New to brewing - have some questions

[squirt in the turns]

Firstly, kudos to all here for this awesome forum. I'm on my 2nd batch of beer - one's in secondary, in the bottle, and the other is just about done fermenting. I've already got a heap of great info off this site, and now need some specific advice:

I'm on the Gold Coast, so temps here are really starting to climb right now. I'm pretty limited in what measures I can take to control temperature. A wet towel and a fan are probably about as much as I can do, so I guess I'll be looking at average temps in the high twenties. An ice bath is a maybe. So:

1) Are there certain yeasts I can buy that work better in these conditions, or other adjustments I can make to my brews to help avoid the off flavours I might get from too high temps?

2) Do I still need to worry about temperature control after primary has finished, if I let my beer sit in the fermenter for a few days?

3) I have acquired some glass tallies of extremely questionable origin in which I want to put my 2nd batch, probably on Saturday. I had a go at cleaning them yesterday: soaked for about 1.5 hrs in hot water, then went at them with the bottle brush and Morgan's Lo-Suds. Most seemed to have some kind of an organic-looking film on the inside (was kind of green/brown, maybe kind of algae-like). This crap wrapped around the brush, continued to stick to the inside of the bottles once loose, and generally made me miserable until I gave up after 12 bottles and left them soaking again. So my question here is: what is the most effective, aggressive substance I can use to get these clean? I'm talking something that'll dissolve everything except glass. I don't care how much rinsing I'll have to do, just so long as these tallies end up fit for use.

4) What is the "home brew taste", and am I doomed to suffer its presence in my beer until winter (or I get proper cooling)?

Cheers!

[Bizier]

In my limited experience, boilling water + alkali salts really cleans bottles. I used to get bottles from recycling night in Surry Hills, Syd, I am alive.

Perhaps mix a solution and drop them in a large pot of boilling water on the gas for a while???

[drsmurto]

Make up a hot napisan solution. Soak for 24-48h. If there is still something left, soak them in bleach.

If anything survives that combo ditch the bottles.

As for temp control, a dead fridge works very well. It what i have been using for 12 months now. Keeps the temp relatively constant as its well insulated. I have a supply of 4 x 2L bottles of water frozen that i use. 2 at a time, rotated day and night.

Surely you can get your hands on a fridge that is to be thrown away?

Must be warm up there. I have 2 fermenters in my spare room and they are sitting at 18C with no air con or any help from anything.

[squirt in the turns]

Cheers Bizier and drsmurto! I reckon I'll go with the hot napisan to start. I would guess it's chemically quite similar to alkali salts anyway? I don't have a boiler/pan big enough to try boiling them (something I'll definitely be looking to get, though).

As for temp control, a dead fridge works very well. It what i have been using for 12 months now. Keeps the temp relatively constant as its well insulated. I have a supply of 4 x 2L bottles of water frozen that i use. 2 at a time, rotated day and night.

Surely you can get your hands on a fridge that is to be thrown away?

Must be warm up there. I have 2 fermenters in my spare room and they are sitting at 18C with no air con or any help from anything.

I'll keep a lookout for one - sounds like the easiest way to go. Anyone in the Gold Coast area with a broken fridge they wanna get rid of?

It really is warm here. My current batch is sitting around 26-28C. Anyone got any advice on whether it's worth worrying about temp control after primary's finished, but before bottling?

[Smabb]

4) What is the "home brew taste", and am I doomed to suffer its presence in my beer until winter (or I get proper cooling)?

No one said anything about this question so far, so I'll have a go. Personally when I saw a comment about the "home brew taste" I didn't have a clue what the poster was talking about.

Seriously all my beer tastes like beer, some might have some problems (not bad enough to make them worse than VB though) but those problems are individualistic and generally I can have a stab at what I did wrong in that instance. There is no common "problem taste" going from brew to brew. I can see two main causes of a common taste - 1 you use cane sugar (I'm sure nobody who has read this site would continue to do that ) - 2 you are sensitive to any taste that yeast produces and are a getting a lot of yeast in your beer. You should get less yeast if you do a secondary ferment but provided you have the level of the outflow above the trub/cake you shouldn't have huge yeast intake into your bottles (i.e I've never had a problem apart from the steam beer I made when I doubled the yeast).

I have heard a couple of guys on this site say they filter out the yeast- so if its a problem you could do that.

I'm sure the sensible tips on climate control the other guys are putting forward will help your quality. In addition if you can brew like mad now and run your stock pile down in Jan and Feb when it will be even hotter. At least the Goldy isn't as hot as Western Brisbane/Ipswich, so you shouldn't have to deal with much past about 34.

Cheers and welcome

[squirt in the turns]

Make up a hot napisan solution. Soak for 24-48h. If there is still something left, soak them in bleach.

Thanks drsmurto, the napisan pretty much did it. Gave them a bit of a bleaching and a thorough rinse too for good measure, and they all came up alright. Got a Coopers Real Ale sitting in them right now.

Personally when I saw a comment about the "home brew taste" I didn't have a clue what the poster was talking about.

