Coopers Blonde = Low Og?

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iralosavic

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Just made my second Coopers Canadian Blonde.


1st: 23L Volume. Made using packet instructions.
1xCoopers 1.7kg CB tin + 1kg BE1
Enclosed yeast Pitched at 28c
Fermented at 19c for 5 days then 21c for remainder.
OG 1.036 @ 28c = 1.039
FG 1.012 after 15 days, with a rouse after 5 days.

2nd: 21L Volume. Made with a 6L boil with 600g LMDE and a Amarillo flavour/aroma hopping schedule, with remaining ingredients stirred in afterwards.
1xCoopers 1.7kg CB tin +600g LDME +500g Dextrose
Enclosed yeast Pitched at 20c
OG 1.036 @ 20c = 1.037
Currently fermenting at 21c


I expected the second recipe to result in a higher OG, considering it involved both more fermentables AND a less diluted volume. Am I missing something?

I don't expect this yeast to get this wort to below 1.010, even under controlled, static temperatures. Is 3.5%ABV a normal expectation for this beer?



Cheers
 
Just made my second Coopers Canadian Blonde.


1st: 23L Volume. Made using packet instructions.
1xCoopers 1.7kg CB tin + 1kg BE1
Enclosed yeast Pitched at 28c
Fermented at 19c for 5 days then 21c for remainder.
OG 1.036 @ 28c = 1.039
FG 1.012 after 15 days, with a rouse after 5 days.

2nd: 21L Volume. Made with a 6L boil with 600g LMDE and a Amarillo flavour/aroma hopping schedule, with remaining ingredients stirred in afterwards.
1xCoopers 1.7kg CB tin +600g LDME +500g Dextrose
Enclosed yeast Pitched at 20c
OG 1.036 @ 20c = 1.037
Currently fermenting at 21c


I expected the second recipe to result in a higher OG, considering it involved both more fermentables AND a less diluted volume. Am I missing something?

I don't expect this yeast to get this wort to below 1.010, even under controlled, static temperatures. Is 3.5%ABV a normal expectation for this beer?



Cheers

2 things have come to mind.

Firstly i think for one reason or another that your kit/LDME/Dex was not mixed properly and you have drawn a diluted sample that has given you a reading that is not accurate.

Secondly how accurate is your hydrometer, have you calibrated it recently?

With the ingredients listed i would have expected that you brew should have an OG od 1.050 and FG of around 1.010 as you have stated, i believe this batch will have an abv of around 4.6% bottled.
 
2 things have come to mind.

Firstly i think for one reason or another that your kit/LDME/Dex was not mixed properly and you have drawn a diluted sample that has given you a reading that is not accurate.

Secondly how accurate is your hydrometer, have you calibrated it recently?

With the ingredients listed i would have expected that you brew should have an OG od 1.050 and FG of around 1.010 as you have stated, i believe this batch will have an abv of around 4.6% bottled.

Actually, now that you mention it, I did use a hydrometer that I didn't calibrate. Just saw it there in my wife's acquarium stuff and thought I'd use that instead as it was a fair bit shorter, so I needed less of a sample. I will test it and make a correction if applicable.

You're probably on the money regarding taking a diluted sample. The dextrose and syrup was added post boil - although the wort was still very hot, so I thought it would mix ok. I should also mention that the wort was refrigerated for a couple of days prior to being pitched and a poriton of it did freeze too. I did, however, give it a very thorough mix when aerating it by shaking the crap out of the cube and letting it splash a lot when transferring to the fermenter.

The "Kit and extract beer designer" says I should have an OG of 1.048. The hydrometer wouldn't be out by more than a couple of points. So should I just base my OG on the calculators instead of my (most likely) diluted sample reading?

I'm going to force carbonate this one in a keg. The 1st one is naturally carbing in the keg as we speak.
 
Mate I have had simmilar issues the last couple of brews i did with the brew being way over it and it was just a case of wort not being mixed properly. I am really unsure what the implications of having a partially frozen wort be if it was just water or malt extract aswell, but after a few day i woulod have thought it would have settled and mixed thoughly. Hope it works out for you.

Jan
 
I should also mention that the wort was refrigerated for a couple of days prior to being pitched and a poriton of it did freeze too. I did, however, give it a very thorough mix when aerating it by shaking the crap out of the cube and letting it splash a lot when transferring to the fermenter.
Just curious but why are you cubing a kit beer? Especially one that only included a 6L boil?
 
... dextrose and syrup was added post boil - although the wort was still very hot, so I thought it would mix ok. I should also mention that the wort was refrigerated for a couple of days prior to being pitched and a poriton of it did freeze too. I did, however, give it a very thorough mix when aerating it by shaking the crap out of the cube and letting it splash a lot when transferring to the fermenter.

Sounds like youre trying to do AG processes with K&K recipes. Could be wrong, but thats how it reads.....
 
