Clarification and when to transfer

[ebeero]

I'm using a kit beer that was meant for a BeerMachine. The kits are new and the BeerMachine was new, but very old. Turns out a seal was bad and I need parts. Wanting to make some beer even if it is the lazy way I went and picked up a 6.5G frementor pail with a spigot and got started.

The unit is supposed to yeild 2.6 gallons. It is suposed to be drinkable in 10-14 days. Directions state Frement for 3-5 days and chill for 5 days and sample. Let sit if needed. This is meant to be served from the primary frementor from your fridge.

The batch slowly started frementing within a few hours. At about 18 hours frementation was at full tilt and lasted for only about 24 hours after it began. The batch still produced some CO2 but you would have to stare for a while to catch a glimpse. It has been 7 days and I pull a small sample to inspect. Smells like it is on its way to being beer, but looks like coffee.

Questions
1 - Does it sound like this fremented enough? If not can the batch be salvaged?
2 - How long does it take for beer to clarify?
3 - Do I need to transfer to a secondary and if so when?
4 - What is a real timeline for non kit beers.

Thanks

[eyepah]

First of all ebeero, youve taken your first step into a larger world. Welcome.

Ok.

I just want to say that these the descriptions of these kits never get old! I think this post (ebeero) deserves an award for one of the best.

Umm...

Some Questions:

1. Fermented long enough?: Well, that is tough to tell. Is there an air lock? If so, the bubbles will slow to 2 or so minute if its done. Dont worry. It may take 12-14 days in a cooler temperture (assuming an ale yeast that ferments in 60-70 oF). This is because the yeast work slower at cooler temps.

2. Looks like coffee: What TYPE of beer kit is it? Is it a stout or porter? These kits will produce a dark, opaque beer wort that will not "clear".

3. Secondary. I would transfer it now to a secondary. Sanitation is paramount.

4. Timline: It depends on the style. I have a Dusseldorf Altbeir that is starting to taste really good after 3 months conditioning. The general rule is stronger=longer conditioning. Just to guess...a dark BeerMachine Kit beer is probably a 2-3 week conditioning process for best results.

Read How To Brew. Just search for it.

Good luck!

[PCaravan]

Sounds like you're new to brewing so treat my responce as such.

First, contradulations on your start!

Second, though I'm sure the beer machine can put out some good beers you did well by going out and getting that fermenting bucket. Why? The biggest reason is that, bottling aside, it takes about the same amount of effort to make a 5 gallon batch as it does to make a 2.6 gallon batch.

With regards to whethor or not you batch is done fermenting, you say that you can get a glimps of co2 if you stare at it. I'm guessing you're refering to the bubbling in the fermentation lock? If so, if there is any bubbling at all, it's not done... be patient. That being said, I can't recall ever having a batch take longer than 7 days to ferment... not that it won't ever because I know it sometimes it does but it really should be done in the 3-5 day span you mentioned. It's important to ensure that the fermentation is complete because if you bottle it too soon you'll end up with overcarbonated gusher bottles at best or "bottle bombs" at worst. When you're sure that it is done (no bubbles in the lock at all) then you can move on.

Next thing regarding bottles: I don't know the beer machine system, does it have a system to bottle the beer or just serve from tap in the fridge? The fermenter you used will not carbonated and serve as a tap to dispense beer so you'll have to bottle or maybe transfer to the beer machine if that's possible for the carbonation and serving. Bottling is a different subject that may be best talked about in person (from someone where you got the plastic fermenter would be good) if it's not covered in you Beer Machine manual. www.howtobrew.com is another good place to go for info, not only on bottleing but the entire subject.

Now to your questions:

1. I'm not sure if it's done fermenting (see above). Your beer is fine though... no worrys... "relax, have a homebrew" is what we usually say but I'm assuming you don't have any yet so... relax, have a realbeer.

2. The time it takes for beer to clarify will vary from one batch to another and often doesn't really clear completely on its own. There are a number of things that can cause a beer to be hazy... none of which I would say you need to be concerned with on your first batch since it's primarily for appearance sake.

3. Using a secondary is one of the things that can help clarity but it's mainly for aging and giving more time for yeast to settle. Since you're new I would suggest keeping it simple and skipping the secondary since there is an added chance of introducing infection during transfer. If you still want to age it, just let it set where it is for an extra week or so. Some will tell you that letting beer sit on yeast for too long will cause autolysis (when yeast go canabalistic) which smells and tastes awful but I can tell you from my own experience you will not see this in the extra week or two I'm talking about. The downside will be a little more sediment in your bottles... and I do mean "a little" more.

