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10 days Gravity check coopers pilsener


Tömmy8888

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Hey just checked on my Pilsner today after 10 days in FV. By the look and taste of the beer it looks nowhere near ready to be bottled. I can still see foam on the top and yeast flowing through the wort. The smell and taste are nowhere near to be ready yet too. It still smells a lot like the exctract and it has very sweet taste. Nowhere close to my liking.

 

How much time do you think it will need ? Indredients Pilsner can, 1kg DME, 260g of dextrose brewed at around 20 degrees. Reading today was Gravity 1019 ish.

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It isn't finished yet with that reading.

But I would have thought any sort of yeast should have ripped through that in 10 days.

 

Some tips if you need them.

 

When you mix your water and ingredients, really go to town on mixing it try and get a bit of oxygen into it.

Make sure it's as close to your fermenting temperature as you can get and try and always rehydrate dry yeast.

 

PS if it tastes like flat beer it's still good.

 

Cheers Pete

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A friend of mine just told me he has just tried a brew he finished a few weeks ago and he is very happy with it. However he said it continued to ferment for around 3-4 weeks.

 

From what I understand he used a Coopers Pale Ale can with 1.5kg LDM. Boiled 50g hops (Citra & Galaxy) for about 5 minutes then strained and tipped the tea in.

 

He said it had an OG of 1060 and by two weeks was down to 1015. Another week it was 1013 and finally bottled almost a week later at 1009.

 

He said, he could see it 'blooping' all through this period.

 

I don't know what temperature he was brewing at but he doesn't use a brew fridge so I'm thinking it would have been in the 20-25C range.

 

I was thinking it might have been the amount of yeast he used, given the fermentables it had to go through. He only used the kit yeast packet.

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Dunno how he got an OG that high with those ingredients, unless the volume of the batch was 19 or 20 litres instead of the usual 23 litres. In 23L the OG would be about 1.045 or a little higher using a kit and 1.5kg LDM.

 

But yeah, the 7g kit yeast isn't enough for a kit and 1.5kg of LDM. Even less enough if he dry pitched it because that would have killed some of it on pitching. Not a great surprise that the ferment was sluggish. 4 weeks in the fermenter is absolutely ridiculous to be honest - a standard ale fermentation like that should be over in 7 days or less. On a bigger OG beer you can probably allow 2 weeks, but no fermentation should be taking 4 weeks just to complete.

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It still smells a lot like the extract and the taste is not too "beer like" yet hpoefully extra 4 days will help.. I tasted my ipa in small FV after 10 days and it was quite delicious. I understand pilsners take longer to brew though. Still super excited for the final result

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It should get less sweet when it finishes properly. What does it smell like now?

 

Would raising the temperature for a few days at the end be good for other styles of beer to finish them off? I'm assuming it helps the yeast process any remaining fermentables and/or help flocculation.

 

For the forseeable future I'm only going to be brewing in the 18-21C range anyway.

 

If the answer to my question was yes, what temperature would that ideally be?

 

 

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I raise the temperature for all beers I brew towards the end of fermentation. Generally I only go up 3-4C higher than the initial ferment temp, but with lagers I go up 8C (10C ferment temp, allowed to rise to 18C near the end). It's probably not something that is an absolute necessity, it's probably just more of a shortcut to finish the fermentation off quicker but it doesn't do any harm to the beer so I figure getting beer faster with no detriment can only be a good thing.

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I raise the temperature for all beers I brew towards the end of fermentation. Generally I only go up 3-4C higher than the initial ferment temp' date=' but with lagers I go up 8C (10C ferment temp, allowed to rise to 18C near the end). It's probably not something that is an absolute necessity, it's probably just more of a shortcut to finish the fermentation off quicker but it doesn't do any harm to the beer so I figure getting beer faster with no detriment can only be a good thing.[/quote']

 

Ta! In reality this is what probably happens with me anyway biggrin

 

I start out keen, putting ice and frozen bottles into the water surrounding my FV and maybe a wet towel. Then things happen and I can't keep the regime up and it probably goes up by 3-4 for a while.

 

So pretty much the same regime but by default? sleeping

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  • 2 weeks later...

Had a bit of a taste today after 2 weeks in a bottle. I know its early but it was just a 330ml bottle - bit of a sneak taste really. I wasnt happy with the result really. It tastedca bit plasticky and it was very cloudy. Will give it few more weeks but it is pretty much the same taste when i tasted it durig gravity readings.

 

Anything that i could have done possibly wrong?

All was sanitized, used coopers pils, 1kg DME and 250g dextrose

Brewed for approx 3 weeks, Gravity 1090, temp 20C

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Could just be from underpitching the yeast and/or the higher than usual ferment temp for lager yeast. That's the problem with lager, there's nothing for off flavors to hide behind so any imperfections will usually show up a lot more than they will in an ale. Some lager yeast can ferment clean at 20C but others tend to not be as nice at that temp.

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