Your current / planned brews

oblivious

Very nice tube

Lovely Bloke

I've never been so happy to drink bland, inoffensive beer

Our first red ale extract brew of the year, brewed at the end of Jan and bottled mid Feb. It is a basic recipe which we made after a year of hit and miss brews last year - infections, bad kits - we made a fresh start with a basic recipe we can tweak and learn from.

It's nice and drinkable, and better than any kit we've made.

The day we bottled it we couldn't brew due to a mix up with HBW, so we only got to brew the second batch 2 weeks ago. We also did a Black IPA which was dry hopped this evening for bottling next weekend.

baron von something

have my hammer of thor fermenting a good 7 days now.looking forward to this one.when its bottled i'm going to leave it until the end of may for my mates birthday and give him a birthday he'll never forget remember

i ordered what i hope is my last ever kit too.i'm going to add in some oak chips and try to recreate my favourite brew i made about a year ago.it seems very limited to what you can do with kits so i'm going to branch out into extract brewing.there's so much more of a learning curve and lots of tweaking and fiddling to be done to make a really unique beer

flanaganred

baron von something wrote: »

have my hammer of thor fermenting a good 7 days now.looking forward to this one.when its bottled i'm going to leave it until the end of may for my mates birthday and give him a birthday he'll never forget remember

i ordered what i hope is my last ever kit too.i'm going to add in some oak chips and try to recreate my favourite brew i made about a year ago.it seems very limited to what you can do with kits so i'm going to branch out into extract brewing.there's so much more of a learning curve and lots of tweaking and fiddling to be done to make a really unique beer

Had a bottle of my hammer of Thor last night only in the bottle a week still a bit sweet and lacking carbonation but tasted very nice,think its going to be a cracker in another few weeks!

Ronan|Raven

I opened my first bottle of the Coopers Dark Ale I made a few weeks ago.
it is in the bottle nearly two weeks now and I couldn't but give into temptation.

I have to say I am very happy with how it turned out, the carbonation seems right for it and it pours with a nice thick head which remains the whole way down. No nasty twang either which is nice... It is a rather inoffensive brew, no worse than what I have consumed in a lot of pubs. If I were to make it again I would like to add hops into the mix and see how it turns out.

After my first attempt at a Cerveva and making a mess of it and then the Stout which I brewed at too high a temp I was happy with the end result this time. It is only my third brew so was using it as a test to try and improve my cleaning of my equipment and overall technique. Improve carbonation levels etc.

Next up is the Evil Dog IPA..

Tube

^ Nice glass, where did you get it?

Ronan|Raven

Tube wrote: »

^ Nice glass, where did you get it?

I got it in Heatons a few years back.

Tube

Cool. Haven't seen that shape G glass before.

Ronan|Raven

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Guinness-Extra-Stout-Shaker-Pint-Beer-Glass-Corks-Brand-Bottled-By-Ihlers-Bell-/161264181260?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item258c18200c&x=51&y=8

is the exact one, postage is a mere 40usd.

tommiet

bottled this last night, also moved cider bottles from the hot press to the fridge, the fridge in the shed, cider made from apples, its as clear as water... have a fridge full of cider now, 6 months is a good time for cider conditioning...
The beer I have made before, its lovely and light around 4%..

Lovely Bloke

Anyone got any ideas what to do with Hersbrucker Hops?

stuchyg

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Anyone got any ideas what to do with Hersbrucker Hops?

Add some carapils grain, orange peel, coriander and wheat malt for blue moon

Lovely Bloke

stuchyg wrote: »

Add some carapils grain, orange peel, coriander and wheat malt for blue moon

Can you expand on this please?

matrim

You could try expanding out something like this to a full brew

http://www.beoir.org/index.php/brewing-knowledge/extract-brewing-mainmenu-47/88-small-scale-brewing

I did something similar on the small scale before and it turned out well

stuchyg

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Can you expand on this please?

Off the top of my head for a 5ltr brew

150g of carapils
500g spray wheat
14gHersbrucker @ 60
7g @ 15
7g @ 3

Teaspoon of orange zest and half teaspoon coriander @ 0

I use safbrew 33 yeast when I make mine, this delish

flanaganred

flanaganred wrote: »

Had a bottle of my hammer of Thor last night only in the bottle a week still a bit sweet and lacking carbonation but tasted very nice,think its going to be a cracker in another few weeks!

Well another couple of weeks and after another couple of bottles have to say my favourite brew so far, the sweetness has eased off carbonation is nearly there , had fears I primed with too much sugar 180 GMs but will be perfect in another couple of weeks, great taste with a nice hoppy taste and aroma

Lovely Bloke

Can anything be subbed in for Carapils?

Tube

Carapils is for body and head retention. A small amount of wheat malt will do the same.

KeRbDoG

First time brew poster Long time reader

Current brew, prob the last if this one turns out to taste a little strange like the last two. Maybe I've been spoiled with the craft beers that can be got these days.

