alwayssummer
Member
Hi everyone. I registered so I could ask for your expertise on my first batch of beer.
For Chinese New Year entertainment we went down to the local homebrew supply and purchased a Morgan's Premium Starter kit along with a can of their Frontier IPA (sessionable). Since we know nothing at all we listened avidly to the advice of the guys at the brew shop and were warned about the dangers of brewing too warm here in Singapore. I left with the impression that 21 deg C (70 for y'all) would be an excellent brewing temperature despite the instructions on the can.
Once we had all the supplies collected we watched all the YouTube videos from Morgan's and set about brewing up our first batch. Measured our OG at 1039. Singapore has chloramine in the water, so we brewed with bottled water and I suspect we didn't make enough efforts to aerate.
We pitched the yeast packet at 72 deg. Then diligently cooled the beer maintaining a relatively stable temperature of 70 deg. Never got any krausen, but after 6 days an SG reading of 1017 told us good things were happening. On the other hand, the instructions on the can said we should be nearly finished. We decided to let it warm up some and went up to 73. Days 9-11 we were still measuring SG at 1011.
Came to the conclusion that fermentation was stuck. Read a bunch of threads and decided to let it warm more to 79 deg and try stirring to see if we could reactivate. Now it's day 16 and we're still stalled at SG of 1011.
We're not shy about tasting things (best way to cook a good meal is to taste along the way, ought to apply to beer too, right?) and the beer tastes quite drinkable, but a hair sweet right now. I'm a little sad if we only get low 70s attenuation and brew a 3.5% alcohol beer.
Other observations. Our fermenter does not seal. Never saw anything through the bubbler. But the lid is transparent and we can see tiny bubbles still forming in the wort (which is pretty clear right now). We have decent carbonation still, which seems to regenerate even after having the lid off and stirring.
Now that I've had the lid off I'm a little paranoid about leaving it sit for a lot longer because I don't want it to get infected.
Questions:
For Chinese New Year entertainment we went down to the local homebrew supply and purchased a Morgan's Premium Starter kit along with a can of their Frontier IPA (sessionable). Since we know nothing at all we listened avidly to the advice of the guys at the brew shop and were warned about the dangers of brewing too warm here in Singapore. I left with the impression that 21 deg C (70 for y'all) would be an excellent brewing temperature despite the instructions on the can.
Once we had all the supplies collected we watched all the YouTube videos from Morgan's and set about brewing up our first batch. Measured our OG at 1039. Singapore has chloramine in the water, so we brewed with bottled water and I suspect we didn't make enough efforts to aerate.
We pitched the yeast packet at 72 deg. Then diligently cooled the beer maintaining a relatively stable temperature of 70 deg. Never got any krausen, but after 6 days an SG reading of 1017 told us good things were happening. On the other hand, the instructions on the can said we should be nearly finished. We decided to let it warm up some and went up to 73. Days 9-11 we were still measuring SG at 1011.
Came to the conclusion that fermentation was stuck. Read a bunch of threads and decided to let it warm more to 79 deg and try stirring to see if we could reactivate. Now it's day 16 and we're still stalled at SG of 1011.
We're not shy about tasting things (best way to cook a good meal is to taste along the way, ought to apply to beer too, right?) and the beer tastes quite drinkable, but a hair sweet right now. I'm a little sad if we only get low 70s attenuation and brew a 3.5% alcohol beer.
Other observations. Our fermenter does not seal. Never saw anything through the bubbler. But the lid is transparent and we can see tiny bubbles still forming in the wort (which is pretty clear right now). We have decent carbonation still, which seems to regenerate even after having the lid off and stirring.
Now that I've had the lid off I'm a little paranoid about leaving it sit for a lot longer because I don't want it to get infected.
Questions:
- Should I bottle it?
- If I bottle it, should I add proofing sugar? According to my calculations I have 13g sugar/L that didn't ferment, and that's significantly more sugar than we would add for bottle proofing.