Thanks man. That’s great advice.
How important is secondary fermentation in the carboy? The instructions on the kits always list it as “optional” but the guy in the store insisted that it was more or less a must.
I just bottled my first batch last weekend. The second one is on the way and I’m afraid I’m going to run out of bottles. Been looking at threads online and they seem to say that plastic PET bottles (The brown ones) and soda bottles will work in a pinch but are not ideal. Any thoughts?
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Thanks man. That’s great advice.
How important is secondary fermentation in the carboy? The instructions on the kits always list it as “optional” but the guy in the store insisted that it was more or less a must.
I just bottled my first batch last weekend. The second one is on the way and I’m afraid I’m going to run out of bottles. Been looking at threads online and they seem to say that plastic PET bottles (The brown ones) and soda bottles will work in a pinch but are not ideal. Any thoughts? [/quote]
1.) The guy at the store is right. Definitely do your secondary fermentation in the carboy. Finished product will be clearer, taste better, and you’ll have less of a chance of “bottle bombs” (exploding bottles from too much residual yeast and sugar)
2.) Those brown PET bottles are fine. Keep them in a dark place and you won’t notice any taste difference vs. drinking out of a glass bottle. If you prefer glass, buy some Grolsch bottles with the pop-top … these are great for homebrewing and save you from capping.
Thanks man, I have a capper and hope to eventually just recycle bottles. I almost bought some at the homebrew shop the other day, but I have this weird idea that I should drink beer in order to get the bottles. …but we’ll see. I have a bunch of people claiming they’re going to save bottles for me, so we’ll see.
This seems like a fun hobby so far. It’s certainly interesting.
Buy “How to brew” by John Palmer if you haven’t already. It’s got a wealth of information in it and if you want to learn the science behind it… it has it all. There are lots of cool recipe books out there too.
[quote]Gambit_Lost wrote:
Thanks man, I have a capper and hope to eventually just recycle bottles. I almost bought some at the homebrew shop the other day, but I have this weird idea that I should drink beer in order to get the bottles. …but we’ll see. I have a bunch of people claiming they’re going to save bottles for me, so we’ll see.
This seems like a fun hobby so far. It’s certainly interesting. [/quote]
Make sure those people know to not save any twist off bottles.
The recipe you posted looks like a good one. A lot of places have clone kits that are pretty spot on too.
[quote]krazykoukides wrote:
Buy “How to brew” by John Palmer if you haven’t already. It’s got a wealth of information in it and if you want to learn the science behind it… it has it all. There are lots of cool recipe books out there too.[/quote]
Great book. It’s available online for free as well
[quote]PimpBot5000 wrote:
[quote]krazykoukides wrote:
Buy “How to brew” by John Palmer if you haven’t already. It’s got a wealth of information in it and if you want to learn the science behind it… it has it all. There are lots of cool recipe books out there too.[/quote]
Great book. It’s available online for free as well[/quote]
I’ve had it bookmarked since I found it. I have another book that I’m reading as well, but I like Palmer’s book a lot better.
Again thank you all especially Pimpbot!
I’ve decided to try a cream ale from the local homebrew shop. I want to support the “home team” and hopefully start to build up a relationship with the guy. With the comments above, I think this will probably be the closest I can get without additional equipment (and I’d like to sink what little money I have into production). I brewed yesterday. Sitting in the fermenter now.
I’ve got 7 weeks, so I figure one week in the primary, 2 in the carboy, and then 4 in the bottles. I’ve been reading that longer time in the bottles tends to improve taste… so hopefully the extra 2 weeks will help.
NEXT QUESTION!!!
Making a label: What is the best way to produce a nice, creative label? I was looking around online and their seems to be a lot of different things one can buy for the home computer/printer. Would those be best? Would they be easy to design using normal programs (maybe MS Word)? Is there a “better way” out there? Anyway, just looking for recommendations/suggestions.
Back in 10th grade our chemistry class brew wheat beer for the party after our finals.
We made enough so everybody could have at least 4 bottles (à 0,5l) and we could earn money to donate it to a charity organisation. It was tasty stuff but it gave me and my buddies the worst headache you can imagine.
Gambit:
As far as I know we just went to a local brewery and asked them if they could help us out printing the labels. We showed them what exactly we needed and they just requested from us in return to put their names on the labels. We did not even had to pay.