First try at beermaking

[nursejohn]

I am getting ready to order a Brewhouse Mexican Cerveza kit from George. This is my first attempt at making beer. My question is, will it be OK to ferment the beer at room temp (70-72 degrees F)? I have read on the forum about people using a fridge for fermenting. Also, I think I am going to try the dry yeast that comes in the kit. If I do this, will my beer turn out OK? Being that this is my first try, I am trying not to get too complicated. Any suggestions or advice will be appreciated!

 

[cpfan]

Using a fridge when making beer is called "lagering" and requires a lager yeast. Your kit comes with ale yeast.
I have made a LOT of these kits. I have always fermented at room temperature (I fact I prefer about 74F), and used the included yeast.


Since it's your first beer kit, then I strongly recommend following the instructions and ignoring all advice for beer making on the internet.


Since you don't have the kit yet, the instructions are...
http://www.rjspagnols.com/en/resource/articles/brewhouse.aspx


Note many beer recipes make 5 US gallons. This kit, like most wine kits, makes 6 US gallons.


Steve

 

[nursejohn]

Thanks for the help cpfan. I appreciate it. Also, I'll be using a 7.9 gallon bucket, do I have any worries about it foaming over that?

 

[grapeman]

I've used 7.9 gallon primaries with no spill over, but some people have it happen occasionally. Fiarly recently I made the first beer kit I have in about a year and had a brain malfunction when it was time to prime the beer (carbonate it). I decided to get the beer nice and clean that I would put it in a carboy and rack it off the dead yeast. It cleared nicely and I racked it to a bucket and dumped the yeast out. Oh Cr@p, there went the yeast that is used to prime the beer. What shall I do? Well I better put it back in the carboy, add the priming sugar and let it take off in there to protect the headspace. I made every mistake with that batch I could! I ended up with about5 inches of headspace! I rocked the carboy a few times to see if I could displace some C02. It worked and the airlock started to bubble a bit so I knew it was filled. I left the beer in the carboy figuring I would give it a day to get going and bottle the next day-Sunday. That didn't work out and 2 weeks later I said, oh crop, I forgot to bottle the beer. I knew all the corn sugar was gone and had no more. Now What? Well I'll try table sugar. So I added a half cup or so of table sugar into some water heated and cooled- I know, don't use table sugar for priming. I added that to the carboy and stirred it well and bottled.


After making every dumb mistake in the book and a dozen no-no's, I bottled, capped and set the beer aside for a couple weeks at room temperature. After that time had passed, I cooled one down and cracked it open and poured. Half a bottle later I had so much head on the beer that it was about to run over. Nice smooth frothy head, not like you get from a Bud or Miller, but smooth and creamy! And the taste! Fantastic. Later my son asked to try a sip of one I had just opened. I handed it to him and he tipped it back took a swig and turned it upright with a snap like he was used to. It blasted half a bottle of beer all over the place. After making the mess he said, boy that tastes a lot better than Bud, but why does it have so much fizz? "I will never tell that little secret!" Oops too late I just did.

 

[mattsbrewery]

The one thing you'll notice if you ferment your beers at a higher temp is that they will all have a certain flavor (sort of yeasty, but not really). I originally got discouraged with beer because they all had "That" flavor. When I came back to it and was fermenting at 65-68*, all was much better.

A nifty trick to cool your bucket/carboy down a few degrees is to drape a wet towel over it and keep it wet. If you want to cool it down 10* or more, set a fan blowing on it as well. Temp in beer is very important, but for ales, a lagering fridge is not necessary.

If you wanted to use a lager yeast with this kit it would definitely elevate it, but you'd have to keep it below 60*, and wait a lot longer. I'd just use the ale yeast for your maiden batch.

All that said, as you can see above, it's pretty hard to make a beer that isn't good. Even all my beer with "That" flavor tasted great overall. Have fun and enjoy your beer!

 

[nursejohn]

Thanks everyone for your input and advice!

