Festival World New Zealand Pilsner

[Broomie14]

Hi all, been a while since iv been on here or brewed... thought id give it ago again and bought all new stuff.... also bought the Festival World New Zealand Pilsner box and wondering if theres any tips or tricks that dont come on the instructions ... will be starting it in the next week or soo and i am a little rusty so any info would be grateful.... thanks

 

[Tanglefoot]

Festival make some of my favourite kits,
such as Razorback IPA and Summer Glory
- hard to beat for what they are.

Keep a keen eye on sanitising and fermentation temperature.

Note the OG, be patient.

That's about it, if you can brew and cold crash in a fridge it will make a big difference.

Good luck !

 

[Broomie14]

This is going to be a daft question... whats cold crashing ? Is that the stage when you have bottled it and put it in the fridge to cool ?

Thanks

 

[An Ankoù]

Hi all, been a while since iv been on here or brewed... thought id give it ago again and bought all new stuff.... also bought the Festival World New Zealand Pilsner box and wondering if theres any tips or tricks that dont come on the instructions ... will be starting it in the next week or soo and i am a little rusty so any info would be grateful.... thanks

Pour it into an immaculately clean and finely polished glass if you want a solid and enduring head.

 

[Tanglefoot]

This is going to be a daft question... whats cold crashing ? Is that the stage when you have bottled it and put it in the fridge to cool ?

Thanks

Cold crashing is chilling the fermented ale, usually in a fridge which drops yeast,hops etc. to the bottom of the fermenting vessel before packaging and helps to produce a clear beer

Don't worry, there are no daft questions !

 

[Broomie14]

Cold crashing is chilling the fermented ale, usually in a fridge which drops yeast,hops etc. to the bottom of the fermenting vessel before packaging and helps to produce a clear beer

Don't worry, there are no daft questions !

If i could get it in a fridge would in a cold room do? I dont know how im going to do it yet. I might need a immersion heater to keep it to 19-22 degrees

 

[Pavalijo]

I did this earlier this year as my first brew after a 30 year layoff.
I added the hops after 6 days in accordance with the instructions - but then it took another 15 days to reach FG. It turned out to be a very nice pint but I wish I had dry hopped much later. I expected a little more hopiness than was achieved.
Having read up on the subject since I now wait until fermentation has virtually finished before adding hops and leave them in for 3-4 days before racking to a bottling bucket.
I am going to do this one again and see how much difference the later addition of hops made.
Another vote here also for Razorback - my advice there would be to bottle it a couple of months before you want to drink it!

 

[Broomie14]

I did this earlier this year as my first brew after a 30 year layoff.
I added the hops after 6 days in accordance with the instructions - but then it took another 15 days to reach FG. It turned out to be a very nice pint but I wish I had dry hopped much later. I expected a little more hopiness than was achieved.
Having read up on the subject since I now wait until fermentation has virtually finished before adding hops and leave them in for 3-4 days before racking to a bottling bucket.
I am going to do this one again and see how much difference the later addition of hops made.
Another vote here also for Razorback - my advice there would be to bottle it a couple of months before you want to drink it!

Iv not done one like this before iv only ever done the ones in cans before.... can inask what is dry hopped and how is it done ???

 

[Pavalijo]

There is are some good threads on here re dry hopping. I don't do all grain yet, but that includes adding hops at different stages of boiling the wort to add flavours and bitterness. In a kit that has been done already. Hops or hop pellets are included in a kit usually to add certain volatile aromas by sprinkling the dry hops into the fermenter at a late stage.
Basically when fermentation is almost or fully completed you add hops into the fermenter.
So far I have only used hop pellets. Some kits advise you to steep the hops in water before adding, others to just sprinkle on the top (that being the case with this FNZP kit).
They add aroma and the perceived wisdom is that if you add them too early (as I did by adding after a specified number of days from pitching yeast, in accordance with the instructions) you will lose some of the volatile aromas through being driven out with escaping CO2, and you might even get "grassy flavours" developing. 3 or even just 2 days (from a few different articles/threads) seems to be the optimum period for adding hops before bottling (or racking into a bottling bucket leaving hops behind).
From my reading around the subject I prefer to wait until fermentation is complete, or within a couple of points of target gravity, rather than adding too early as happened when I did this kit.
In a subsequent brew I tried putting the hops in a bag and raising and lowering the bag a couple of times a day (using fishing line through the bung hole) but I found that the hop pellets expanded much more than I expected into a fairly solid mass and I got much less hop flavour than expected.
A simple but good piece of advice on here (from Terrym I think) was to sprinkle the hops on the surface and give sharp taps around the "waterline" of the fermenter a few times a day which makes the hop debris gradually drop down through the fermenter and settle on the bottom.
Most recently I racked into a bottling bucket (CO2 filled to limit aeration) through a filter bag (sanitized Sainsbury's vegetable bag) to remove hop debris and that worked well.
I'm sure others will do things slightly differently or have a more informed view but I hope that is a useful starter.

