Fermenting Home Brew Blonde Beer

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Mark Emiley on behalf of Expert Village. In this next segment we are going to focus on our fermentation processes. Now that we have got our beer all ready, we are going to start worrying about our fermentation. So, for ales, we are going to want to keep the fermentation temperature between sixty and seventy degrees. You can go on the higher end for some of the higher strength beers like the IPA’s, and also for the wheat’s which will pull out a little more of the interesting phenolics. For lagers, such as a bock, or a pilsner, we are going to want to go as cold as we can which means we want to hit or aim for fifty degrees. So, with this, you are going to want to take your bucket and put it into a nice, relatively cool dark place in your house and let's start our primary fermentation. In about twenty-four to forty-eight hours, you should start to see your airlock bubble a fair amount. In about three days your bubbling should be very, very vigorous, maybe even once every second or maybe once every two or three seconds. After that, it is going to start slowing down. Once it hits about one bubble every six seconds, you are going to want to go through your first racking operation which is described in a later segment. Once you have done your first racking operation, the bubbling is going to go down significantly. Okay, at this point, it is going to be going into its secondary fermentation. All the yeast is going to be falling out of the solution, kind of sedimenting down at the bottom and you are going to have a nice, clean beer. If you did buy a hydrometer, you can track the progress of your fermentation a lot with this. So, you are going to start with your initial hydrometer reading, then in about five or six days, okay, when your primary fermentation is done, you should be down to about thirty percent of what your initial hydrometer reading was. So, if you were starting at ten fifty that would mean you would be about ten fifteen. At that point, you are going to siphon and then after that you are going to kind of watch your secondary fermentation. It may drop down a couple more points. It may get down to twenty-five percent of what you started at. If you get to that point, you are in good shape. Even if you didn't, you still may be okay as long as it is not still bubbling and if you are lower, you are still good."