day five fermenting

[fitzy85]

Hi guys.

Since this is my first brew I have been trying my best to be patient and not disturb my brew. I took my first hydrometer reading today by opening the syphon valve near the bottom of the bucket, and made sure i removed the airlock first to stop the water being sucked in.

The hydrometer floats at the 1% alcohol line. The brew is at 21C with ambient temp at 19-20C.



The kit is the Wilkos Golden ale. I have put the airlock back on after removing some water from it as I feel i had too much in, there has never been any bubbling but the fv is sealed because the water was uneven as if being pushed out, and if i placed my hand on the fv the pressure wouldent equalise till i released it.

Is my brew looking ok so far? This lovely stuff came out with the sample, but it is starting to smell like booze .



Thanks

[barry44]

Everything looks like it should.

Relax and leave it for a fortnight before bottling.

[Hopping_Mad]

All looks a-ok fitzy! I have two buckets and neither of them are completely airtight so never had bubbling but you have correctly identified the pressure from the produced CO2 pushing the water from its equilibrium.

I usually leave all beers around 10 days to 2 weeks in the FV (bucket) even if fermentation has finished. The yeast drops out of the beer a bit more making the end result a bit clearer and some reckon the yeast had more time to chemically improve the beer, even when fermentation has stopped.

Do you have a plan for secondary fermentation and conditioning? Are you going for bottles or a keg?

[fitzy85]

Thanks for the replies.

I have bought a bottle capper, and I have 20 500 ml bottles so far (wilkos didn't have enough/ I've not drank enough).

The fv I am brewing in has a bottler attachment but I realise I am gonna have to siphon off and back to clean / add priming sugar. A mate has given me his old fv bucket and a keg also

[Exiled Bradfordian]

Do you have more than one FV? If so, just clean and sterilise your second FV, add your boiled priming sugar to the bottom and siphon from FV1 to FV2: bottle from FV2. No need to siphon back from FV2 into FV1 again.

The alternative is to 'bottle prime'; simply add the required amount of priming sugar directly to each bottle and bottle directly from your FV.

I generally batch prime now, not when I started I only has one FV, and found that the little sugar sachets you can get from service stations and ikea were great for this. Looking back, perhaps there was a gram or two too much in each sachet, but at least they were consistent.

[fitzy85]

Yeah I now own two fvs. But only the fv it is currently fermenting in has the bottle adapter.

Even though it is a lot of effort I might bottle prime and just go straight from fv to bottles

[Exiled Bradfordian]

You could use a siphon to bottle from the second FV rather than an adaptor.

[Hopping_Mad]

Sanitising bottles with one of these...

http://www.home-brew-online.com/equipme ... deal-p1589

...is a doddle, when rinsed with no rinse sanitiser. I like to give bottles away and have in the fridge in the house. Kegs are too unmovable and I don't have a beer fridge.

With son No 1's help, we can get a 21ltr batch in 40 bottles in 30 - 40 minutes.

I've just purchased mini-kegs (http://www.brewsmarter.co.uk/brewferm-m ... 1272-p.asp and will stick 5 ltrs of some batches in these to take to parties etc.

All your batch in a 23 ltr pressure barrel will condition quicker, but will need drinking quicker.

How fast are you going to drink it?

Try an approximate 3 empties for 1 full bottle ratio with friends, you'll soon build up a stock of empties. I also enlist the help of my local cricket and rugby clubs who both keep filling a milk crate for me behind the bar. I've got 200 waiting for some beer!

[Fil]

if in a bind for bottles pet pop bottles work well enough, and 2 x 2l pop bottles will hold the same volume as 8 x 500ml bottles.. tesco's bottled tap water comes in 2l pet bottles for about 20p, and 1l bottles of tonic are about 30p when decanting from a big flimsy pet bottle, pour it out in one into a jug for serving and its best with 3 hands, your 2 to hold and support the bottle during the pour and a third to tilt the jug, dont try pouring 4 pints, the lift up of the neck between glasses will disturb the sediment ..

Im sure you have this covered, but you mention drawing your sample from the fv tap, residual sweet sticky wort left in the tap spout will attract wine/fungus gnats, so its a good idea to use a squirty bottle to rinse out the spout with warm water to remove the risk of infection before you pour more beer through the tap.