First Lager kit

[piagio2000]

I've just had a go at my first kit after only making wine till now.

My brew seems to have stopped a bit early. It's clearing and seems to have stopped fermenting at 1012. The instructions say it should go down to about 1006 before bottling and priming.

I tasted it and it still tastes a bit watery, so I think it could do with the extra alcohol it would get if it had managed to ferment out.

So...would it be possible to restart the brew? I have a feeling it is a bit cold, so I was thinking of standing the bucket in warm water for a while. Would that be worth it?
Or maybe bottle without priming and hope it ferments out with the residual sugar and gets carbonated that way?

I'd appreciate some tips from the old hands on here!

[Former Canuk]

I'm a Newbie but 100% you have to keep the temperature constant, around 20 degrees seems to suit just about everything, Yeast gets lazy in the cold but keep it at 20 and it'll come back to life.

[koomber]

The main thing here is how long has it been fermenting, how many days has it been at 1.012 and what kit is it?

The Watery-ness
The wateryness of the brew is likely just because it is a lager kit and because it is not carbonated. Lagers are generally supposed to be clean and refreshing. There shouldn't really be any big flavours that you would normally associate with an ale in there. Residual sugars in beer usually contribute to sweetness and flavour.


Tiiiiiiii-iiiiiime is on your side.....
Also, in beer the different sugars take different lengths of time to ferment, table sugar is very quick, but some of the sugars in beer take a long time to ferment. Yeast even ferment their own waste given the right conditions and enough time. This is why we condition beers. It gives the yeast time to clean up after themselves and make the beer a little bit more tasty (om nom nom nom nom)

As a rule of thumb I use the 1-2-3 rule of making beers:
1 week in the primary.
2 weeks in the secondary.
3 weeks in the bottle/keg.

This can be adapted to a 3-3 rule if you only use a primary fermenter to no ill effect.

The Heat is on! (dun dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun dun, DUN-DUN!
Whilst it is true that higher temperatures are generally better for ales, the opposite is true of lagers. True lagers using lager yeasts use low temperatures during the primary fermentation (around 8-13°C for lager yeasts Vs. 14 - 20°C for ale yeasts).
In the primary fermentation the ale yeasts produce more by-products Vs the lager yeasts. This helps give beers it's flavour and depth. Lager yeasts do things more slowly and produce less favoursome by-products, giving you a cool, clean and crisp beer.

During the conditioning phase lagers are cold stored, often close to 0°C for a long time (months) whilst with an ale yeast conditioning is usually much quicker and carried out at higher temperatures.

Back to your problem
I would say give it time as opposed to heat. Most lager kits use ale yeast so are likely to give an ale flavour. By keeping the temperature on the lower side of things you'll help give it a more lager-ish profile. There are other issues with putting it in a bucket of water such as manual handling and disturbing the sediment at the bottom.

There are loads of things that can affect an SG reading and give a 0.006 difference. Carbon dioxide bubbles on the hydrometer, slight miscallibration of the hydrometer and misreading the hydrometer (I say this because I am completely useless at reading hydrometers.)

Hope this helps!

[piagio2000]

Thanks a lot for the answers, especially to Koomber for the excellently detailed response.

The Kit is a Youngs Definitive Lager kit from Wilkinsons. So nothing particularly flavourful I wouldn't imagine.

It's now been in the primary for over a fortnight. Obviously that is a long time for beer. But I suppose as I'm used to wine I was inclined to leave it going. It is still "blooping" every few seconds but I suppose that could be the CO2 escaping.

I think it is a bit cold, but nice to hear that Lagers actually quite like that. I also have to say it's in the same location as a lot of my wine which ferments out ok.

So all that being said...I think it's time to get it into bottles and primed.
I'm going to use PET's so hopefully even if there is still a bit of residual sugar it should be ok.


Wish me luck!!

[Former Canuk]

Koomer, you took the words out of my mouth, thats what I was trying to say in my one sentence reply! (not)..I am humbled by the experience some of you guys have...but I'll get there