Some good advice here

https://www.beer-simple.com/brewing/2017/6/5/stuck-managing-a-troubled-fermentation

hijack

do you homebrewers use fining agents to clarify beers before bottling?  What sort? If not, why not?

https://www.howtohomebrewbeers.com/2017/01/finings-how-to-use.html

My company makes one of these at industrial scale and we’re looking at whether there is a homebrew play, either direct (we’d need a small volume packager and a credit card driven website), or via one of the Homebrew shops*

Times are tough, the larger brewers are almost all now owned by the majors and hence on big contracts with major chem cos (we’re a UK SME in comparison); the smaller brewers are finding costs increasing and margins shrinking (and hence being taken over by bigger breweries / the majors becomes an attractive option) so i’m looking at ‘creative’ options to grow high margin while still small ticket to the users sales. Just not sure if there’s enough volume overall to make it viable.

* cheeky but i don’t suppose anyone has a directory of Homebrew suppliers (eg: I could in the cycling arena quickly reel off CRC, Merlin, Tredz, hargroves, Ribble, etc.)

do you homebrewers use fining agents to clarify beers before bottling?  What sort? If not, why not?

No, for two reasons:

1. My beers usually clear naturally, given sufficient time to condition

2. There’s nothing inherently wrong with cloudy beer

I sometimes use finings, not always though., When I do I only use gelatine, which is pretty cheap and I can buy it at the supermarket. Although I always use protofloc during the boil.

Which of the finings does your company produce?

Some of the bigger/busier websites I know of.

http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk

http://www.thehomebrewcompany.co.uk/

https://www.geterbrewed.ie/

http://www.worcesterhopshop.co.uk/

As i always say on these threads, get over to https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/index.php

and ask on there. Very friendly and helpful bunch.

do you homebrewers use fining agents to clarify beers before bottling?  What sort? If not, why not?

I just cold crash now, less faff just to press a button and come back 48h later to clear beer.

The big advantage homebrewers have over comercial brewers is time, the brewery next door gets through gallons of finings as every keg has to go out the door a few days after it comes out of the fermenter, otherwise it’s taking up space and not making money. Whereas I can leave stuff 2-3 weeks to condition and not have to worry about it.

So selling finings in 5gallon drums to them every week is a bit different to me buying a pint of them every few years!

The home brew shop in Farnborough is probably the CRC of homebrewing.

PVPP (aka Divergan / polyclar / Vipyclar)

and although we don’t actually produce we also buy in silica and blend with PVPP, as the two work together well and saves the breweries buying and dosing two materials.

Cheers for the inputs.

Even more yesteryear… Mega thread

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/brewers-of-stw/

pvpp is an open structure powder that adsorbs protein particultes that could make beer go cloudy over time.

mostly used to speed up lagering , reduce filtration losses an speed up filter throughput

not so much used for homebrewing , if at all . mixing and dosing would be a problem .

I would look at Niche solutions as a route to market for micro breweries , as for home brewers , speak with home brew shop North Camp to see if there is any demand

What are other people’s experiences with the kits like the OP has? I’ve done 3 now, an IPA – just about drinkable but disappointing. Lager – crap. St Peter’s Golden Ale – crap. Instructions always followed to letter, I’ve given up now.

The Ginger Ale I made from scratch in a demijohn was awesome though, but needed diluting with lemonade to make it drinkable (it was 12-13% in the bottle!)

Depends on the kit. The Coopers £10 tins are rubbish. The Festival ones for £25 are really good. A brew fridge makes a big difference as you can hold a constant temperature. Yeast does funny things if the temperature is swinging wildly.

I found the kits were mainly rubbish if you just added water.to the extract and left it. Had half decent results from doing a short boil and hopping etc.

It’s the journey to homebrewing properly, though – makes sense to start with a simple kit to understand the processes and get the equipment together. Although if you can get an ale out of it that you’d be happy serving to guests then you’ve done well.

I tried a few kits a few years ago and had mixed results. Ended up buying s/h all grain equipment and brewed loads of good beer.

As mentioned above, a “brew fridge” makes a big difference.

