Home Brew Forum

What a brewing education . . . .Not necessarily a good thing

Sometimes you can make the most elementary mistakes.

Filled the boiler with 5 gallons of water and brought it to the boil, In the meantime mixed the 500g of extra light DME with 4L of cold water, and added it tot he boiler. . . . . . . Ah now have 6 Gallons in the boiler How did that happen , oh well see what sort of gravity I have when I've added the extract . . . . open tin, pour it into stainless bucket and add hot water from boiler stir to dissolve, rinse tin, add back to boiler. Stir well to mix . . . and measure the gravity . .. 7.?? brix should be higher than that . . . . Oh well looks as though the kilo of Beer enhancer will come in handy . . . . Added that to the wort . . .lump soup RDWHAHB . . . . Wort came to a boil and I got the lumps dissolved . . . . Added 35g of old Saaz hop pellets, and the immersion chiller, after 15 minutes turn off the boiler and started chilling. When the wort got to 70C, turn off the chiller and added the remainder of the packet of hops . . . . just over 40g Oh well, let them steep for 15 minutes and started chilling again, took a gravity reading (11+ brix ~1.044 better). Chilled to 20C, removed IC put lid on and left it for an hour to settle. Syphoned 17L into the corny FV, and 3L into a conical for starters . . . poured rest down the drain .

Corny FV was put into a bucket of water with a 100w Aquarium heater in it, and the new RabMaxwell FV Chiller into the wort. FV temp controller turned on, and when wort was at 12C yeast was pitched . . . . Total time for brew 5 hours . . . I'm going back to AG, this kit brewing takes up too much time.

Still had a look at the beer when I got home, nice 2-3 inches of foam on top which is a surprise, as the yeast is a definite bottom worker. . . . Still its only 48 hours since pitching . . . . it'll die back after a few days.

(Oh AG CAP planned for 14 days time once this stater has finished )

Oh dear ... I thought these sorts of mistakes were exclusive to us newbies ... that's depressing ...

On the other hand it looks like you turned things around, which I reckon is the sign of the true expert! Hope it turns out well.

What mistakes?
Went better than an average brew day for me.

DaaB wrote:Brewing kits isn't as straight forward as it seems

Scientia potentia est . . . . . Or not in this case

DaaB wrote:psssst http://www.18000feet.com/how/H2HB2.htm

That made me chuckle, I love that wall smiley.

DaaB wrote:psssst http://www.18000feet.com/how/H2HB2.htm

I didn't even mention not putting the hop strainer in the boiler for fear of being ridiculed

Well, a few weeks ago I actually bottled the 'beer' (If you can call 1.5L Grolsch bottles, bottles ). 90g of Extra Light Malt Extract was dissolved and gently mixed into the primary, and I suck started the syphon before attaching the tube to the Beer Gun. 8 Bottles were filled in short order.


Time Passes


Last night, I threw one of the bottles in the freezer, to chill it down, and an hour later, I popped the seal, nice reassuring pfhut!, poured well, clear with a good riding bead, to form the head. Sediment was firm. Much darker than a true Bavarian pilsner almost a copper colour. Good aroma from the additional hops, Taste was initially fruity/cidery (From the Beer Kit Enhancer ??), but no THT, with bitterness having a good length.

A nice experiment, and I'm happy drinking it . . . A Bohemian pilsner is going to be brewed in the near future . . . May do an English summer ale first though . . . So a comparison can be made

Kits made well . . . Or even not as in this case . . . can still produce reasonable beer.

DaaB wrote:I'd say the cider was from the BKE but it sounds drinkable enough

Oh it is . . . and the good thing is that those 1.5L bottles fill my glass to perfection . . . . The only problem I have is getting the bottles cold enough as they don't fit in the fridge