Yes BrewDemon and Mr. Beer kits are pretty darn easy but sometime you need a little help from the Borg to get you on the right track. Post your questions here!
BigPapaG wrote:It's supposed to slow down after a few days... No worries...
Four days of heavy yeast party and you'd slow down too I suspect!
Rest assured, they are still busy...
Keep them at that 68°F for a good 18-21 days total (patience is your friend here, you've got 4 in, so 14-17 more and you'll be golden) and then bottle'em up!
Don't worry about the higher temps on this one, happens to all of us.
On the NEXT batch though, try wetting an old t-shirt in cold water, squeze it out a bit and drape it over the fermenter on day one. Keep it moist through the first four to five days.
You can put the fermenter on a cookie sheet pan so the water doesn't ruin yer table.
The wet t-shirt will act as a swamp cooler and draw off some of the excess heat that gets generated by that wild and crazy yeast party!
Okay i just made my new order for next two batches . My first batch still in fermentor going on 12 days, still a bubble out the airlock every so often. Now my concerned question, my bottle caps with the kit does not have seals, gaskets. It is just plastic caps. Will this still work for bottle conditioning for two three weeks?
Tmike wrote:Okay i just made my new order for next two batches . My first batch still in fermentor going on 12 days, still a bubble out the airlock every so often. Now my concerned question, my bottle caps with the kit does not have seals, gaskets. It is just plastic caps. Will this still work for bottle conditioning for two three weeks?
Welcome to The Borg...Yes the plastic caps that comes in them kits will work fine and can be reused for a while. Just tighten them good and the beer will keep most likely longer then you will have them Happy Brewing
Happy Hound Brewery
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison
Is it an issue if you keep beer in fermentator to long after it fermented? Also how do you take a sip sample to see if ready to bottle. I have no hydrometer yet. If i take it out tap will it contaminate when i bottle? Also i really appreciate all the experienced help here and replies.
Three weeks will usually do the trick, but four weeks won't hurt it. A sign that it is finished is that it will clear, hold a flashlight to the side of the fermenter. I would worry about the spigot, if you want a sample, open the top, and dip a sample out with a sanitized ladle. I have little success forecasting the taste of carbonated beer from a young flat sample. You're doing fine, we all went through this.
Making beer and stew for the Zombie Apocalypse.
Never mind, there it is.
Tmike wrote:Is it an issue if you keep beer in fermentator to long after it fermented?
Yes. But how long is too long? I got busy once and left a batch in the fermenter for five weeks once. It came out ok, but I wouldn't recommend that.
Also how do you take a sip sample to see if ready to bottle. I have no hydrometer yet. If i take it out tap will it contaminate when i bottle? Also i really appreciate all the experienced help here and replies.
Pour a sample from the tap, then wipe the inside of the tap. Before bottling, squirt some sanitizer into the tap.
I have left my beer on the yeast in the fermenter for 6 weeks with no ill affects. You actually want the yeast to remain in contact with the beer after the 'fermentation' (making ethanol) is done. Then the yeast eats up Diacytl (Mashani! Help!) So leaving the yeast eat on the wort is a good thing. Also the longer you wait, the clearer the beer, just saying. I then routinely wait 4 weeks for the bottle to naturally carb and condition. So slow grasshopper! If your're sanitation was good, you will make good beer. Turns out all the bad press about wort sitting on yeast cake, was from BIG fermenters, with tons of pressure, vs the little things we use.
Go slow, experiment, get your process down and work on your sanitization and you are golden. You can't rot wort in your basement and get sick from it. It's fantastic.
Tmike wrote:Is it an issue if you keep beer in fermentator to long after it fermented? Also how do you take a sip sample to see if ready to bottle. I have no hydrometer yet. If i take it out tap will it contaminate when i bottle? Also i really appreciate all the experienced help here and replies.
First answer. 3 weeks is no problem and good, most likely your beer is done fermenting in a little over a week, but 3 weeks is kinda a safe zone and with no hyd. readings will be good to bottle.
Two..Sampling out of the spigot is what we all do and have done, no matter if it is a good or a bad idea, sanitize with a Q tip before botttling and all is good.
3] if you have room in the fridge and cant bottle after 3 weeks or so, put the fermenter in it and cold crash, good benefits on doing this anyways and it will buy you some time, a few days to a week longer.
Happy Hound Brewery
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison
Yes, some contact with the yeast cake can be good for many reasons. There is a point where it's done all it can for you though, and no advantage to leaving it longer then that. Too long is a real problem. But in our case too long is a lot longer. So, it's still safe - for a while.
Large commercial breweries often use very tall narrow fermenters - it's a floor space vs. vertical space efficiency cost saving thing. Square foot charges in real estate don't count vertical, just floor space. So, vertical is just wasted free space unless you fill it. Which they do. So that puts tremendous pressure on the yeast cake and causes problems if they don't get it off faster.
But at our scale and our types of fermenters, this really doesn't happen. 3-4 weeks no biggie. 5 weeks, 6 weeks, I've also done by accident without any issues. I don't suggest anyone goes out of their way to leave it on the cake for 4-5-6 weeks, but your probably fine if you do unless you had sad yeast to begin with.
Commercial breweries also often ferment their beer in pressurized conditions because they capture the CO2 for re-use in the bottling line. This doesn't help matters as that also puts even more pressure on the yeast and cake during the primary fermentation. (it does however reduce ester production, so if you are trying to brew a super clean lager maybe it helps in some sense as long as you get the beer outathere when it's done fermenting).
Our fermenters don't pressurize as much. Mine pretty much not at all since I don't airlock / free vent. So the same rules don't apply. As another example, my fermentations will scrub off more lingering DMS then a pressurized commercial fermentation for example. So the blah blah you will get DMS rule doesn't happen to me no matter how much I try. The only way I've ever been able to get noticeable DMS was to use a large percentage of 6-row and a yeast strain that converts DMSO back to DMS. But maybe it would happen to me if I did my crazy lid on hopstand stuff and I was a commercial brewer with pressurized fermenters.
And commercial breweries are also about turn around. They want to free up the primary fermenters to make more beer. So moving to other vessels for clarification and such as soon as possible makes a lot of sense for them, where we might be able to be more patient and let it happen in the primary if we wish.
Man yall top brewers are sure helping me feel confident about this hobby! i will bottle my first batch Monday due to thats when my new shipment arrives. That will give me lil over two weeks. I think i did good cause when i first mixed up the canned wort i was ready to drink it then from the smell of it. Lol. I will sanitize,bottle and wash and sanitize fermentor . Then a new batch is going in. I already learned what not to do and do better for my second batch b4 i even taste first batch.
Ok i bottled today and think that stuff gonna be good. 2 weeks one day fermented. Tasted good. I have the one step sanitize from the bottle sanitize in the fermentor until tommorrow for when i brew new batch. Wll this be adequate sterilize or does the one step only work for few hours and expire?
Tmike wrote:Ok i bottled today and think that stuff gonna be good. 2 weeks one day fermented. Tasted good. I have the one step sanitize from the bottle sanitize in the fermentor until tommorrow for when i brew new batch. Wll this be adequate sterilize or does the one step only work for few hours and expire?
That will be fine. One step can last up to a week if it's kept in the dark and in a sealed container...but overnight, in a fermentor? That will be just fine...though I wouldn't try to use it beyond that.
. My first batch still in fermentor going on 12 days, still a bubble out the airlock every so often. Now my concerned question, my bottle caps with the kit does not have seals, gaskets. It is just plastic caps. Will this still work for bottle conditioning for two three weeks?
Happy Brewing 
