2.5 kits in.

[rd2nowhere]

Just put my third kit on to brew. A coopers apa with 1kg dme and about 300g of golden syrup. And I think it is time that I tried to get a couple of questions answered.
1. Was my og of 1.046 at 24c a bit low? I thought I had thrashed it quite well.
2. How do other people stop spraymalt forming concrete lumps when they mid it in?
3. I have just bottled a brewferm pils and it tasted pretty good straight out of the fv, but should it he so dark? I was kind of expecting a straw colour.
4. Am I being of cautious only using 1 carb drop each bottle? Swmbo has threatened divorce if I have any bottles.explode. And more than that I can't be arsed with her "I told you so".

Thanks in advance for any replies

[Mo06]

1. I just did a Cooper's IPA and OG was 1045, so basically the same.

2...



3 Not sure

4 What size bottles did you use ?

[Gosbeck]

1. 1.046 sounds about right for those fermentables
2. Use an electric hand blender or put the DME in a pan on the stove with around 3 or 4 litres of water and heat until it disolves.
3. No idea!
4. two drops for a lager/pilsner and 1 drop for an ale

[rd2nowhere]

4. I use a mixture of grolsch swing tops, coopers pet and random glass bottles. Will to.give a nice fizz without the risk.of bombs. My aussie lager is two and a bit weeks in the bottle and it tastes good. It seems pretty carbonated as I pour, but it's flat as a crepe after a minute in the glass. Does this get better with age or is it just I under primed with only 1 carb drop?

[darkonnis]

It will get better, i did some coopers aussy lager and after a week me n my mate sat n drank a load and said "hey is not bad for a first go" as it was fairly limited in its life, 4 weeks on and its still fizzing away nicely after an hour in the glass. (typing too much to drink =( )
It may be a tad underprimed, but i have had some success with adding a bit more sugar to each bottle as i use plastic, so the few i tried with only 1 drop (first brew and all) i just opened added a bit more and sealed again, came out ok, not as good as the first time round jobbies but reasonable.
My advice would be to "obtain" some platic PET bottles and experiment with carbonation with them, this was only the lid will come off, no explosion Then use your glass ones for a trusted formula

[Pinto]

I started out with carb drops but moved on to sugar as its cheaper. In a 500ml bottle, I found that 1 drop didnt deliver the goods so used 2 normally.

Sugar. Its the way

[darkonnis]

On the moving to sugar note, i actually now put sugar + boiling water in the pan until it dissolves, then add a little cold to cool it down (usually i end up with a total liquid amount that just about dissolves all sugar) tip that in the fermenter good stir round, then bottle as normal

[math]

Pinto, how much sugar do you use, and what specific type? It's about time I made that leap

rd2nowhere, on clumping, if you add the DME and sugar first, then the boiling water, it won't clump. Although I've found when I did have clumping that it had all gone by the time fermentation had finished.

I use 2 carb drops for a perky ale, seems to bring out the hop aroma more (I testing 1 vs 2 a few times). I bottle to PET though, not sure if that's safe in glass.

[Pinto]

Plain granulated white table sugar, no real reason to use anything else unless you want to try subtle flavouring changes (such as bottling with treacle or dark muscavado)

Quantity depends on what the brew is; 1 - 1.5tsp for something like an ale, bitter or stout, 1.5 - 2 for a lager and for cider I go for 2-3 as I like it fizzy (be sure you're using good quality glass bottles or PET tho). I have a set of micro funnels, so just add the sugar to the bottle before filling - the agitation from which should be good enough to mix it up and into the brew.

A good tip i've read is if you're bottling to glass is to fill one clear PET bottle per batch - that way you can monitor clearing and carbonation levels easily so you can watch out for potential bottle bombs !

[rd2nowhere]

Tthanks for the advice so far. It appears I am under priming. Any ideas at all about the brewferm pils

[Pinto]

Not one i've tried and unusually, a kit i've seen lukewarm reviews for - i think they were expecting a belgian twist on a pilsner but got a straight pilsner lager instead

In all my experience, I've yet to have a bad batch of brewferm - although I must admit my last Tarweiber has come out differently to what i was expecting - its rather dark - but I have been playing with add-ins (corriander and curacao orange) and its colour profile seems to have followed the Golden Syrup i used for it ( i normally make my own invert syrup which is colourless). All said tho, it tastes nice but will probably be a lot better after 3 months in the bottle