4. The first thing I have to say is there are all kinds of "kits", the simplest being the "no boil" prehopped malt extract kits that I'm betting came with your Beer Machine. You can get these from your local home brew shop or order them online. Most are intended to make 5 gallons at a time which is perfect for your new bucket. Kits aside though, I wouldn't really give a specific timeline. All homebrewed beer can be ready in as little as 2 weeks to as long as several months or more even depending on process and aging requirements/preferences. When I first started, I would let it ferment for a week and then bottle, wait another week for it to carbonate, then chill and serve (2 weeks) and really liked what I got out of it then. Now, I'm a little more picky. My standard beers I ferment for about a week, transfer to a secondary and let it sit for another week, chill the secondary in a spare fridge for about 2 weeks, bottle, then let sit for about 2 weeks, then I chill and serve. That's six weeks. I have a different schedule (more time) for stronger, hoppier, or darker than normal beers but you get the idea.

If you have any more questions, this is the right place. There are a lot of brewers here that have a lot more experience than me that are glad to discuss brewing.

[ebeero]

First of all thank you both for taking the time to respond to my post.

Fermentation I believe is over as the air lock has not moved since late yesterday. While I don't have an exact temp in this room I believe that it is about 70 - 72oF. As stated above the bulk of the fermentation happened quickly and then dropped off to very little activity a few bubbles every 5-10 minutes.

The statement I made about the output looking like coffee did not contain enough detail. Plain black coffee would look like a porter or stout however I drink coffee with cream. So the beer sample looks like a light creamy brown color. The sample pulled was stuck in a small glass in the fridge in a zip lock bag. I viewed it this morning and the yeast has dropped out revealing a hazy Golden Ale. I'm going to let it sit a tad more then try a swig. According to the directions it should taste like flat beer. This is supposed to be an Amber Ale. Hmmm.

The scary thing about the sample at this point is the amount of sediment in the glass for the size. I pulled a 2-3oz sample and I have a 1/8th inch of yeast on the bottom.

I live in upstate NY. It is still fairly cool here. If I toss this out in my garage for a few days to help clear it up before bottling will there be enough yeast to carbonate the bottles? I have a bunch of 16oz swing top bottles and at the current sediment percentage it would yield about 1 inch of yeast at the bottom of each bottle.

I assume that if I detect a cidery or sweet taste that fermentation did not complete the job? If this is the case can more yeast be added to rekindle the process? I would rather wait some more then waste the effort so far.

Once again Thanks

[PCaravan]

The large amount of sediment is because there was a lot of stuff still in suspension when you pulled your sample out. When you bottle try and leave as much sediment in the fermenter behind as possible to reduce the amount of sediment in the bottles, of course, but you will always have some from the yeast used to carbonate the beer in the bottle. Chances are, the yeast is settled enough to bottle now and you'll be happy with the results. Also, I think you said you got a bucket with a spigot so I'm guessing you got your sample from the spigot. If so, there's a chance that the layer of sediment is above the the point where the spigot draws. These type bucket are usually used just for bottling and not for fermenting so the spigot is usually set very low to get as much of the beer as possible. If this is the case, you could try to runoff some of the beer until it starts to look clearish but unless the yeast strain is one that compacts tight, you probably will never get away from the sediment entirely and at the very least this would waist a lot of your presious beer. Alternately, you can get a racking cane and bottling hose and keep the bottle of the cane above the sediment layer. That's the most significant way to reduce sediment in the bottle. You can get these inexpensive items at you local home brew store.

Don't worry about whether your going to have enough yeast to carbonate the beer. It takes very little yeast to that... so little that even if all you have in the bottle is crystal clear (don't worry if it's not crystal clear... just clearer than fermentation and not appearing to clear further) beer to start with, there is still enough yeast in suspension to do it... it you will still get a little sediment but not the amount you mentioned from your sample.

Cool/cold storage will improve your beer in many ways... not just clarity so if you have the means and the patience for it, by all means do it but given this is your first batch I'm betting that you'll be surprised at how much you like it even if you don't.

A cidery taste usually is the result of esters caused from using large amounts of refined surgars. If your kit called for using corn surgar (common in kits) as a major fermentable you'll likely have that regardless of what you do even if you let it age in a cool environment, though the latter will help with that. Don't panic if you did use a lot of sugar... it won't be enough to ruin your beer but you'll know why it's there if you do notice it.

Sweetness is kind of a broad description. Many amber ales are more on the sweet side of a beer's malty/hoppy balance. As long as it's not overbearing (cloying is the term that's usually used) don't worry about. I've been brewing for 4 years and have yet to stop fermenting before it should (called stuck fermentation). Though it does rarely happen, it's usually with stronger than normal beers and or beers fermented in bad conditions. I doubt that either applie here with the exception of thought... did you airate you wort by aggresively stirring the wort or spashing it around. Yeast prefer to have lots of oxygen at the start of the fermentaion process (after that O2 is bad) and can sometimes stop short if not enough was available to start. If you didn't airate and you suspect the yeast didn't finish the job, you can another packet of yeast and see what happens but if you do, don't airate because your already to the O2 is bad point.

