# St Peters Fresh Wort Kits



## Bribie G (21/7/09)

I made a rare trip down to Ross's today and while I was there I grabbed a St Peters Brewery "Brewers Selection" FWK. I've never bought a fresh wortie before but decided to give myself a break after doing six brews for the comp and also have four brews in primary or conditioning. I'd never order one as a rule because the freight would kill it but I love St Peters beers and always get stuck into them when I'm in Sydney Newtown, Glebe area.

Question to anyone who has used these worts: I note that the FWK is 15 litres, add 5 of water.

Are they an 'over gravity' job or do St Peters have the facilities to do a vacuum evaporation? 

Any idea what alc by vol they turn out (I bought the IPA)?


----------



## MarkBastard (21/7/09)

I bought the irish red and made it a shy under 20L. Next time I would maybe make it to 16-17L.

The IPA you'd imagine would be different though.


----------



## DJR (21/7/09)

It ain't vacuumed from memory, it is in there at a decent OG so can stand being diluted. Some of the other "specials" like the bock/okto like that said don't dilute and ended up at about 6-6.5% ABV. Assuming then you dilute that 25% then you're looking at about 4.5-4.8% ABV. Depends on yeast etc. For an IPA i'd probably dilute it by not much at all.

I know he's not involved anymore but you could PM Gerard_M for details on it - or just pop your hydrometer into it when fermenting and dilute from there


----------



## chappo1970 (21/7/09)

BribieG,

Great FWK's BTW. Take a SG before diluting and make your mind up from there as to whether you want to have less gravs. Also I would dry hop the fermenter and the keg with that IPA. It's not the FWK's fault but the aroma/flavour hops are wanting as I guess the "No Chill" packaging knocks the hoppy goodness out of them. I know your brewing and I know you like your hops so it's a mere suggestion as I think otherwise you would be disapointed. I'm sure you'll do justice to it mate!

Cheers

Chappo


----------



## Bribie G (21/7/09)

Yup I was thinking of a nice dose of Styrian Goldings after four days :icon_drool2: 

:icon_offtopic: 
Hey Chappo you haven't posted your brew day recipe yet (see your thread)

Cheers
BribieG


----------



## chappo1970 (21/7/09)

BribieG said:


> Hey Chappo you haven't posted your brew day recipe yet (see your thread)



:icon_offtopic: 
Sorry BribieG it not intentional at all. I have a potty mouth or fingers actually and now I can't access my own thread from Work FFS! ROFL!  Silly Proxies... Silly Chappo! Oh and that goes for Muckeys and Butters PM's as well but I suspect those two characters would have the potty mouths and not me  .

Cheers

Chappo


----------



## Phoney (21/7/09)

Ive tried two of the "Brewers Selection" FWK's so far. APA and Amarillo Ale. Both of them have turned out bloody delicious, so delicious that they've convinced me after im done with my extract ingredients (4 brews to go), im going AG.


----------



## .DJ. (21/7/09)

while not a fan of these FWK's (had 2 that werent good) I wouldnt dilute them, or only slightly and def dry hop.....

the amarillo one i had tasted like grass..


----------



## barry2 (21/7/09)

I brewed their Czech Pilsner after adding 5 litres of water.The OG was 1040 and after 3 weeks in the fermenter with S189 yeast the FG was 1010.It will have been two weeks in the bottle on Friday when I intend to have my tasting check.After adding the sugar for carbonation the ABV is around 4.5%.


----------



## WSC (11/2/10)

Anyone else done the Pilsner, I had one given to me by a mate to brew. Just want to know if it will need more hops. Fermenting it with S-23 and doing 20l


----------



## argon (11/2/10)

WSC said:


> Anyone else done the Pilsner, I had one given to me by a mate to brew. Just want to know if it will need more hops. Fermenting it with S-23 and doing 20l



I've got a bottled batch of the pilsner. Fermented with s23 at 13c for 3 weeks in primary, 13c three weeks in secondary. 48hr diacetyl rest at 20c and lagered for 6 weeks at 0.5c. Bottled it just before Christmas. Still tastes green without much flavour. I won't be doing a lager again for a while, cause it takes up my fermenting fridge for too long.

If I was doing it again, i'd steep some grain and some saaz for half hour to an hour before boiling, cooling and topping up to about 19L.

I reckon you should really treat it like a kit... If you want more freshness/ flavour do as above.