I would recommend going all grain from the beginning. I recently changed over to a Grainfather, which is excellent. I wished I had done it ages ago. Starting out, I would probably go for one of the Grainfather clones, loads on Ebay and AliExpress. Buy some all grain recipe packs, watch a few youtube videos or read a book or 2, then crack one.

Kits are also a lot more expensive than using grain.

A brew fridge makes a big difference as you can hold a constant temperature.

I have a more basic solution: an aquarium heater in a large trug of water, put the FV in there and you can keep the temperature stable

aaaaaaand it’s me again.

I didn’t repitch in the end, I just pulled the hops out (they were in muslin bags) and left it. It’s definitely stopped now though at 1015, it’s been that way for a week. Tastes okay, quite malty, but a fair amount of bitterness even from the short hopping that it got.

So, I’m going to bottle it tomorrow. I picked up a cheap s/h bottle tree from eBay, and I got a second bucket with a tap and bottling wand attachment.

For next time (cos there’ll be one), the pantry where I’ve had the FV is absolutely bang on 20degC, but do I need to put the FV somewhere warmer at first to get the yeast going?

No need to get too hung upon temperatures; unless you start brewing lager kits then its a bit more important.  I used to use a fish tank heater in the fermenting bucket to ensure a constant temperature.  These days I dump the kit contents in my FV add any additions and stick it in the garage, currently have three fv’s on the go with temperatures in the garage fluctuating daily from between 8-12 degrees.  It will ferment given time.

PS welcome to the world of home brew; if you like cider check out turbo cider production on you tube; its super quick, not necessarily super strong though as the name suggests.

No need to get too hung upon temperatures

Don’t tell me that, I’ve just about persuaded MrsIHN that’s it’s a good idea if I buy an old fridge and some other bits to put together a homemade brewfridge 🙂

Bottling will be easier  with a cold product . Might be very fobby  if its up in double figures  due to CO2 breakout. You might be fine , but if you can leave your beer out overnight then it should bottle  easier, having said that some C02 breakout is desirble as it will purge the headspace with fob and get you   lower DO content , and greatr shelf life /colloidial stabilty

I didn’t repitch in the end, I just pulled the hops out (they were in muslin bags) and left it. It’s definitely stopped now though at 1015, it’s been that way for a week. Tastes okay, quite malty, but a fair amount of bitterness even from the short hopping that it got.

Generally malty and sweetness (1015 is quite sweet for a normal strength beer) go together so tht’s to be expected.

Dry hopping in the fermenter doesn’t add bitterness, or at least it doesn’t theoretically, you have to boil the hops to convert the alpha acid into bitterness. It does however make beer taste more hopy (obviously) which some people perceive as bitter.

For next time (cos there’ll be one), the pantry where I’ve had the FV is absolutely bang on 20degC, but do I need to put the FV somewhere warmer at first to get the yeast going?

Generally the ideal process is something like:

Yeast at 25C in for rehydration

Wort at 15-18C before pitching, you want the yeast to have an easy time to begin with whilst they absorb nutrients an multiply, then tart fermenting sugars.

Then let the fermentation stabilise at whatever temp you chose for the beer (18-22C for british ales), higher temps produce faster fermentations which give more byproducts which generally for british beers are fruity esters.

Then ramp it up at the end a few degrees to help the yeast get through the last of the sugars.

Lagers, Belgian beer, steam/california beer are all different. The thing with homebrew is you can start with a recipe or kit and almost everything you do with it will change it in some way, the interesting bit is trying to recognise what’s happening and figure out ways of controlling it to do what you want. One person might like a certain kit fermented at 18C, someone else at 25C, one with “underpitched” yeast (i.e. not enough by design or accident stressign the yeast into producing more flavours) others with overpitched yeast to give a nice clean beer. Some like it sweet, others dried right out.

Might be very fobby  if its up in double figures  due to CO2 breakout. You might be fine , but if you can leave your beer out overnight then it should bottle  easier, having said that some C02 breakout is desirble as it will purge the headspace with fob and get you   lower DO content , and greatr shelf life /colloidial stabilty

I, of course, understood that perfectly, but could you explains in laymen’s term for, ahem, any of our other readers… 😉

I, of course, understood that perfectly, but could you explains in laymen’s term for, ahem, any of our other readers…

Lots of unfermented sugar and CO2 can produce foam, foam stops stuff syphoning as the high point of the syphon ends up full of CO2. So it might be harder than anticipated to transfer it to a second bucket. Ditto when bottling it will foam up through the wand.

