Knighty Knight Brew Session

Had issues with fermentation temperature. Using a heating element (aquarium style) in the fermenter, but temperatrure was a bit high at 24C, so the brew started frothing up and out of the airlock after about a day. I turned off the heating elemnt and removed it from the brew and resorted to a mini external heater (radiator style) to regulate ambient temperature. This resolved the frothing and the brew fermented as expected. Primary fermentation was a week. Removed trub from collection ball and added 250g malt extract for secondary fermentation (16th December). I kegged the brew on the 21st December as the family was travelling to London for Xmas. I filled a mini Keg (5 litre) and used a CO2 dispensing system to fill about 10 to 12 bottles with added carbonation drops. The rest of the brew was put into a 25 litre keg to condition further and extra CO2 injected to prevent oxidisation effects. In the end the ABV was calculated to be about 4.2 to 4.3%, which is lower than rated (4.9%). But this has not in my mind affected the flavour in a detrimental way. I still had issues with pH - end pH was 4.5 which is a bit too acidic. The beer has come out well despite of this, but maybe it could have been even better if the pH has been slightly higher. I am going to get a lab analysis of the water done with tereatment recommendatiions to see if I can properly tweak the pH in subsequent brew processes.