----------



## WSC (11/2/10)

argon said:


> I've got a bottled batch of the pilsner. Fermented with s23 at 13c for 3 weeks in primary, 13c three weeks in secondary. 48hr diacetyl rest at 20c and lagered for 6 weeks at 0.5c. Bottled it just before Christmas. Still tastes green without much flavour. I won't be doing a lager again for a while, cause it takes up my fermenting fridge for too long.
> 
> If I was doing it again, i'd steep some grain and some saaz for half hour to an hour before boiling, cooling and topping up to about 19L.
> 
> I reckon you should really treat it like a kit... If you want more freshness/ flavour do as above.



Thanks for the info, it is for a commercial drinker so I might leave it and see how he likes it.


----------



## WSC (12/3/10)

Finally did this added Hallertau Hops about 15gm, just made a hop tea. Made up to 20l with s-23. It is fermenting in my fridge at 12 degrees. Didn't steep any grain so will see how it goes.

Man this is the easiest way to make beer ever. I had the kit given to me from a mate, took me 15mins including cleaning the fermenter!


----------



## WSC (7/5/10)

WSC said:


> Finally did this added Hallertau Hops about 15gm, just made a hop tea. Made up to 20l with s-23. It is fermenting in my fridge at 12 degrees. Didn't steep any grain so will see how it goes.
> 
> Man this is the easiest way to make beer ever. I had the kit given to me from a mate, took me 15mins including cleaning the fermenter!



I cc'd this and has been in the bottle for a while now.

Pretty happy with the head, the malt profile and it is not too hoppy, it tastes pretty close to a commercial euro malty pilsner. I reckon for the effort required they are good value, bit pricey but good quality. I do get some honey smells/flavour too which is nice.


----------



## Lecterfan (6/8/12)

I have trawled through the various threads, I have searched, I have done everything I would deem reasonable before throwing myself to the mercy of the internet.

I have no time for a brewday, my LHBS has these kits (thus the appropriately titled thread to resurrect), can anyone estimate the IBUs of the Norwest Pale Ale?

I have been told that once diluted they come in at mid 1.040s gravity range, but I was going to add some extra fermentables (as I saw Mckenry had done with some of his FWKs in another thread) and am thinking I might need a mini (in volume and time) boil with some galaxy or nelson to add another 5-10 IBUs and to punch up the fruit salad on top of the mild cascade taste of the kit. I would ideally like a 1.058ish OG, 45ish IBU, heavily hopped (will do most of this dry hopped) resinous APA.

So, any guess on the bitterness of the Norwest Pale ale?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## humulus (6/8/12)

Mate definately hop it up from what i can remember they need more hops to be up to style if you can say that!!!


----------



## Lecterfan (6/8/12)

Cheers. I'll take a gravity reading of it undiluted and then whip up 5 litres of bits and pieces to get it up in the range that I want. Then dry hop it to buggery with cascade and galaxy.


----------



## mckenry (6/8/12)

Lecterfan said:


> I have trawled through the various threads, I have searched, I have done everything I would deem reasonable before throwing myself to the mercy of the internet.
> 
> I have no time for a brewday, my LHBS has these kits (thus the appropriately titled thread to resurrect), can anyone estimate the IBUs of the Norwest Pale Ale?
> 
> ...



Yep, one of my favourite fast keg fillers. Havent used one for years since going double batches though. At a guess for IBU, i reckon they were about 35 diluted, so adding your 5-10 IBU with extra gravity will be very nice.
Let us know.


----------



## popmedium (6/8/12)

Yeah def dry hop. You'd dry hop a APA anyway. Smash it with Galaxy 

Joel


----------



## Lecterfan (7/8/12)

For anyone keeping track: the norwest pale ale kit at 15 litres is OG 1.060. I've made a 6 litre 1.045 wort bittered to around 78 IBU (50 gms %14 galaxy and 60 gms %6 cascade for 5 mins), this has got me a 1.056 wort of questionable IBU (as I haven't found the calculation for the math, but I can handle the bitterness - 1:1 suits my tastes if it is that drastic - and I intuitively think it will still be drinkable down to a medium /40ish IBUs as long as my attenuation is ok). Pitched a few scoops of fresh, first gen wy1272 yeast cake, sitting in the fridge with temp mate at 19c. Going to dry hop with cascade and galaxy in a few days (the remaining amounts to get to 100 gms of each). 

I will report back on how this little experiment goes. While I really hope it makes a super drinkable beer I don't want it to be in the same ball park as my AG efforts hahaha (given that this took all of 45 minutes to do).


