Your current / planned brews

howamidifferent

Just put on 5 x 5L PET water bottles filled with Wurzels Orange Wine recipe.
Should be nice in a few weeks. Should give me 30 bottles of a nice crisp cheap wine.

loyatemu

bottled a Youngs Harvest Lager kit yesterday, used HBW's cheap LME instead of sugar and primed with brewing sugar - hopefully should give a decent result (I know it won't actually be a lager).

Khannie

tteknulp wrote: »

Its a good reliable stout ,i use safele 04 yeast instead of coopers ,i think its a cleaner finish and i get around 1008-1010 ,your onto a winner there.

Yeah, think I'll give that a whirl next time. Thanks for the tip.

Devi

Have an extract pale ale on using English hops, Challenger for bittering, EKG for aroma, with a safeale 04 yeast. Looking forward to it, only used American hops up until now.

Khannie

I don't have my hydrometer (on loan to a friend). 9 days fermenting in this weather is surely enough, right?

tteknulp

Khannie wrote: »

I don't have my hydrometer (on loan to a friend). 9 days fermenting in this weather is surely enough, right?

Its to hard to call , i have a imper stout on it dropped from 1084 - 1020 in 7-8 days but different yeast & fermentables etc.. you really need a reading to be same for 2-3 days in a row to sure . bottle bombs would be my fear :mad:

Lovely Bloke

Planning to do a light coloured extract, maybe some Crystal and Biscuit malts, and using Saaz and/or Hersbrucker (they are the only hops not yet used from 6 we bought (EKG, Cascade, Challanger and Fuggles are the others)).

Hoping to get a nice Lager/Pilsner style ale. I know that's a weird thing to try to do, but the ingredients are there, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of experimentation. Could be good for drinking next Summer maybe.

howamidifferent

howamidifferent wrote: »

I've racked 2 six week wine kits to secondary, degassed and added the finings last night.

I bottled one of these last night, the DOCs Merlot. Bit of a disaster at the start. Tried to use a filter to polish the wine but couldn't figure out how to get the wine through it.

Wasted about a half bottle before I gave up and just bottled from sanitized bottling bucket. Ended up with 29 x 750ml bottles. A quick sip of the remainder and it tasted quite good. More to the sweet than the very dry side but in a good way.

I didn't bottle the other kit yet yet as I only had 21 empty wine bottles to hand so need another 8 or 9. Its the DOCs Sangiovese .

oscarBravo

I bottled my first kit yesterday, a Coopers Canadian Blonde. It's very clear in the bottles with no obvious suspended yeast, should I be worried?

mayto

oscarBravo wrote: »

I bottled my first kit yesterday, a Coopers Canadian Blonde. It's very clear in the bottles with no obvious suspended yeast, should I be worried?

You generally want the beer to be clear when bottling so not to have too much yeast in the bottle. Unless it was in the fermenter for months it will be fine. Even after a lengthy time in the fermenter it will probably ferment fine in the bottles.

Khannie

Khannie wrote: »

Racked and added the cinnamon and cloves. 17L of cider. 6x6 inches of cinnamon. 7 cloves. I've heard tell that the cloves can be quite powerful so 1 per 2.5L seemed a reasonable guess.

This has turned out to be absolutely delicious. If anything the cinnamon is a bit strong, but only a bit. The clove flavour is there, but understated.

howamidifferent

Khannie wrote: »

This has turned out to be absolutely delicious. If anything the cinnamon is a bit strong, but only a bit. The clove flavour is there, but understated.

Was that with the 7 cloves or had you removed some as per earlier discussions?

i.e. : Would you want the 7 or more or less?

Khannie

howamidifferent wrote: »

Was that with the 7 cloves or had you removed some as per earlier discussions?

i.e. : Would you want the 7 or more or less?

Yeah, 7 cloves for around 12 days. I'd go with that again. Would probably reduce the cinnamon to 5 x 6 inch sticks. I bought a big bag of cinnamon sticks on iHerb for very little money. If you're considering this, they're a fraction of the supermarket price.

sharingan

tteknulp wrote: »

honey is nearly 100% fementable ,it will leave very little flavour if any .

You could try it as a late addition if its the flavour your after , make sure you boil it first as it may have Bacteria in it.

The honey is fully fermentable, but it does leave flavour behind, due to the various floral components left behind. Depends on the honey.

A guy in our brew club brewed up a Chestnut Honey Porter from a recipe, and it was intense (Its one of the strongest flavoured honeys you can get, and he used ~ 600g).

But using small amounts of honey at priming may be a better solution if you want to keep flavour in.

sharingan

tteknulp wrote: »

I was amazed it finished so low that safele t-58 is a beast of a yeast ,perfect for belgian aswell ,its 8.5% ish ,another christmas cracker i hope . 38 x 330mls

That is very low ... did you correct for temperature?

I have heard good things about t-58 for belgian beer, which is good as there is very little dried yeast that is useful for belgian styles. I used Mauribrew Weiss Yeast (Australian) on a Wheat Beer and it turned out really well.

sharingan

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Planning to do a light coloured extract, maybe some Crystal and Biscuit malts, and using Saaz and/or Hersbrucker (they are the only hops not yet used from 6 we bought (EKG, Cascade, Challanger and Fuggles are the others)).

Hoping to get a nice Lager/Pilsner style ale. I know that's a weird thing to try to do, but the ingredients are there, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of experimentation. Could be good for drinking next Summer maybe.

Might work for an Altbier, and your ingredients are good for a few belgian styles as well. I have a belgian on nearly fermented now, which used Hersbrucker, Saaz, Maris Otter, Cara Pils & Munich, its coming out good, and your ingredients are nearly bang on the recipe.

sharingan

DeadSkin wrote: »

Just kicked off a Coopers Stout kit today, I had mixed everything bar the yeast, was leaving the head/suds to settle before I could add more water to bring it to the 23 litre mark & add the yeast. Something came up and I had to go, I didn't get to add the yeast for at least 90 minutes later - can this cause any problems, it's just that the instructions state that it's vital to add the yeast as early as possible?

