A Few Newbie Brewing Questions

[SpuddyMcSpud]

G'day everyone,

I've only been brewing for a few weeks now and just wanted to check a few things with the resident experts before I do my third brew. Prolly all stupidly simple things but there's so much conflicting info on the 'net I figured it'd be worth asking...

Firstly, my first brew of Cooper's Lager (which has only been in the bottle for 12 days) tastes quite sweet. I've read that this is a result of the yeast not fermenting out all the sugar - will that improve if I leave the bottles for another few weeks or am I stuck with it? My brewing method was fairly stock-standard for K&K. Notes from my brew log below:

Heated can in boiling pot until warm. 2 litres of water were boiled, sugar was then added, stirred in, then poured into sterilised fermenter. Added lager mix, stirred thoroughly then added ~21 litres of cold water. Temperature was ~21 degrees. Sprinkled yeast over the top, then sealed the fermenter. Was kept wrapped in towels in a small heated bathroom. Tempurature stayed in the low 20s for the entire fermentation stage. Bottles were already sterilised, but were washed with warm water. After bottling, beer was stored in a dark cupboard with little/no heating or cooling.

I've learned since then that lagers should be fermented at lower tempuatures, and that just dumping the yeast on top of the wort isn't ideal. Which, handily enough, leads me on to my other question... queue the segue music...

I'm planning on slowly making more complicated beers, so for the time being I'm sticking with K&K. So what would you recommend:

1. Using Grumpy's Masterbrews (the shop's less than 5 minutes away)
2. Sticking with the cheaper Cooper's kits and maybe using a better yeast
3. Invade Poland
4. None of the above

OK, this is getting a bit long for a first post. Hopefully someone managed to read the whole way through - I'm really enjoying the brewing experience and it'd be great to get some good info!

cheers, :beer:
Spud

 

[braufrau]

Firstly, my first brew of Cooper's Lager (which has only been in the bottle for 12 days) tastes quite sweet. I've read that this is a result of the yeast not fermenting out all the sugar - will that improve if I leave the bottles for another few weeks or am I stuck with it? My brewing method was fairly stock-standard for K&K. Notes from my brew log below:

You don't say how long the fermentation was or what the final gravity was so its hard
to know if the sweetness if from the bottling sugar or the primary fermentation not being finished.
If its the latter, then you may have made bottle bombs.
If the former, then you just need to let them sit longer. 12 days is too soon to drink it anyway. Let
is sit for 6 - 8 weeks before drinking.

I've learned since then that lagers should be fermented at lower tempuatures, and that just dumping the

Yes, due to the flavours that lager yeast produce at warm Ts. But don't despair because the yeast that
comes with a kit is an ale yeast.

1. Using Grumpy's Masterbrews (the shop's less than 5 minutes away)
2. Sticking with the cheaper Cooper's kits and maybe using a better yeast
3. Invade Poland
4. None of the above

Definitely 1. Because you will get good advice there and they have all you need to take
you through K&K, partials and AG.

OK, this is getting a bit long for a first post. Hopefully someone managed to read the whole way through -

yay! I made it!

 

[mckenry]

G'day everyone,

I've only been brewing for a few weeks now and just wanted to check a few things with the resident experts before I do my third brew. Prolly all stupidly simple things but there's so much conflicting info on the 'net I figured it'd be worth asking...

Hey Spuddy,
Welcome to brewing!
braufrau has covered off your questions nicely.
The best advise for new brewers doing K&K is to forget the yeast under the lid and forget about using sugar. Get yourself some SafLager or SafAle strains of yeast and also pick up some 'Brew Enhancer' type of fermentable. - These are mixtures of (in varying ratios) powdered malt, dextrose and maltodextrin. This will make a far better beer than the can instructions.
From here you can start to experiment with hop additions, liquid yeasts (the best IMO) full malt beers, eventually becoming an all grain brewer, but thats way off.
Just use a good yeast, ferment at recommended temps for the yeast strain, dont use sugar and youve improved from your 1st beer by a country mile, with no extra effort.