----------



## alcoadam (7/8/12)

Lecterfan said:


> For anyone keeping track: the norwest pale ale kit at 15 litres is OG 1.060. I've made a 6 litre 1.045 wort bittered to around 78 IBU (50 gms %14 galaxy and 60 gms %6 cascade for 5 mins), this has got me a 1.056 wort of questionable IBU (as I haven't found the calculation for the math, but I can handle the bitterness - 1:1 suits my tastes if it is that drastic - and I intuitively think it will still be drinkable down to a medium /40ish IBUs as long as my attenuation is ok). Pitched a few scoops of fresh, first gen wy1272 yeast cake, sitting in the fridge with temp mate at 19c. Going to dry hop with cascade and galaxy in a few days (the remaining amounts to get to 100 gms of each).
> 
> I will report back on how this little experiment goes. While I really hope it makes a super drinkable beer I don't want it to be in the same ball park as my AG efforts hahaha (given that this took all of 45 minutes to do).



The Norwest is my favourite from this brewer. 

For a rich malty finish I make it to 18L and finish it off with around 20g of cascade (post fermentation). I've left the finishing hops sit for up to 2 weeks....I love it, makes a Guinness taste like water :icon_drool2:


----------



## Lecterfan (13/9/12)

Bottled this recently (see my post a few replies back for the process I did). It is as cloudy as chicken soup.

I have not done a kit/extract type brew for a long time...I had a 6L wort at 1.045 using light dry extract. The beer had over 100gms hop material dumped in at 5 minutes, most of which went into the fermenter also, the boil went for 15 minutes, was then chilled, poured into the fermenter with the FWK, wy1272 at 19c for a week, dry hopped with 50gms galaxy, then raised to 21c for a week just to finish it off etc. Cold conditioned for two weeks, bottled, sitting at room temp as cloudy as anything (if it was one one of my AG beers I'd be concerned that I messed up somewhere).

Why is it so cloudy? It's not just hop resin as I still generally get pretty clear beers with double the hop quantity I used for this (even accounting for the fact that it already had been hopped as a FWK). The taste doesn't indicate anything wrong (although I should have bittered it more for my palate).

Part of me wants to think I did not do a long enough boil with the LDME to precipitate break etc etc, but I'm not sure if that is an AG hangup or not...surely out of the thousands of people on here using LDME in conjunction with kits and FWKs they can't all be doing extended boils etc etc...and surely they aren't all drinking soupy looking beer???

An odd, slightly reassuring feeling, that my first non-AG beer in many years has proven itself problematic.


----------



## mwd (15/9/12)

Could try gelatine. I do kits and bits and don't do long boils and find gelatine works for me.


----------



## Lecterfan (15/9/12)

Cheers, but it's already bottled.

There must be something in the process; I don't gelatine or filter any of my AG beers and they are generally much clearer than this turned out. I used to remember my kit beers being consistently being very clear (clear, not 'bright') with no effort/intention...

Admittedly the racking for bulk priming stirred up a bit of of the 'trub' that had formed from cold conditioning and they are a bit clearer in the bottles than they were on the day, but it seems odd.

Anyway, I'm not losing sleep over it... I have another 'kits and bits' fermenting at the moment and about to do a G+G artisan ale 2 this arvo. In 9 days (and counting) I have scheduled a day for a glorious return to my keggle to knock out another AG, and then will hopefully squeeze in one more during the study break...and then probably nothing until November.

Very glad I chose a return to kits and to experiment with FWKs in the meantime though!


----------



## petesbrew (28/10/12)

I've got a ND Five Malts Amber Ale brewing with WLP013 London Ale yeast.
I just had a taste of the hydrometer sample (1014, about finished) and 
It tastes like jersey caramels. so delicious!
:icon_drunk: :icon_drool2:


----------



## contrarian (18/1/13)

Am getting back into brewing after a reasonable hiatus and thought putting one of these down would be a good way to make a start and get a cube for my planned BIAB no chill set up. Given it is 45 degrees here today the summer ale looked tempting but I have no idea what a good yeast to use with this wort would be. Any suggestions?


----------



## donburke (18/1/13)

contrarian said:


> Am getting back into brewing after a reasonable hiatus and thought putting one of these down would be a good way to make a start and get a cube for my planned BIAB no chill set up. Given it is 45 degrees here today the summer ale looked tempting but I have no idea what a good yeast to use with this wort would be. Any suggestions?


us05 should do well, or wy1272 if you want a little more complexity

might want to dry hop it with 20g of your favourite fruity hop


----------



## stux (21/1/13)

I use these cubes for 60L batches (4x15), but I wouldn't recommend them for single batches. They're just too small.

You either want to get a 20L cube cube, or the willow 20L water jerrys, as they each hold about 23L which will get you a nice 20-21L in your fermenter.... which is a perect keg filler


----------