The best thing I can say here is relax. Your going to have at least a decent, probably good, amber ale real soon. Beer is more forgiving than a lot people let on. Different procedures, ingredients, and techniques will produce different results. These differences people get hung up on worrying about whether or not their beer is ruined but the truth is as long as sanitation is good, your usually going to end up with a good tasting beer but if you do something "wrong" it may be a good tasting beer that doesn't taste like what you expected.

By the way, if you find the very slight cidery taste offensive there are simple kits available at a slight premium that don't require adding any corn sugar and you can use them with your current settup. Ask someone at you local homebrew store and they'll stear you in that direction.

[ebeero]

Hello and thanks again for the further input.

I sampled my sample and the good news is that it tastes like BEER. Very flat, but beer none-the-less. Further inspection seems to reveal that it is more amber then golden. It is not sweet or bitter and there is no cidery taste either.

The kit is a no fuss no muss kit. Mix with cool water and add yeast, then walk away. So as for the O2 issue who knows? The good news is I have well water from a shallow point which seems to be slightly bubbly off the tap anyway. Hopefully this will ensure a good O2 reserve for the beginning of fermentation.

The plan moving forward will be to let this sit a few more days until the dextrose I ordered shows up. Seem people say this has a cleaner fermentation during the priming and does not alter the taste of the beer. Don't know if that is true, but I’m going to find out. Once it arrives then I will toss my beer in the garage overnight to help further settle things out and bottle it the following day. Question - can I leave the beer in the garage to carbonate for a week or so or should I pull it back into a 60-70oF environment? The garage is going to be 40-45oF at night and 40-60oF during the day.

I purchased 9 of these kits. I had a hard time making up my mind. :D I have already started another one since the pales are cheap enough, but moving forward should I use a different yeast? You mention yeast stains that compact well. If there are no adverse effects from using a yeast that does this then I'm there.

As for the buckets I'm using the spigot is 1/2 to 5/8th inches off the bottom. Is that high enough or should I use these for secondary fermentor and pickup something else for primaries. I had already purchased a racking cane, but was not sure if I was going to need it with the spigot buckets.

Thanks again for all the info. Much appreciated.

[PCaravan]

Add your carbonating surgar or whatever your going to use for carbonation at the same time you bottle and leave the bottles at normal room temperatures. The temperature of your garage sounds too cold for the yeast to do its job.

Having more than one fermenter is a good idea. It lets you have more than one going at a time such that you can stager them. One fermenting, one aging (secondary), another batch carbing up in the bottles, and one ready to drink. You'll never run out of homebrew!

There are many different yeast strains and different forms such as liquid and dry. There is more variety in the liquid area but dry is much easier to use and the variety of dry has grown quite a bit the last few years. Each strain has its own characteristics regarding flocculation (how well it settles and compacts to the bottom), attenuation (how much of the sugar in the beer is converted to alcohol), and flavor inhancements and contributions. If flocculation is most important then I would suggest Nottingham. It's a dry yeast that flocculates well. It also has a high attenuating yeast that will leave the beer a little drier than most other strains which is a matter of person taste if one likes that or not. It is an English strain which means it may add a slight fruitiness to your beer but it's known for being fairly clean and neutral for an English ale yeast. In addition, I find that it adds a slight tartness to my beers when I use it. For info on complete yeast strains just do a little search on the internet and you'll likely come up with a site that shows many strains with all their relevant data and descriptions. By they, I wouldn't make flocculation the primary requirement. There are some excellent yeast (Safale's US-56 comes to mind) that are known to flocculate well that make some really good beer and you may find fitting the right tasting yeast to right style of beer more important.

Your spigot sounds too close to the bottom for use in transfering from primary but probably the perfect hight for transfering from secondary if you use it as such. Use the racking cane to siphon... it's not that hard once you get used to it though I've found that haveing one of those racking canes where you can start the siphoning action by plunging the cane through a tube to be of great help here but not necessarily needed.

[BrewDog]

Welcome-

You are off to a good start, and the advice above is good.

I'd just like to point you to John Palmer's Web Site (http://www.howtobrew.com). It is a fantastic online reference and I never fail to learn another tidbit every time I read it.

The best piece of advice I can give to you is that sanitation is probably the most important thing for a new brewer to pay attention to.

Good luck-

[PCaravan]

I'll second the Palmer website... it's the same as the howtobrew website I mentioned in a previous post here. It really does contain a wealth of information for any type of homebrewer and I'll even add that it's where almost all of my brewing knowledge initially came from for each step in my brewing progression. It's good enough that I've never once had another brewer at my house to show me how to do something and I've never watched another brewer do anything either though I do ask plenty of questions here. All I can say is thank God Palmer put up such a wealth of free knowledge on the internet or my cheap a$$ would still be trying to figure out the basics.

[ebeero]

Thanks for all the advice and I will hit up John Palmer's Web Site.
Happy to report that the beer has been bottled. PCaravan you were right on about the spigot. I bled out about a pint before it cleared up.

I have a Scottish Ale and some Russian Light Lager cooking now. Once I use up these kits I will start to fiddle a bit more.

Thanks again.