Your current / planned brews

um7y1h83ge06nx

Got fairly quite around here so said I better update.

Drinking -

* Wurzel's Orange Wine (my second batch, left this one dry)
* Blackberry Wine (finally fermented!)
* 2nd batch of Cooper's IPA with 1.5kg LME, 500g of white sugar and dry hopped with Cascade hope pellets (The drink to convert my GF to the homebrews)
* Cooper's Irish Stouts with 1.5kg LME and 500g of Muscavado sugar.

Fermenting:

* Wurzel's Orange Wine (will back sweeten this to make it a medium wine)
* Blackberry Wine (had berries washed, bagged and frozen. I still have enough for a 3rd batch)
* Woodfordes's Wherry
* 5L of Ginger Beer (recipe here)

Keedowah

Kayleigh Dirty Matt wrote: »

Got fairly quite around here so said I better update.

Drinking -

* Wurzel's Orange Wine (my second batch, left this one dry)
* Blackberry Wine (finally fermented!)
* 2nd batch of Cooper's IPA with 1.5kg LME, 500g of white sugar and dry hopped with Cascade hope pellets (The drink to convert my GF to the homebrews)
* Cooper's Irish Stouts with 1.5kg LME and 500g of Muscavado sugar.

Fermenting:

* Wurzel's Orange Wine (will back sweeten this to make it a medium wine)
* Blackberry Wine (had berries washed, bagged and frozen. I still have enough for a 3rd batch)
* Woodfordes's Wherry
* 5L of Ginger Beer (recipe here)

Excellent stuff - whats the Coopers Irish Stout like?

I'm drinking a Coopers Pale Ale at the moment - its going down a treat with the better half - its been described as beautiful!

I have a Canadian Blonde on the go, hoping to do that Woodfordes Werry in a couple of months - all reviews for it look great.

drumswan

Doing a Founders Porter clone next, then something along the lines of Anchor Big Maple Leaf Ale

F-Stop

Tried my first home brew a few weeks ago. Tried Khannie's Turbo Cider. Just bottled it on Sunday. I'm worried I may have oversweetened it for my tastes, but I'm not really a cider drinker so I think it may please the crowd anyway.

Bottled my second brew on Tuesday, a Coopers Cerveza dry hopped with Cascade which is giving a nice citrus taste to it, though I suppose this will mellow out with conditioning. This is tasting a little thin, hoping that carbonation will improve it.

Currently have a Coopers Stout in FV. I made a hop tea with Williamette, boiled for about eight minutes with a jar of honey added. This went mental when the yeast was added, and the taste test(s) when taking SG are amazing. I'm really excited about how this might turn out. I'm thinking of dry hopping with more of the Williamette, but will this overpower it a bit?

I've an IPA and Wheat beer on order, and still have to do the Coopers Lager (ale?) can that came with the kit.

I also ordered some Saaz and have plenty of Cascade and Williamette in the freezer. I'm a bit wary of using them over and over and just making every brew have the same kind of aroma. Was planning on using some Saaz with the Lager kit and maybe dry hopping the IPA with the Cascade. Any advice welcome.

BeerNut

F-Stop wrote: »

Any advice welcome.

Once you've hit the limitations of what you can do with kits and are getting bored, it's time to move up to extract or all-grain. You can do small-batch extract easily enough without too much investment: a big stockpot is the only extra thing you really need, plus some brewing software. But if you find enjoy the process of brewing, you may as well go for a full-size boiler and chiller, TBH.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Keedowah wrote: »

Excellent stuff - whats the Coopers Irish Stout like?

I'm drinking a Coopers Pale Ale at the moment - its going down a treat with the better half - its been described as beautiful!

I have a Canadian Blonde on the go, hoping to do that Woodfordes Werry in a couple of months - all reviews for it look great.

The stout turned out pretty well, very full and strong tasting which some of the lads like and some don't. I love it myself as a winter drink.

I decided to go for the Canadian Blonde for something a bit different to what I have been brewing.

Next up will be a Munton's wheat beer kit with wheat spraymalt and probably another batch of IPA to keep the girlfriend happy.

alastair

First time brew(s) are go since Monday.