 

[uavwmn]

nursejohn, my first beer kit was the Cerveza. I used the dry yeast that came with the kit. The beer turned out "good".
My next kit I used a liquid yeast and the beer turned out "awesome".


I fermented at room temperature with no problems at all.

 

[smurfe]

My only suggestion is that if you are going to do a Cerveza and you want it to taste somewhatlike a Cerveza and have no way to lager the beer and have to brew it as an ale is to definitely change the yeast. Those kits normally all use the same Cooper's Ale Yeast. This is an English Ale yeast that will not give the same flavor profile. You could use an American Ale yeast such as a Fermentis SA-05 dry yeast or a White Labs WLP-001 or a Wyeast 1056. This strain ferments fairly dry and crisp. It will be closer in flavor than the Coopers yeast will. For ferment temps, 67-68 F or so is better. It keeps Diacetyl flavors down to a minimum.

 

[Travisty]

To piggyback on Smurfe's post, I would definitely use an american ale yeast since you aren't able to lager. I would keep it a cool as you can too. The warmer you pitch, the more fruity esters and higher alcohols (fusels) you'll get. To be as close to what you'll expect out of a cerveza, you'll want as little of these esters and fusels as you can get. If you can pitch in the low 60s and keep the ferment in the mid-60s that would really help an american ale yeast create the cleanest profile it can. I would also recommend keeping the beer on the yeast in primary for at least a couple weeks. This lets the yeast clean up any diacetyl and other fermemntation by-products. A secondary really isn't necessary either. I just rack straight fro the primary to the bottling bucket leaving the yeast cake behind. Don't worry if the beer looks super clear, there's still plenty of yeast left in suspension to carbonate with.

I recently made a kind of blonde ale for a Cinco de Mayo party and I chilled the wort down to the upper 50s before pitching a pack of rehydrated SA-05 dry yeast. (Normally I like to use liquid yeast, but I wanted to see how I liked this dry yeast, plus it's cheap!) I don't have good temp control yet, so I just kept it in my cool basement and let it do it's thing. The temp never got above 68 though, which is what I considered as high as I wanted it to get. I left it on the yeast for three weeks before bottling. The result was a very clean tasting light ale that was a hit at the party and very refreshing.

 

[ASAI]

Since it's your first beer kit, then I strongly recommend following the instructions and ignoring all advice for beer making on the internet.




Steve

Bump

 

[Pablo]

There are numerous ways to make beer. People have made beer for hundreds of years. Follow the instructions on the first batch. Your beer will be fine. If you have a tub you can put the bucket in, fill it with water and toss frozen water bottles in to cool it down some. The fermenting beer will be warmer than the air temp anyway. The towell around it works too. The warmer the temp, the quicker it will go too. The Coopers yeast is used because it is predictable. It will always make beer. Once you learn the process, you can change things about it.

 

[smurfe]

I highly recommend to follow the directions as well, just add a different yeast. In fact, the kit I did the directions DID recommend not using the yeast in the kit and to obtain the proper yeast and recommended a liquid yeast. Using that Coopers yeast and fermenting int he 70's will not come anywhere close to the style of beer purchased. If you want to use a dry yeast and there is nothing wrong with that, see if you can fine a Fermentis SA-05 Ale yeast. It will give you a flavor a bit closer to what you are expecting. Yeast is a major influence in the flavor of a beer.

 

[Jeff H]

http://www.finevinewines.com//Wiz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5927

 

[Jackie]

Before I got my extra fridge, I used lager yeast at room temp and it fermented just fine. But the beer still had that "ale" taste to it. You can't get the true lager flavor without the cool temps. That doesn't mean it wasn't good, it was good, just different. A California Ale yeast or Kolsch yeast are the closest ale yeasts to a lager in flavor (both are liquid yeast and liquid yeast is pricey as far as yeast goes). There's nothing wrong with using the yeast that came with the kit though. I'm not a big fan of Cooper's yeast but that's just me. Saflager is a dry lager yeast that's pretty good too.

