Your current / planned brews

Richie71

syngindub wrote: »

As more and more bottles are becoming available it's time to think about the next brew.
I'm moving all up market next and going to dive head first into an extract kit.
Thinking about one of these http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/extract-beer-kits-c-164.html

I realise this will be more time consuming that the kits i have done in the past but what the hell. It's good fun.
So is there any more equipment i need to purchase. Presume i'll need a thermometer for the boil or i could just
use the one i have been using up to now.

Thinking of going for the Blonde Ale, anyone done this? ( no smart answers )
Going to do some reading up this weekend but apparently i need 2 X 1.5 cans of Malt Extract . This seems like a lot of malt compared to what goes into a standard kit !..

I started extract brewing just before Christmas and found these kits extremely handy for the beginner. Haven't tried the Blond Ale one yet, just the 3 Pale Ale ones, but I think the little bit of extra work is well worth it.

You'll need a largish pot (mine holds around 10 litres), a thermometer for steeping the grains and a way of cooling it down rapidly. A sink full of ice water will do a pot this size. The cans of Malt extract effectively replace the fermentables from the kit and the sugar you used before. You could also use 3kg of Dry Malt Extract.

There's loads of step by step guides on the web so just find one that suits the equipment you have, order the kit & enjoy!!

syngindub

Richie71 wrote: »

I started extract brewing just before Christmas and found these kits extremely handy for the beginner. Haven't tried the Blond Ale one yet, just the 3 Pale Ale ones, but I think the little bit of extra work is well worth it.

You'll need a largish pot (mine holds around 10 litres), a thermometer for steeping the grains and a way of cooling it down rapidly. A sink full of ice water will do a pot this size. The cans of Malt extract effectively replace the fermentables from the kit and the sugar you used before. You could also use 3kg of Dry Malt Extract.

There's loads of step by step guides on the web so just find one that suits the equipment you have, order the kit & enjoy!!

How much should my pot hold for steeping the grains then?

Richie71

syngindub wrote: »

How much should my pot hold for steeping the grains then?

You'll be steeping your grains in 2 litres of water and adding another 2 litres when sparging. A lot of people recommend using a boiler for the full 5 gallons but it's not a must for starting off. Just get a decent sized stockpot to get you going and add cold water to your fermenter just like you did when making kits, being careful to finish up at around the 20 degrees like before.

scrapsmac

Tube wrote: »

Low and slow! Prepare for a 2 week fermentation, but the end result should be good!

Was this a 45 min boil?

I should have mentioned I pitched at 15 but it went up to 20 ish for a few hours before I dropped it to 15 again. Gravity was sitting at 1.012 a few says ago. I'll give it the full two weeks so it can clean up some nasties.

Went for a full hour boil. Purely out of habit and also because I left sterilising the fermenter too late. Oops

howamidifferent

Khannie wrote: »

Total experiment that seems to have worked out OK: I bought 20L of lidl fizzy orange and threw it into a bucket. Put some yeast in. It stopped brewing at one point but a good stir seemed to revive it and now it has fully fermented (total time was about a month to fully ferment). I tasted it last night (with some added sweetener to bring it back up to the fizzy orange level of sweetness) and it tasted very similar to orange bacardi breezer. If this works out it will be at around the 45c per half litre mark which is incredible really.

How did this finally turn out ? Was it drinkable? ABV%?
Would you do it again?

Khannie

howamidifferent wrote: »

How did this finally turn out ? Was it drinkable? ABV%?
Would you do it again?

It was a failure in the end tbh. Two things contibuted to this as best I can find out:

1) The ferment had no nutrients / stopped fully at one point so it took an age in primary
2) A lot of the flavour is stripped out. I ended up adding some sugar-free mi-wadi into it to try and help that, but it wasn't enough.

Wouldn't bother with it again.

Martyn1989

Just starting brew 2, a Vienna Pumpkin Ale

1990ml of canned pumpkin
1lb vienna malt
Steeped for 30 mins

Added to a Coopers Lager Kit and 1kg of LDME

Fermented with US-05 and dry hopped with 1oz of Simcoe. We shall see....

My brew 1 a modded Coopers IPA is ok, lashings of hops, a little light on the bitterness and that kit twang :mad:

Extract all the way from this one on.

Martyn1989

scrapsmac wrote: »

5am Saint Clone

3kg light dry malt extract
0.25kg crystal 60l
0.15kg crystal 120l
0.1kg Munich malt

Lots of hops for this one!!

