Block Party Amber Ale extract fermentation

I just started my first brew this past Tuesday (5/31/2016). Recipe instructions says fermentation should cause a lot of bubbling around 48 hours and to start bottling process between 1-2 weeks.

Mine had a lot of bubbles in less than 24 hours. And around 36 hours had stopped bubbling altogether.

I don’t know if that matters and no I do not own a hydrometer (yet). My question is should I still wait the full two weeks until bottling or should I let it sit longer? I only have single fermentation set up.

Im new to brewing but Time and temp mean everything stick to the basic instructions keep your temp in the specified range You will enjoyyour First Batch

I’d be careful, you put into bottles too early you’ll git bottle bombs… I do wish the kits had an option for first timers to git a hydrometer, and to use it. Right now, you won’t figure out yer ABV, BUT, you can tell when your yeast has completed its job, and then its SAFER to bottle… Sneezles61

First off I need to know what temp you fermented, and you should let it sit at least two weeks. Three would be better. When you get a hydrometer then it will be easier to tell when fermentation is done.

1 Like

The temperature of the wort was 70F when I pitched the yeast. I haven’t taken a temperature since because I didn’t want to take the lid off of the bucket risking any type of contamination. The room it’s been in since fermenting is around the 67-70F range.

I’m letting it sit the entire two weeks, I definetly am not trying to rush it. Are there benefits to letting it ferment beyond two weeks or three?

The longer it sits in your fermenter the more yeast will settle. Of course I would limit this to no more than 4 weeks.

Is this a 1gL batch? If so, don’t waste your time with a hydrometer as you’ll essentially lose a beer. Make it, let it ferment 4 weeks, then bottle. By then it should be ready unless you had some major fermentation issues.

@loopie_beer it’s a 5 gallon batch. Thanks

Oh in that case buy a hydrometer. You’ll want it for numerous readings, OG, FG, and to see if you hav a stuck/started fermentation.

A hydrometer isn’t needed for OG when you brew an extract kit. The OG will be as specified in the recipe as long as you use all the fermentables and the volume in the fermentor is the 5 gallon recipe volume. You will need a hydrometer to determine when the SG has stabilized and the fermentation is complete. With some yeasts this could be a short as 5 days. The beer is still not ready to bottle when active fermentation is complete. You need to give the yeast time to clean off natural off flavors of the fermentation and then time for the excess yeast and suspended particles to drop out. This will reduce the amount of sediment in the bottle. Three weeks is a good time frame to shoot for. At three weeks the SG sample should be almost totally free of CO2 and the sample should be clear. CO2 in the beer will keep particles like hop debris suspended which if bottled to soon will add to the sediment in the bottle.

Add a stick on thermometer strip to your fermentor for tracking the actual fermentation temperature. Yeast produces heat as it works. During active fermentation the temperature of your beer will always be higher than the ambient temperature. High temperatures for most ale yeasts will produce extra esters. Very high temperatures will produce fusel alcohols.

Effective temperature control can be a simple swamp cooler or temp controlled frig or freezer. This is a picture of my very simple swamp cooler setup.

How did your beer come out? Did you get to test the FG? I just bottled my BPAA last night after 15 days in fermentation. Sampled a taste which was delightful but then again I added onto the included hops. Color and aroma was on point too. Bottling was messy and the instructions wasn’t 100% clear at that point but I got it done lol. My FG was at 1.038

How did you measure that? 1.038 is extremely high.

Autocorrect strikes again ahaha, 1.008 was the FG