Jan: freezing a wort (pre-yeast) won't cause any dramas. I just had to wait longer for it to melt and reach pitching temps. - Of course, the partial freeze it could have caused some of the sugars to un-mix, giving me the off OG reading, but I think it's probably more due to the syrup not diluting properly.

The reasons behind cubing the wort are quite a few bizzare coencidences strung together haha In summary though, I made the second wort expecting that the finished brew occupying the fermenter would be kegged by my brewery assistant meanwhile. That ended up not being possible for reasons I won't bore you with. I had to wait a few days before I could free up the fermenter in the end, so I just sealed and refrigerated the wort until I was able to keg the first batch. I have a 1 year old baby, so I was trying to make full use of the free time I had, as it is quite rare!

Yeah I guess the second one was going through some what of an AG process. I'm about half way through completing my e-keggle build ready for BIABing and I have a couple of bags of pre-milled and mixed grains ready to go. I knew I'd have surpless Amarillo after all the grains are used, so I figured I'd see what difference it made to the Blonde kit I had lying around.
 
The reasons behind cubing the wort are quite a few bizzare coencidences strung together haha In summary though, I made the second wort expecting that the finished brew occupying the fermenter would be kegged by my brewery assistant meanwhile. That ended up not being possible for reasons I won't bore you with. I had to wait a few days before I could free up the fermenter in the end, so I just sealed and refrigerated the wort until I was able to keg the first batch. I have a 1 year old baby, so I was trying to make full use of the free time I had, as it is quite rare!

Yeah but its only a 30min process to put together a recipe. Dont understand why you didnt just wait until the fermenter was available, because by putting it into a cube at the temp it would have gone in at, will greatly increase your chances of something going wrong, and if it does, youve just wasted all your time. Or get another fermenter. Most plastics places will sell them for between $10 and $20.

I understand cubing wort because im an all grain brewer who no chills, but to cube a kit recipe is actually taking more time, whilst introducing a potential infection risk all at the same time.
 
Yeah but its only a 30min process to put together a recipe. Dont understand why you didnt just wait until the fermenter was available, because by putting it into a cube at the temp it would have gone in at, will greatly increase your chances of something going wrong, and if it does, youve just wasted all your time. Or get another fermenter. Most plastics places will sell them for between $10 and $20.

I understand cubing wort because im an all grain brewer who no chills, but to cube a kit recipe is actually taking more time, whilst introducing a potential infection risk all at the same time.

I hear you, mate. I didn't want to have to cube it and I appreciate the KISS prinicpal, especially when it comes to minimising risk of infection. Making the kit beer did literally take me 30 minutes, which was how long it should have taken the finished beer to be kegged and the fermenter cleaned, which was supposed to be happening simultaneously. Bizzare circumstances, like I said :p

I actually have a second fermenter. It's a 23L glass carboy. That was plan B. The plot thickens. Somehow all my funnels and ALL 8mm hose had gone missing, so I was unable to operate the siphon, which I needed to drain the carboy of sanitiser solution. I was not able to lift it due to a rotator cuff injury and I didn't want to tip it, for the risk of smashing it. So plan B was no longer possible. Believe me, I won't get caught out like this again. It was a crazy chain of events, mostly a result of poor organisation. All a part of refining my processes ready for moving to AG brewing. I wouldn't care much if I lost a kit brew, but I won't be impressed if I screw up an AG batch. I have certainly learnt a few things!

One of the reasons my assistant couldn't keg the first beer is because the keg charger, (which we are using until we grab a co2 cylinder in a couple of weeks), bulbs weren't sealing properly when punctured. Turns out they weren't quite suited. The other was that he suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and slipped away to bed without telling me. The list goes on... haha


EDIT: I should add, that I literally only had around 40 minutes spare and I expected it to be the last chance I'd have to get another brew ready for mid-summer.
 
Ahh righto. All cool.

When brewdays go bad hey? I've had my share of 'em believe me :icon_cheers:
 
22/12/2011 - OG: 1.048 @ 21c
28/12/2011 - FG: 1.010. Now @ 0.5c

(Just some notes, as my log is not available atm)
 
photo.JPG

08/01/2012 - siphoned off yeast cake into secondary, set to .5c.
 
View attachment 51543

08/01/2012 - siphoned off yeast cake into secondary, set to .5c.

Bottled 05/02/2012. 19L with 127g dextrose.

Secondary had a yeast cake about half the size as the primary did. The beer was not quite crystal clear, but definitely worthy of being called very clean. I'm crossing my fingers there is enough yeast left in suspension to finish the job off. Two weeks at 22c and we shall see. The taste of the beer is much like JS pale ale, which I had while bottling. I'm guessing that's an amarillo ale too.

Tasting the uncarbonated beer, knowing full well it would be ready to drink in a day or two if I had co2 just strengthened my desire to switch to kegging ASAP. Damn finances just aren't allowing it atm.
 
