A waiting game...

[dan_olo]

This brewing lark isn't suited to impatient buggers like me. Spent two hours bottling up my first kit this afternoon and still got to wait at least four weeks before I can drink the stuff

[Wez]

It's a supply and demand issue, I feel your pain I am Mr Impatient.COM DaaB's right, keep brewing to get a stash (J_P refers to his as his Beer Cave ) built up of matured beer, it might mean brewing like crazy for a few weeks but you'll be glad you did after a few weeks, then just figure out how man bottles you get through over a period of time and plan your brewdays

What did you brew/bottle btw?

[subsub]

Keg it, put it in the loft and tell the wife you can't drink it for a month. Works for me, until she goes out that is

[dan_olo]

What did you brew/bottle btw?

It was a Brupaks Fixby Gold which went pretty well considering it was a first attempt. Next one will be a Beers of the World London Porter. All that effort for only 10 litres of beer!

Keg it, put it in the loft and tell the wife you can't drink it for a month.

Luckily I don't have a 'SWMBO' yet (nor any plans to...) so willpower alone will keep me waiting!

[booldawg]

I bottled up mine yesterday as well. I was kind of thinking of cracking open a bottle each week for research purposes only, making sure its not over carbonating and sampling the beer to see how it improves in taste from week to week. At least thats how I justified it to myself

Dan - as its your first brew as well, what would you do differently next time round? I'd not try and ferment 23L in a 25L bin (still have the sticky mess to clean up off the bedroom floor ). I'm hoping to buy a 33L FV, use that as primary with no tap and siphon it into my 25L which has a tap for bottling. That way I can prime the whole batch in one go and cut down on sediment. I'd use a pinch a yeast vit at the pitching stage and have a spare sachet of yeast in the house just in case. I'd probably ramp up the malt a bit as my beer caculates at 3.4% ABV, maybe another 250g would've made it up to 4.5% And lastly I'd get up early and start sanitising rather than leaving it until the evening to start from scratch! I didnt pitch the yeast until 10pm!.

[mattfuzzy]

although im a great believer in optimism i dont think 250g malt would give nearly 1% alcohol, mabe 500g - 1kg would though most brews are around 5% these days anyway i dont see whats wrong with going up to 5% as half the weak beers and such are 4.5 - 6%, if i remember correctly 6% would be marked down on the hydrometer as around 1.060, i think
(so if im correct 1.050 for 5% and so on)
-matt

[booldawg]

Thanks Matt, you've taken a bit of the guesswork out of it for me! Gives me a good starting reference for the next kit.

[anomalous_result]

if i remember correctly 6% would be marked down on the hydrometer as around 1.060, i think
(so if im correct 1.050 for 5% and so on)
-matt

I'm not sure if you've got it right there. An OG of 1.060 would perhaps ferment down to say 1.015 which would give an abv of ~6.0% but to say that 6% is a hydrometer reading of 1.060 is not true.

See this thread for more info.

[mattfuzzy]

ok thanks result, since im on my second real brew (messed about with turbo cider a few times and stuff) it worked out fine for me so far so thought there might be more to it than just being lucky with the hydro/sugar

also does this mean that the wherry is less than 4% at all? if the hydrometer reads 1.040 and finnishes at 1.010 and all?
edit: worked it out and its 4% so i take wherrys supposed to be at 4%? instead of the 4.5 or something on the box?
-matt

[Doug]

This brewing lark isn't suited to impatient buggers like me. Spent two hours bottling up my first kit this afternoon and still got to wait at least four weeks before I can drink the stuff

Hoo the pain the pain of the Black Dog of Depression, barking at the gate when you have little left and you know the the next will not be ready in time.

The only solution is to buy more brew more drink more. It's a viciouse circle of lies.

"Hoo it's cheaper than drinking in the pub!!"

Is it b****ks it's just as expensive as my consumption has increased in line with the spend. When i would have spend say £60.00 a month going out.

I now spend £40.00 brewing and £20 going out. Although I can now get blathered whenever I want.