30g Nelson sauvin
20g amarillo

Dry hop with

10g simcoe
10g cascade
10g centennial

Trusty us-05 yeast

Honestly don't know how this one will turn out. I enjoy the citrusy flavors from simcoe and I've read amarillo is a must for this beer. I'm not a hop head by any means but this is one beer I can happily guzzle!

Critique the recipe please folks

Hey scraps, would love to do this one for the gf, 5am Saint or even something similar is hard to come by where I am, any word on how it turned out?

scrapsmac

Martyn1989 wrote: »

Hey scraps, would love to do this one for the gf, 5am Saint or even something similar is hard to come by where I am, any word on how it turned out?

Unfortunately the store was out of simcoe and amarillo so I did a simpler centennial ale (bottling tomorrow). The 5am saint is definitely on the cards next as soon as I can get my hands on the hops! Will let you know how it goes.

Martyn1989

scrapsmac wrote: »

Unfortunately the store was out of simcoe and amarillo so I did a simpler centennial ale (bottling tomorrow). The 5am saint is definitely on the cards next as soon as I can get my hands on the hops! Will let you know how it goes.

I had trouble getting simcoe and amarillo myself in Ireland, fantastic hop varities and people just snap them up.

The LHBS has North American hops in abundence, think I'll do this recipe once my fermenter is clear, a little shy of 2 weeks I hope. The guy working in the homebrew shop here in Calgary was telling me that here homebrewers go mad for Fuggles and East Kent Goldings when available, meanwhile theres shelves of Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Chinook, Nugget and other ridiculous high alpha varieties I've never heard of. Feckin Canadians :rolleyes:

scrapsmac

Along with larger 23l brews, I have decided to dabble with 4.5l all grain batches. Reason being less mess and greater temp control on the cooker.

I will be using 5l Tesco water bottles as FV . Is this okay? Will the plastic leach?

First brew is an apa.

Maris otter
Crystal 60l

Loads of cascade!

Safale us 04

Havnt worked out quantities just yet. Any help would be appreciated

AwayWithFaries

Started my first ever brew yesterday.

I used a Copper’s Canadian Blonde brew kit.

The kit was reasonably straight forward to use. I just can't believe it took me this look to get around to it.

Plan on having a tasting session on Paddy's Day. I'm excited already!

dasdog

Bottled Dec
23L Woodfordes Wherry Bitter
-First attempt, happy with the results.

20L LIDL Turbo Cider, used Wine yeast and extra sugar
-Very strong/dry but drop of 7up in a glass helps a lot. I'll stick to the tried and tested recipie next time.

4L ALDI white grape juice, 300g sugar, added 6 broken (organic) cumquat's with skins on
-This got demolished by friends/family 2-3 weeks after bottling. Really amazed at how it turned out.

Bottled two weeks ago
23L Coopers Irish stout, 1kg dark spraymalt, Brupaks flavapak ale bag, added coffebeans and vanilla pod
23L Muntons Nut Brown Ale, 1kg dark spraymalt, Brupaks flavapak ale bag

Been experimenting around with 4L batches of ALDI/LIDL grape juice, kikw/kaka fruits, blueberries, pomegranates, twinings fruit tea bags and various sugars
-Only decanted to secondary containers so far but the 4L red with a vanilla pod will be bottled this weekend.

Got the confidence to try a beer now. Any recommendations for a kit that would be remotely Spaten Premium like?


BTW, thanks to all for the advise posted on this forum. Some great information being shared.

Khannie

dasdog wrote: »

4L ALDI white grape juice, 300g sugar, added 6 broken (organic) cumquat's with skins on
-This got demolished by friends/family 2-3 weeks after bottling. Really amazed at how it turned out.

Go on....what did it taste like?

dasdog

Khannie wrote: »

Go on....what did it taste like?

Better than a €6/7 supermarket bottle was the feedback I got which I was delighted with as I was just trying for a table/cooking wine. Hint of something citrus that you couldn't put your finger on unless you were told.

Been trying ALDI/LIDL since but they only seem to have red juice in stock (SCD stores).

lang

Coopers IPA Kit (think i dry hopped with some Cascade, but not sure) -> bottled on 18/02/2013. Tried one the other night and the carbonation wasn't the greatest, but that was only after about 2 weeks. The temp is a little low in the room I'm storing them so more than happy to wait a little longer than normal.

