New new guy

[bsms534]

I'm usually just a lurker of forums, but the registration email suggested I introduce myself.
I do love a good beer (surprise, surprise), but like most people don't love the prices. I did a bit of extract home brewing at uni for a source of copious amounts of cheap beer for parties etc, but it was just that, passable ales nothing more. Unfortunately I had to knock it on the head for a few years when I ran out of space to brew in.

Anyway, in August disappointed by the quality of bottled beer from the local supermarket, I thought I could make better beer than the fizzy water I seemed to be drinking at the time. So I had a quick gander on youtube for homebrewing and got a bit excited thinking yeah, this seems really fun, I'm not too bad at chemistry and I work for the NHS so keeping bacteria in check is second nature.

Not so much in the student mindset I wanted to go for quality over quantity and no longer restricted to student flats I thought I could go all out on a full mash starter set. After the success of the starter kit brew, I've grabbed a couple of second hand cornies and set up some dark ales for the chrimbo period. I hoping by joining these forums I can grab a few recipes that aren't in Graham Wheeler's British Real Ale book, in particular a ginger beer for Christmas and some wit beers for next summer and when I'm more experienced maybe even a long term lambic... :drink:

For anyone who's still reading I'm currently looking for a solution to;
1 - The beers being overly bitter, maybe I need to invest in a hop bag for late boil hops?
2 - The beers are also coming out of the kegs as foam (not needed to add CO2 yet) I thought it was the plastic tap the corny came with so I bought a stainless steel tap but it does the same.
3 - Also looking into getting a fermentation fridge for lagers and cooling kegs, I have a programmable thermostat just need to do some reading up on the rewiring.

: and happy brewing
Richard

 

[Wendy1971]

Hi and welcome richard to the forum :thumb:

 

[GrumpyBunny]

Welcome aboard :

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome, your bitterness should be just working out the right hop bslence that suits you, never used cornies so not able and would recomend a fermenting fridge.

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

Are you priming in the cornies? How long is your beer line and what size?

 

[bsms534]

Wow thanks for the warm welcome

Thanks for the advice on bitterness, I suppose it is also because I am drinking the beers quite young ~OG1045 after 10days in the primary and 3 weeks in the secondary fermenter.

I have not primed the cornies, I have been brewing 23L batches so there's very little air (ullage?) so they seem to seal by themselves in a few mins.

The plastic beer line and plastic tap is 6mm ID and 300mm in length, the stainless steel tap is screwed directly into the corny disconnect (no beer line) - got a feeling someone is going to be giggling a bit as this :)

: Richard

 

[joe1002]

I'm not sure I understand how the cornies are sealing themselves without gas or priming?

I believe they hold 19.5l but in any event you shouldn't fill them so the gas in tube is submerged.

Do you have a flow control tap? If not, that is why you are getting a lot of froth. Depending on what pressure and temperature you serve at, you will want a a couple of meters of 3/8" beer line and maybe some 3/16" line as well. Have a search, there is plenty of info on this. :thumb:

 

[bsms534]

Thanks for the great pointers joey! Been having a read since your previous post and found lots of useful info like having the beer line positioned so the gas doesn't flow back into the keg causing foam and a couple of Beer line length and pressure calculator spreadsheets.

 

[joe1002]

:thumb: