First brew! Bottling...how many maxale priming drops?

[Rossco01]

Hi all, my first post and my first brew...so as with many breaking my duck on a Woodfordes Wherry. Down to 1012 and no movement for 4 days and so transferred to a second FV tonight and will leave at room temp over the weekend before bottling. Had a little try and seemed ok...so fingers crossed for my first brew.

Planning to use maxale priming drops for priming. The bag suggests 2 drops per 500ml bottle. Having read a few posts on here some seem to use 1 drop and others 2 drops....would welcome anyone's views on this.

Managed to pick up a milestone greenman from Wilkos @£16 as well as some extra kit in the sale.

 

[pms67]

Save yourself some time and put about 65 of them in a little boiled water then add the lot to the fv.
Then, don't buy any more drops !
Batch prime every time using dextrose, so,so much easier.
Good luck

 

[Rossco01]

Cheers PMS67...I'm going to skip the drops and batch prime instead!

 

[Dads_Ale]

+1 for batch priming

 

[Kermit The Grog]

batch all the way and nice one
have you read up on the wherry?
it takes a while to clear but its worth the wait
cheers ktg

 

[Joeyriles]

This will sound dim: does batch priming still mean that you have the sugar ring of sediment in the bottom of each bottle? Been bottle priming with Cooper's carb drops for ages and feel like a bit of a jessie but worried I'd mess up batch priming!

 

[marksa222]

This will sound dim: does batch priming still mean that you have the sugar ring of sediment in the bottom of each bottle? Been bottle priming with Cooper's carb drops for ages and feel like a bit of a jessie but worried I'd mess up batch priming!

Yes, the carb drops are sugar. It's still the same thing, just adding all the sugar to all of the beer rather than individually in bottles.

Dead easy... Just weigh out your sugar and stir it into a pan of a little boiling water let it boil for a couple of mins. The let it cool (I put some cling film over the pan to keep it sanitary) and empty the mixture into the bottom of your 2nd fv. Then syphon the bottle on to the top of this mixture and bottle it without adding anything else. Look here; http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/
to find out how much sugar you need, but make sure you take into consideration the beer lost to trub when you enter your volume. I usually take 2L off what I have in my primary for this.

 

[Rossco01]

So just to reply to this (as I started it). I did exactly as suggested and batch primed. I had though already transferred my beer to a second FV so I added the sugar (silver spoon 100g) to 200ml of cooled boiled water to dissolve and added this to the 2nd FV.

Bottled it on the 5th May. Beer was still a little cloudy when bottled but cleared almost fully over the first 5 days. Cracked a bottle last night (so 9 days in) and it was carbonated nicely and the taste of the beer (Wherry) has improved a lot in those 9 days.

Have now transferred it to the cool garage and will be trialling another bottle on Friday night. Off camping a week on Friday so will be taking a few bottles with me then to sample further.

Will be looking to start my next kit Milestone Greenman at the weekend so that it can ferment whilst I'm away on hols.

 

[marksa222]

Good man, glad it's working out.

Be patient with some of them if you can... they'll get better and better over the next few weeks/months. For my first kit, I stashed a bottle away and had it at 6 months old, and I wish I'd saved a few more, it was great!

 

[goldenone]

Like yourself my first brew that I did last year was a Wherry and whilst its very tempting to crack them open early on I personally recommend sticking them to the back of your shed for at least 6-8 weeks after bottling before trying.

This gives you chance to get a second brew on the go so that you eventually have a constant turn over. I found my Wherry to still taste a little too young even at 6 weeks and felt that they improved no end between the 3-6 month mark.

In fact I drank my last bottle of the Wherry last week (8 months after brewing) and it tasted great!

Patience is the key :smile:

 

[Rossco01]

I'll try to resist but it's tough! I'm not a quafer so I reckon 40 pints will last me a while. I see the next couple was just quality control and will try and leave it then until end June! I agree about getting next brew on though.

 

[goldenone]

I felt exactly the same & after a month of being bottled I was tasting 1 bottle per week until I felt happy with the quality.
All the best with it though :-)

 

[Joeyriles]

This Wherry does seem very popular. I feel like I'm missing out!

Just finishing up the Festival Suffolk strong. I already racked to a secondary to get it off of the trub and added the hops so I suppose I'll rack it back into my newly cleaned primary fv and add the sugar.

Sample jar tastes de lici ous and the hops (boudicea) are adding a bit of a kick to it as far as bitterness goes. I'm starting to run out of room for bottles.

Rossco01-good lad for diving in there with your first homebrew and keep us posted on the Wherry's quaffability!

:

 

[Rossco01]

So as I promised a report back on my Wherry! Opened a bottle last Thursday and was a bit disappointed little fizz and no head. I have feeling though top wasn't on tight....however as a precaution I bought the bottles back inside for more warm conditioning. Put one in the garage on Wed and opened tonight....significantly better! Plenty of fizz although not a lot of head but was is there stays a way down the glass. I can also tell that the flavour is maturing now as well...reckon I'll be taking a few of these away in the caravan next week

 

[marksa222]

If you're not happy with the head, have you heard of a "pocket beer engine"?

It's a syringe (like a childs calpol one) you pull up a syringe of beer from your glass, then put the tip of it just under the beer level and forcefully push it back in. It foams up nicely and give a similar head to a beer pulled through a sparkler tip. It sticks around too... great idea whoever thought of it.

This beer had no head at all before using the pocket beer engine;

 

[Rossco01]

Tried it tonight with one of the calpol syringes and got a lovely creamy head ! Although on fairness didn't get a bad head on this on anyway... Tasting lovely now

 

[marksa222]

Just another tool in the toolbox :-D