John Bull Traditional English Ale -> bottled on 07/02/2013. Will probably leave them (in same place as other brew) for about 3 weeks or so and they should be good. I tried a 'sample' of the brew and it is slightly more bitter than I'd like but willing to give it a bash and see how it turns out after the Conditionning.

Richie71

Haven't put a brew on for 3 weeks now. Trying to clear down some stock & free up my bottles. Just opened a Muntons Gold Imperial Stout that I brewed in March 2012. It was part of a batch I saved for Christmas and never got round to drinking. All I can say is ... wow!! Home Brewed Beer really does improve with age. I wasn't overly impressed with this at the time but it has come on extremely well.

howamidifferent

Put on a 5 day 30 bottle white wine kit 2 days ago. Will leave it ferment out for 2 weeks. First try at wine.

stuchyg

yesterday was brewday in my house. Started with a 5ltr demijohn that the bottom fell out of when i poured in the ginger mix, rescued the ginger though and made a 13 ltr batch. Next up was a pale ale kit using Safale US5, will be dry hopped in 3 weeks using the last of my frozen cascade

I've got a Coopers IPA that should be done any day now. I plan to dry hop it, I bought cascade and chinook hops. I haven't used hops before and I'm not sure how much to use or for how long. Any tips?

stuchyg

how much wort do you have, watever quantity you use id give it another 10 days or so in secondary

mayto

Deleted User wrote: »

I've got a Coopers IPA that should be done any day now. I plan to dry hop it, I bought cascade and chinook hops. I haven't used hops before and I'm not sure how much to use or for how long. Any tips?

You could try 20g of both cascade and chinook as both would be great for dryhopping, or whatever quantity you want:). When fermentation is about done put hops in a sanitised muslin bag if using leaf hops and add to the fermenter for up to a week, which is usually more than enough time.

tteknulp

nialler24 wrote: »

I've got a Coopers IPA that should be done any day now. I plan to dry hop it, I bought cascade and chinook hops. I haven't used hops before and I'm not sure how much to use or for how long. Any tips?

30g to 50g depends on taste i use 50g cascade and its nice,5-7 days in muslin bag ,weigh it down with sanitized marbles

howamidifferent

howamidifferent wrote: »

Put on a 5 day 30 bottle white wine kit 2 days ago. Will leave it ferment out for 2 weeks. First try at wine.

I bottled this last night. Ended up with 23 x 750 ml bottles.
Looks superb but time will tell what it tastes like.
Downside to wine is I had to rack it several times so its a more laborious process than beer. Howsoever, 23 bottles for a cost of €41.95 for the kit works out at €1.82 a bottle. Thats a cheap nights drinking.

I have another Australian Wine kit to do and a few coopers kits also.
From the brews I have done to date, my favourite without any doubt is the coopers IPA. Yummy!

eurofoxy

currently have a cider in the fermentor, hopefully will be good by the time the sun arrives in april...
have the grain for a milk stout, never made one before but will only be doing a micro brew to test it out...

Piercemeear

(click to enlarge should work)

A few making-of photos from what I hope to be bottling tomorrow. My first big bucket beer brew after doing a single demijohn of the same recipe before Christmas. 13 litres of an American-style hoppy IPA with Cascade and a smidge Columbus. Full boil. Dry-hopped Cascade in the final shot.

First batch turned out shockingly well (given that I barely knew what I was doing), so I'm simultaneously nervous and excited for this one.

AwayWithFaries

I'm currently in the middle of my first brew. Using the Cooper's Canadian Blonde kit but even though it's my first brew I've decided to experiment...

Bottled half of it as normal last weekend and added some mixed berries to the other half to get a nice fruit beer. Started fermenting again during the week as expect . Only problem is I have not idea how to calculate the ABV of the fruit stuff! As long as it tastes OK I wont be complaining. Should hopefully bottle that at the weekend and have everything drinkable for Paddy's day.

Tube

Doing a pilsner (of sorts) at the moment, with 100% Irish barley malt, and fermenting under pressure with a spunding valve. First time doing it this way...

scrapsmac

Planned on doing a dead pony club clone but ended up doing a 3.5 litre cascade smash ( following basic brewings recent video). Got an OG of 1.051 and it smelled awesome!!

Maris otter 907g
Cascade 4g at 60 , 30 , 15 mins

Us-04 yeast

deRanged

I bottled my first ever brew last night, a Coopers Irish Stout kit. Can't wait to see how it is.

This hobby is not for the instant gratification crowd