Candian Blonde

[dougy2010]

I start my first brew last weekend.

It's a coopers candian blonde. was going to try the strawberry blonde but the 3 supermarkets and 2 health food stores I checked didnt have any strawberry clover jam.

So I made it as per the instructions using 1kg of brew enhancer No. 1 and made up to 23L

I measured only 1.034 but have read this may have been because I didn't mix it so good....

does this mean its a low alcohol beer? can anybody tell me what the intial reading should have been if mexed properly and if this is a low alcohol beer?

 

[Lodan]

Hi Dougy,

Welcome to your future obsession!

BE1 is a mix of dextrose and maltodextrin (75:25). Dextrose is almost completely fermentable whereas only a percentage of MD is.
My calcs using Ian's spreadsheet indicate that the SG should be about 1039.

Two things could affect your SG reading. The 1st, as you suggested, is that the wort may not have been completely mixed. Depending on how you took your sample for the hydrometer measurement, you may have more water in the sample than dissolved sugars in a more homogenous mix.

The 2nd is the temperature that you take your hydrometer reading at. My hydrometer is calibrated at 20degC, meaning that it reads 1000 at 20degC
If you measure at a higher or lower temperature you will need to correct your reading.

Considering the ingredients i think you will still have a full strength beer.

Lodan

Edit:
for further details

BE1 info taken from article http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...;showarticle=16
Ian's helpful spreadsheet http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...st&p=644029

 

[DU99]

mate its full strength i have made the same brew,recommend leave it for six weeks before drinking..

 

[dougy2010]

It's good to know the difference between the 2 coopers brew enhancers, thanks. 6 weeks is going to feel sooo long. With any luck I will have a keg system setup and flowing before then

Carlton Natural Blonde is my favorite beer. Compared to every other blonde beer I have tried, it is less bitter and has what I used to refer to as a Vegemite taste. Having done a lot of reading the last week, I'm confident the bitterness in the other beers is caused by more hops and I'm guessing the Vegemite flavor is malt?

If that's the case then it would lead me to suspect the Coopers Brew Enhancer No.2 will produce a beer closer to what I am looking for.

Can anybody say how bitter this kit is? Is there an easier way to reduce bitterness than boiling? I don't really want to have to make up a wort cooler just yet....

And my next problem!
Because I will be using 19L kegs, I will reduce the batches to 20ish liters which I read will improve the overall beer too. That should increase alcohol content slightly, but I'm still going to lose the 0.5% that gets calculated in for natural carbonating. Now I'm guessing that by using a mix of Dextrose & Maltodextrin I am going to end up with less alcohol if I still use the same 1kg because the guide says that only 50% of the malt is fermentable? so.... my question, should I add more fermentables to get the result I'm looking for.

What do mean future obsession. I'm sitting at my computer at 5:30am asking these questions before my head explodes :lol:

 

[steve78]

It's good to know the difference between the 2 coopers brew enhancers, thanks. 6 weeks is going to feel sooo long. With any luck I will have a keg system setup and flowing before then

Carlton Natural Blonde is my favorite beer. Compared to every other blonde beer I have tried, it is less bitter and has what I used to refer to as a Vegemite taste. Having done a lot of reading the last week, I'm confident the bitterness in the other beers is caused by more hops and I'm guessing the Vegemite flavor is malt?

If that's the case then it would lead me to suspect the Coopers Brew Enhancer No.2 will produce a beer closer to what I am looking for.

Can anybody say how bitter this kit is? Is there an easier way to reduce bitterness than boiling? I don't really want to have to make up a wort cooler just yet....

And my next problem!
Because I will be using 19L kegs, I will reduce the batches to 20ish liters which I read will improve the overall beer too. That should increase alcohol content slightly, but I'm still going to lose the 0.5% that gets calculated in for natural carbonating. Now I'm guessing that by using a mix of Dextrose & Maltodextrin I am going to end up with less alcohol if I still use the same 1kg because the guide says that only 50% of the malt is fermentable? so.... my question, should I add more fermentables to get the result I'm looking for.

What do mean future obsession. I'm sitting at my computer at 5:30am asking these questions before my head explodes :lol:

If you want more alcohol, you can always boost it up with Dextrose, be careful not to use too much, otherwise you may get a slight soapy/washing water taste (hard to describe unless u taste it), and may take a lot of the flavour from the kit, which is a nice kit. You could always add a few hundred grams of malt and dext. Check the Kit&Kilo spreadsheet and play around with your target %ages. It'll come out full strength anyway as you've made it, and well within the strength for that style of beer.

Obsession is no doubt about the brewing man.....

 

[zabond]

canadian blonde has a IBU of 22.83 same as coops draught lower IBU's coops lager 21.2 mex cerv 16.3 pale ale 18.48

 

[eddy401]

click the link Lodan posted the "ians helpful spreadsheet" - on the second sheet called 'kits' (on the tab down the bottom) is a list of many different kits with their IBU ratings there, obviously the lower the IBU the less bitter. I found its a useful spreadsheet just for that page because i prefer less bitter beers so i can buy less bitter kits, im still getting the hang of the rest of the spreadsheet though :icon_cheers:

 

[daveHQ]

G'day mate, i made this kit a while back, i too couldn't find the strawberry honey, so i used white clover honey instead (product of new zealand)

after a few weeks in the bottle it was fairly average so it got forgotten about for a few months, after a few months it was bloody lovely

it's one of my best brews so far, my wife is a big fan of it so it's now on the tobrew list

 

[Nick JD]

Chuck 400g of dextrose and a can of mixed berries in there!