Good evening from Newcastle!!

[buzzharvey22]

Hello guys, i'm Neil and im a 22 year old customer service manager from Newcastle. You may have seen me on Eggheads (BBC2) around the New Years time. Our team was called "the sensations" and we were one of the worst teams in the history of the show. I was the particular highlight of the team by answering 100% of my questions....incorrectly, and was the only team member not to answer a question correctly!! Some quotes about me on twitter were along the lines of: "This is the worst contestant i have ever seen!!" and "who's this guy? Did they just pick him up off the street to fill the numbers??". I got a fair bit of stick for this, and still do now 5 months later!!

Anyway, onto my brewing career:

I am very new to the home brew fun. I did one batch of a real ale a few years ago without a lot of the kit, and probably not sterillising everything correctly. I had no hydrometer, thermometer or anything, so as you can imagine, the brew came out pretty disgusting!! Think i drank 2 pints and the rest sat there untouched for around a year!!

A month or so ago i stumbled upon some home brew video's on you tube posted by "craigtube". I think i sat for around 5 hours watching these video's and i was hooked!! I also thought it was cracking idea to make a pint for about 35 pence, as my Estonian better half (about the size of a pint glass) enjoys drinking about 19 pints of lager a night, so i thought i can save a few quid here!!

I bought the Coopers kit of everything, fermenting barrel, bottles etc and got to work on my first brew, 23l of coopers lager. I was hooked, and have barely gone an hour or so since without thinking home brew!!!

So beers i have brewed/brewing:

Coopers lager has been bottled for around 2 weeks now, and iv drank about half of them!! If i'm honest, its not great, although its still quite young. Its a little bitter and the head retention/carbonation is still not great. But hey-ho, its your first brew, its always gonna be special to you!!

My next brew was a Wilkinson's kit of the "golden ale" variety. When i was making this one i had a slight problem with my hydrometer, and when i took the OG reading, it said it was only 1.018, so i panicked and added around 500g of table sugar to the brew and got the OG up to around 1.032. I then checked online to see if there was a reason why my reading was so low, and someone told me to check my hydrometer, and make sure its working. Of course, i checked it in just water and it gave a reading of around 0.980. So god knows how this brew is going to turn out, don't really have an accurate ABV but iv got around 20 litres of it that has been bottled about 5 days ago, will be fun to see how it turns out!!

Right now i have 2 beers brewing (i got another fermenting barrel). The first one is mumton's continental lager made with 500g Spray Malt light and 250G of dextrose ( I read online these are a much better equivalent to just sugar). That was put in the fermenter a few days ago at an OG of 1.033. Maybe 23l was too much to make? I also have a coopers English bitter just started, made with 500g spray malt medium and 400g dextrose. Again the OG for this 1.033 (dont worry, i got a new hydrometer and it works fine!!). Again i made this up to 23l. Would people suggest just making these kits up to 20l?

I also have a 5l DJ of strawberry ribena wine, which has been on the go for 2 weeks now, OG of 1.085 and it smells superb!! And iv also just made a 5l batch of turbo cider, which should be fun to taste in a couple of weeks!!

I have a can of Wilkinson's forest fruits cider, and a can of Wilkinson's light golden lager which i would like to brew with honey!!

Apologies with the long first post, tl:dr and all that :P

Thanks,

Neil (Buzz)

 

[bobsbeer]

Welcome. :

 

[taxidiver]

Welcome to the forum.
It looks like you are hooked already.
:
Geoff

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

The reasons for your low OG might be the DME / spramalt was not mixed in properly (it is notorious for clumping up). Your yeast should find it though.

Err, two weeks in the bottle is very early to be drinking, hence why they are not very carbonated and will not taste their best. I would suggest you leave them somewhere warm for a few weeks after bottling then move to somewhere cool for at least another two weeks.

If you build up a stock it will be easier to leave them to condition for longer :thumb:

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome.

 

[buzzharvey22]

Welcome to the forum :

The reasons for your low OG might be the DME / spramalt was not mixed in properly (it is notorious for clumping up). Your yeast should find it though.

Err, two weeks in the bottle is very early to be drinking, hence why they are not very carbonated and will not taste their best. I would suggest you leave them somewhere warm for a few weeks after bottling then move to somewhere cool for at least another two weeks.

If you build up a stock it will be easier to leave them to condition for longer :thumb:

yeah. can i put the spray malt into a pan of boiling water before i put it into the must?

and that's definitely the plan, the first couple of brews i make will be drunk too early, but when i'm drinking these il be giving the others the time to mature and become cracking beers for around my birthday time at the end of July :-)

 

[joe1002]

yeah. can i put the spray malt into a pan of boiling water before i put it into the must?

I remeber someone on here saying spraymalt dissolves better in cold water :thumb:

and that's definitely the plan, the first couple of brews i make will be drunk too early, but when i'm drinking these il be giving the others the time to mature and become cracking beers for around my birthday time at the end of July :-)

:thumb: :thumb: