First brew questions

[tefkab]

Hi All

I've been lurking a while getting some good tips etc., so thanks for all that, but I've now almost finished my first brew and have a couple of questions.

First off it was a Cooper's Mexican Cerveza kit; everything cleaned, mixed as per instructions and kept for 8 days at 22 C. SG was 1034, FG 1006. The instructions said use 1 carbonation drop per 375ml, 2 for 750ml. As I have 500ml bottles I used 1.5 drops and bottled up 10 bottles. The rest is still in the FV, I wanted to see how much different the beer tastes if left a bit longer prior to bottling.

Anyway, onto the questions. The first ten bottles have been sitting in room temp. for 6 days. They looked so tempting I couldn't resist it any longer and stuck one in the fridge last night! I drank it and noticed the following:

1. It looked really clear in the bottle, but hazed up after chilling, so I guess that's chill haze? Anything to worry about?

2. It was tasty but there wasn't quite as much fizz as I had expected.

So I'm guessing either I used too few carbonation drops, or it takes a bit longer than 6 days for proper carbonation to take place?

Any thoughts, apart from my obvious lack of patience!!? :

 

[FatCol]

Hello & Welcome.

When you prime your bottles, you are asking the small amount of yeast in the bottles to convert the priming sugar into a bit more alcohol, and at the same time produce the CO2 that gives your beer its "fizz".

All experienced brewers on here will tell you to ignore most of what the instructions say about brewing/conditioning/maturing times, as they are usually miles too short to produce the results we desire.

I always let my beers have at least 2 weeks in the primary, at least 2 weeks in the warm after bottling or kegging, and then I forget about them for 2-4 months before I try them.

So, in answer to your question, I suspect that 6 days hasn't been long enough to allow the yeast to do its magic, and 1 1/2 drops per 500ml bottle should be sufficient.

Basically, you hit the nail on the head yourself - it's a lack of patience that all new brewers suffer from (I know I did!) and if you can resist the temptation to rush things, you'll be rewarded with a far, far better brew.

Hope that helps

FatCol

 

[sqrson]

I would ditch the carbonation drops too. I have used them when I started brewing for covenience, but the results were very poor. They didnt seem to work with some batches. I know its the drops at fault as I tested it few times, using sugar and drops for same batch of beer (1drop vs 3g sugar). The ones with sugar carbed up nicely, but drops sometimes fail to do so - the brew tasted sweeter so they dissolved, but carbonation was very low.
Sugar gives excellent results and much cheaper too

 

[tefkab]

I would ditch the carbonation drops too.......
Sugar gives excellent results and much cheaper too

Thanks for your posts chaps. Actually this was something I was already thinking about doing; I watched a Youtube video (Craig Tube) where he tried this with dark brown sugar and the results sounded great. I think I'll do my next ten bottles with the brown and take your advice for the next ten. I'm labelling everything so I know what's what. Do you use just normal household sugar? I guess with so many different types of sugar etc. the combos are endless! I even thought about giving honey a go but I've got no idea how much to put into each bottle!

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

agree with fatcol 6 days is too short, mine are bottle conditioned for 6 weeks minimum, and all my ales dry hopped for 2 plus weeks prior to bottling

 

[tefkab]

Update: well I've bottled and labelled it all up now. I've got 10 bottles that were in the FV for one week and 35 that spent two weeks in there. I've experimented with different sugars etc. as follows (all 500ml bottles);

10 x 4g dark brown muscovado sugar
10 x 4g golden sugar
10 x 2 carbonation drops
5 x 1 carbonation drop

I will now leave them for a few weeks at least, but it will take me a while to drink it all anyway as I don't actually drink too much! Dunno why I've started this hobby, come to think of it!!

 

[tefkab]

Just to conclude this thread, I've now tasted all the variations on sugar as listed above. It all tasted good but I got really good results using Billington Golden Granulated Sugar. The dark brown sugar was good but perhaps made the lager look at bit too dark. All in all a good first effort! :