My notes on homebrew beer.

There's something bubblin' in my boiler room...

Fermenting beer

Thus far I am pretty new to this game. Got the excellent CAMRA book "Home Brewing" from library, bought a fermenter and some 3kg kits and got started,

Notes and discoveries

These are notes additional to the advice in the book. I take no responsibility for the results of following, or not following these hints.

You don't need a fermenter with an air trap. Can just use a clean, food grade, bucket. However I could find no advice on if the lid should be left on or not. I left it sealed until fermentation got going enough to blow it off (12 hours). Thereafter I just left it loosely on (not like the picture) to keep out the beasties and falling crud. Seemed to work OK.
Fermentation - Initially put about 4 pints less cold water in than stated in the instructions. This will prevent the initial fermentation from overflowing. A couple of days in, when things have calmed down. The extra water can be added (with a clean glass) and all seems to be well. Try to minimize the amount of air added ... i.e. Don't slosh it in.
Bottles - Lots of advice on the right sort of bottles to use. I didn't have enough so used recycled (and cleaned with dilute bleach solution) plastic lemonade bottles. Seems to work fine. They are built for pressure and, if it does go wrong, I would rather be hit by flying plastic rather than glass. Also you can judge progress of the conditioning by feeling how much pressure has built up in the bottle. Note:- I read that if clear bottles are used excessive light can be cause trouble but, since I store my bottles in dark places, I have not observed this problem.
Bottling - A good siphon, with a tap, helps a lot. However, due to gas coming out of the beer in the pipe, you need a greater head than would be expected. Allow at least 0.5m between the BOTTOM of the keg and the TOP of your largest bottle. Or even better just don't bother. Most of the contents of a keg will be blown out by the gas in the beer, so no air gets in, just bottle the last few pints.
Cold conditioning does not seem to work too well. The bottles that I placed straight into storage (about 10C) cleared but did not achieve the flavor of those that were given a couple of days in boiler room (about 20C) first. The situation was recovered by warming them up for a couple of days latter.
Just finished bottling/keging ? Do an initial clean of the gear, with washing up liquid, NOW. Then just a quick sterilize, with dilute bleach, will be needed when you come to do the next batch.
Ferment cool and slow. 10 days at room temp seems to give much better results that 6 days at 25 C.

