Find some questions and answers to cidery flavors, skunky smell, sour flavors, moldy beer and off taste. Look for answer to your flat beer, over carbonated beer and strong beer, etc.

CIDERY FLAVORS: Cut down on the use of corn or table sugar, instead use malt extract or a combination of dried malt extract and corn sugar. The use of corn or table sugar in the amount of 40%-50% of the total sugar in a batch of beer may give you cidery flavor.

SKUNKY SMELL: Is cause by light (Sunlight and Indoor lighting). Protect your beer by storing your bottled beer in cases and away from light source.

SOUR FLAVORS: Poor sanitation! Make sure your surrounding and the area you going to brew your beer in are clean in addition to clean brewing equipment. Avoid dust or keep dust to a minimum when brewing. Of course, some good beers such as some pilsners do come naturally sour.

MOLDY BEER: Occur because of poorly clean homebrew equipment and dusty environment. Your beer has been expose to microorganism.

OFF TASTE: Caused by contamination from poor sanitation or over exposure during bottling.

FLAT BEER: Caused by leaking crown seals; too little priming sugar and/or carbonation not fully matured in bottles keep bottles at room temperature of approximately 72°F for 7 days to secondary ferment. They will come good.

OVER CARBONATED BEER: Dangerous! Caused by bottling too early; too much priming sugar. Remedy: Chill the bottle to as cold as possible to slow the gas release. An adequate amount of priming sugar is 3/4 Cup corn sugar per 5 gallons. For a 6-gallon batch, add accordingly.

STRONG BEER: When a less alcoholic beer is desired, reduce the amount of sugar that is fermented. Instead of adding the usual 2.2 lbs. of sugar to the brew, reduce to say 1.1 lbs. and the overall alcoholic percentage will be reduced by about 20%

The following is a General Easy Steps To Great Beer with Muntons, Mountmellick, Coopers and Brewferm Beer Kits, Etc.

PREPARATION
1. Clean & sterilise your equipment. Instructions are provided.
2. Put the yeast aside for the fermentation stage.
3. Dissolve the contents of the can in ½ to 1¼ gallons hot water in a cleaned pot. Use less hot water in hot weather & more in cold weather. Add required amount of dried or liquid malt extract when instructions call for brewing sugar and stir to dissolve.
4. Add about 2 ½ gallons of cold water to your fermenter, transfer the hot mixture from the pot to your fermenter & mix thoroughly. Top up with cold water to the 5 or 6 gallon mark.

FERMENTATION
1. Sprinkle the yeast onto the surface.
2. Seal the fermenter, fit the airlock and half fill it with water.
3. Allow the brew to ferment. Try to keep the temperature in the fermenter reasonably constant at approximately 72-75ºF. Typically this takes about a week to 11 days.
4. Fermentation is finished when the airlock stops bubbling and the brew itself begins to clear. Allow a further 48 hours for it to clear thoroughly.

BOTTLING
1. Sterilise the bottles & rinse with clean water. Syphon fermented beer (leaving sediments behind) into another fermenter or bottling bucket. Heat the Priming Sugar (enough for 5 gallon batch only) in 1-pint of water for 5 minutes. Pour the Priming Sugar syrup into the bottling bucket (or fermenter). Stir gently and thoroughly. Syphon beer into clean bottle. Fill to 1-1½" from the bottle top and immediately cap bottles. Store the bottles upright in bottle case at approximately 72°F (±3°F) for 7 days. Beer will continue to improve with further aging of 1½ months at 50-55°F.

MATURATION
Homebrew improves greatly with bottle ageing and will not go off in the bottle at all. A six month old beer will be very much better than a one month old beer. So, try to age your beers, you will enjoy them much more. In fact, you will be amazed at how much your aged beers have improved. Don't forget to label and date each batch. Keep samples to try at 3, 6 and 12 months old. Take notes about how they taste then you will see for yourself how this amazing improvement works.

How To Make Superb Matured Beers

After you've made a new beer, you will be keen to try it. When your beer is just 3 or 4 weeks old, it will be good to drink but it won't be fantastic. Home crafted beer needs many more weeks in the bottle to allow it time to taste fantastic. So just remembmer that while it might be irresitible ... sampling it at an early age is not a fair test of the final taste of the beer.

We recommend that you get your next brew going straight away so you can build up a stock of beer that will be allowed to mature before drinking. This will ensure that you don't end up drinking all your beer while it is too young & you will be able to reserve batches to improve with ageing.

The best way to get the most from your new hobby is to keep your fermenter working constantly. When you bottle one batch, get another one going.
This means that in a few months time, you will have built a good stock of beer that has matured in the bottle. From then on, you will always have superb matured beers to enjoy with your friends and you can put all your new batches away to age.

Keeping Your Fermenter Cool

Remember your beers will taste much better if you can keep the fermenter close to 68-72 degree F all the time your beer is fermenting. In hot weather wrap towelling around your fermenter like a skirt. Gather the top of the skirt into the lid. Pour cold water into the recess of the lid and add more water when it starts to dry out. This simple trick will help you keep your fermenter nice and cool on hot summer days. The hotter the day gets, the better this works. If you want to make it colder, set a fan to blow gently on the fermenter and don't forget to keep the water topped up



SPECIFIC GRAVITY AND BODY ESTIMATOR

Stouts & heavy ales are nicer if they have plenty of body. A lot of quality European beers have a medium amount of body & beers that are popular in tropic are typically light bodied.

 
The specific gravity of a finished beer is a fairly good indication of the body of the beer. Beers with plenty of body have a high final specific gravity & beers with little body have a low final specific gravity. The following can be used as a rough guide.

Light Body Beer: Final SG of 1.000 to 1.008 includes Lagers, Bitters and Draughts

Light to Medium Body Beer: Final SG of 1.008 to 1.012 includes Premium beers

Medium Body Beer: Final SG of 1.012 to 1.018 includes European Lagers and Pilsners and Lighter European & English ales

Full Body Beer: Final SG of 1.018 to 1.025 includes Heavy Ales, lighter Stouts & Porters