Brewhouse stout

[John Aitken]

About 2 months ago I took on my first homebrewing attempt, a brewhouse kit stout. I used all new equipment and sterilized it with store supplied cleaner/sanitizer. I had a few issues like the lid blowing off the primary fermentor ( not to the ceiling, but lifting off the rim of the bucket ) when the airlock plugged, won't use that again I will go with a hose to water air lock. Bottled in new grolsch style bottles, it carbonated just fine but the finished product is not very spectacular, head disipates quickly, not that I was expecting a Guinness head, a kinda sour note about half way though and very little if any coffee flavours. All in all a very bland beer, even at room temperature there is not much going on. Is this what I can expect in a brewhouse kit or did I screw something up, maybe infected by the lid lift issue? this experience has not made me want to run out and do more homebrewing, any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[lister]

Were you expecting something near commercial quality at your first go?

Last year my friends and I started brewing beer. Not from kits but all on our own. We even grew yeast from various sources. I think we did 5-7 brews. One turned out to be passable (it had an interesting and unexpected flavour but had several flaws) while the other was pretty good (the only real critique was its cloudiness.) The rest were dismal failures ranging from bad taste, to bad filtration, to stopped fermentation, to infection. Like anything, this takes practice, building up of your knowledge and, at the start anyway, some good luck.

[Bobbyok]

... to bad filtration, ...

Did you actually try to filter a homebrew? Or did you just end up with something more cloudy than you were hoping?

I'd actually suggest that it was the kit in this case, especially if blandness was the issue. If it was off flavours you were disappointed with, infection might be a problem, but not with blandness.

If you sanitize meticulously and start with a good recipe, I'd say you can definitely come up with something commercial quality first go. First recommendation would be use a recipe that doesn't include any corn or table sugar, except for priming. Only malt extract or grains themselves. Also, steep some specialty grains if you can with your extract recipes, rather just using extract. Much easier than it might sound and both of these will improve both flavour and head retention.

A great online resource that I used before I started was this website:
www.howtobrew.com
Shows step by step how to do everything you need to do to make very good beer. Also has some recipes to get you started.

[lister]

... to bad filtration, ...

Did you actually try to filter a homebrew? Or did you just end up with something more cloudy than you were hoping?

At first we didn't get down to the various micron filtering levels. We did filter but with a fairly fine strainer. We knew at the time that things probably wouldn't go so well except for that one surprise I mentioned. Later we started using various micron level filters which helped a lot and vastly improved things. The latter successful brew wasn't as clear as I would have liked. It had a hefeweizen cloudiness to it.

[jkubik]

For Cloudy, try this article from Brew your Own:
http://www.byo.com/feature/508.html

Also, let the brew sit and condition longer. Often some of the cloudiness is just yeast that has not settled to the bottom yet.

My first attempt at brewing was from a kit, and bottled. The results were undrinkable.
My next batch was an all grain chocolate stout. It was exactly what I wanted, and really good. I did not bottle it, rather I used 5 liter party kegs.

1. A strong flavored beer is easier, 'cause the aroma and small flavors are drowned out.
2. Everything I've read says skip the extract and do all grain.
3. If you bottle condition, each bottle is so small that the amout of sugar and yeast in the bottle will vary wildly.
4. Cleaning bottles is evil, evil work.

This message is brought to you by the wonders of Chimay; oh beer, how I do love you.

-Joe-

[dhurtubise]

