Newbie question before I start my first brew kit

[kenstel]

With regards to temperature my current batch of Mild is going quite happily at 14°C there are limits of course to how low you can go and it will likely take a bit longer but it’s quite possible to ferment beers at 17°C. Also as fermentation is exothermic it will typically be a couple of degrees above atmospheric in the fermentor.

17? thats low. The instructions for my kit says fermentation will slow below 20 (as expected) and will stop at 15C.

I'm hoping if the heated belt can hold the temperature at about 19ish, then the yeast will raise it by another 1 or 2C which will be more comfortable at about 21C which is within the preferred temp range. 22C will be smack in the middle of the preferred range but may be a challenge with the weather getting cooler.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Hi all
I've got my first brew kit, one of the Festival 'clones' and a starter kit, bucket etc.

I've read a lot and understand the necessity of cleaning and sanitation etc and that's where I have a question.

The kit says to mix the liquid extract in a sterile bucket and mix with a couple litres of boiling water, mix etc. It then says to dilute with a quantity of cold water. It makes no mention of using cold boiled water or the source of water. So, I'm puzzled about why the water doesn't need to be boiled first. Is tap water (or any other source) sterile enough to be used in this kind of kit? Tap water is fine from a nasty bugs point of view because it is chlorinated. However, it may give tcp off tastes depending on how chlorinated it is. it takes at least 15 mins of boiling to remove chlorine

Also, if I wanted to use Campden tablets to remove chlorine in this brew, how would I add them? The only way I can see, would be to assume the boiled water would be chlorine free kettle boiled would have less chrorine , and to pour the cold water into the sanitised fv suitable containers, add the tablet, wait a while then mix that in to the beer kit. Finding containers to treat the cold water would be a pain, and I suppose they'd need sterilising too?

These are very simple questions admittedly, but it's the underlying knowledge and understanding that is important.

You may find using bottled water for your first brews saves a lot of steps.

nowadays I treat all my water with a campden tablet in the fv. I take out an amount to boil on the hob. when I tried to boil campden treated water in a kettle (to swill out the malt extract cans) it boiled over and left a hard residue on the kettle lid. so you could just buy a couple of litres of bottles water instead.

You'll soon work out how much volume to your FV your cans of LME or packets of DME will add to the brew volume.

So for me.... 3.5kg of DME (dried malt extract) means I need the fv to have 2 liters less of liquid than I need. (liquid malt extract will be a different amount)
If I want 21 litres of wort to ferment - I need 19 litres of liquid, when I add the extract it increases to 21 litres.

of course you lose a bit of that at bottling time because of dregs at the bottom of the FV

21 litres brewed can get you around 18 litres bottled. This will depend on a number of factors especially how much hops you use

 

[dad_of_jon]

17? thats low. The instructions for my kit says fermentation will slow below 20 (as expected) and will stop at 15C.

I'm hoping if the heated belt can hold the temperature at about 19ish, then the yeast will raise it by another 1 or 2C which will be more comfortable at about 21C which is within the preferred temp range. 22C will be smack in the middle of the preferred range but may be a challenge with the weather getting cooler.

different yeast have different preferred ranges and when fermentation kicks of it produced some heat itself. If you can keep in or close to the recommended range you'll have more consistent beer.

3 things that have a big impact on beer quality.

temperature - too high gives hot alchohol or nail varnist tastes. Too low and you may not get the aromatics your beer style needs.
the yeast for a wheat beer can give cloves or bananas or a combination of both, dependent on fermentation temps)

water composition - off flavours if too much chlorine or too much of any minerals in your beer. (chase spring bottled water is a good all rounder)

cleanliness of brewkit. - infections can make the beer sour vinegarish or worse. Not rinsing properly cleaned equipment leaving traces of chemicals may lead to puckering astringency. remember not pick your nose then touch cleaned equipment too. Star san is a no-rinse sanitiser and used by a lot of forumites.

 

[kenstel]

Thanks D o J. Very helpful, I don't like the sound of some of those flavours... Nail varnish? cloves? vinegar? Yuck.

I have got Campden, but to be honest, don't like the idea of adding 'chemicals'. I was wondering that simply standing the water in my 2nd FV would remove the chlorine.

My supplier, United Utilities report that my water has 0.72mg/l total chlorine and 0.63mg/l free chlorine. I haven't a clue if that is high /low/medium or if its likely to have any effect.

Thanks for the tip off about Campden in the kettle. I wasn't going to do that, but I know not to be tempted now!

 

[MashBag]

Can you smell it strongly? Is your water drinkable or off the tap?

I too don't add chemicals that are not required.

I don't treat chlorine(and never have).
When you look at the articles about issues the words "can" & "may" cause off flavours are used. Not "will" and "does". Sweat the detail.

It is not mandatory.

Neither is operating theater level of bleachery... We are cooking really, so a double check is "would it be OK in the kitchen". If so chances are it's OK in the brew shed.

We are also not protecting thousands of pounds of grain bill and producing millions of chemically indentical cans of piss.