 

[Fatgodzilla]

[
1. Using Grumpy's Masterbrews (the shop's less than 5 minutes away)
2. Sticking with the cheaper Cooper's kits and maybe using a better yeast
3. Invade Poland
4. None of the above


1.Use Grumpys - free advice for the cost of their quality products. A few members swear by then, some swear at them but their Masterbrews are easy to work with.
2. Coopers Kits .. you'll soon learn to live without them. I just find the results flucuate too much - maybe it's the age of the ingredients or maybe mass production means a poorer quality, but as the Stones sang, I Can't Get No Satisfaction. I get real good brews - the current Pale Ale is clearly the best beer I've made in ages, but an earlier (like 2 weeks) brew borders on hopeless. I reckon I do the same things (used same additives and yeast) and get a different result, so I'm leaning away from their kits. I do use their unhopped malts though, adding my own hop selections and specialist grains / malts which gives me more decisision making and better beer and its the logical step between K&K and AG. Again, use Grumpys brains (and try their Masterbrews) - for answers.
3. Invade Poland - nah, been done before. And before. And Before. Reminds me of Bette Midler's quote " Everynight I dress as Poland and my husband dresses as Germany and he invades me"
4. Pay atttention to all the little things - proper sterilization (and you can over sterilize !!) do not allow too much slashing of the wort after fermentation when bottling, always have a bottle of something good in the fridge for when failures happen etc.

Good luck and try to find DrSmurto who lives near you. Clever bloke except for his choice of footie teams.

 

[SpuddyMcSpud]

You don't say how long the fermentation was or what the final gravity was so its hard
to know if the sweetness if from the bottling sugar or the primary fermentation not being finished.
If its the latter, then you may have made bottle bombs.
If the former, then you just need to let them sit longer. 12 days is too soon to drink it anyway. Let
is sit for 6 - 8 weeks before drinking.

I had it fermenting for 5 days, but didn't take gravity readings. I'll do that in future though.
The bottle I opened was a little flat, but the small about of head it had pretty good retention. I knew it was too early to open but I'd run out of beer and dammit that just ain't right.

Yes, due to the flavours that lager yeast produce at warm Ts. But don't despair because the yeast that
comes with a kit is an ale yeast.

I'd read that - seems pretty stupid to me but I guess Coopers figure there's less chance of things going pear shaped with the ale yeast for beginners like me..

Definitely 1. Because you will get good advice there and they have all you need to take you through K&K, partials and AG.

Eeexcellent, seems like a good way to get into things. I bloody love spending a saturday afternoon at Grumpys knocking back a few of their beers on tap so it's a win-win for me.

yay! I made it!

Congratulations and thanks for your advice - appreciated!

 

[SpuddyMcSpud]

Cheers Fatgodzilla and mckenry for your info too - I think I'll give Grumpy's a go. Although by the sounds of things some people around here don't like them??

As for DrSmurto and the Crows, well I guess you can't account for everyone's tastes. One positive thing for them I s'pose is having more free time on September weekends for brewing. Me, I'll be firmly in front of the TV on Saturday arvo to watch Ports rip through the 'roos...

 

[0M39A]

Cheers Fatgodzilla and mckenry for your info too - I think I'll give Grumpy's a go. Although by the sounds of things some people around here don't like them??

As for DrSmurto and the Crows, well I guess you can't account for everyone's tastes. One positive thing for them I s'pose is having more free time on September weekends for brewing. Me, I'll be firmly in front of the TV on Saturday arvo to watch Ports rip through the 'roos...

fermening for only 5 days without taking any gravity readings is pretty risky imo. you should never bottle until you have taken at least 2 gravity readings within 24 hours of each other that are identical. you may potentially have some bottle bombs or gushers.

anyway, you live, you learn.

as for some advice? get into grumpies and give some of their gear a whirl. from what i hear they have great friendly staff in there that should be able to sort you out quick smart.

if you want to stick to coopers kits (or whatever else brand) for a bit, here are a few tips:

get some decent yeast (safale s-05, us-05 or danstar nottingham are all good dried yeats)
dont ever use sugar. grab some malt extract.
keep your temperature at 18C-20C. your beer will be so much better for it
get your sanitizing regime down pat. my method is cleaning everything with sodium percarbonate (no name nappysan) and then spray everything with brewcraft brewshield no rinse sanitiser (hydrogen peroxide & silver ions)

 

[SpuddyMcSpud]

Popped into Grumpy's this arvo and got two lots of the Masterbrew Boston Cream Ale and some Safale US-56. They didn't have any of the hopped extracts, so I've done one brew with Cooper's Pale and the other with Cooper's Lager. Hopefully they'll cut the mustard.

The methods used are a bit more work than I would have liked, next time I'll try not to be so hung over. Still a fairly simple process, so I hope the beer turns out great. I'm a bit worried that one of the packets of yeast was a bit crap; when I rehydreated there was a fair bit of it sitting on the bottom of the glass, but the rest had swollen so I'll wait and see.

Thanks again for all the advice - really appreciated.