Ian

[evil.soup]

Morning all, I'm Ian and I live in South Wales, very new brewer, so new that I haven't made a brew yet.

I have some basic fermentation equipment and I am currently collecting bottles for my first go, did look at buying bottles but it seems just wrong buying beer bottles without beer in them, so I am trying to drink my way to 40 empty 500ml bottles lol!

As for what I'm planning to start with, I have shortlisted either Coopers Irish Stout, Coopers Australian Lager or a decent quality apple cider, all seem a straight forward start point.

With summer on its way, I'm thinking the Lager first. Did consider the cider first but I have been told not to use cider equipment for beer brewing, so I will get another fermentation vessel down the road to do a cider batch, if I become a convert to home brew that is.

I have watched a million videos and read many threads, but any tips would be very welcome, such as, do I need to switch to a lager yeast rather than the beer yeast with the kit or will this make my first brew harder to produce successfully?

I have many other questions, but will leave them for the forum since this is just supposed to be an intro, thanks in advance for the help!

 

[The Baron]

Welcome to the forum

 

[An Ankoù]

Welcome Ian.
I believe spring has come to sunny Wales so if you're going to make a lager and you want to change the yeast that comes with the kit, then go for W34-70 or even better, Nova Lager yeast. I don't make kits so I don't know what yeast is packaged with the Australian Lager, but if they start talking about fermenting at 12C or below and you don't want to tie up your fridge then change to one of the above.
I agree with you about the bottles.
No good reason to keep a second fermentation set for a kit cider, just clean it well after use as you would for any other beer. You'd need to be careful after brewing beers with diastaticus variant yeasts or beers which use bacteria, but you're not going to encounter those while you're doing kits.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum

 

[evil.soup]

Excellent info so far, thank you, saves me buying extra equipment.
I want my first brew to be the best I can get it without getting too technical and complicated for my first go.
I will try the novalager yeast, will this increase fermentation time?
I should be able to keep the temp at around 15 °C in a room I have, so it should be within the tolerances to ferment.

 

[Stevieboy]

Tip 1 : Learn Patience
Tip 2 : Lower your expectations (to start with)

 

[evil.soup]

Lol also good advice I would imagine! To be honest, I have had some home brew coopers lager that a friend made as his first brew just using the standard yeast and 1kg sugar and it wasn't too bad, if not a little watery and lacking a little flavour. I have this as my bench mark so as long as it doesn't get contaminated then I should be happy enough with it on the expectations front. Considering even making it just a little short, but that may be a step too far for a first brew.

Patience on the other hand...yeah, that's one I will need to work on for sure...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Patience on the other hand...yeah, that's one I will need to work on for sure.

Probably the hardest thing to learn when we start out.

 

[evil.soup]

Yeah I haven't even bought the ingredients yet and I'm ready to try it.

 

[starseeker]

Good luck and keep us updated how it goes :)

 

[evil.soup]

Yeah I will do, even if it is a disaster.

 

[Rwilts]

Welcome

 

[Nucbrewer]

I started with the assumption that something would go wrong and the first American IPA (MYO from the Range) came out OK. Since then it’s been 6 good kit beers, two not so good and one good and one bad wine kit. Take the wins and enjoy them, don’t worry about the bad ones you will probably learn from them.

 

[evil.soup]

I started with the assumption that something would go wrong and the first American IPA (MYO from the Range) came out OK. Since then it’s been 6 good kit beers, two not so good and one good and one bad wine kit. Take the wins and enjoy them, don’t worry about the bad ones you will probably learn from them.

Pretty sound advice. To be honest, if I can brew something that is drinkable, it will be a result.

I am committed now anyway, spent £75 today on a number of other things I would need for bottling etc and all my ingredients, this time next week I will have a brew under way!

 

[evil.soup]

Well, got the brew started, novalager yeast and the Coopers lager tin, 1kg of dextrose and spraymalt to 21ltrs of bottled spring water. Took a hydrometer reading but don't think I read it correctly so that has gone out of the window.
Going to give it 5 days fermentation then dry hop 50g of hersbrucker hop for 2 days, pull the hop and then give it another 2 days just to ensure fermentation has finished.
2 days cold crash then off to bottle prime, 4g priming sugar to 500ml bottle.
Made the mistake of taking a swig of the mix from the hydrometer tube, bloody hell, took hours to get the bitter taste from my mouth!!

 

[Nucbrewer]

I normally give it 14 days to ferment, if you have a thermometer measure the temperature of the fermenter beer before calculating the priming sugar required.

 

[Clint]

Love auto spell...beer bonfire...sounds like Hazelwood Brewery house!
Yeah...leave it two weeks,then dry hop it.
No worries about making cider in your beer gear...I make the occasional Turbo cider from supermarket apple juice.
Have a few extra bottles just in case.
Along with patience you need routine and sound methods. Proper cleaning and sanitation is a must!

 

[evil.soup]

Cheers both, so difficult to keep patience lol!!
I have read that the novalager tends to ferment out in as little as 5 days and its ok to dry hop while fermentation continues, is that correct?

 

[Mash Monster]

Cheers both, so difficult to keep patience lol!!
I have read that the novalager tends to ferment out in as little as 5 days and its ok to dry hop while fermentation continues, is that correct?

I don’t have a lot experience on brewing lager as I’m not really a fan, but if my memory serves me correctly I dry hopped during the Diacetyl rest and it seemed to work for me. I’m sure there are others out there will more experience and knowledge than me that may have better advice.

 

[evil.soup]

Well, day 12 of the process and still in fermentor. I messed up my first gravity reading but researching the average gravity on this kit and taking into account I am brewing 21ltrs rather than 23ltrs I have OG 1040. Just checked gravity and its at 1006, so that's quite a good drop giving me 4.5% lager. Will check again tomorrow but think it's now steady, so if it is, I will cold crash Sunday afternoon and bottle on Tuesday. I did the dry hop on day 3 for 38hrs.
Starting to clear a little but hopefully it will clear well after the crash and a couple of weeks in the bottle. Happy so far!!