IMG_2839.jpg


Bulk priming calculations worked out to what my taste believes to be in tune with the co2 units aimed at. So there you have it, 5 weeks lagering in secondary and coopers ale yeast will still carbonate like a dream. I opened a tester bottle on Friday night, 2 days shy of 2 weeks with no dramas. Looks crystal clear and my fellow k&k buddies (who never lager) are shocked that it's home brew.
 
Just back tracking a little (about 2 months but I missed the thread).

You had a spare, clean cube (made from HDPE plastic and designed to hold food grade liquids). You used that to hold one volume of food grade liquid until your other HDPE plastic container was emptied of another volume of food grade liquid so you could fill it with the food grade liquid from the first HDPE container.

Just use the cube as a fermenter. It's a different shape, that's all and that difference does not make any difference.

Cube is a possible fermenting vessel. If you run wort into it, whether kit or AG, you can also add yeast to it and use it as a fermenter.

Hopefully I haven't misunderstood anything - if I have, I apologise.
 
Just back tracking a little (about 2 months but I missed the thread).

You had a spare, clean cube (made from HDPE plastic and designed to hold food grade liquids). You used that to hold one volume of food grade liquid until your other HDPE plastic container was emptied of another volume of food grade liquid so you could fill it with the food grade liquid from the first HDPE container.

Just use the cube as a fermenter. It's a different shape, that's all and that difference does not make any difference.

Cube is a possible fermenting vessel. If you run wort into it, whether kit or AG, you can also add yeast to it and use it as a fermenter.

Hopefully I haven't misunderstood anything - if I have, I apologise.

G'day manticle. Using the cube as a fermenter did not occur to me at the time I started this thread as I'd never heard of it being done before. As you can tell from the later photos, by the time I racked to secondary, I'd heard about the good old glad wrap "airlock" and threw the airlock/bung to the side. I will use my cube as a fermenter in the future if I need to. In fact, if I "no chill", then why not just put the yeast straight in the next day and glad wrap it up? One less thing to sanitise and clean.

The initial issues I had in this thread (disorganisation and bad lucK) evolved into me tossing up between kegging it and holding off until I could purchaes co2/taps or biting the bullet and bottling it. I waited 5 weeks and co2 was still not in my immediate future, so I bottled and hoped for the best. There was a significant amount of yeast trub left behind in both primary and secondary and the beer after 5 weeks was very clear. I went ahead with bottle priming based on advice I received around these forums and I obviously don't regret it.

You've been providing helpful advice in a lot of my threads/posts - really appreciate it, mate. Cheers
 
In fact, if I "no chill", then why not just put the yeast straight in the next day and glad wrap it up? One less thing to sanitise and clean.

I do this almost exclusively except I don't use glad wrap. After adding yeast, cube lid on, tighten, then back off a couple of turns.

Works good, yes it does.
 
I do this almost exclusively except I don't use glad wrap. After adding yeast, cube lid on, tighten, then back off a couple of turns.

Works good, yes it does.

Even easier.


- One question though. At the G&G BIAB demo I attended, the fellas made a point that filling the cube to as close to the brim as possible facilitated the evaculation of oxygen by leaving so little headspace that a knee in the side would get rid of the rest. I'd hate to have to pour wort out for no good reason. Is the expelling of oxygen only necessary for long term storage? My cube fits 3-5L more wort than my usual final volumes, so if oxygen in the headspace is not an issue overnight, then I'm laughing.
 
I may need to write a wiki article on this as I've been asked a lot of times. Yes, fill the cube and squeeze out the air/headspace as described at the demo.

Next day (or whenever you are pitching), unscrew the lid. This will let air in and the liquid line will drop. Add yeast. Even if the level is close to the top you will not have any major issues with krausen. When I have fermented in 30 L fermenters (which are 30 L plus a couple of litres headspace) I have had krausen leak out the airlock or over/under the glad wrap when filled to no more than 25 L. That's fine - clean it up, replace the glad wrap if need be.

When I ferment in 20 L willow jerrys, I fill the cube to at least 20 L, sometimes a touch more, squeeze air out and do as I described when about to pitch (I retighten and shake for a minute or to to aerate first, then loosen lid and add yeast).

Cube is full to within a litre of the lid. I do get some minor krausen leakage (and I mean minor - easily cleaned and less than many of the aforementioned 30 L fermenters. Again, I can easily clean and sanitise around this if and when it happens. I literally usually just spray the area with starsan - pressure from the spray gets rid of most of the gunk and bob's a happy man with several nephews.

Only going to occur the first 2 or 3 days.

It might be the shape of the vessel that encourages less full on leakage, I'm not sure, but it works and you should give it a shot. If it doesn't work for you, you can always go back to pouring into a fermenter.
 
Cube is a possible fermenting vessel.

Manticle, perhaps a stupid question, but how do you clean the cube? With my round vessel I can get my hand in there and give it a good clean before using star san, but the top of a cube is much smaller. Probably a dumb question but needs to be asked.
 
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