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Posted: Thursday Jul 26, 2007 1:44 pm
by mobydick
According to my BeerSmith Calculations it will only get down to 1010. So 1012 is pretty close. If it has been steady at that for a few days I'd say it's done. You could leave it a while longer though.

Posted: Thursday Jul 26, 2007 4:39 pm
by Heals
Just checked the SG reading again and yeah, it's come down on the past day or two from 1012 to just a tad over 1010, tomorrow night will be two weeks since its inception so if the reading hasn't changed at all between now and then I'll begin sanitizing bottles! :D

As far as the brew goes though, it's tasting wonderful, probably pretty ordinary by most of the AG'ers standards on this board but hey, gotta start somewhere!

Just out of interest though, what should I prime with? Straight castor sugar or something more intricate?

Also, if I let this (or any beer) condition for say, 6 weeks, how much difference will there be between it at 6 weeks and the same beer at say 12 weeks? What's the speed of improvement? I.e. does it improve quickly within the first few weeks and then slowly over the course of 3 months or is it a little more uniform than that...?

Posted: Thursday Jul 26, 2007 5:28 pm
by mobydick
Thus far I have only primed using dextrose or raw sugar. I've had better results with the raw sugar. As far as conditioning goes, mine improve heaps between 2 and 4 weeks, then they improve much more slowly. Haven't been brewing long enough to tell you about 12 weeks :lol:

Posted: Thursday Jul 26, 2007 10:21 pm
by Trough Lolly
G'day Heals,
If you're looking to carbonate the beer, you're better off with Dextrose which is readily fermentable and therefore does a better job at leaving CO2 in the beer. Given that you're adding relatively small quantities of dextrose to the beer it doesn't make much of a difference to the flavour profile of the final product. That said, if your recipe is kit and kilo of dextrose, priming with malt extract may be noticeable.
To summarise, when carbonating, you want to use a sugar that completely ferments, adds maximum fizz and leaves little flavour behind = dextrose.

Cheers,
TL