Well yes it *can* cause problems, but it probably wont. Yeast is a bully, and starves out other micro-organisms in the absence of oxygen.

You will know when it is brewed, but I would just leave the beer ferment out, it will probably turn out fine.

tteknulp

sharingan wrote: »

That is very low ... did you correct for temperature?

I have heard good things about t-58 for belgian beer, which is good as there is very little dried yeast that is useful for belgian styles. I used Mauribrew Weiss Yeast (Australian) on a Wheat Beer and it turned out really well.

yeah the T-58 is very good for Belgian types i got the brewferm Diabolo from 1068 to 1002 in 2 weeks it finished 9.2% with priming if i remember correctly, as 90g to 9ltr is mad but thats what is called for ,No bombs yet even with warm spell , so i highly recommend T-58 , Safele W06 is good for wheat types i find .

00833827

I have a Young's scottish heavy Kit there that i might put together this weekend if i get a chance, but i have no DME in. I am reluctant to just use sugar as it seems from reading the results are not too super. Should I just wait to order the DME and stick on a gallon or two of cider this weekend instead or should I try golden syrup, treacle, honey, something like that from the supermarket?

BeerNut

Nothing will work as well as malt does. You'd be best waiting until you have DME.

00833827

cheers - i will knock up a turbo cider instead so - might put the heavy with a stout kit for a toucan :-)

sharingan

tteknulp wrote: »

yeah the T-58 is very good for Belgian types i got the brewferm Diabolo from 1068 to 1002 in 2 weeks it finished 9.2% with priming if i remember correctly, as 90g to 9ltr is mad but thats what is called for ,No bombs yet even with warm spell , so i highly recommend T-58 , Safele W06 is good for wheat types i find .

Thanks for the recommendations. Only started using specialty yeast this year, and I dont have the setup or time to use liquid yeast safely. Good to know the other options. Must make sure that I have some T-58 & W06 on hand in the fridge - always like to have at least one of the staples on hand in case a brew takes my fancy.

sharingan

00833827 wrote: »

I have a Young's scottish heavy Kit there that i might put together this weekend if i get a chance, but i have no DME in. I am reluctant to just use sugar as it seems from reading the results are not too super. Should I just wait to order the DME and stick on a gallon or two of cider this weekend instead or should I try golden syrup, treacle, honey, something like that from the supermarket?

No - wait for your DME. There is a good case for using interesting sugars in your beers, but its for flavour and balancing purposes, and not as stock fermentables.

fitzywill

Last night I used the Coopers Home Brewing kit for the first time and used the Canadian Blonde malt extract with enhancer 1. I think it went ok but the temp was a little high at first (28C) but it is down now to 24C.
When I have bottled the beer how long should I store it at room temp. and how long can it then be left in the fridge for?
Any tips / advice are welcome.

Thanks:)

wilted

Just bottled my Canadian blonde after three weeks fermenting, tastes good. I added some Saaz hops to it five days ago and it's a different beer already. Now the long hard wait :rolleyes:

Also bottled a coopers wheat beer, and put on two extracts(the hbc extract packs, Discover America Pale Ale and the stout). The house smells like heaven(until the OH gets home at least )

Fitzywill - those temps should be fine going on my temps for the last three weeks with the coopers kit, think its a minimum of two weeks in the bottle before drinky time but everyone seems to say the longer the better.

tteknulp

fitzywill wrote: »

.
When I have bottled the beer how long should I store it at room temp. and how long can it then be left in the fridge for?
Any tips / advice are welcome.

Thanks:)

I usually leave for 3 weeks above 22c and then depending on type brewed 4 weeks at 15c(Belgians take months to condition Stronger = longer i guess) then to the fridge

Knifey Spoony

Gearing up for bottling tomorrow. Have a Copper's India Pale Ale ready to be bottled, that I put on three weeks ago. Brewed it to 19L with 1.5kg of DME, which gives it an ABV of 5.6%. Fermented it for two weeks and have been dry hopping it with 50g of leaf Cascade since last Saturday, so, that will be 8 days dry hopping tomorrow. Gonna leave it bottle condition for another 4 weeks then (if I can wait that long).

This will be my second kit brew so did a little experimentation with it, brewing short, extra DME, using bottled water and dry hopping. Probably do one more kit with a bit more experimentation and then hopefully move onto extract brewing early next year.

matrim

Trying my first extract beer. An American Amber Ale with chinook and cascade.

Turned out darker than expected but is nice and I'm happy with it.

Mr Benevolent

Right, I've gone back into homebrewing, partly due to being made redundant soon and partly because it's fun. I've made 3 x 5L batches over the last three days:

A: Joe's Ancient Orange Mead. This was my first brew about two years ago and it was great. The only change I made this time was to use Lalvin EC1118 instead of bread yeast. Looking for 14-16% with an OG of 1.115. 6+ months.

B: Cyser. 4L pressed Aldi apple juice with 1kg honey and a few chopped raisins to liven it up. Looking for 12-14% with an OG of 1.095. 3+ months.

C: Cider. 4.5L pressed Aldi apple juice with 500g caster sugar, a cinnamon stick, a touch of proper vanilla essence, a clove and a few chopped raisins. OG 1.072, looking for 8-10%. 2+ months.

Overall a fair selection, costing €27 in total. Next up is a malty 7-10% dark extract beer (no space or money for grain brewing). Any other cheap suggestions?

howamidifferent

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

Any other cheap suggestions?

WOW