Hi all. Newby with a question or two

[CD-Pete]

Hi.I'm Pete.
I've just started my first home brew, i got the kit from Wilcos. I've followed the instructions to the letter, but i was wondering if there's some tips that anyone could give me? The kit's a beer & not lager & i transfered the brew into the pressure barrel today & as per instructions it's sitting in a warm (21c) place. Is 21c warm enough? I rather fancy brewing a lager next time & i have quite a taste for Carling & i was wondering if there's anything on the market that's simalar?
PS. Can't you tell i'm new to all this

[Madbrewer]

OK here goes, ages since I did a kit though. Good for you making headway into a great hobby and regarding temperatures believe it or not 21c is on the 'high' end of the temperatures you want to aim for for fermentation. Once the Barrel has had some time at 21c to condition I would recommend (not alway easy) serving it from a cooler room at say 16-18c but when you move it , it will require a few days to settle again unless you are very smooth and dotn agitate it at all.

When I started I was under the impression that you needed airing cupboard temerature to brew beer this is simply not so. I used my heater twice and that was it - the room that I keep my beer in stays in the 16c - 20c range and I ferment and serve at that temperature everything but lager. Lager required a lower temperature if it's a proper lager yeast something that may need investigation - the lager kits however may well come with a yeast suited to 18c and bitters rather than 12c and lagers i'm not sure so view their instructions for fermentation temperatures.

IIRC Coopers were the kits that i did for lager when I first started and they did an Australian Lager but to be honest the quality improvements from a 3Kg kit will make for a better drink than one bulked up with sugar. Also regarding lager those placcy barrel;s don't really gas well so if you like your lager fizzy you'd probably be better with bottles.

Welcome to Jims and a great hobby and read here for more kit advice.


http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/kits.htm

[farmhousekeg]

Hi Pete, I'm pretty new too and I'm sure you'll get a lot of good advice from the members on here. I think 21C should be fine for about a week once your beer is in the Keg. This will get the yeast going to produce the CO2 you need to give the fizz and pressurise your barrel. Not sure what the kit instructions would have told you but did you add some sugar when you transferred the beer into the keg? As I understand it after it has been in the barrel with the yeast working on it for about a week, you should then move it to a cooler place as this will help dissolve more of the CO2 in the beer and let it clear and condition ready for drinking.

Well that's my best shot and now I wil hand you over to the experts! Cheers.

[Madbrewer]

Hi Pete, I'm pretty new too and I'm sure you'll get a lot of good advice from the members on here. I think 21C should be fine for about a week once your beer is in the Keg. This will get the yeast going to produce the CO2 you need to give the fizz and pressurise your barrel. Not sure what the kit instructions would have told you but did you add some sugar when you transferred the beer into the keg? As I understand it after it has been in the barrel with the yeast working on it for about a week, you should then move it to a cooler place as this will help dissolve more of the CO2 in the beer and let it clear and condition ready for drinking.

Well that's my best shot and now I wil hand you over to the experts! Cheers.

That's good advice Pete you're definetely picking up the right practices.

[CD-Pete]

Thanks for the replies guys. The instructions say "a warm place for two days, then move to cooler place for a further 14 days". I did add some suger before i transferred the brew into the barrel. I have some empty pop bottles ready for my lager & i've seen the Australian lager you mentioned, so i'll get some of that.
The brew smells really good & i can't wait for a taste. The cooler room will be my workshop which has no heating or will this be too cool at this time of the year?
Regards Pete

[DarloDave]

The cooler room will be my workshop which has no heating or will this be too cool at this time of the year?

That will be fine I think. I think moving it into the cold space is just to stop it fermenting further and to let it settle, so I think (and someone please correct me if im wrong) the cool place could even be in your fridge (Assuming you had enough room!)

[Madbrewer]

Regarding bottles/ bottle conditioning a warm place simply allows carbonation to happen. When the yeast runs out of food or builds up too much pressure it will go to sleep anyway. Usually after 21 days it's at that stage and you can then chill it if you want to. The bottles will be fine conditioning at 15c for an ale yeast/ 10c for a lager yeast. I would expect off tastes if it went as high as 25c for a while though. If the temperature is too cool it will take longer to condition.

[randomdave]

In answer to your question regarding lager kits, I have done the coopers aussie lager and i did a John bull lager kit. Dont expect it to taste like carling. I like drinking carling myself but the kits taste nothing like it. Not that i consider that a bad thing, i like a bit of variety.

The one problem i had with it was the coopers didnt retain any head and tasted decidedly cidery. The john bull i made to 20lt instead of 23lt and was a bit better tasted a bit better and had some head to it. I made it up with maize sugar that i got from the brewshop, as i understand it if id used spraymalt it would have tasted different. (something im gunna try next)

Im not trying to put you off doin a lager kit, i just didnt want you to be disapointed when it didnt come out like carling. The good thing about it is experimenting and unlike gcse science you get to drink the results

[verno]

I did a coopers pilsner with 500g light spraymalt and 300g brewing sugar as my 2nd brew. It was pretty good and I had a number of colleagues and friends who did blind tastings against stella, becks and budwar. They could tell which was homebrew (mainly because of the smell) but all were impressed and said they would happily drink it instead of stella.

I just made coopers lager and added hops, it has only coniditioned 3 weeks but so far hasn't been as good as the pilsner. Its very drinkable though.

both of these have fermented at 20 odd degress and were bottled. I guess the point I am making is you can easily make some perfectly enjoyable lagers too.

Good luck

[chriswilliams]

I rather fancy brewing a lager next time & i have quite a taste for Carling & i was wondering if there's anything on the market that's simalar?

I too prefer lager and have just done a Muntons Continental Pilsner 2-can kit, which I can thoroughly recommend. I used Saflager yeast and lower temps and have left it for about 6-8 weeks and it's crystal clear with just enough fizz. Actually, I would say tastes a whole lot better than most low-end lagers available from the supermarket.

Cheers,
Chris

[randomdave]

I too prefer lager and have just done a Muntons Continental Pilsner 2-can kit, which I can thoroughly recommend

Thats good to hear, ive decided to try the 2 can kits as my next experiment. The way im brewing atm is by trial and error. Do it by the letter then see how it tastes to get a base idea, then add and amend accordingly. Ive done 2x 1 can kits so now im going to do 2x 2can kits and see how the taste varies.