

My son in law this evening persuaded me to crack open a bottle of the MJ pink grapefruit IPA after just 2 weeks in the FV, 2 weeks in a warm room then 3 days in the cold garage.

I have to say it's turned out very nice but not as I expected. There are no off flavours or odours, it's very smooth and very easy to drink. My only disappointment is, it's not very citrussy and tastes nothing like Elvis Juice which it was supposed to be almost identical to.

I'm going to leave the other 30 plus bottles in the garage fro another couple of weeks and see how they turn out after that.

yup I found this with MJ pink grapefruit. If I do this again I'm chucking in 2-3 litres of Pink grapefruit juice.

 

[johncrobinson]

It has allways amazed me how finished wines can taste NOTHING like the starter ingedients.
My late father used to make wine from chips from the local fish n chip shop.Squashy chips he called it and rather nice it was too.

 

[CeeGee]

My late father used to make wine from chips from the local fish n chip shop.

He did what now?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

My late father used to make wine from chips from the local fish n chip shop.Squashy chips he called it and rather nice it was too.

He did what now?

Sounds a bit fishy to me.

.

 

[stephen1546]

Wondering if it contained chippy sauce..

 

[An Ankoù]

Sounds a bit fishy to me.

.

Complete cod's wallop I should say. A good battering might knock some sense into him.

 

[johncrobinson]

Heh Heh Its TRUE.
The wine was made from the peelings and the leftover chips that had not been fried.
The peelings/raw chips were washed then boiled and mashed ( hence squashy chips )
He also had a similar arrangement with the local greengrocer re:- damaged/overripe fruit.

 

[johncrobinson]

It was a long time ago.Today i guess chip shops use par fried pre packed frozen chips.
My dad was born pre ww2 and in those days post sugar rationing a lot of people made country wines
When he died in 1997 i was left with enough equipment to set up a home brew shop.!!
As a youngster at the time i showed little interest in his winemaking activities.

 

[johncrobinson]

Btw I THINK he converted the potato starch into sugar with amylase as there were tubs of the stuff amongst his equipment.

 

[johncrobinson]

It all came to an end due to 2 main things
(1) My mother became diabetic ( in those days alcohol for diabetics was a no-no ).
(2) The husbands of my mothers friends started complaining about their wives coming home pi$&ed legless every night.

I was not a fan of these gatherings anyway due to all the smelly cigarette smoke.
Dad himself drank very little.

 

[Rich27]

I kegged my AIPA with the mega hop dose tonight and WOW what a taste already. Amazing.

It's very much like St Austell Proper Job, maybe even more hoppy. I've put it in the small room upstairs for 2 weeks and then, I'll transfer it to the garage for 2 weeks to clear. It promises to be a cracker when ready.

Half way through the transfer from FV to keg I realised something that bothered me. I was draining it using the tap on the bottom of the FV, into a funnel lined with muslin to catch the hop dregs and then into the keg. As it was glugging through the funnel I though, "Oh ****, I may have just oxidized the entire brew."

Should I have used the siphon tube instead and how badly could I have f****d up my super hop brew? I put extra priming sugar in to hopefully force any oxygen out but where would it escape from in a pressure keg?

Gulp.

 

[Skittlersteve]

Not too sure on that, I bottled all mine, but I bought some stainless steel car tyre valves (evil Bay £1.99 for 5)drilled a hole to fit in p/b lid, now I can test pressure with an ordinary tyre pressure gauge! Works quite well! If you have to much pressure (10-15 psi) just release some as in letting tyre down! My Range AIPA I primed with half the sugar they say, and I've had to release some as pet bottles were rock hard! So I would think you could easily lose some safely!