The single fact that I they spend the same seems to elude most people.
The only saving grace is the more you brew the cheaper it is. 54p per pint where as going out £2.55 + sunderies

But home brewing is the exact opposite of all other forms of consumerism.

The Demand follows the Supply where as in every other field the Supply will follows the Demand.

Get off the treadmill that will lead you down a road to Hell that's paved with good intentions.

Or of course just brew more

Doug

[Sheepy]

So very true

[Orkney_Rob]

This is why I have adopted a 3 keg system.

Keg 1 is the drinking keg, whilst 2 and 3 are maturing. It should give me plenty of maturation time that way as I would expect a keg to last a good 4 or 5 weeks... job's a good un!

(I am trying not to drink too much at the moment... my student days would have seen off a keg in a weekend!)

[delboy]

This brewing lark isn't suited to impatient buggers like me. Spent two hours bottling up my first kit this afternoon and still got to wait at least four weeks before I can drink the stuff

Hoo the pain the pain of the Black Dog of Depression, barking at the gate when you have little left and you know the the next will not be ready in time.

The only solution is to buy more brew more drink more. It's a viciouse circle of lies.

"Hoo it's cheaper than drinking in the pub!!"

Is it b****ks it's just as expensive as my consumption has increased in line with the spend. When i would have spend say £60.00 a month going out.

I now spend £40.00 brewing and £20 going out. Although I can now get blathered whenever I want.

The single fact that I they spend the same seems to elude most people.
The only saving grace is the more you brew the cheaper it is. 54p per pint where as going out £2.55 + sunderies

But home brewing is the exact opposite of all other forms of consumerism.

The Demand follows the Supply where as in every other field the Supply will follows the Demand.

Get off the treadmill that will lead you down a road to Hell that's paved with good intentions.

Or of course just brew more

Doug

Wise words.

[dan_olo]

Dan - as its your first brew as well, what would you do differently next time round? I'd not try and ferment 23L in a 25L bin (still have the sticky mess to clean up off the bedroom floor ). I'm hoping to buy a 33L FV, use that as primary with no tap and siphon it into my 25L which has a tap for bottling. That way I can prime the whole batch in one go and cut down on sediment. I'd use a pinch a yeast vit at the pitching stage and have a spare sachet of yeast in the house just in case. I'd probably ramp up the malt a bit as my beer caculates at 3.4% ABV, maybe another 250g would've made it up to 4.5% And lastly I'd get up early and start sanitising rather than leaving it until the evening to start from scratch! I didnt pitch the yeast until 10pm!.

I would definitely make up a yeast starter next time and pitch it with a teaspoonful of Yeast Vit. I had problems towards the end getting it down to the 1010 I was looking for, ended up bottling at 1017 and hoping for the best! That gives me 3.7% which isn't too bad, at least the headaches won't be awful the morning after

On a good note, the beer is now in my understairs cupboard having a warm(ish) week at about 18oC before going into the shed for a few weeks in the cold. There's a nice yeast sediment gathering at the bottom of the bottles (well - it's a yukky yeast sediment, but I'd rather have it at the bottom of the bottle than in suspension in my beer!) so the priming sugars are obviously having an effect. Just have to hope it isn't too overcarbonated but if so I'll just take the cap off 10 mins before I want to drink it. I usually leave wine to breathe for an hour so this won't be too much of a hardship for me (yes, I'm on the dark side I drink wine too... I lived in France for a year and couldn't give the stuff up now)

And on another good note, got a phone call from Patsy at Hop & Grape yesterday telling me that my order should be with me by the end of the week. Time to get brewing again I think!

[booldawg]

Sounds like it going swimmingly Dan. Of course you'll have to crack open a bottle every week to see the difference in taste as it conditions I bottled mine at 1014, but OG was 1040 so mines definitely a session beer at 3.5! Can't have that FV sat round doing nothing

I was suprised at how hard it is to obtain decent empty 500ml bottles from pubs, unless you're prepared to crawl around skips full of broken glass around the back. I bought a batch of 45 bottles from the brew shop to get me going. Hopefully I've negotiated about 12 empty Magners bottles a week from a mates g/f who works in a restaurant. I might get into kegging it at this rate!