Better Brew Czech Pilsner. Figured if it was going to be cool for the next while it might suit a lager - though the yeast is presumably an ale yeast. Used 1.5kg light LME. Airlock going mad since Tuesday morning.


Bulldog Brews Cobnar Wood Northern Brown. Comes with a wee hop teabag. but might bump it up a bit with some dryhopping. Not a peep out of the airlock for over 48 hours, but bubbling steadily since.

Next up (in a fortnight) - a Coopers stout, with some chocolate/coffee tweaking. Kits stockpiled from Jan sales splurge.

um7y1h83ge06nx

alastair wrote: »

Kits stockpiled from Jan sales splurge.

Where were these homebrew sales?

alastair

Kayleigh Dirty Matt wrote: »

Where were these homebrew sales?

I got a few kit deals from Homebrewwest (dinged cans) - that combined with the free postage for bigger orders meant it was worth stocking up. I went a bit overboard tbh - I've got 2 x Coopers Dark Ale, 2 x Coopers Stouts, 2 x Brupaks Beers of the World Munich Dunkel, 2 x Brupaks Beers of the World Steam Beer, St Peters Ruby Red Ale, Brewbuddy Cider, and a Black Rock Bock, all waiting their turn. Planning on having a serious stockpile in time for Christmas.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Jesus, that's some amount of purchasing.

This morning I bought 2x Coopers IPA with LME, 1 Coopers Canadian Blonde with LME and the one I'm really looking forward to - Evil Dog American Double IPA .

Ronan|Raven

Kayleigh Dirty Matt wrote: »

The stout turned out pretty well, very full and strong tasting which some of the lads like and some don't. I love it myself as a winter drink.

I am polishing off the last of my Coopers Irish Stout.. around 6 weeks in the bottle now and the few that lasted this long benefited greatly from the extra time. Not a bad stout, I ended up with poor head retention but that was my fault It does ferment quite violently however!

Planning on starting the Hammer of Thor Special Gravity Lager 4.0 Kg Beer Kit from HBW shortly..

baron von something

ordered a mexican cerveza.not my favourite type of beer but the lads are asking me to do one for a while

um7y1h83ge06nx

Delivery!

Apart from the kits, I have wheat spraymalt there for wheat beer kits I already have, 100g of Cascade hop pellets, Pectolase and yeast nutrient for the wines and bottles caps which are not in the picture.

poitinstill

i made up the evil dog about 3-4 weeks ago .. bottled it on weds night.. tastes good.. very clear and you'd know its strong. used teh 2 hop tea bags that came with it.. nice aroma .. will leave it alone for at least 2 weeks before i start to sample 1. at a high abv id expect it to mature over time... hopefully i can keep my paws off it.

matrim

Got a milk stout brewed tonight. Was on the cards for a couple of months just never got the time.

Now to decide if I want to throw some cacoa nibs in during secondary

baron von something

just after putting on my mexican cerveza kit and i got an o.g. of just under 1.02 which seems very high to me.what would be the reason for this?could the kit be in some way contaminated.i've never brewed a cerveza before but normally everything else i brew starts around the 1.04 mark

BeerNut

baron von something wrote: »

i got an o.g. of just under 1.02 which seems very high to me

1.020? That's extremely low. Might it be that you didn't mix it thoroughly?

bigron2109

Just Bottled My first Every Home Brew Batch from Coopers. The sense of Pride bottling it was fantastic.

Tasted a bit Sweet.

matrim

matrim wrote: »

Got a milk stout brewed tonight. Was on the cards for a couple of months just never got the time.

Now to decide if I want to throw some cacoa nibs in during secondary

This one doesn't seem to have started fermenting for me. I brewed it on Friday, but don't see any airlock / fermenting activity yet.

The room it's in is about 18-19C so should be a good temperature (I covered it with a towel to get it up a tiny bit more just to be sure. When I pitched the yeast the wort was about 25C so while a little on the high side should have still been fine.


