Temerature

[Peter Dear]

Hey, i'm very new to home brewing, and have my first one on now.
i'm struggling to keep the temperature above about 15c. i understand that 18-30c is recommended.
any tips/hints?

thanks
pete

[James P]

If just starting out carbo drops are good and make it easy to get fizzy beer. However they are not very cost effective given they are usually just plain white table sugar made into a drop, and don't provide you with the correct carbonation for the different types of beer styles (too much beer geek information maybe).

If you have the equipment to "rack" to a bottling bucket or a spare fermenter, then you are best to use the bulk priming option and buy dextrose or the priming sugar of your choice. Cheaper and gives you some movement in your carbonation levels.

Also the picture looks a little deceiving like the hydrometer is sitting on the bottom of sample tube??

[Peter Dear]

thats what i thought about the hydrometer to start with, but there was definitely a gap between the hydrometer and the bottom, albeit a small one.

for the next brew i will try bulk priming.

[Peter Dear]

Permalink Reply by Joking 1 hour ago
Probably about 175 grams of sugar to 20Liters of beer... somewhere around 2.5 - 3 volumes of CO2.

the sugar part i understand, the co2 part i'm a bit hazy on?

[JoKing]

Sorry mate - I didn't mean to confuse you... that amount of sugar should get you somewhere in that rhealm of carbonation... Which is about right for a lager.

[Peter Dear]

also, i heard that once bottled you are to keep it warm for a few weeks?

[JoKing]

Yes - around 18 - 20 degrees is ideal.

[Tony]

175g Joseph, wow. That seems a lot. I use about 130 for a good carbonation and as little as 80g for a mild or something with less.

[James P]

Make the calculations easier.... The Bottle & Bulk Priming Calculator

[Nick T]

All the bits of info I have read, and the various calculation tools tell you to choose your amount of added carbonation fermentables based on the temperature of the beer at bottling time, as the colder the beer the more dissolved CO2 it will have in it. However, if you ferment at 18 degrees, surely the beer has a certain amount of CO2 in it for that temp - then if you crash cool it to say 2 deg for a couple of days for fining, and then bottle it at say 8-10 deg, the beer won't have somehow magically absorbed a heap of CO2 in that cooling process? So if you then base your carbonation on 8-10 degrees bottling temperature, (as I did) you run the risk of having flat-ish beer? Anybody out there who can shed light on this one?

[Peter Dear]

so plan of action is now just to ignore the urge to do anything with my beer. this time next week i shall take another 2 hydrometer readings and if all is well, it shall be put into the fining process over the weekend, and the bottled a week monday/tuesday.

fining should clear my beer up i believe and then only a short 6-8 week wait before consumption! thanks for all of your help, once again, i shall report back soon!

[Peter Dear]

just inspecting my fermenter and am slightly concerned by the amount of sediment build up that seems to have gathered at the bottom. is this usual?
i am worried that is going to pollute the first third of my bottles, when it comes to the bottling stage. any hints/tips/advice?
enjoy your weekends

[JoKing]

How much is a lot? I normally get about 2 Liters after fermentation.