carbonation

[HerbMeowing]

i always used 2 dots per liter bottle.
estimated 'CO2 by vol' ~2.5

[mashani]

Im really thick in the head I guess. Should I use 2 Dominoe Sugar Dots for a quart bottle, or one. TIA

The ones that come 198/pack, use 1 per 12oz as a starting point. When using larger bottles like your quart ones, if you wanted a lower carb level like in an English beer, you could go with only 1 or 2 (just one many people would consider too flat but if you want something cask ale like it is about right). But simply going with 3 is good if you like it more carbonated *and your sure your beer is finished fermenting*.

If you are using the dots that are bigger and come 126/pack, use only 1 or 2 depending on what you want as above and in a 12oz bottle they would be too much (unless you want Belgian carb like in Duval).

[ajbopp]

I'm going to suggest something that may be controversial, not sure, but it's not meant to be.

The BrewDemon instructions say that after a week fermenting will stop, implying there's no more point in keeping it in the fermenter longer than that. The instructions also say that after a week in the bottle they will be sufficiently carbonated to have the taste and experience of beer.

The instructions go on to say that keeping them in the bottle up to 4 weeks may enhance the flavor. What does that mean? I don't know. I'm pretty new at this myself.

What I have been seeing online and hearing from relatives who have been into this awhile is that experimentation is key. From that I take it to mean experiment with different fermenting times and bottling times and see what makes a difference to you. No one else can answer that question.

I'm new at brewing, but a bit of an old hand at cooking, and I know that different people have different abilities to taste. It's not a matter of training (though you can teach yourself to recognize complexities that you may have missed) but rather a difference in how many taste buds you have.

The 3/4 rule may work well for some people, and others may be able to detect no difference at all. That's not a defect in the person or the beer, and it's not a lie or a joke on the person's part. We all have our own perceptions and preferences.

The key is to experiment and find out what works best for you. Taste a 7-day-bottled beer against a 21-day-bottled beer and find which you prefer, and determine whether the additional wait is worth it. Find out for yourself if, for you, fermenting 3 weeks results in a significantly higher-quality taste than one week.

Experiment. Feel free to to have freedom, and drink what is best for you. Buy the correct number of bottles for your pipeline as you figure it out.

[mashani]

Nothing wrong with experimentation. But it goes beyond taste.

Acetaldehyde (as well as other fermentation byproducts that can be cleaned up better by leaving the beer sit on the yeast cake longer) are "not good for you" and even if you can't taste them can give you hangovers or headaches or such that you may not get if you didn't have it in the final product. So even someone that is not an acetaldehyde super taster like me can benefit from patience, both in fermentation duration and also bottle conditioning time, even if they can't taste the difference.

I would suggest instead of rushing to get the first batch done, brew a 2nd batch a week or 10 days after and keep a pipeline of beer going that way. Then after that initial long wait for that first batch to be done, the rest won't seem so bad because something is always turning over the next week, and you can always be brewing something else for fun in between as well.

Also just as a side note unless using a hydrometer and taking measurements 3 days apart, at 1 week there is no way for you to be sure the beer is really done fermenting, at 2-3 weeks it's a much safer bet that it is. There are quite a few yeasts that will ferment like mad for 3 or 4 days, and then slow down or even seem to stop briefly, before slowly chewing up more. Bottling one of those too early and you are making beer grenades. Those are no fun.

[ajbopp]

OK, I have no problem modifying my original statement from user taste to user experience. The key is t find out what's right for you. Not to assume what's right for anyone else is also right for you.

[HerbMeowing]

you can drink it anytime after fermentation but much better after bottling ... carbonating ... and conditioning

Rule 2-2-2 FTW ...

2 weeks fermentation
2 weeks carbonation
2 weeks refrigerating

flavors take time to meld and mature. very young beer can have a 'green' character to it.
big improvement in flavor by waiting ~6 weeks in the bottle ...

[mashani]

OK, I have no problem modifying my original statement from user taste to user experience. The key is t find out what's right for you. Not to assume what's right for anyone else is also right for you.

All of the concepts we mention, IE like what HerbMeowing mentioned above *are* based on user experience. Literally 10s of thousands of hours worth of very many user(s) experience(s) that goes back across a bunch of brewing forums, some of which are now gone.

We do encourage people to try what you are suggesting as a learning experience if they want to, try an early bottle, try one that is aged more, and etc. But we like to give guidelines that will almost always help new people with the kits to make beer that they actually enjoy drinking, so that they don't get discouraged when they follow the manufacturer directions and it doesn't turn out as nice as they might like.

If you've read over a lot of our other topics, you'll see that some of us do things that defy a lot of home brewing "wisdom", sometimes - short mashes or stupidly long mashes, sometimes shorter boils, not worrying about DMS, not worrying about HSA, things like that. I slow chill, I don't use a wort chiller, I learned how to adapt recipes and hop additions to that process. Hell I've made beer that I didn't even boil a few times with excellent results. But even though I've done all sorts of crazy sounding stuff, it was all based on previous experiences suggesting to me that it might be ok, or learning about non traditional techniques used by other brewers around the world and trying them out. Even right now I'm making beer "chopped" style with big bags of grain that I don't even know what it is besides visually identifying bits and pieces and it all being a SWAG until after I mash it and give it a good smell and taste, and then deciding what it will become after that. I am able to do that because I've brewed so many styles of beer and I know that I like pretty much any style of beer, and my techniques are nailed down - so I am fairly sure I will like the results regardless. So saying don't experiment isn't my thing, go for it if you like. But it's honestly best to do so once you have a sound solid process that always works for you in place.

All that said - still you will also see that literally all of us do follow that simple advice that Herb mentioned about patience. Because we all *know* that this will lead to better results. There is no doubt in our minds that it will. You can shorten the timeframes we suggest with techniques like pitching more yeast, maintaining rock solid fermentation temps, different types of fermentation equipment, using nutrients. I do these things.

But all of the new folks with their shiny Brew Demon or Mr. Beer kit don't usually have that capability or experience yet. So we offer simple succinct best practice advice to get people started and making good beer. Because we want them to like making beer and keep at it vs. getting discouraged and quitting. That's our motivation here.