About 2 months ago I took on my first homebrewing attempt, a brewhouse kit stout. I used all new equipment and sterilized it with store supplied cleaner/sanitizer. I had a few issues like the lid blowing off the primary fermentor ( not to the ceiling, but lifting off the rim of the bucket ) when the airlock plugged, won't use that again I will go with a hose to water air lock. Bottled in new grolsch style bottles, it carbonated just fine but the finished product is not very spectacular, head disipates quickly, not that I was expecting a Guinness head, a kinda sour note about half way though and very little if any coffee flavours. All in all a very bland beer, even at room temperature there is not much going on. Is this what I can expect in a brewhouse kit or did I screw something up, maybe infected by the lid lift issue? this experience has not made me want to run out and do more homebrewing, any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Though I've never used the brewhouse kits, I know they're an all grain product and I have used similar kits from Magnotta. I would imagine that the beers produced with the kits ought to be quite good. The fact that you have lively carbonation but poor head retention might indicate that you have a slight infection - so does the fact that it is a little sour. Souring bacteria/wild yeast can thin out a beer and reduce the body, thus the surface tension... limitting head retention. As far as getting a guinness type head - forget it unless you start bottling with a blend of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Sounds like the beer is drinkable though, so relax and have a homebrew.

Going all grain and start keggin right away is a good suggestion. If you like good beer, that's the way to go. So many homebrewers I know stopped because bottling was so much work.

[dhurtubise]

Were you expecting something near commercial quality at your first go?

Last year my friends and I started brewing beer. Not from kits but all on our own. We even grew yeast from various sources. I think we did 5-7 brews. One turned out to be passable (it had an interesting and unexpected flavour but had several flaws) while the other was pretty good (the only real critique was its cloudiness.) The rest were dismal failures ranging from bad taste, to bad filtration, to stopped fermentation, to infection. Like anything, this takes practice, building up of your knowledge and, at the start anyway, some good luck.

You should never filter homebrew. You need the yeast to keep the beer and also to bottle condition if you are bottling with priming sugars. Sometime, cloudiness is a sign of infection as is bad taste. I have never filtered a beer, and never will. Cloudiness will not affect how your beer tastes if it is not an infection.

[lister]

You should never filter homebrew. You need the yeast to keep the beer and also to bottle condition if you are bottling with priming sugars. Sometime, cloudiness is a sign of infection as is bad taste. I have never filtered a beer, and never will. Cloudiness will not affect how your beer tastes if it is not an infection.

Filtering has worked just fine. It's at a certain micron size that the yeast can be taken out of the mix. We did do some research on that...

[dhurtubise]

why would you ever bother. Homebrewing is labour intensive as it is. Why would you ever add another, labour intensive, dirty job that adds tonnes of clean up and another opportunity for infection?

A beer does not have to be clear to taste good. Protein haze for example, though a minor flaw in many styles (appearance flaw) does not affect the flavour one bit. And if the haze is caused by an infection, the beer spoiling compounds are already in the beer - that is you cannot filter out the off flavour even if you filter out the bacteria wild yeast that causes it. Plus you say that you won't filter the yeast out of your product - well that also means you won't filter any other bugs you might have had in there eiter because they tend to be smaller. If you are using a strongly flocculating yeast such as Windsor, Nottingham or Safale, then your beer should be clear after about 7 days. If not rack it to a secondary for another 7-10 days. Have you not had problems carbonating your beer - or did you have bottle from a keg?

Furthermore, filtering homebrew is far from being common practice. In my years as a homebrewer, I had yet to meet someone who does it until now. I think you need to talk to your wine making friend who suggested you clear your beer with a filter and ask him if he plans to carbonate his wine afterward. There are clearing agents you can use such as geletin and isengard to fix clarity problems in the finished beer but judicious use of irish moss in the last 15 minutes of your boil is usually all you need.

[Hamilton Brian]

I'll concur with that. Irish Moss is a blessing. I can think of no beer that I needed clear that wasn't, and the IM goes into the recipe as a given.

[clasher]

Are you using a wort chiller? Once I got mine, my clarity on my bitters really went noticebly higher, and I don't even use Irish moss.

[dhurtubise]

An immersion chiller. But like I said, clarity is not a main concern. I'm not sure how much a chiller can help against portein haze. I don't see why it would affect clarity other than perhaps speeding up the cooling and therefore reducing that period of time between 120 and 80 degrees F when infections risks from bacteria and wild yeast are at their highest.

A good mash schedule appropriate for your chosen malts is still most likely the best weapon against haze. But then again, too much is made of clarity. The more you know about beer the least important a consideration it is.