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Bottled my homebrew last night

T

TampaSupremo

Hellbent for Glory-land
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
234
Location
Atlanta
A couple of weeks ago I brewed my first batch of beer using my Cooper's brewing kit. After setting it up and mixing water, malt extract, and yeast I set it aside. Unfortunately, I saw no CO2 bubbling through the airlock like it was supposed to. I figured it was a bust. Last night I started to drain the fermenter when I realized "Hey...this smells like beer!" I put some in the hydrometer tube and, lo and behold, it registered a gravity in the appropriate range.

My wife and I then proceeded to fill all thirty of the included bottles, making sure to add sugar drops to each for the second fermentation in the bottle. The bottles are resting comfortably in a dark cupboard awaiting the day of reckoning.

TampaSupremo
 
Congrats on your 1st batch, I sure do remember mine! With that said, it will get better from here!! ;)

Make sure to let us know how it turns out.
 
Congrats, you will have to let me know how they turn out!! I have been thinking about do my own brew.
 
Actually, we were both really excited about bottling it. I'm sure that eventually it will become a chore but I'll try to keep it fun. I was getting wa-a-ay ahead of myself, talking about the brewery I'm going to open and what not (I even have a name for it, but I'll save that for another time).

Thanks for the encouraging words. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks how it turned out (Al, if you are reading this, I'm bringing some to the Gran Habano event).

TampaSupremo
 
:laugh:

You'll find out in about a week if you overdid it with the sugar (for 2nd ferment in the bottle). Of course, I always got it right.
 
My kit (Cooper's) came with little pre-sized sugar/glucose drops (2 for each 750ml bottle). What happens if I overdid it?

TampaSupremo
 
Congratz on your first beer!!

Remember, a non bubling airlock is only an indicator of a non bubbling airlock, it has nothing to do with fermentation. Most of the time there is a leak in the lid of your pail, if you are using one, and that lets the CO2 excape.

I have never used the priming tabs for carbonation, I just use the sugar, but I have wanted to give them a try.

Let us know how they come out, but make sure to let them age for at least 21 days. That is the shortest amount of time I would wait for the CO2 to disolve back into the beer.

one last thing....don't drink the yeast

Tim
 
TampaSupremo said:
My kit (Cooper's) came with little pre-sized sugar/glucose drops (2 for each 750ml bottle). What happens if I overdid it?

TampaSupremo
Click to expand...

BOOM!

Lets just say, store the bottles near stuff you don't mind getting beer on.

Of course, this never happened to me....to me.....to me.
 
MX said:
one last thing....don't drink the yeast

Tim
Click to expand...
Actually the yeast is good for you, full of B12 if I remember correctly. For hefeweizen you are supposed to swirl before you pour to get the yeast suspended in the beer and drink it cloudy.
 
Dsav101 said:
My addy is in profile for all you homebrewers! hahaha. :) Hope your X-mas beers turn out superb!

Don
Click to expand...

I think it is going to be ll right. It was my first self designed recipe. I used nutmeg, cloves, vanilla beans, and cinnamon sticks to give it a "spiced" feel. At first the nutmeg and cloves were a bit strong but 2 months in the secondary have helped that out. Noe, I left the cinnamon sticks in the secondary the whole time, and it has a bit of a bit to it on the finish. I am hoping that 3 weeks in the bottle will draw that down a bit. Either way, the sample I had last night, warm and flat, was still pretty tasty.

I went a little over-style with the carbonation and used about 4.5 oz of sugar to prime, I based my brew on a Belgium Brown Ale and that only called for about 3.75 - 4 oz.

Tim
 
Very nice. I am very new to brewing and usually brew with a couple of guys that homebrew alot and are pretty good (least the beers are!) hehe. Going to get my own setup here soon as the wife will allow it, but not sure how much I want to sink into it right off the bat. Most likely will go directly into kegging as it seems a bit easier and that is all I have seen so far. These other guys do 20 gallong and 40 gallon batches but I will most likely only do 5-10 at a time. Figure I can get a few kegs of each and try em out. Will def post and put pics up if and when I get something going on!!!

Don
 
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