First try : Pils kit, 12L/20L

[Aiseant]

First brew for me : a Pils kit, 12L/20L

As I didn't have 1Kg of sugar, I decided to split the difference and make 14.3L with 200gr f sugar. I assumed the thing was linear, and hope for the best

Strictly followed the recipe on the user manual of the kit, add the yeast after some time in lucky water then close the lid and hold my breath. IG measured is 1.038, for 1.042 asked. I have no clue if it's a real problem, if so how big trouble it is neither how to make anything about it ... so let's do nothing about that.

After 24h hours, no bubbling, no sign of activity, no nothing. The temperature in the house is a bit low, so I put heaters on. I will not have a talk about how I warm my house for beer making and not for my other everyday activities.

After 48h hours, still dead silent. Opened the FV, gave it a good stirr and closed the lid again.

Inside, only a bit of white foam, but not on the whole surface. Smell like a too-long-forgotten flat beer and taste a lot like yeast.

After the stirring, the lid rise a little, but soon return to flat. I assume there's not enough pressure for the bubble to make through the airlock-thingy, and it finds another way to escape since the FV might not be completely airtight.

I lowered the quantity of water in the airlock, to 'help' theoretical bubbles ...

After 4 days and still no playful bubbling sound, I made a new gravity measurement : 1.014. If I understood correctly the whole process, it means the fermentation does go on in there after all. Gave it a good stirring again, just to be sure, watch it make a bit of foam and close the lid again.

As I don't have bubbles as indicator of the fermentation process, I can only follow the manual : between 10 to 14 days before considering it done.
By then, I will try not to touch it again, but it's working on my nerves. :twisted:

 

[sausagefingers]

Is it the Brewferm kit? If it is I wouldn't worry about it, I've done this a few times and it's a good pint. Mine didn't look very active but brewed fine, chucked some dry hops in just to give it a bit extra taste but it does benefit from being left as long as possible, minimum 3 months. Cheers

 

[Aiseant]

After 1 week : gravity is still at 1.014.
I switch FV : the liquid doesn't taste too much like yeast anymore, only flat beer. When I get at the bottom of the FV, I understand.

Hello sir, I suppose you're Mister Krausen whom everyone talk about ... At least we meet. You have no idea how glad I am.

Hardest part of it was to maintain the cat away enough not to get a new brand of beer : the infamous Cat Whispers&Fur.

I split the wannabe beer in two :
- 2/3 to stay as the recipe says it should
- 1/3 with a personnal 'dry hoping'. I kickstarted HopTheory some time ago, before I realized it was useless since I don't drink beers that need to be enhanced anymore. So I teabagged around 4.5L with two "Relativity", just to see

More experiments :
- I collected the bottom of the initial fermentation to see if I can harvest yeast as it's described around
- I planted hop rhyzomes in the garden. Even if it seems a bit premature considering I only brew a newbie kit, it's the right season to put hops in the ground, and I need somthing to cover the hideous hedge anyway.

 

[cheapbrew]

It will be flat until it has been primed and had a couple of weeks in the warm to carbonate, then a couple of weeks somewhere colder to condition.

There is quite a bit of info about harvesting yeast if you search on here.

 

[Aiseant]

Well, it's time !

FG at 1.012, I add sugar around 6gr/L (the manual says 7, the internet 5 ...)

I kept a lot of bottles those days, so I have plenty ... I decided to choose one brand for the 4L batch and another for the rest, to be able to distinguish them after bottling without label (labels will come, but I need more time to choose a design). I used the oven method to clean them, very easy indeed.

The first batch to put in bottles is the 4L experiment, with the dry hopping using Hopthery product. Everything went very well : except that I underestimated the number of bottles needed, and broke one neck while capsulating, it was surprisingly easy.

Time for the 10L batch. Firstly, when all bottles were filled, I still had 3L left in the FV.
Ok don't panic, there is still more bottles around here, just close those you already filled ...
Well ... I knew it was not possible for this to be as perfect as it seems ... I realized something was wrong with the bottles of the second brand, and I couldn't close my 7L liters already poured.
Ok, now you can panic

Fortunately, when I bought the FV kit, it came with two boxes of bottles (at the time, I wasn't really happy to pay for it, since I figured we drink enough beers to have plenty of bottles to reuse ... wrong.) It saved my sorry a**, and I finished bottling up all the beer in a messy kitchen smelling beer ('cause when you transfert from one bottle to another, there's no way to avoid foam)

Now we wait.
No, we don't. Let's try Science !!!
Once the FV cleaned, I started a WOW cider at once (based on Roddy recipe apple and strawberry 25L, but in 10L and with raspberry. We'll see.

 

[Aiseant]

I cracked one open : not bad but you can taste it needs more time to mature. Also, no bubbles. It seems to be a problem with my brews and I beginning to think the house temperature is the culprit. I'll forget those bottles until summer and we'll see.