The ingredients;
Coopers India Pale Ale 'brew in a can'
500g light dry malt
500g brewing sugar - Dextrose Monohydrate
30g ounce of cascade hop pellets
23L of bottled spring water, starting to think my well water might not be up to brewing.

Process followed wasn't the Cooper directions, tried something different by following this;
- sanitised all utensils, kit etc.
- Light heated 3L of water in large pot, mixed in the brewing sugar and light dry malt.
- Got them good and dissolved, then popped in the hop pellets (edit: a short 5~10min light boil) and once all broken up and cooled a little, I added the Coopers IPA can gloop.
- Mixed throughly.
- Added to fermenting container and topped up with water to 23L. Once temp cooled down to recommend temp from Coopers kit I added in the brewing yeast.

OG was about 1.037
FG was around about 1.005

Have about two weeks until can give a taste. Always find my homebrews have a slightly strange after taste, I think its my well water so I'm trying bottled spring water.

alastair

Bottled my vaguely Brooklyn Lagerish experiment today. Based on Brewers Spring lager, but with added Crystal, Cascade and Hallertauer Mittelfruh, and using a White Labs bock yeast. Lagered for the last six weeks. Looks darker than I'd expected, but smells hoppier than expected too.

Into the fermenters today - 14 litres of Brewferm Christmas Ale (so about six months to go until it's conditioned), and 20 litres of modified Coopers milk chocolate stout (cocoa nibs, lactose and vanilla essence to go into secondary). These should seem quite speedy after the lager hogged the fridge for so long.

Next up: a coffee porter (modified Coopers dark ale with chocolate malt and cold-brewed coffee), and St. Peter's ruby red ale.

BeerNut

KeRbDoG wrote: »

popped in the hop pellets

They're not going to do anything like that. Hops either need to be boiled (a phase which has already happened at the Coopers factory) or you can dry hop with them for extra aroma.

KeRbDoG wrote: »

Always find my homebrews have a slightly strange after taste

Could just be kit tang. It's very rare to find a kit beer that could pass as a commercial one.

alastair

BeerNut wrote: »

Could just be kit tang. It's very rare to find a kit beer that could pass as a commercial one.

I've found that rigorous control of temperatures pretty much gets rid of kit twang - unless I've been very lucky. I'm using LME and, before getting a temp- controlled fermentation fridge I had a bit of twang, after; none. Time will tell if this continues to be the case with different kits.

drumswan

If you have invested in temperature control equipment chances are you will have moved beyond kit brewing though. You just arent going to get a commercial-craft level beer from a kit.

alastair

drumswan wrote: »

If you have invested in temperature control equipment chances are you will have moved beyond kit brewing though. You just arent going to get a commercial-craft level beer from a kit.

That's not actually the case though (assuming you can equate all-grain with commercially brewed). BeerNut can presumably speak for himself, but check this out: http://www.beoir.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=163:kit-vs-extract-vs-all-grain-brewing&catid=33:beoir-meets&Itemid=95

http://www.beoir.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=176:kit-vs-extract-vs-all-grain-iii-battle-of-the-blondes&catid=33:beoir-meets&Itemid=95

KeRbDoG

BeerNut wrote: »

They're not going to do anything like that. Hops either need to be boiled (a phase which has already happened at the Coopers factory) or you can dry hop with them for extra aroma.

I did a light heating/boil with the hop pellets in - hopefully it it added to the brew

BeerNut wrote: »

Could just be kit tang. It's very rare to find a kit beer that could pass as a commercial one.

Ah, good to know - hopefully if there is a tang that the hops from the IPA can and the little more added in will cover it

drumswan

alastair wrote: »

That's not actually the case though (assuming you can equate all-grain with commercially brewed). BeerNut can presumably speak for himself, but check this out: http://www.beoir.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=163:kit-vs-extract-vs-all-grain-brewing&catid=33:beoir-meets&Itemid=95

Hah, thats class, never seen that, gonna stick all my equipment up on adverts and go back to coopers kits

cletus van damme

brewing my first brew - mixed it yesterday.
can hear it bubbling as i type

went for bulldog brews four finger jack american pale ale.

http://www.bulldogbrews.co.uk/products/beer-making-kits/beer-kits-four-finger-jack-american-pale-ale.html

I have 2 additional hop sachets to add toward the end for extra bitterness.


anybody tried this before?

BeerNut

cletus van damme wrote: »

I have 2 additional hop sachets to add toward the end for extra bitterness.

It won't do much for the bitterness, but should give you an extra hop aroma if they're fresh and punchy enough.

cletus van damme

BeerNut wrote: »

It won't do much for the bitterness, but should give you an extra hop aroma if they're fresh and punchy enough.

ah yeah I reread ity now, there was an extra section on bitterness.
I get ya

I'll keep it simple the first time

Thanks

gosplan

Just thought I'd fire a quick question in her rather than start a new thread.

I've some 10 month old Saaz leaf hops that have been in the freezer since purchase. Want to dry hop a pilsner kit with them.

Will they be OK.

Should I boil them for a min to sterilise or anything or just pop them in a muslin and put them in the secondary and rack the beer on them?