To avoid this, crack the lid off the bottling bucket and leave it overnight so it goes flat (leave the lid ‘on’ so air doesn’t get in but any excess pressure can escape).

This has the added benefit of purging out any air from the bucket so you end up with less dissolved oxygen (DO) which would spoil the beer in the long term.

CAVEAT TO THE ABOVE TRANSLATION:

I personally don’t think DO is an issue in homebrewed bottle conditioned beer. When presented with oxygen and sugar yeast will multiply and metabolise it so as long as there’s some yeast present then worrying about tiny amounts of DO isn’t really necessary.

To prove this I’ve just drunk some 3 year old IPA, which when I bottled it he syphon blocked so I was literally pouring it into bottles from the tap without a wand. It tasted fine. Not something you’d always get away with but it did that beer no harm in the long term.

Thanks. So, just to be clear, do I:

A) Syphon from FV into bottling bucket, leave BB overnight with the lid open a gnat’s (ideally somewhere coldish), then bottle?

Or

B) Leave overnight in FV with the lid open a gnat’s (ideally somewhere coldish), then syphon into BB and bottle?

I appreciate everyone’s help BTW, you’re all welcome to come round for a beer. Assuming it’s drinkable 🙂

Thanks. So, just to be clear, do I:

A) Syphon from FV into bottling bucket, leave BB overnight with the lid open a gnat’s (ideally somewhere coldish), then bottle?

Or

B) Leave overnight in FV with the lid open a gnat’s (ideally somewhere coldish), then syphon into BB and bottle?

I appreciate everyone’s help BTW, you’re all welcome to come round for a beer. Assuming it’s drinkable

Just rack from your FV into a sanitised bottling bucket, which already contains your priming sugar in the form of a heavy syrup (boil up your sugar and water beforehand and let it cool). The you can syphon into sanitised bottles and cap.

I’ve never had a problem doing it this way.

BTW I have a special bitter bubbling away, loosely based on Fuller’s ESB but with more late addition hops. Magnum for bittering; northdown, challenger and EKG for aroma.

You can also use honey as a priming sugar, different types can really change the taste of the finished beer.

At 1015 I would not be adding any primings at all.

There  should be enough residual fermentables left to get you 2.2 – 2.6 volumes of CO2

Unfortunatly you need to do an attenuation limit test to determine just how far it will ferment , which takes about 48hrs and still is not 100% accurate . ( whizz in a load of freshly hydrated yeast , warm to around 25’c , leave in warm place, then re chec your SG )

Final update. Well, for now.

Saturday was bottling day; I put the FV outside to cool right down overnight, made up the priming solution, put that in the bottling bucket and then syphoned from the FV into the BB. Bottled from there, then all the bottles into the cleaned FV and BB and back into the pantry to start secondary fermentation. I put them back in the buckets just in case any went pop… (which they haven’t).

Things I learned:

1) Thank flip I put a tap and bottling wand on the BB, I can only imagine what a massive faff using a syphon would be.

2) When you tip the bucket up towards the end to get the last bits out, make sure you’ve put something under it to stop it sliding forward and off the worktop (a very close call)

3) Screwing on 40+ bottle tops gives you a blister on your thumb 🙁

I’ll put all the bottles out into the garage tonight to start conditioning. I’ll see you in six weeks 🙂

Leave the bottles at room temperature for a few days otherwise they won’t carbonate.

Good work! Plastic bottles are the devil’s invention designed to cause you pain. Budvar bottles and a capper are so much less hassle.

Okay, so, I’m back.

The brew, beautifully named, Massey’s Old Felcher by a friend, has now been in bottles for four weeks. I’ve tried a couple and, I suppose unsurprisingly given the relatively high FG, they’re pretty malty. Not unpleasantly so, but really pretty malty.

Will this maltiness mellow/change over time if left, or is that pretty much how it’ll remain? I’m quite happy to essentially forget about them and let them do their own thing for however long, but if it’s pretty much now the finished article then it’d be good to know.

I have a Malt Miller mini-mash kit to do next 🙂 (if I ever get a spare weekend…)