First brew

[Ashman]

First post. Ok got a Wilko kit for 22Litres. However, instead of adding the sugar I just halved the water volume to brew with the malt extract. Starting Hydrometer reading was as expected. I’m using cleaned up (and sanitised) wild bird fat ball tubs from Wilko as they are spec’d at 8.8litres to the lid and food grade (I roughly did 2x 6Litre batches). The tubs have a line on them I estimated at 6 litres.

All went well with vigorous fermentation and expected hydrometer readings but had a problem on bottling batch. Tasted early bottle fine and clear. Tasted a final bottle and it was good though it did look more cloudy than the earlier lot on disturbing the trub and then an hour later - stomach gas , vomiting, headache and diarrhoea! I put this down to the yeast soup i ingested but oh my! (Once I ate homemade bread that was not cooked completely and it was similar if not milder).

Anyone else had this ‘problem’? I have heard of people out there having a problem with commercial cask ales. Drinking the yeast dregs ?

 

[Dutto]

First of all "Welcome to The Forum!"

With regard to the illness I would put it down to Norovirus rather than anything else!

"Yes!" yeast can upset a stomach so if it was your brew then:

• Your stomach isn't used to home-brew yeast.
• The yeast was still very active and carbonating the brew. (Hence the cloudiness.)
• The brew was very badly handled and/or poured so that you disturbed the yeast at the bottom of the bottle.
• The brew is infected with a wild yeast.

Whatever the cause, your stomach is working properly and ejecting something that it perceived would do you harm ...

... and that's why I think it might just be a coincidence and that you have had a dose of Norovirus; which is prevalent at this time of the year!

https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/infections-and-poisoning/norovirus

Enjoy!

 

[terrym]

Having been brought up in brewery town in the days when cask beers were predominant, it was common knowledge that drinking yeasty beer could bring on unpleasant side effects, especially frequent trips to the toilet the following day.
So I avoid drinking yeasty beer irrespective from where it came.
And as far as drinking your own beer, its relatively easy to avoid yeast, by packaging clear or nearly clear beer at the outset, making sure you have given the carbed beer time enough to clear, and taking care to decant clear beer leaving some left in the bottle with the yeast.

 

[Bigcol49]

drinking yeasty beer could bring on unpleasant side effects, especially frequent trips to the toilet the following day

Hi!
. . . but one hour later?
Less likely to be the beer than something else that's been ingested, or a virus, as @Dutto suggested.
Just how well were those fat tubs cleaned?

 

[terrym]

Hi!
. . . but one hour later?
Less likely to be the beer than something else that's been ingested, or a virus, as @Dutto suggested.
Just how well were those fat tubs cleaned?

I agree, virus or something else far more likely.
I hadn't thought of that.
I still avoid yeasty beer though....

 

[Llamaman]

I’ve had yeasty beer bring on the rhino farts but never vomiting and diarrhoea.
1 hour is also far too quick to attribute to the beer, I think.
+1 to unfortunate coincidence.

 

[Dutto]

Hey fellas it's been OVER five days now since the lad got hit by "whatever it was"!

Any more news Chippy?

 

[Ashman]

I’ve named the beer shitzgiver.

Half the batch has been bottled into 500ml green plastic fizzy water bottles. The bottles have cleared quite well although I have yet to drink one....

I’ve still got 6Litres (half the batch ) in the FV though it is very slow to clear. I’m unsure why because the other batch cleared nicely. There is a yeast cake on the bottom but still some clearing needed.

The Wilko tub is spec’d as ecf-8700.

Edit - I have attached an image of the pour. It tastes rather bitter and a little dry (more dry than before) . Quite a lot of sediment has fallen to the bottom. Let’s see if I vom?

 

[DavieC]

Ashman,get yourself a wilco fermenting bucket for a tenner,save faffing about with it..love the beer name by the way

 

[Ashman]

Ashman,get yourself a wilco fermenting bucket for a tenner,save faffing about with it..love the beer name by the way

Will do. Though I’m a tad confused. The Wilko kit I used says a light Summer Ale but refers to it being a Pilsner. I think the Pilsner bit might be marketing? The beer has bitterness. The kit does have pellet hops to dry hop but I thought I’d try that in half the batch. Though with the bitterness I am wary.

 

[Gulpitdarn]

I think I'd risk a pint of Shitzgiver looking at those photos, looks good enough to me and looks very much like my brews. I'd really dump the bird bucket though.

 

[terrym]

Will do. Though I’m a tad confused. The Wilko kit I used says a light Summer Ale but refers to it being a Pilsner. I think the Pilsner bit might be marketing? The beer has bitterness. The kit does have pellet hops to dry hop but I thought I’d try that in half the batch. Though with the bitterness I am wary.

If you brewed very short to 2 x 6 =12 litres using the kit can alone you have concentrated all the bitterness in your finished beer by a factor of roughly 2. So that explains why it is more bitter than perhaps you expected it to be.
If you use the pellets to dry hop your remaining 6 litres you will not increase the bitterness by very much at all, if any. Dry hopping is all about aroma and flavour.
According to the description of your Summer Ale it comes with Progress hops, one description of which is "Slightly sweet with subtly bitter, it features pleasant and Fuggle-like floral aromas of grass, mint and earth".
If you like the sound of that then I suggest you add half of the hops for a few days, with the last two in a cold place. But you will need to either contain the hops in a bag or filter the hop bits out at packaging. More on that here
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/a-newbies-guide-to-dry-hopping-your-beer.61045/
An advantage of you doing a dry hop is that you will be able to see what impact the extra hops have made to your beer.
But if you don't go ahead with dry hopping and your beer is still cloudy and the fermentation has definitely finished I would move it to the coldest place you have short of it freezing and that should encourage it to clear.
Finally if its finished and it still doesn't clear in spite of you putting it in a cold place, dry hop or not, I would just go ahead and package it irrespective. After carbing is over, time and gravity should get the beer clear, eventually.

