First brew with home grown hops

[natty brew]

Well first proper post, I wanted to share the fact that i made my first ale with home grown hops! Cobbled together a beer design with some educated guessing using Northdown for bittering anf some Fuggles and W.G.V. for post boil plus a good helping of W.G.V. into the bin for dry hopping. Its a little confusing as in 36 hours its gone from 1044sg down to 1012sg???? So slightly confused. Going to leave it for a week and check again although there is no sign of more CO2 as airlock has levelled out. Any thoughts on the speedy fermentation?? I have seen other post similar given the warmth still I am assuming this may all be normal.

Any comments appreciated, and happy to be using this forum :

Drinking Festival IPA and Festival Landlord

Bottled Brewferm frambois

In the fermenter my own design very hoppy pale ale

 

[pittsy]

Hi , was it ag or a kit , what yeast did you use , did you use a starter (if it was liquid yeast) and at what temp did you ferment at ? . The first stage can be very fast sometimes but even so like you mentioned i would leave it for at least 7 days (probably more) to help yeast clean up off flavours and so on .

 

[natty brew]

Hi, no sorry no wheat in it! I am unsure of wheat in beers, but yet to experiment so I shall hold judgement. I used malt extract as I don't have the facilities to ferment grain. It had pale malt extract and i used crystal malt grains as well as my hops. I used a windsor english beer yeast (I am yet to find a better yeast as this is the first go at making beer away from a standard kit). I have researched Burton ale yeast which seems to fit the styles I want to brew. I made a starter using some medium spray malt and allowed it to get going for an hour before I pitched it. Not exactly a few days but I wasn't that prepared. I have a submersible heater and insulation jacket and it is set at 22.C Whats your thoughts on a second fermenter? Do you add priming sugar to this or just take it off the yeast and let it sit for a couple of weeks before bottling?

Thanks for the reply :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

sounds like it was fast because you did every thing right , used good healthy yeast and made a big enough starter etc so yes first stage is complete but still may drop a little but leave it longer so yeast will clean up any poss off flavours and will settle out yeast and crud , leave it for about 5 days more :thumb:

 

[natty brew]

Nice one, will post any worthy progress

cheers

 

[evanvine]

Kit or not, it's nice to hear somebody having success at their 1st attempt.
Well done. :thumb:

 

[natty brew]

Thanks, yeh hopefully it will be a success. I have done plenty of kits but this is far more interesting and enjoyable to actually influence flavour as oppose to just add water. I will still do kits tho as some are well good, Festival ales are very good, Landlords bitter and razorback IPA are the favourites. Hows the turbo cider?

 

[evanvine]

Some better than others, but most beat commercial cider.

 

[pittsy]

Thanks, yeh hopefully it will be a success. I have done plenty of kits but this is far more interesting and enjoyable to actually influence flavour as oppose to just add water. I will still do kits tho as some are well good, Festival ales are very good, Landlords bitter and razorback IPA are the favourites. Hows the turbo cider?

wait till you taste your ag brew , i bet you stop making kits after you have . :whistle: