Question

[thestingers]

Not strickly for grain brewing, but I can't find a good section to put this in. I'm still going on about my nettle beer im affraid.

I have checked it again this morning, and it looks cloudy with a tiny bit of 'white' on the top, I presume yeast and hope not mould, but I don't know. Its very fine with the occasional small island of the stuff. A few little bubles are still rising, but nothing more than when I put it in the tub.

Its ready for the bottles today/tomorrow and I don't know if its safe to drink because im not sure if that stuff is mould or not.

Would this have something to do with the yest I used? I used Champagne yeast. I know probably not right, but the guy in the brewing shop said it would be my best bet.

Thank you

[thestingers]

Check the gravity. If it's close to 1.000 then it's fermented out.

Hi Chris,

I know its darft, bt im not sure how. Is it the hydrometer? Are they easy to use?

cheers

[thestingers]

Great, thank you

[thestingers]

OK, I have sterilised the hydro, run under cold water and took a reading. It said 1040, so is that bad? Its been fermenting for three days tonight, and looks almost the same as it did on day one.

Any ideas? It should be ready to bottle today.

[Matt]

If its 1040 you still have a lot of fermenting to be done. For comparison, many ale recipes start around 1040 on the day of making the brew and pitching the yeast, and then the gravity descends as the yeast eats the sugars, ending circa 1010 when it is ready for bottling.

I wonder if its a little cold hence a slow fermentation?

Matt

[thestingers]

If its 1040 you still have a lot of fermenting to be done. For comparison, many ale recipes start around 1040 on the day of making the brew and pitching the yeast, and then the gravity descends as the yeast eats the sugars, ending circa 1010 when it is ready for bottling.

I wonder if its a little cold hence a slow fermentation?

Matt

would it hurt to add a heat belt three days in?

cheers

[Matt]

I'd make sure to be able to measure the temperature, whatever you do. If you pop in to your local pet shop you can buy a stick on thermometer strip to apply to the outside of your fermenter, which is handy. Like these

[quiff]

The recipe for nettle beer will be telling you to bottle before fermentation has finished thus removing the need to prime your bottles.
The theory being that the "beer" finishes fermenting in the bottle thereby carbonating itself in the process.
That said 1040 still seems a little high unless you intend on using PET bottles.

[thestingers]

The recipe for nettle beer will be telling you to bottle before fermentation has finished thus removing the need to prime your bottles.
The theory being that the "beer" finishes fermenting in the bottle thereby carbonating itself in the process.
That said 1040 still seems a little high unless you intend on using PET bottles.

Well, I started on Monday, and have now bottled today (sat). I got the 1040 down to 1030 ish, some bubbles where still coming up, but I have bottled it to hopefully give it some pop. I am now stadning it around, from one week/until xmas and then plonking it in the fridge a day before drinking to chill it. I have one small bottle to try on Monday to see if its fizzing. Hopefully it will be OK. I'm going to be making some Norfolk Nog on Monday and hopefully another batch of nettle beer before xmas to boost supplies.

Thanks

[hoppingMad]

Hi thestingers, you are always ok to taste your beer from the fermenter, unless its quite obviously rotten. Use sanitised techniques though.
Sounds like you have bottled early to me, although I have never made nettle beer. To give you an example: malt beer that started at 1.040 should get down to 1.010 ish as someione has already mentioned. If this were to be bottled at say, 1.030 the bottles would more than likely explode unless they were unusually strong.
Correctly fermented and finished beer takes around two to three weeks to carbonate properly in bottles from the addition of dextrose or some further sugar addition, so my recommendation is to sample one bottle of your nettle beer after 4 days and see if it seems well carbonated or not. If it does, its way to early and should not be that well carbonated at this early stage, so here's what to do: vent the bottles by lifting the crown caps ever so gently until you hear the hiss of CO2 escaping. Once the hissing stops, stop lifting the crown cap. The cap will then re-seal itself quite perminently. I find this is fine and presents no problems with the crown caps re-sealing them selves as long as you did not crease the cap in the process. You can always re-apply the capper to each capped bottle to be sure. If you don't like the idea of doing this, why not try it with two or three bottles as I did at first. You will find it works well.

Test another of the vented bottles again 4 days later for carbonation level, and repeat the process of venting off CO2 as above. keep doing this if you are at all concerned about over carbonation in bottles. Obviously if you bottled in platic using screw caps then you have an easier job venting them. A note on overcarbonation: overcarbonation completely stuffs up flavour, not just risking too much foam and exploding bottles but the beer itself tastes like 50% of its flavour has dissappeared, IMO.

I have just performed this technique for my recent London Bitter, which I used a tad much dextrose for carbonation. It works brilliantly and I now have perfect carbonation. The trick with this technique is to "test" your bottle(s) sooner rather than later to permit the headspace in the bottles to re-pressurise from fermentation of the last remaining carb sugars.

[thestingers]

Thanks, yes, I will try this one out cheers. I have used glass bottles, some with flip tops, but I also used one large plastic bottle so I can feek whats going on. I also have a couple of tester bottles. I will try ones of the tiny ones tomorrow and see what its like, and then if too fizzy for this stage in the process I will try lifting a few caps and see what happens.

cheers