my first brew

[batkins]

Ok, so my first brew was finished. It had fermented for 2 weeks. I was down to a belch about 45-60 seconds apart. The recipe I used said 10-14 days. I kegged it today. I tried the "quick carbonation" method....high pressure/agitation. Then backed the pressure back off. My beer has a slightly winey taste with no real body and no after taste. It looks like a porter. Will overcarbonation make a beer taste funny, as opposed to just making it fizzy? Or is my beer just funky? If it doesn't taste any better tomorrow, I'll start another batch and let this one sit for a bit. Damn!:confused:

[YamahaXS]

relax! it will taste better tomorrow!

by the way, what ingrediant did you use?

[batkins]

I used :
6.6#Coopers Amber extract
.25 # roasted Barley
.25# Chocolate Malt
.75# 120L Crystal Malt
2oz Fuggles 60 minutes
1oz Kent Golding 3 minutes
White Labs British Ale Yeast

[Tweek]

All beers need some time to mature. Even Ales. Even though you can get some extract recipes finished in two weeks time, they will need additional time to bring out the flavor.
You did keg it a bit soon, if you were still getting a burp every 45-60 seconds I would have waited a bit longer for that to slow or stop. I know it is hard to do but letting it ferment all the way will help the flavor profile. I usually wait for the burps to stop all together before I bottle or keg. One way to take the pain out of this is to have several batches going, that way once the first is ready you can be drinking it while you wait for the others to finish. :D

If you can do it, try drinking that batch slowly. That way you will be able to see the beer get better, and if you drinking it slowly enough (which is hard) get worse.

Cheers.

[batkins]

I read that you should wait until only a bubble every 60 sec. Mine were fluctuating enough, that I figured I was ok. So, now if I let it sit in the keg, will it get better? If so, should it be in the fridge? under pressure?

[Tweek]

Unless the beer is contaminated it will get better with a little age. How much age depends on a few variables such as alcohol content hop content and exposure to oxygen. Your beers flavor profile will continue to develop in the fridge under pressure if you like.

The 60 second rule usually applies to racking off of the yeast sediment into a fresh container wher it can finish out its fermentation. Dont worry about this too much all this means is that your alcohol level will be slightly lower than its potential and your flavor profile will be a little diferent than if you let it go all the way out, which by the way is not always negative.

I would just stick it somewhere to keep it the temperature you want to drink it at and drink it. unless you have a few people hitting it constantly it will last a little while. You may not make it all the way to full maturation, then again you may. But you will have fun tasting it mature.

[batkins]

Thanks for the help! I'm thinking I will start a new batch going Mon/Tues. and let this one sit for a bit. Anymore commments, tips or suggestions? anyone? ;)

[toneyc]

Yup, I agree with Tweek! I usually have two batches going at a time. I don't at the moment because I have five kegs in the fridge, another that needs to go in the fridge (mead), and another batch that I should keg this weekend but I haven't got another keg to put it in right now! I'm trying to decide if I should buy another keg tomorrow or just drink like a fish until I empty one of the kegs in the fridge now. One of them should only be half full by now. I think. Except that I've been round-robin-ing four of the kegs so I don't know if any of them are significantly close to being empty. Woe is me! So much beer and so little weekend.

:) Toney.

[paul84043]

I have heard so many different things from "good" brewers, I stick to the hydrometer reading, it's much more precise and accurate than bubbles or tastebuds. If your readings have stabilized for several consecutive readings....your beer is done. (fermenting......ie..ready to condition)
Logic dictates that the bulk of the alcohol content is going to come from the bulk of the sugar being fermented. I can't see a hundredth of a point making a very big difference either way.

I have heard that it's good to let it condition in the secondary for the additional week if you're going to keg, I don't know what the difference would be, but I am still pretty new to this whole thing myself....I assumed that the conditioning in the bottle is the same thing as conditioning in the secondary, or the keg.