Batches

Batch	Type	Brand	Type	Comments
1	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Nelson's Revenge	Problems with cold conditioning
2	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Norfolk Wherry
3	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Wherry (again)	First attempt at secondary fermentation, in keg, before bottling (with small amount of spray malt). Then bottle conditioning with normal amount of spray malt in place of sugar. Possible problems because a leak in siphon introduced a large amount of air into the keg.
4	3 Kg Kit	Muntons Gold	Old English Bitter	Keg conditioned with 85g Munton's light hopped spray malt. Problem ... when pressure built up beer forced out of keg tap as well as gas from vent (probably too warm, possibly vent initially stuck). Bottled without malt or sugar.
5	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Made with 500g sugar helped out with 500g Munton's light spray malt. Half, included, hop extract packet used. Keg conditioned with bung (tap blocked with bath sealant) in place of tap, for several weeks, without problem. Came out a bit cloudy but tasted OK.
6	3 Kg Kit	Muntons Gold	Old English Bitter	Re run of batch 4. Hopefully without the problems. Very gassy which caused bottling problems. Next time remember to vent the keg well in advance. Came out very (too) malty.
7	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Wherry	Re run of batch 3 but keg conditioned with 90g of sugar to try and overcome problem in batch 7. Finally gave up on the, now dripping again, keg tap and made up a proper bung (brass ¾' male to 22mm male adapter and a 22mm end cap from B&Q). Not sure if this is strictly hygienic but is drinking water is OK in brass plumbing then I guess beer should not be a problem. Came out a little thin so added a few pints from batch 6. This seemed to help out a lot ... Maybe next time 50/50 malt and sugar.
8	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Great Eastern	Keg conditioned with 45g spray malt 45g sugar. Came out a bit dark (very dark compared to the real thing). Next time I try a light brew will use only sugar for conditioning.
9	1.75 Kg Kit	John Bull	Country Cider	Bit of a change. Made up the 'strong' (32 pint) recipe. Not very 'appley' but certainly has a high alcohol content. Got a lot better after about 3 weeks bottle conditioning.
10	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Nog	Fermentation relatively slow at start. Cask conditioned 50/50. Brass bung also started leaking about a week in when very vigorous secondary fermentation kicked in. Very heavy. Probably how it is supposed to be but not a summer brew.
11	1.75 Kg Kit	John Bull	Country Cider	Re-run of batch 9. Leave to mature properly this time ... do not touch pre 20/9/2005. Excellent – My head hurts !
12	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Great Eastern	Re-run of batch 8. This time to be keg matured with sugar only. Still came out somewhat more brown than expected. But very tasty.
13	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Wherry
14	Special			Half scale batch of Cider made with 50% diluted apple juice/water, 750g sugar and a left over bottle of batch 11 to get things started. Fermentation very slow to start. A little lacking in apple taste
15	3 Kg Kit	Woodforde's	Nelson's Revenge	Ummy.
16	Special			Re run of batch 14 but at full scale. 1Kg of sugar and 14L of apple juice. Note: On working it out this cost more than buying a cider kit so probably won't do it again.
17	3 Kg Kit	Wodeforde's	Wherry again	Old faithful
18	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Re run of batch 6 but 750g of sugar + 250 spray malt and whole hop packet. Hop packet 'caramelized' when it hit the liquid. Not sure how much of it made it into the finished product.
19	1.8 Kg Kit	Edme	Superbrew Gold	Made with 1Kg sugar.
20	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Re run of batch 18 but this time re-hydrated (as one would yeast) the hop packet first. Made with 1Kg unrefined caster sugar (coz it was all I could get).
21	3 Kg Kit	John Bull	Executive Bitter
22	1.75 Kg Kit	John Bull	Country Cider	Re-run of batch 11. Made with 50% raw cane sugar because that's what I had around at the time. Came out with a slight 'pond water' smell but tasted OK and no ill effects. If it was evolving H2S I don't know where it got the sulfur from.
23	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Best Bitter	Made with Geordie beer kit enhancer in place of sugar. Hop enhancer channelization problem recurred ... learn from batch 20!
24	3 Kg Kit	Wodeforde's	Wherry again	Not bad
25	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Made with mixed sugar and the whole hop kit. Cap on pressure barrel leaked so very flat.
26	3 Kg Kit	Sherwood Ale	Best Traditional Bitter	Made to the 'maximum hops' recipe. Came out very dark and heavy. OK but tasted better with a drop of lemonade to thin it down a bit. A bit 'porter' like, not very nice.
27	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Best Bitter	Used whole hop enhancer. Kept it for a couple of months. Very good
28	1.5 Kg Kit	Geordie	Yorkshire Ale	Very nice
29	1.8 Kg Kit	Young's	BerwBuddy Bitter	Not good – distinct 'chlorine' aftertaste.
30	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Best Bitter	Due to spillage used very little hop enhancer.
31				Special brew to use up last of the spray malt.
32	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Made with whole hop enhances and Geordie beer kit enhancer. Also tried filtered tap water to try and get rid of the 'chlorine' taste. Not sure about the taste but fermentation seemed more vigorous.
33	3 Kg Kit	Muntons gold	Old English bitter	Repeated water filtration experiment.
34	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Best Bitter	Repeat of batch 32
35	1.8 Kg Kit	Geordie	Bitter	Fermented at room temperature. Did not move barrel between servings. Seems to give good results.
36	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Real Ale	Made with unrefined cane sugar. Took forever to ferment (again done cool for 2 weeks over XMAS) but very nice when it was done.
37	1.8 Kg Kit	Geordie	Yorkshire Bitter	+ Geordie beer kit enhancer.
38	1.8 Kg Kit	Tom Caxton	Best Bitter	+ Geordie beer kit enhancer.
39	1.8 Kg Hit	Geordie	Yorkshire Bitter	+ Geordie beer kit enhancer.
40	3Kg kit	Woodforde's	Wherry	Return to the old faithful but using current techniques.
41	1.8 Kg Kit	Geordie	Bitter	Odd stuff happened. Started OK but stopped fermenting after two days and stank of vinegar .. result undrinkable.
42	1.8 Kg Kit	Edme	Superbrew Gold
43	1.7 Kg Kit	Cooopers	Australian bitter

To the victor the spoils.