A collection of (hopefully soon) useful random stuff

Started: 02/04/2011
OG: 1050 @ 18c
FG:
ABV:

02/04/2011: I followed the advice of The Homebrew Forum and followed the recipe of “Apple Juice + Yeast”.

Recipe:
4L Lidle Cloudly 100% Apple uice
One packet dry Cider yeast/sweetener

Placed it into my new 5L DJ which I then placed inside a bucket as I was told that TC takes off like a rocket and may spill over. Sealed the DJ and let it do it’s thing.

1.5-2 hours after sealing the DJ, there is a yeast head and bubbles in the airlock. I removed the airlock and ran a tube from the DJ into a bucket of water in prep for the inevitable overflow. It never happened.

04/04/2011: Still no overflow. Still bubbling away happily though. I am going to replace the original airlock as the bucket is taking up a lot of extra room and is likely no longer necessary. Will check the SG when the bubbling slows down.

05/04/2011: Bubble activity has slowed, so I’ve put a normal airlock onto the DJ.

SG: 1010. That puts this 3 day old cider at ~5.4% ABV. It tastes like apple cider (not a SINGLE hint of alcohol in it).

I moved the DJ into an FV and put water into the FV to create a water bath. Regulating the temp of the water bath is my aquarium heater which I’ve changed the plug on. The heater is set to 20c, so we’ll see how that works out.

Hoping the SG will drop some more to give me around 6% or 7% cider in the end!

Started: 28/02/2011
OG: 1042 @ 33c = 1046 (Corrected)
FG: 1013 @ 19c = 1013
ABV: ~4.4%

28/02/2011: Another two can kit. This time it is the Milestone Raspberry Wheat. The kit came with the two cans as normal, but it also came with a small sachet of Raspberry flavoring to be added in secondary.

Rehydrated the yeast with water and then added 250ml of cooled wort later. The yeast sat for a long while before it was pitched due to the wort taking forever to cool. Will take this into account next time, as the fermentation stalled.

Yeast pitched at 27c.

01/03/2011: SG: 1020 @ 20c. The fermentation seems stuck. Oh fun. Still haven’t sorted my temperature control problems, but the temp is 20c. I think the issue is from the yeast sitting out for so long before being pitched. Will remedy this next time.

Looks like this will be sitting in the primary FV for 3 weeks as I will be away to the US.

28/03/2011: Back from the US and the beer looks fine. A pretty big layer of sediment has been thrown. Kegged the beer, but forgot to take an FG reading until after adding priming sugar and flavoring. FG: 1013 which puts the beer at around 4.4% ABV. This is probably a bit higher though because the FG is likely raised from the 80g of sugar added.

Started: 04/12/2010
OG: 1041
FG: 1012
ABV: 3.8%

04/12/2010: I put on a two can kit that requires no extra sugar. I’ve been told that this leads to a much “thicker” beer that has body as opposed to the thin beers I’ve been making thus far.

It seems like I still put in 106g of Munton’s Light Spraymalt though… strange. I don’t recall if the instructions called for this or not… I seem to have gotten a relatively normal OG, so maybe they do.

07/12/2010: SG: 1020 @18C. Shit, my fermentation is stuck as the dreaded Wherry is known for. Gave it a small stir and tried desperately to warm it up. This is the same time of year that my summer ale got stuck, so it it obv a problem with my temp control.

10/12/2010: SG: 1020 @ 20C. Well, this makes no sense….

11/12/2010: Added some more yeast and nutrient.

15/12/2010: SG 1013 @ 20C. Not too bad. Taste is pretty decent too. Gonna check the SG tomorrow and most likely rack to secondary.

17/12/2010: SG 1012@ 20C. Racked.

17/02/2011: Kegged the Wherry. The beer is ULTRA clear as it has had a LONG time in secondary to drop sediment. Kegged with 80g sugar, bottled 6.

So I started up a Burton Bridge Brewery Summer Ale kit on 1/12/2010. Taken me almost FOREVER to post about it though

OG: 1031
FG: 1011
ABV: 2.8%

Talk about a session beer. This one was very disappointing, but the taste was pretty excellent. We’ll get into what went wrong a bit later.

I used 420g Munton’s Light Spraymalt and ~360g Brewing Sugar

It fermented quite happily in the beginning, but by the 3rd, the bubbles had stopped and it was only sitting at 18C. I could NOT get this thing any warmer despite wrapping it in TONS of layers of blankets, moving it next to the radiator, turning up the heating in the flat, etc.

It finally made it to 1011 on the 10th and got stuck. On the 12th, I added more yeast and some nutrient, but no luck.

On the 15th, I gave up and racked to secondary with the beer at 2.8% ABV.

In my notes, I wrote that I would avoid this kit in the future, but I think my main issue is temperature control. Look for a post about that coming up soon.