The only 2 things I can think of that may have caused a problem were
1. It took longer to cool than I expected so I had the yeast rehydrating for about between 60 - 70 minutes before adding it
2. There was a good bit of foam on the top when I added the yeast (from pouring from my boiler to fermenting bucket). I moved some aside and tried to pitch into the liquid but it may have gotten some on the foam.

Should I look to get more yeast and add that or leave it for a while longer?

BeerNut

matrim wrote: »

Should I look to get more yeast and add that or leave it for a while longer?

Take a gravity reading -- it's only way to know if fermenting is actually happening or not. If it's still the same I reckon I'd throw another sachet in.

Neither of the issues you mention would cause fermentation to stick.

matrim

BeerNut wrote: »

Neither of the issues you mention would cause fermentation to stick.

I didn't think they should but they were the only things I could think of that wasn't normal.

BeerNut

What yeast did you use?

matrim

BeerNut wrote: »

What yeast did you use?

Safbrew T-58 Yeast

BeerNut

And it was definitely alive and foaming when you pitched it?

matrim

BeerNut wrote: »

And it was definitely alive and foaming when you pitched it?

Yeah. It had gone into a creamy paste and looked fine to me.

I'll do a gravity reading an check if it's fermenting tonight.

HMD

I just dry hopped an Discover APA extract kit with 20grm each of Challenger, Cascade, Columbus. Will bottle it Sunday
Then do another of the same kit but will add Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe in the boil and dry hop after 5 days fermenting.

force eleven

I am a first time brewer - with a Coopers Kit and the lager that comes with it has been in the fermenter for 2 weeks at around 16C - which I know is borderline low end for the hybrid yeast that they give, hence I left it for longer. OG was 1.038 and last week after 7 days reading was 1.012, tasted it, little weak and watery at that stage. Will take another reading tonight and tomorrow and will probably bottle Sunday if all ok.
Thankfully, I have patience, and will let the bottles have a good 3-4 weeks storage. I also have a Coopers India Pale Ale and a Cooper Wheat Beer to brew over the coming months as well, so wish me luck

matrim

matrim wrote: »

Yeah. It had gone into a creamy paste and looked fine to me.

I'll do a gravity reading an check if it's fermenting tonight.

I tested the gravity on this last night and it is coming down so it is fermenting just not a vigorously as I would expect. Also tasted like it's coming along nicelyt too

The fact that there is no airlock activity might suggest that there's a small leak in the lid of my bucket.

Hopefully checking doesn't affect the beer.

BeerNut

matrim wrote: »

The fact that there is no airlock activity might suggest that there's a small leak in the lid of my bucket.

That's usually the case. In general it's best to just ignore the bubbler, it doesn't tell you anything useful. It's unusual to see no activity on the surface of the liquid, though.

matrim wrote: »

Hopefully checking doesn't affect the beer.

Worth the risk, and as long as you sanitised anything that touched the beer you should be fine.

alastair

alastair wrote: »

First time brew(s) are go since Monday.

Better Brew Czech Pilsner. Figured if it was going to be cool for the next while it might suit a lager - though the yeast is presumably an ale yeast. Used 1.5kg light LME. Airlock going mad since Tuesday morning.


Bulldog Brews Cobnar Wood Northern Brown. Comes with a wee hop teabag. but might bump it up a bit with some dryhopping. Not a peep out of the airlock for over 48 hours, but bubbling steadily since.

Next up (in a fortnight) - a Coopers stout, with some chocolate/coffee tweaking. Kits stockpiled from Jan sales splurge.

Bottled these earlier. Not sure what to make of them yet - both had a FG which was too high - probably on the back of sitting in too cold a room during fermentation. I've bought a larder fridge off adverts, along with a temp controller and a tube heater, to provide a bit of controlled fermentation for the next lot. Tasted both prior to priming - neither tasted sweet or under-fermented to me, and neither had any 'off' tastes. The Pilsner seemed pretty insipid, taste-wise, but who knows what a few weeks conditioning will bring. The brown ale, which I didn't bother secondary fermenting, tasted alright, but was far from clear, and tasted a bit yeasty, but also quite hoppy (stuck the hop 'tea bag' in with five days to go). Onwards and upwards!