Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that posts here, as my first brew, an English Pale Ale (I'm English and love my ale), turned out crystal clear when bottling and tasted great during the bottling. Wasn't overly strong, but I expected it to be around the percentage it was (3.9%). I don't drink to get drunk, i drink as I love the flavour.
Kept it simple, just used a 5 gallon bucket for fermenting, left it alone for 3 weeks, then siphoned off into another 5 gal bucket to bottle it. Bottled and now waiting for another two weeks to drink it. To save buying special bottles, I just bought some Heineken from Costco (price was about the same as if i'd bought empty bottles, but this way I could drink the contents too, heh) and used those to bottle with. Reason I went with those was the labels are really really easy to remove if you want to do so.
The best part was tasting it while the bottling was done. I actually love how it tastes flat and warm, but I've had many a beer from pubs in England that were their house brews and were pretty much all flat and warm or warmish.
I do have some questions though:
Not starting another batch until I know how this one turned out, but looking forward to starting another brew if this goes well.
Kept it simple, just used a 5 gallon bucket for fermenting, left it alone for 3 weeks, then siphoned off into another 5 gal bucket to bottle it. Bottled and now waiting for another two weeks to drink it. To save buying special bottles, I just bought some Heineken from Costco (price was about the same as if i'd bought empty bottles, but this way I could drink the contents too, heh) and used those to bottle with. Reason I went with those was the labels are really really easy to remove if you want to do so.
The best part was tasting it while the bottling was done. I actually love how it tastes flat and warm, but I've had many a beer from pubs in England that were their house brews and were pretty much all flat and warm or warmish.
I do have some questions though:
- My siphon seems to have an end that would let me put it all the way down to the bottom of the bucket in the sediment, would it be ok to stick it gently down to the bottom and start the siphoning? Which then leads into another one, how do you get the last few inches or so of beer out easily, without disturbing the bottom? As there was easily another two bottles worth of beer that I felt like I lost.
- Is there a good online source for getting the ingredients that would be cheaper than buying one of the kits? I bought this one to start (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006M3V0V2) and would like to just source everything to reduce cost if possible.
Not starting another batch until I know how this one turned out, but looking forward to starting another brew if this goes well.