I just ordered another one of these kits (and the munich dark)--my two favorites for summer-fall.

 

[Travisty]

I don't mean to make it sound more complicated than it is, I just want to give some advice that will help make the best beer you can for your first brew. Like smurfe said, it would be better to use a yeast other than the coopers that comes in the kit, and it would be better to ferment it as cool as you can.


I would recommend using an american ale yeast (White Labs WLP001 or Wyeast 1056) and maybe place you fermenter in a tub of water with a t-shirt or something around it to wick water up over the fermenter keeping it cool. I also wouldn't bother with the secondary, because it's not necessary, it will make for one more area to introduce contamination, and many times you can rack too early causing a stuck fermentation.


However, if you use the coopers yeast, ferment in the 70s, and use a secondary, you will still make beer. In fact, I bet you'll still love the beer! I know that because that's what I did with my first few beers too. I'm just offering tips that will help you make even better beer for your first one.

 

[smurfe]

I only offered the extra advise as most people buy a kit such as a Cerveza and expect it to taste like a Corona. Using the yeast supplied and fermenting at ale temps is not going to give you that beer. You may get a good beer but not what you are expecting if indeed your are expecting the Mexican Lager style.


I hate to see people get discouraged and quit the hobby making a beer that is not going to turn out anything like the name on the label and their expectations of the commercial style. In the wine it world a Cabernet is a Cabernet. It isn't the same in the beer kit world if you follow the direction and use an ale yeast for a lager beer.


I just don't understand why people get their shorts in a bunch and insist they follow the directions and forget everything you read in the Internet. That is poor and down right improperadvice to someone who camehere seeking advice. No one is telling the poster tonot follow the directions, rather just open a different packet of yeast. How is that not following directions? Like I said, the one Brewhousekit I made recommended doing just that. So to the original poster, feel free to PM me anytimeif you have any questions. I will help you out any way I can.

 

[Dean]

Yep, Brewhouse is awesome in the fact that even they say, they provide a nice concentrated all-grain wort. It is up to you to turn that into beer and they encourage alterations! All they do is take away the malting, grinding, heating, sparging, boiling, etc.

At any rate, even if you use the coopers, it's still going to be WAYYYY better than any of the mainstream bottled junk you will purchase. It will be far closer to craft brewed beer, and will usually taste better because you made it!

But seriously, use a different yeast, or make 2 batches. One with coopers (which is not bad) and one with wyeast 2112 california lager (doesn't need a fridge). Both will be good. One you will prefer. if that is too much beer, have a block BBQ and share...it will be gone before you know it, and you will be a very popular person in the area.

 

[nursejohn]

First of all, let me say thanks to everyone for their advice and help with my first kit. It looks really good in the carboy right now, very clear. I hope to bottle this weekend! I do have one more question though. When I add the priming sugar to the beer to create the carbonation in the bottle, what keeps the caps from blowing off? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I learned a hard lesson once with a homemade wine-corks blowing out-wife very unhappy (never want to go there again)

 

[grapeman]

The priming sugar has been calculated to give the correct amount of carbonation. The bottles need to be crown cap type beer bottles and the crown caps applied. The crimping of the caps prevents cap blowoffs. Hope it tastes as good as you describe!

 

[Pablo]

What kind of bottles are you using? Twist-off bottles will not work. You need a special high dollar machine for those. Use the priming sugar that came with the kit. I disolve the sugar in a cup of water and then pour in the bottling bucket. Then I rack the beer on top of it. Gently stir. You don't want to get too much, if any, air mixed in. Too much sugar and the bottles can explode. Too little and you get flat beer. Be sure to age the beer at room temperature for at least 4 weeks. Chill one and taste test it. You might want to wait a few more weeks after that. Pour in a glass too as it will have sediment at the bottom.