Hey Smabb, cheers for your advice. My question came from having read a few references to the home brew taste/flavour on this forum and elsewhere and was really hypothetical and not based on the taste of my own beer. I've only tried one of my own brews so far, a Morgan's "Australian Lager", simple K&K (I think I posted the original topic before I'd even tried it). It tasted like beer to me, not a great beer, and not like a lager, but beer nonetheless. The girlfriend did comment "tastes like home brew", but her favourite drop is Pure Blonde, so what does she know?

I've definitely not used cane sugar in either of the 2 beers I've made so far, and don't plan to start. I've also never considered myself especially sensitive to yeast tastes. I reckon I'll try to get the necessary gear together to rack from now on and see how that goes.

Next brew:
A Black Rock East India Pale Ale
I've got some crystal malt I want to steep. I think 200g would be about right from what I’ve read. Any thoughts?

Other ingredients are:
1kg LDME
500g dextrose
Some hops to balance the extra sweetness the crystal is likely to impart (?)

When I discussed this with the guy in the homebrew shop, he sold me a 12g packet of Morgan’s Goldings finishing hop pellets, which come in an “infusion brew bag”. I now think that maybe this is not the best thing to use for bitterness – I really need to use loose hops, add them to the boil for at least 30 mins and probably need more of them, right? Or should I just rip the bag open and throw the 12 g of pellets into the boil? If I do that, should I strain them out or just put the whole lot in the fermenter?

Cheers guys!

[warra48]

The teabags are very expensive for what you get, and they may not be the freshest. A lot of them have also not been stored ideally in a fridge or a freezer, as they should be. At my local HB shop, they just sit on the shelf.
If you are on the Gold Coast, why not take a drive up to Ross at CraftBrewer, and buy some fresh quality hops at much better prices. He's not much further than a short weekend drive away. Or ring him or order on-line, and they'll be in your mailbox within 1 or 2 days guaranteed.
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/
You can toss the teabag into the boil as is, or rip it open, doesn't matter. No need to strain them before they go into the fermenter, as they'll settle anyway once fermentation is finished.
Goldings is a good hop for an India Pale Ale.
You'll be fine with 200 gr of steeped crystal malts, it will add some body and a little sweetness to offset the additional hops and leave you with a better balanced beer.

[squirt in the turns]

Thanks warra. It looks like a trip to CraftBrewer would be well worth it, but I'm looking to start this one off in the next few days, so I'll probably mail order for now. Just a couple more questions

- If I stick with Goldings hops, roughly how much should I be adding early on in the boil to balance the crystal? And should I still just add the 12g hop tea bag thing at flameout for aroma?
- If I'm boiling 1kg of LDME (aiming to achieve both the hot and cold breaks), should I boil the can contents along with it, or just add it at the end, or does it not matter as it's already boiled and condensed?
- The more water used for the boil the better? Is 3 litres too little?
- Grain rinse/sparge: is this just taking the grain bag after steeping and dunking it in more clean hot water, then adding that water to the wort?
- Finally What yeast is likely to work best for this brew? After everything I've read here, I'm ready to ditch the stuff under the lid.

Cheers all!

[warra48]

Assuming your Goldings hops are about 5%AA, then adding 12 grams and boiling for 60 minutes will add about 8.5 IBU to your recipe, which will balance the 200 gr Crystal nicely. If you want it more or less bitter, just proportionately increase or reduce the quantity. As you are aiming at making an IPA, I'd just go with the 12 grams and see how you like it.

Ideally, to boil 1 kg of LDME, you should aim to have about 8 litres of liquid, if possible. If not, just use as much as you can. This liquid should include the liquid from your grain steeping and rinsing. What you propose for grain steep/rinse is fine.

With the brew you are doing, don't worry about the hot/cold break, it's more of an issue for those of us who brew AG, as the manufacturers of the LDME and kits have already taken care of it in their processes.

As for the kit, add it to your boil a few minutes before the end of the boil, and you'll be fine.

I think S04 or Nottingham yeast would work well in an IPA, if using dried yeasts.

[squirt in the turns]

Cheers for all your advice Warra, I put the brew down late Sunday.

I'll hit up CraftBrewer when I need to get a substantial amount of stuff - I ended up just going to my local HB shop for supplies. I asked the guy there for Safale S-04 and started talking to him about the recipe and he ended up selling me Muntons Gold yeast instead, as well as Northern Brewer hop pellets. The wort ended up like this:
200g crystal grain
1.2 kg LDME
8.5 g Northern Brewer hop pellets
1.5 kg can Black Rock East India Pale Ale
500 g dextrose
12 g teabag Goldings hop pellets

I got a 19 l stock pot, so I steeped the grain in an estimated 8 l water, rinsed and added, giving an estimated 9 or 10 l for the boil. Added malt and NB hops and boiled for 45 mins. With an estimated boil SG of 1050 and the NB hops having 9.8% AA, I reckon that would give about 11 IBUs(?). Added dextrose and can at end of boil, and then the teabag, then cooled the pot in an ice bath for an hour or so. Topped up fermenter with cold water, yeast pitched at 22c. I didn't rehydrate or make a starter, as the packet said no need to, and the guy in the shop said it's just another link in the chain that gives infection a chance to get in (I don't know about that though, I reckon I'll always do a starter from now on).

Starting SG was 1048.

Anyway, that was Sunday night, and as of this morning, still no signs whatsoever of fermentation

Anyway, I'll post this latest (lack of) development in the "Common question: My brew is not fermenting" sticky.