 

[Broomie14]

There is are some good threads on here re dry hopping. I don't do all grain yet, but that includes adding hops at different stages of boiling the wort to add flavours and bitterness. In a kit that has been done already. Hops or hop pellets are included in a kit usually to add certain volatile aromas by sprinkling the dry hops into the fermenter at a late stage.
Basically when fermentation is almost or fully completed you add hops into the fermenter.
So far I have only used hop pellets. Some kits advise you to steep the hops in water before adding, others to just sprinkle on the top (that being the case with this FNZP kit).
They add aroma and the perceived wisdom is that if you add them too early (as I did by adding after a specified number of days from pitching yeast, in accordance with the instructions) you will lose some of the volatile aromas through being driven out with escaping CO2, and you might even get "grassy flavours" developing. 3 or even just 2 days (from a few different articles/threads) seems to be the optimum period for adding hops before bottling (or racking into a bottling bucket leaving hops behind).
From my reading around the subject I prefer to wait until fermentation is complete, or within a couple of points of target gravity, rather than adding too early as happened when I did this kit.
In a subsequent brew I tried putting the hops in a bag and raising and lowering the bag a couple of times a day (using fishing line through the bung hole) but I found that the hop pellets expanded much more than I expected into a fairly solid mass and I got much less hop flavour than expected.
A simple but good piece of advice on here (from Terrym I think) was to sprinkle the hops on the surface and give sharp taps around the "waterline" of the fermenter a few times a day which makes the hop debris gradually drop down through the fermenter and settle on the bottom.
Most recently I racked into a bottling bucket (CO2 filled to limit aeration) through a filter bag (sanitized Sainsbury's vegetable bag) to remove hop debris and that worked well.
I'm sure others will do things slightly differently or have a more informed view but I hope that is a useful starter.

Wow thanks for the info... iv only brewed twice before and rhat was 2014 and 2017, one was a complete failure with the beer been flat in the bottles, 2nd time worked well, i say that but any thing was better than my first attempt. These were both tin kits like the coopers so this FESTIVAL kit is all new to me with the hops and stuff so hope its simple enough to do

 

[Broomie14]

So iv eventually got my brew going and just re read some of these posts espesh about the hop pellets.... my mate is doing the same batch and said hes putting his hops in on the 6th day and i think im going to wait till fermentation is finished amd then swap bottles to see the difference.... il come back with an update when i can my starting gravity was 56 i think iv read the right part of the hydrometer

 

[Banbeer]

My piece of advise would be now the brew is going don't take the lid off the FV unless you really have to and keep it in there for 2 weeks even though you know it has finished because the yeast will clean up the beer. Then after fermentation has finished (2 weeks) add the hops (no need to stir as they will break up and disperse into the beer) leave them in for a couple of days then you can take it to your coldest part of the house for a few days more for it to clear some. 1.056 seems about right. Good luck

 

[Broomie14]

My piece of advise would be now the brew is going don't take the lid off the FV unless you really have to and keep it in there for 2 weeks even though you know it has finished because the yeast will clean up the beer. Then after fermentation has finished (2 weeks) add the hops (no need to stir as they will break up and disperse into the beer) leave them in for a couple of days then you can take it to your coldest part of the house for a few days more for it to clear some. 1.056 seems about right. Good luck

Cheers for the info mate