First partial mash kit

[catharus]

Hey,

I've brewed a few festa kits, some cider, and wine, but hadn't done anything with grains before yesterday. I made one of the 'best case' kits from NG (Honey brown), and have a few questions:

1. The instructions with the kit make it seem like your beer may morph into an angry monster and eat your children if you don't put it into a secondary after about 5 days. I've almost always skipped a secondary with the festa kits. It should be the same process with these kits, correct? Secondary isn't really necessary?

2. I stuck on a lid and looked away for all of 15sec and my pot boiled over. Of course, I didn't know how much I lost. When I got my primary topped up to about 18L, the OG was 1.054, so I decided to leave it at that, assuming I lost a bunch of sugar when the pot boiled over. Does this seem reasonable?

3. (Linking the two questions) If I were to put it in a 23L carboy as a secondary at this point, wouldn't I have too much headspace?

Jeff

[catharus]

Before someone yells at me, I want to point out that I've read some of the earlier posts about skipping a secondary. I just wanted to ask about these kits specifically since the instructions seemed quite emphatic when mentioning the importance of a secondary.

[GasMD30]

Don't know much about the kits but I personally don't secondary (yet).

Also, never put a lid over your pot or it will boil over with the hot break. I learned that the hard way too. You may think you're conserving precious water, but what you're really doing is conserving DMS, dimethylsulfides, which can give off flavours to your beer.

[spears104]

You don't have to secondary if you don't want to. You can review all of the previous posts for the pros and cons of each.

What was the target OG for the kit? It would have to be a really serious boil over to have a major effect on the SG.

If you are going to put the beer in a seondary, try to do it while there is still some fermentation activity. That way any headspace will be purged with CO2, an thus prevent oxidation.

Cheers!

[chalmers]

1) You're got it exactly correct, nothing special about these kits require secondary. We've suggested that the instructions be changed, and I believe they are working on that. Their concern is people taking it to extremes, or not using common sense and using an airlock or snapping down the bucket lid tightly after fermentation is mainly complete. Your kids and wife are safe.... for now.

2) Yes, it sounds reasonable, but we don't know what the gravity was supposed to be, so if it's well low, something else may be off (extract not well mixed, giving you a low reading?).

3) Too much headspace in the primary isn't a big concern (at the volumes we're taking about), as the CO2 will push out the air as fermentation proceeds. As spears said, if you do choose to transfer to secondary (I wouldn't), you might want to do it a bit early to have the yeast give off more CO2 to purge the headspace. Or if you have something to purge the headspace with CO2 before/during/after transfer, that would help eliminate the chance of oxidation.

[catharus]

spears104 and chalmers: I'm not sure what the OG should have been. That wasn't stated in the kit. I figured that 1.054 would give me around 5% if FG is 1.015 or so. Any guesses if it should attenuate more than that? I think I could still add some water, correct?

If I didn't dilute it enough and it went down to 1.011, it would still only be a 5.5% beer. Any predictions on whether this would create a bad-tasting beer? Perhaps a bit stronger-tasting than intended? More intense flavor would be fine, just not bad flavor.

[catharus]

Don't know much about the kits but I personally don't secondary (yet).

Also, never put a lid over your pot or it will boil over with the hot break. I learned that the hard way too. You may think you're conserving precious water, but what you're really doing is conserving DMS, dimethylsulfides, which can give off flavours to your beer.

Yes, it seems I learned the lid lesson the hard way (the way you remember it best, I suppose).

[chalmers]

spears104 and chalmers: I'm not sure what the OG should have been. That wasn't stated in the kit. I figured that 1.054 would give me around 5% if FG is 1.015 or so. Any guesses if it should attenuate more than that? I think I could still add some water, correct?

If I didn't dilute it enough and it went down to 1.011, it would still only be a 5.5% beer. Any predictions on whether this would create a bad-tasting beer? Perhaps a bit stronger-tasting than intended? More intense flavor would be fine, just not bad flavor.

I'm surprised they didn't state the SG and expected FG, did they state an ABV? Your guesses sound correct to me.

If you started a bit higher than the recipe, and ended right on (or a bit lower than expected), the quality of the beer will not suffer. It might have a bit of a different mouthfeel or other minor differences, but would not taste bad. I'd have to have both the 5% and 5.5% beer in front of me to distinguish between them, so you're going to have some great beer to drink in 2-3 weeks!

In case you haven't heard it before, Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Brew! (but your questions are all reasonable and will be helpful for other Best Case users)

[catharus]

Thanks!