 

[Ashman]

If you brewed very short to 2 x 6 =12 litres using the kit can alone you have concentrated all the bitterness in your finished beer by a factor of roughly 2. So that explains why it is more bitter than perhaps you expected it to be.
If you use the pellets to dry hop your remaining 6 litres you will not increase the bitterness by very much at all, if any. Dry hopping is all about aroma and flavour.
According to the description of your Summer Ale it comes with Progress hops, one description of which is "Slightly sweet with subtly bitter, it features pleasant and Fuggle-like floral aromas of grass, mint and earth".
If you like the sound of that then I suggest you add half of the hops for a few days, with the last two in a cold place. But you will need to either contain the hops in a bag or filter the hop bits out at packaging. More on that here
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/a-newbies-guide-to-dry-hopping-your-beer.61045/
An advantage of you doing a dry hop is that you will be able to see what impact the extra hops have made to your beer.
But if you don't go ahead with dry hopping and your beer is still cloudy and the fermentation has definitely finished I would move it to the coldest place you have short of it freezing and that should encourage it to clear.
Finally if its finished and it still doesn't clear in spite of you putting it in a cold place, dry hop or not, I would just go ahead and package it irrespective. After carbing is over, time and gravity should get the beer clear, eventually.

Thanks. The hops are in. Oddly I poured another bottle and this one is less bitter (or I am getting used to it) but with a better head. Maybe more cloudy too.

 

[terrym]

Thanks. The hops are in. Oddly I poured another bottle and this one is less bitter (or I am getting used to it) but with a better head. Maybe more cloudy too.

It is possible that your beer is now getting the advantage of conditioning time and is slowly losing its harshness, and also head retention improvements. Time will tell. If you are not careful with pouring clarity can be variable in the glass.

 

[Ashman]

If you brewed very short to 2 x 6 =12 litres using the kit can alone you have concentrated all the bitterness in your finished beer by a factor of roughly 2. So that explains why it is more bitter than perhaps you expected it to be.
If you use the pellets to dry hop your remaining 6 litres you will not increase the bitterness by very much at all, if any. Dry hopping is all about aroma and flavour.
According to the description of your Summer Ale it comes with Progress hops, one description of which is "Slightly sweet with subtly bitter, it features pleasant and Fuggle-like floral aromas of grass, mint and earth".
If you like the sound of that then I suggest you add half of the hops for a few days, with the last two in a cold place. But you will need to either contain the hops in a bag or filter the hop bits out at packaging. More on that here
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/a-newbies-guide-to-dry-hopping-your-beer.61045/
An advantage of you doing a dry hop is that you will be able to see what impact the extra hops have made to your beer.
But if you don't go ahead with dry hopping and your beer is still cloudy and the fermentation has definitely finished I would move it to the coldest place you have short of it freezing and that should encourage it to clear.
Finally if its finished and it still doesn't clear in spite of you putting it in a cold place, dry hop or not, I would just go ahead and package it irrespective. After carbing is over, time and gravity should get the beer clear, eventually.

Thanks. I dry hopped for a few days. I decided to just throw them hops in loose and I would bottle after 4days. To filter I added a square of sanitised net curtain into the siphon end bit . This seemed to leave the hops behind (although I did accidentally disturb the trub when I tried at first without syphon clip) although significantly slowed the siphon action (maybe 1/4 of normal) so a 500ml bottle was taking around 10minutes to fill and I had to clear out the filter every couple of bottles. Is there any way to speed it up for next time - would I need a longer pipe for an increased fall ?

 

[Honk]

I’ve had yeasty beer bring on the rhino farts but never vomiting and diarrhoea.
1 hour is also far too quick to attribute to the beer, I think.
+1 to unfortunate coincidence.

I dunno, I've had a beer made me ill quite quickly before, it was strange because the previous 10 pints were all ok......

 

[terrym]

I use one of these on the bottom of the siphon tube over the trap when siphoning after a hop addition.

It came from a Festival kit, although you can buy them off ebay. Others use a mesh trap which replaces the sediment filter including @Dutto who may be able to provide details.
I rarely get problems with the filter blocking. However I rarely add more than 50g of pellets to 20+ litres and give the hop bits every chance to settle by a crash cool before packaging. I also rap the side of the FV from time to time whilst the hops are in there and that seems to help.
My suggestion to you is to use a weighted muslin or nylon mesh bag (I use nylon) to contain your hops and that should avoid future problems. There might be a small loss of 'hop goodness' due to the hops being enclosed but that's worth all the faff and you can always use more hops to balance that. But if you are using whole hops I would certainly use a bag.

 

[Ghillie]

I used to use the same bag as @terrym when racking to a bottling bucket. Very good and cheap and will last you years:

http://www.home-brew-online.com/equ...-nylon-hop-straining-bag-with-pull-cord-p2336

 

[Ashman]

Cheers I will get a filter. Just to add tasted the hopped batch early. Although it still needs a bit of time to clear it’s clearing faster than expected. Fully carbonated (flip tops popped). I used 1/2 teaspoon for 500ml.

Taste wise nice hop aroma and a strong grapefruit taste, very malty. Not much head on it though.