Kit Questions

[Cozzyb]

Okay, I'm not exactly a noob but I am one of those people who just wants to be retold something to be safe.

Did my 10th or so Kit recently and bottled it and felt that I wanted to ask a few questions from the seasoned lot.

1. How long do you let a beer kit ferment for personally? (I currently let it go for 14 days at least sometimes longer in primary, move to secondary to get it off the yeast crap and then bottled with batch primed in secondary).
2. I did a hop tea recently and just wanted to check I am doing it right, I got 20g (something around this) of aroma hops (the name skips me at the min) and boil in around 1l of water for 10 mins, then pour via a strainer into fermenter, is this okay?
3. Is Sheffield water considered okay for just using from cold tap straight into FV, or does it need anything else adding?
4. When I bottle, I should be trying to avoid getting any of the crap off the bottom into the bottles right? Will their still be enough yeast to carbonate the bottles if I did this?

Non General Questions

1. What is the process of making a fruit beer, i.e. when to add the fruit, how much, for how long, what types of beers go with what fruit etc?


There is probably some more smaller questions but those are my primary ones at min, thanks for any advice and answers.

[mrmojorisin]

Here we go for the second time as my iPad deleted my first response before I could post it;

1, sometimes 2 weeks, usually 3 occasionally longer, I don't bother with a secondary, bottle conditioning.......let's just say "not long enough"

2, that's certainly 1 way to do it, my preferred method is to steep some crystal malt (say, 150g for 20 mins at 67c) in 5l of water, then remove the grain and bring to a boil, add some hops and boil for 10 mins, then turn the heat off and add more hops for a 30 min steep, strain this into FV as you make up the kit.

3, no idea, how have your previous brews turned out?

4, for ale I've never had a problem with carbonation no matter how bright the beer, for lager I have to bottle whilst it's still slightly cloudy...no idea why? Maybe to do with type of yeast?

As for fruit beer, I believe that the fruit is added once the brew is already fermenting, northern brewer are an American site with loads of recipes, here's an interesting (AG) recipe for an apricot brew to give you some ideas;

http://www.northernbrewer.com/documenta ... ryDock.pdf

[Klaus]

Re: 1. What is the process of making a fruit beer, i.e. when to add the fruit, how much, for how long, what types of beers go with what fruit etc?
There are I assume some generally accepted recipe styles, but here is my own non-scientific attempt:
made a Raspberry Lager some years ago, cheap lager kit, made up as usual, a couple of cans of Raspberry, strain off liquid, put fruit in straining bag (important otherwise you get loads of bits floating around), suspend in FV, ferment as usual. Came out with delicate fruity flavour and a hint of pink. Didn't take any notes at the time but the result was quite acceptable.

[Cozzyb]

bump for more good advice.

[Cozzyb]

bump.

[Cozzyb]

bumpp

[Ditch]

Regarding tap water? I don't care where ye live; I've always felt it made sense to add half a crushed Campden Tablet to the jerry can before hosing my water in on top of it. Then, I'd pour that 'Dechlorinated' water into my FV's.

Purists might say, " Contact ye local water company and ask them for ....." Some bloody print out of esoteric stuff that'd mean nothing to the average person. Why bother? Just accept that A/ UK water contains 'Chlorine' and 'Chloramines'. B/ That stuff's of no benefit to beer. C/ A simple and cheap as dirt pinch of powder sorts it all out.

Why make life hard for yeself?

[Cozzyb]

Regarding tap water? I don't care where ye live; I've always felt it made sense to add half a crushed Campden Tablet to the jerry can before hosing my water in on top of it. Then, I'd pour that 'Dechlorinated' water into my FV's.

Purists might say, " Contact ye local water company and ask them for ....." Some bloody print out of esoteric stuff that'd mean nothing to the average person. Why bother? Just accept that A/ UK water contains 'Chlorine' and 'Chloramines'. B/ That stuff's of no benefit to beer. C/ A simple and cheap as dirt pinch of powder sorts it all out.

Why make life hard for yeself?

Went Wilkos and bought some yesterday and did what you just said, filled up my bottling fv with water on top of half a tablet, left it while I made up my kit and then topped up the FV with the declorinated water.

[Ditch]

Good man! Halfway there already then.

After all; get the basic water wrong and where are we ....?

[Geezah]

Good man! Halfway there already then.

After all; get the basic water wrong and where are we ....?

Good to see you back Ditch

I gave you a thouhgt today as I gave a good shake of the sugar bag in to my Coopers stout.

[Ditch]

I gave a good shake of the sugar bag in to my Coopers stout.

The hell are ye talking about there?

[Geezah]

I didn't want an extra mug to wash up, so I 'eyed' up a mug full of sugar after I added the DME

[Ditch]

Oh! I see!

Sorry, mate. Having a bit of a weird time of it here. Places I'm set to be be notified from are Not notifying me. Or, at best, are notifying me twice, an hour or so late. Doing my head in!

Now, mind ye head. Could get a bump, round here