Brupaks- Time period

[matti]

Hi, Just started brewing Brewpaks Fixby gold a couple of days ago. The instructions say that after fermentation and transfering into pressure barrel, leave in the warm for 2 weeks and then the cold for 2 weeks. I only have 1 barrel at the moment and don't really want to be waiting ages for it to be ready. Is the 2 weeks in the warm totally neccessary or could i cut it down to say a week or less without any big negative effects.

Thanks

[Jim]

As you probably realise, the time in the warm is to allow the yeast to ferment the priming sugar so that your beer has some fizz.

Personally, I only leave the barrel in the warm for a week. As long as you don't put it in a fridge for it's 'cold' spell, you should be fine anyway, as the yeast activity will just slow down, rather than stop altogether.

Having said all that, I would never drink anything more than a crafty sample until the beer had matured for at least 4 weeks. I can understand the urge, though.

[matti]

Thanks Jim, my cold spell won't really be much colder than my warm spell really because i will only be moving it onto the floor in the garage (which is where it is at the moment anyway whith this boiling weather). Just looking into getting another barrel off ebay, then i won't be as impatient .

[BIGTRACTOR]

i think i may do a quality beer but this time bottle into PET bottles, would i be able to get away doing a brupak lager this way or should i still stick to ale while weather is still pretty hot?

and is it still the same ammount of priming sugar?- 85grams brewing sugar per 40 pints when bottling?

I guess its a lot better to mix the sugar into the full 40 pints of beer in a bucket and then syphon into bottles.

also, how long would you leave to prime and to mature in bottles please?

many thanks :beer

[Big T]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Jun 12 2006, 04:59 PM) Fixby Gold gets significantly better with age. A quick fix if you want to get another batch underway is to bottle using PET bottles, the cheapest source is supermarket own fizzy mineral water at 18p per 2L bottle.
Agree re: bottles and sourcing, but I don't always want 2 litres at a time (and it's tricky with sediment disturbance etc).

A good deal I've found for smaller bottles is 6 x 500ml (Diet and normal) Cola for 99p from Lidl. And the Diet Cola is actually drinkable as well. Quite a good idea for pint-ish size bottles.

HTH, Tony

[Andy]

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Jun 29 2006, 04:55 PM) The draw back is I generaly dont drink the sort of drinks that come in those bottles so have to suffer the embaressment of looking like a pikey while swiping a few from bins outside the local shops (I always avoid ones with strange yellow liquid in though :blink: ).
DaaB and dog yesterday....