TOPIC:

Just read that Maltodextrine addds body and mouthfeel to your brew and fights against a light tasting beer.

Q1.Can I add some of this in to the Secondary fermentation (5days in now) or at the bottling stage?

Q2.Is the alcohol content determined before the bottling occurs? i.e is the DME/Glucose/Table sugar priming at the bottling stage added for carbonation or is it also for further fermentation (further alcohol content generation). I am slightly confused on this point.

thanks again
Grog

if you boiled up the maltodextrine powder to sterilise it, and when it cooled added it to the fermenter it might kick off another fermentation and ferment out. maltodextrine still ferments, but not as much as other sugars, hence it leaves more behind and adds body. Have you actually racked the beer from the primary fermenter to a secondary fermenter? if you're only 5 days in to the fermentation full stop you could probably get away with it. the problem is that the yeast in the secondary is not as healthy, and it might not referment in which case you'll have gloopy beer.

To be honest I would leave this batch and just try adding some maltodextrine next batch you do. Was this a kit, or extract or what?

re second q, the amount of sugar you add for carbonation does not significantly affect the alcohol content. I think it doesn't even add 0.1 abv, so you don't need to worry about it. Assuming fermentation is complete when you take your second hydrometer reading, the calculation you make with that is your abv.

Hi,
My first attempt at Brewing has had mixed results. I attempted to make an IPA as you can see in the above posts. I fermented for 1 wk in primary 1wk in secondary, and they have been bottled for 2wks and 2 days.

I primed about 19ltrs with 190g DME for bottling.

I tasted last night and am a bit disapointed!

It smells great, has good colour and a good head for an IPA but

Problem: The beer has an almost chemical feeling when I hold it in my mouth.

Things I did wrong:
1.I primary fermented at around 24degC instead of between 17 and 20 as I have read.

2. When transferring into my bottling bucket I lost siphon suction half way through, panicked and just poured the rest of the contents into the bottling bucket from the fermenter(being carful not to tranfser sediment). I realise this can cause a Cardboardy taste due to aerating the wort at this stage.

3. I may have gotten half a yard of starsan solution (1/2 ounce to 5 gal ratio) into the Wort whaen trying to get the siphon going again.

Do you think any of the above might be the cause of the chemically taste.

On another completely seperate note, I have soldered an additional internal coil onto my immersion chiller to increase the cooling speed but have used a lead based solder. I have not used this new setup yet but am wondering if it could be toxic to use????? <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Thanks again
Grog

Could be the sanitiser all right. It might mellow if you leave it a few weeks, and if you bring it along to a meeting I'm sure someone will be able to give you an opinion on what, if anything, went wrong. But at worst you can chalk up the experience and get going on your next one.

&amp;quot;Grog1978&amp;quot;:4j30zqh3 wrote: On another completely seperate note, I have soldered an additional internal coil onto my immersion chiller to increase the cooling speed but have used a lead based solder. I have not used this new setup yet but am wondering if it could be toxic to use????? <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
[/quote:4j30zqh3]
I remember one of the guys on here posting that half of the water pipes used in wexford town are lead pipes <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> - I still wouldnt use it though - They're mental down there <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

high temps like that for fermentation unless you're using something like saison yeast which likes high temps can give you a very burny alcoholic, and almost chemically taste. I don't think the starsan should be an issue. Pouring the beer and aerating it could give odd flavours too. Try it agains and try not to do those things and see how it goes! Especially fermenting cooler, fermentation temps have a big impact on flavour.