I need some Brush-up Information

try John Palmer's excellent On line book...I bought mine after i found out i couldnt underline ;>)

Yodar in O'do

Why would you need to do either one? What if it's done already? What temp are you fermenting at? What was your OG? What's the gravity now?

--------------->Denny,

All good questions. I have my carboy under the stairs, in the dark, and the temp is pretty constant through 24 hours at around 68° ~ 72°. I don't know the temp exactly, but is is cooler than the temp in the house, and the variation throughout the day is very small. I didn't measure the gravity when it went into the carboy, nor have I measured it since the first round of fermenting finished. I have the equipment to get the measurment, but I don't recall what I want it to be. I recall that I can get additional fermentation by adding some more sugar. I guess this is the root of my question, I recall doing something after fermentation that went along with putting the batch into the keg, but I do not recall what that was. Since I failed to get a gravity reading before I started, what kind of gravity reading should I be shooting for now, assuming I want a alcohol content of around 5%?

If I put my beer in the keg and add sugar, won't I get more fermentation, and natural carbination since the keg is sealed? I could keg my beer, and shoot it with CO2. In fact, that is the way I have done it in the past.

If it's an extract beer and you give me the amounts of extract you used and whether it was liquid or dry, I can back calculate your OG. You'll have to measure the FG to know how much alcohol is in it.

Yeah, it sounds like you're thinking of priming...where you add suagr to fermented beer to carbonate it. Frankly, if you're kegging, I'd hit ti with CO2. There's no advantage to priming with sugar in a keg.

---------->Denny

fermentation,

If you have run out of gas and can't afford more, add some sugar and let it ride. I just did that to a ginger beer a few weeks ago and it's working great.

-- Josh Button To see how the Penrith Gaels Cricket Club is going...

Dry extract. The store prepackaged it, but I think the packages (two) each weighed at around two pounds. I filtered the wort this weekend and put it back under the stairs to settle out. I think I will be ready to keg it next Weekend. The gravity came in at 1.020 (5% alcohol) I know this number isn't very useful withougt knowing where I started.

fermentation,

Thanks, it's priming that I am thinking of.

I am glad I did the extra step to filter, my beer was cloudy before that, but now looks much cleaner. My beer has a yeast after-taste that I am not very happy with. My preference leans towards a more hoppy flavor. The color and weight are good though, not overly heavy or syrupy as a stout might be. I think I hit the New Castle Brown Ale pretty well, except for the extra yeast flavor.

I used a liquid yeast, as opposed to the dry powered type. I stored it in the 'fridge (it was in a 'fridge when I bought it), then left it out at room temp for several hours before I used it. My wort had cooled for 24 hours at room temp, but was still near 80° when I put the yeast in.

I added some priming surgar after I filtered this past weekend in the hopes that the yeast would go to work again and convert itself into something more useful than an undesirable flavor. I like to think that my equipment was properly cleaned, but there is always the chance that it was not.

Dry extact give you about 45 gravity points per lb. of extract per gal. of beer. $ lb. would be a total of 180 points, divied by 5 gal. of beer. That gives an OG of 1.036...very loe! Are you sure that's all there was? I'm also curious about the "filtering"...that's seldom done for homebrew and certainly not until the fermentation is complete. What exactly did you do?

Ya know, if you just chill it and wait, there's no need to filter.

Wow, waiting 24 hours to pitch is not a good idea...could be the source of your off tastes. Time to build a wort chiller! Also, I get better results when I use a startyer for ANY liquid yeast, no matter if the manufacturers claim it's "pitchable". And I really don't recommend pitching the yeast until the temp is 70 or below...there can be a lot of esters created by high temp pitching and the fermentation will raise the temp as much as 10 degrees more.

Well, after hearing about what you did, I've gotta tellya that there are a lot of places you could have gone wrong. Cooling too slowly, waiting to pitch the yeast, pitching too warm, underpitching by not using a starter...I'd really recommend you go to

Good luck,

---------------->Denny

I need to get the bags out and see what they weighed.

As for the filtering, all I did was syphon from the carboy into a bucket, then cleaned the carboy and syphoned back. The process let me clean out the carboy of the hops and other sediment that had sunk to the bottom.

Really! I had a chiller at one point, but I don't know what happened to it. I still have the coil, but hooking it up to tap water wasn't very effective. What I can't find is the pump that I would leave in a bucket of ice water, then pump the ice cold water through the coil. I guess I need to get a new pump ...

What is the alternative to waiting to pitch the yeast? If the wort was too warm, the only alternative to that is waiting longer.

Starter??? I don't remember anything about a starter.

I'll bookmark that site ...

Thanks,

I used dry extract for my first time with this batch, when I made homebrew a few years ago, I used syrup. At that time, I used 2 gallons of water and a gallon of syrup. This time I still used two gallons of water, and whatever the equivelent would be of dry extract.

That would help! ;)

Ah, good...no harm done, then.

I really recommend you cobble something together. Quick cooling helps prevent toie formation of off flavors and promotes coagulation of the cold break for clearer beer.

Yeah if it's too warm, you're right...that's why the alternative is cooling it more quickly!

In my experience, every beer I use a starter for is better than every beer I don't. If you're starting with a Wyeast or White "pitchable" tube, boil 8 oz. of DME with 1/2 gal. of water a few days before brewing. Wait til it cools, put it in a sanitized gal. jug, and pitch your yeast in there. After a few days, when fermentation is finished, pour off most of the spent starter wort then pitch the slurry in the bottom of the jug into your beer. Aerate well, and you'll have happy yeast.

You'll be happy you did...take my advice, buy the book so you've got it around.

---------->Denny

I have never done that.

You did (and the link did as well) point another error that I made. I did not aerate very well, if at all. This is a process I always accomplished in the past by adding my yeast then stiring the carboy very vigorously. This time, I forgot the shaking.

"CRWLR" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

If your tap water is too hot to realy be used in your wort chiller you can just put water in your sink and add some ice (i always prepare lots of ice in advance when i brew) and put your pot in it. Use your spoon to turn your wort in circle. This will create a small whirlpool helping some proteins (cold break) and hops to settle in the middle. Add ice as it melt in the water surrounding your pot.

Usually in around 15-30 min a 2.5 gal. pot is cold enough to add the remainder 2.5 gal of room temp water and to pitch the yeast. Another thing is that this way you aerate your wort while you cool it.

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