In the early 80s I lived in Saudi Arabia (where alcohol is illegal) and experimented with beer making. They used to sell pyramids of cans containing "hop-flavoured malt extract) at the end of supermarket aisles. I used bakers yeast and possibly sugar. I tried several times (20 litre jerry-can in warm storeroom) and the result every time was poor. Didn't stop me drinking it, but it was not good. Eventually Allah came down and told them what we were doing with the malt extract, and I had to go back to wine-meking instead, which was a relief in a way.
Now I am starting again 25 years later. I bought a Woodfordes Wherry kit and started it off as per instructions in a 25 litre container with an airlock in a corner of the kitchen. I came back from a weekend away and......
.....absolutely nothing had happened!!
So I raised it off the floor and, suspecting that myy English kitchen might be cooler than my Saidi storerrom, I bought a heating belt. It is starting to bubble and smell nice now.
Anyway, sorry for the long preamble. I have 2 questions.
1) I used an airlock, as I have one and do so for wine. However I notice everyone else talking about barrels and not mentioning airlocks. Is an airlock a problem, or unnecessary?
2) Will my beer have gone off after sitting for 4 days in the cold?
3) Can I expect the finished product to taste anything like as the pub pint of wherry?
4) I remember in Saudi I used to start a secondary fermentation by putting a teaspoonful of sugar into each bottle before sealing. Is this a good way of doing it?
OK so that was 4 questions instead of 2 but got carried away.
Any comments gratefully received
1st brew in 25 years - trying to remember how, and do it bet
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StevieR
Hello and welcome, I'll try and answer your questions :-
1) I don't use an airlock but some brewers do. I find this is personal choice and does not make a difference. You shoul however be monitoring the specific gravity in order to assess how your fermentation is progressing.
2) Your beer should be fine as long as it was covered (which I assume it was as you're using an airlock). I it was indeed too cold your yeast will simply have gone to sleep !! A gentle rousing of the wort and raising the temperature will set it going again. The temp of the room should be between 18 - 24°C.
3) I've been conditioning my Wherry for about 4 weeks now in my King Keg pressure barrel and its tasting really, really good. It still needs another couple of weeks but I have high hopes.
4) Once the fermentation is complete (it should have reached the expected SG of 1014) then you have 2 choices :
a. pressure barrel - this is my preferred option as it allows the beer to age in bulk and it is really easy to do. If you're going to do this, prime the barrel with 80g of glucose (brewers sugar).
b. bottling - I have do this and my preferred option is to use 2 litre PET bottles (ex coke, irn bru etc) as it means less bottle requried therefore less work needed to clean/sterilise them. Again you can transfer straight to bottles or use a bottling bucket. If you straight to bottles, then add a teaspoon of brewers sugar to each bottle first. If you use a bottling bucket you should add 80g brewers sugar to another 5 gallon sterilised bucket, then syphon your beer on to it, then transfer to bottles.
The choice, as they say, is yours.....I always go for the path of least resistance - this generally means least amount of work for myself !!
Hope this helps,
Stephen
PS. Let us know how you get on
1) I don't use an airlock but some brewers do. I find this is personal choice and does not make a difference. You shoul however be monitoring the specific gravity in order to assess how your fermentation is progressing.
2) Your beer should be fine as long as it was covered (which I assume it was as you're using an airlock). I it was indeed too cold your yeast will simply have gone to sleep !! A gentle rousing of the wort and raising the temperature will set it going again. The temp of the room should be between 18 - 24°C.
3) I've been conditioning my Wherry for about 4 weeks now in my King Keg pressure barrel and its tasting really, really good. It still needs another couple of weeks but I have high hopes.
4) Once the fermentation is complete (it should have reached the expected SG of 1014) then you have 2 choices :
a. pressure barrel - this is my preferred option as it allows the beer to age in bulk and it is really easy to do. If you're going to do this, prime the barrel with 80g of glucose (brewers sugar).
b. bottling - I have do this and my preferred option is to use 2 litre PET bottles (ex coke, irn bru etc) as it means less bottle requried therefore less work needed to clean/sterilise them. Again you can transfer straight to bottles or use a bottling bucket. If you straight to bottles, then add a teaspoon of brewers sugar to each bottle first. If you use a bottling bucket you should add 80g brewers sugar to another 5 gallon sterilised bucket, then syphon your beer on to it, then transfer to bottles.
The choice, as they say, is yours.....I always go for the path of least resistance - this generally means least amount of work for myself !!
Hope this helps,
Stephen
PS. Let us know how you get on
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anomalous_result
Re: 1st brew in 25 years - trying to remember how, and do it
Welcome back to brewingmugwump wrote:1) I used an airlock, as I have one and do so for wine. However I notice everyone else talking about barrels and not mentioning airlocks. Is an airlock a problem, or unnecessary?
2) Will my beer have gone off after sitting for 4 days in the cold?
3) Can I expect the finished product to taste anything like as the pub pint of wherry?
4) I remember in Saudi I used to start a secondary fermentation by putting a teaspoonful of sugar into each bottle before sealing. Is this a good way of doing it?
1) Some do, some don't. The consensus appears to be that an airlock isn't necessary, but if you have one you may as well use it to try and keep the nasties out before a blanket of CO2 develops, which leads into the next point
2) there isn't much chance of an infection if there's been an airlock on it. If it doesn't look happy check out this topic full of info to get it going again.
3) I've never had a pint of 'real' wherry, and there are an awful lot of tips left out of the instructions, so there may be room for improvement, but you've started with a great kit that loads of people have had positive results from so you should at least get a drinkable pint if you sanitised everything well. I feel guilty recommending Daab's site so often, but it's pretty comprehensive for kit brewers like you and me =)
4) Yes this is a good way of doing it. Better might be to dissolve up to 80g of sugar in a pyrex jug with 200ml of boiled water. Zap it in the microwave to make sure it's safe then let it cool down (clingfilm over the top) and plop that in the fermenter about an hour before you bottle. You don't want to stir the beer too much as oxygen will make it go bad, but stirring without agitating the surface is fine. There is also the method of using a bottling bucket, if you have a spare 25L container handy.
EDIT: argh too many helpers, I'l leave it anyway
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mugwump