Have fun, enjoy, discover... be a freerange brewer not a batteryhen

 

[kenstel]

Can you smell it strongly? Is your water drinkable or off the tap?

No, can't say it smells stronger. There is a bit of a tangy after taste.

Have fun, enjoy, discover... be a freerange brewer not a batteryhen

Batterycan?

 

[Dark Arts]

Hi I'm relatively new to home brewing also so here's my experience over 6 brews so far,

I have zero temp control other than where I place fermentation bucket and have hard water.

So far I've had 3x brews at approx 24°+ and 3 below 20° and of all 6 my first1 was the 1 that tasted most home brewy, took approx 6weeks for that taste to mellow out but was still getting the odd bottle with that taste(stored slightly different, fridge Vs garage, garage1s being better).

Next 3 kits Cooper's kits, which seem to be really hopped, Ringwood I think? I'm still on the fence about weather I like it or not? Initial thought I either had an infection or there was some thing coming though from tape water, used bottle on next1 (same bitter back end) not the water then, next tried tap water Campden tablet and swapped out the yeast for us-05(same bitter back end) I was thinking use a yeast with wide temp spread and see if that had any bearings on taste.

The last 2 brews have come out very good, tap water campden tablet, muntons coffee porter and my first all grain 4ltr kit.

So what I think I've learnt from all I've read and experienced so far,

1Clean everything you use before n after Use, minimise contact with your brew once you've pitched the yeast.

2Temp control is important and if you can't control it, then select yeast for your expected temp, so far I've found Cooper's yeast pretty robust with a wide temp range

3Coopers kits use Ringwood hops(not to everyone's liking) I'm still buying them tho

4use a campden table with you tap water brews, not sure from personal experience if it has helped but for the cost of a tablet don't think it's worth the risk of not use1 based on what I've read.

5 I can see this hobby getting expensive if I let myself get carried away down the all grain route

 

[MashBag]

No, can't say it smells stronger. There is a bit of a tangy after taste.

Batterycan?

If there's nothing obvious I would not treat. I would bet the split between do / don't treat is about 50/50.

 

[kenstel]

Thanks New to Brew, (interesting experiences for you so far) and MashBag.

I suppose the ideal would be to split the batch and do half treated and half untreated water, treat them both the same and compare the results. That's a bit of a faff though, and getting them identical temperatures near impossible I think.

 

[Dark Arts]

Thanks New to Brew, (interesting experiences for you so far) and MashBag.

I suppose the ideal would be to split the batch and do half treated and half untreated water, treat them both the same and compare the results. That's a bit of a faff though, and getting them identical temperatures near impossible I think.

I'm surprised how good they've been in general, did bit of homebrew 15-20yrs I wasn't impressed enough to keep it up and have just decided this year out of the blue to try again and I'm hooked

I wasn't planning on touching the all grain side of brewing but got given a kit from a mate, that got it for Xmas several years ago to either have a go at or strip for the parts....well I thought what the ffff and brewed it as best I could(no instructions) the mini kits 1gallon jobs way less faff than the 5gallon brews than I'd seen online...think it took approximately 2hrs in total..mash was a steep n leave for 1hr+ wrapped in blankets etc and then a boil then a trip to sink to cool down, stuck it in the demi pitched yeast...the only mistake I made was believing that the age of the grains would have deteriorated and I would get the mash wrong, so I made the decision to add some sugar and accidentally made a 9% choc porter

I was that impressed by my muddled attempt I've bought 2x 1gallon all grain kits to have a go with.

 

[MashBag]

To be honest, get fermentation temps gripped first & do the basics well.

You could easily get sidelined by something that isn't an issue anyway.

 

[Dark Arts]

To be honest, get fermentation temps gripped first & do the basics well.

You could easily get sidelined by something that isn't an issue anyway.

Yep temp is something that I'm currently working on, don't have a fridge so have minimal control at present, so I've been looking at yeast that could mitigate some of the lack of temp control I currently have....what I should do is re brew the first kit I did whilst the temp is currently under 20° as am convinced the high temp produced some unwanted esters, whilst it wasn't too bad it had what I'd describe as a typical homebrew twang, it's been an interesting journey so far and nothing I've brewed so far has had to be chucked or hidden away

 

[RichardM]

....

I wasn't planning on touching the all grain side of brewing but...

They all say that. Start off with kits, then dabble in a little stove top a.g. and before you know it you are hooked, brewing 23litre a.g. batches and avoiding telling the wife how much all the kit cost.

 

[RichardM]

My son and daughter-in-laws cat

 

[RichardM]

A visitor at our apartment in Crete last month

 

[RichardM]

A cat guarding the palace at Phaistos in Crete

 

[MashBag]

That looks like a remarkabley small room, I do hope it's the brewery else I shudder to think what the cat is looking at

 

[MashBag]

Richard and you in the right thread?

 

[RichardM]

Richard and you in the right thread?

No, I just realised and was trying to delete them before anyone noticed

 

[RichardM]

That looks like a remarkabley small room, I do hope it's the brewery else I shudder to think what the cat is looking at

It's the bathroom and the cat was watching me having a wee!