I am a seasoned wine maker so i know the basics, my question is : when i was bottling my brew the beer was foaming up in the bottles when i was filling them , is that normal. will the beer clear up in the bottles, it looked like muddy water in the carboy.
I am looking for a clone for Heiaken beer , sorry my spelling sucks.
That is normal, I believe it's just the co2 coming out of solution. If your bottles are warm, foaming will be worse.
Dave
The muddiness will probably not clear up. Generally speaking you will probably want to make sure you use some sort of finings to get rid of that, geletin, irish moss or whatever.
: when
Some beers foam more during bottling than others, so yes, it's normal. That won't tell you anything about the final result, so there's nothing you should worry about just yet.
I'm guessing the muddy water look is caused by the yeast in the beer, and that's ok as well. Your beer should clear up in the bottles in a week or two. This time depends on the type of yeast used, some are quicker to flocculate than others.
I would also recommend a secondary ferment, to clear it up.
Vince, I just wanted to be sure that you checked to see that your beer had finished fermenting before bottling. You checked the gravity, etc., right?
Usually by bottling time *most* of the yeast will have settled and the beer will be fairly clear. Personally, I have only had significant foam when bottling a few times... usually when the beer was VERY cold from lagering - i.e. about 30F and there was a good bit of CO2 in solution.
The combination of "muddy" and "foaming" sorta raises a red flag that there may have been active fermentation. Perhaps not, but I just wanted to make sure! If you wish, tell us more about your procedure, recipe, temperatures during fermentation, gravity measurements, etc...
Regarding clearing in bottles... yeast will settle out after priming is done. There may still be haze. If that bothers you a lot, after priming you can refrigerate them for several weeks to settle out some of the other haze. Since haze doesn't affect taste, mine usually doesn't last that long! :)
Derric
I'm going to clarify a statement I made:
It would be more accurate to say "after carbonation" since the beer will need a couple of weeks at room temperature (~70F) to allow the yeast to carbonate the beer... THEN you can refrigerate it as long as you wish!
Derric
Some around here believe years for the proper lagering of prime lager wort. and others months for ageing of their English Bitters.
-Vosen
V> I used a beer kit, when i started the gravity was at, 1.040 then it
That sounds about right.
Agreed, sounds OK. (Oh... you mentioned you were a winemaker... here's a difference since wine usually has very little sediment: when you pour your beer into a glass, be sure to do it carefully and try to avoid stirring up the yeast sediment. Leave a little beer in the bottle. You'll get a clearer and better beer that way).
If your beer is on the "trub" (the old used hops, hot/cold break material, and old yeast), then a month or so would be fine.
If you siphon the beer off the trub into a fresh glass carboy, you CAN leave it there practically forever. Most beers will improve some over time... strong beers continue to improve longer than lighter beers. If you drop the temp to 30-40F, then you are "lagering" or "cold conditioning" and that will further clarify and improve your beer. For a real rough idea, most English/American ales are good drunk early. Stronger ales (like IPA) age well, at least a few months. Lager beers improve with several months lagering at low temps (the lager yeast will continue to work some). Very strong ales, like "barleywines" continue to improve for years. It's a running homebrew joke that the last beer out of the keg is always the best one!
Derric
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