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How to understand that fermentation is over? It’s very simple – a water seal does not gurgle for several days. If it stops working after a week, that’s fine. If the next day is Houston, we’re in trouble! More specifically, “Halle, Ben? This is Danila. Ay nid help!”
You can try to shake the sediment at the bottom of the container or start fresh yeast. In some cases, it helps and fermentation is restored. Didn’t recover? We pour it out and do not be sad, we remember about the first pancake and its shape.
“The bitterness of patient waiting is redeemed by the sweetness of its fruits” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Story from my subscriber Marat.
Purity is the key to the health of your beer
Disinfection! I will never tire of repeating this word. Preparing for the bottling procedure should remind you of spring cleaning before the New Year. We wash and disinfect absolutely everything. No other way.
Wet cleaning in the morning, no airing, pets are locked up or mercilessly expelled along with households (flies, wasps and spiders among them), garbage is taken out, flowers and cat bowls are removed, dishes are washed, equipment and supplies are again floating in chlorine or iodine solution, all surfaces are moistened and wiped with it, protective equipment is at the ready.
Information: for the first time it is better to use PET containers. Fill bottles with disinfectant solution under the neck. Soak the plugs with the rest of the equipment.
Bottling for secondary fermentation
We open the fermentation tank and pour some of the beer into a flask (vase, jar) through a disinfected siphon tube. The hydrometer should show a density of 1-2%.
Important: When overflowing, do not draw air from the hose with your mouth, you must use a rubber bulb or pump.
Do not pour the beer in which the final gravity was measured back into the fermenter
If the readings of the hydrometer, the smell, color and taste of the resulting liquid are satisfactory, then we proceed to the removal from the sediment.
Carefully place the fermentation tank on a raised platform without shaking the sediment
Important: for all procedures, it is necessary to ensure the minimum time of contact of beer with air.
Another disinfection! We wash the siphon, process the gloves.
Using school knowledge about communicating vessels, we fill the bottles. Do not pour to the top!
Add dextrose to each bottle. How much will fit in a teaspoon, so much and add. We twist, carry away into the darkness and coolness.
The hardest part is to wait and hope!
Important: the temperature regime of fermentation is selected according to the strain of yeast used. As a rule, it is indicated in the instructions for the extract.
Removal from sediment and secondary fermentation
Now you can exhale, wash all the tools and find out what we just did.
Having poured the beer into bottles, we removed it from the sediment. The slimy slurry at the bottom of the fermenter is dormant and dead yeast, as well as their metabolic products. To insist on this beer further is not only pointless, but also dangerous to health.
By adding dextrose to the bottles, we activated the secondary fermentation.
Warning: The formation of a thin word of whitish sediment at the bottom of the bottle is a necessary and natural result of secondary fermentation.
We can’t completely avoid the fallout. There is a way to reduce the amount, but it leads to an increased risk of contamination of the beer. Avoid excess overflows and additional containers. Just put up with the sediment in the bottle.
Carbonization and maturation
The procedure of secondary fermentation in our case is combined with carbonization – saturation with carbon dioxide. The bottles will soon become hard, do not worry about it.
Just to endure. Detonation of 10-20 liters of beer at home after a brand new repair is not exactly what the family expects from you. I know it was.
After about a week (the bottles have become very hard, a white precipitate has fallen to the bottom), the bottles must be transferred to the refrigerator for ripening. There, the beer will be an eyesore to us for at least another half a month before tasting.
Subtleties of tasting
Our nerves withstood a minimum ripening period of two weeks. It is better to keep longer, the taste and aroma of beer will be revealed more strongly. Two months is optimal, but six months won’t hurt.
Time to pour! Then everything will be under the heading “important”. You don’t want to hit a bad beer with your face, do you?
Important 1: Carry bottles in the same position in which they were stored in order to avoid sediment rising.
Important 2: Chill beer mugs and carafes in the freezer to reduce foaming.
Important 3: Pour beer in one go. This minimizes sediment ingress.
If these simple rules are observed, an amber transparent foamy drink with a rich taste and aroma will turn out in mugs. Well, if the beer didn’t turn out the best in the world the first time, don’t despair. Only those who do nothing do not make mistakes!
The road by walking
On paper, everything is always easy and simple. Well, who knows the truth, share your tips and recipes, successes and failures, funny incidents and just impressions of this interesting activity!