Earlier this week I was in a bit of a panic as I thought my fermentation had stalled. It just quit bubbling, after a mere four days. I have seen some reports on some brews that state their beer fermented for over a week and on some styles even up to two weeks.
When mine quit at four days I got concerned that I didn't pitch enough yeast. Or that a temperature fluctuation flucked up my process. Or ... or .... or ..... Being new at this, I just don't know what to expect so when things happen contrary to what I've read, my mind starts running wild with all kind of scenarios.
It's been dormant for four days now, so I decided to rack (transfer the liquid) it into a secondary fermenter. This process basically extracts all the "beer" (it's still not yet beer) from the sediment (spent yeast and byproducts) which remains in the bottom of the primary fermenter. This allows the beer to become more "clear" and lessens the chance of off-flavors tarnishing the beer.
I took a gravity reading which tells the basic alcohol content if you take an original reading, which I forgot to (need both to go into a formula to figure out the ABV content), and also gives you an idea if fermenting is indeed (mostly) done. My reading came in at 1.014 and the kit says it should settle at 1.010 to 1.015 -- sweet!
After finishing the racking and gravity test, came the fun part. I got to taste it.
There was some carbonation present, so I was pleased. However, the beer didn't have as prominent a flavorful taste as I had hoped. It wasn't bad, there were some undertones, but they were very "hidden". When I added the coffee beans and roasted pecans, I expected it to be more evident than my initial test showed.
Also the character of the beer was a bit off. It is supposed to be a brown ale, but it tasted more like a pilsner.
Maybe it will become more prominent as it ages some more. Time will tell.
Even though, it wasn't as tasty as I had hoped, it *was* carbonated, and it didn't have any overwhelming off-flavors that many folks on the brew boards say can occur with bad procedure. So overall, I am pretty satisfied (so far) with my first attempt. At least I didn't immediately have the urge to spit it out upon it hitting my tongue. ; )
2 comments:
woohoo! it'll be beer in a couple more months...
How long are you going to rack it in the secondary? I ask, because if it's only a week or two, you could start the next batch. ;-)
skip, i expect it will be beer before then. i have heard to let it sit in the bottles for two weeks and you should be good. will start bottling in a week or so (it was only brewed last friday now). that will be two weeks in the fermenters.
already working on next batch. ;j dad and i are headed back to homebrew store sometime next week to get the next batch. may need more bottles though, but i have a month to build up my stock. ;j thinking an IPA is up next.
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