Hail The Mighty Coopers Ale Yeast

[Bribie G]

About 3 months ago I brewed an Aussie Dark (Old) for a mini comp using Nottingham and it got infected and tipped. I figured I still had a window so brewed another batch and with no possibility of getting another yeast (coming up to weekend) I pitched a pack of Coopers kit ale yeast. The beer turned out really well and got a good nod in the comp but was judged a nice clean quaffing old but needed more malt (my bad I used pilsener malt, a low mash temp and a fair amount of sugaz because I wanted clean and dry but went overboard).

This time around I have upped the malt considerably (BB Ale, Munich, more Choc, more Carafa) but decided to stick with the pack yeast because IMHO it's perfect for this style.


I rehydrated and pitched two of the goldies from under the lids of some Coopers stout cans I bought on special, at about 24 degrees and packed 2L frozen PETs around and lagged with doonah to bring down to 18 or below. Got home from work midnight and it was spewing out of the airlock. Checked the temp, it was 17. I cleaned up the mess and whacked into the lagering fridge and got it down to 12 by this morning. The airlock was still going ballistic but the foam was well below the lid so I brought it back out to be lagged with a couple of 2L PETs, this morning.

Checked it just now and the krausen is almost back up to the bottom of the lid and has actually 'smudged' the lid in a couple of places but not coming out of airlock yet. Temp sitting on 14
I've packed extra frozen PET's around and will check at midnight, may have to put it back in the lagering fridge. Airlock blooping 3 times a second.


Well there we go, good old kit ale yeast going ballistic at lagering temperatures. The point is that in the newbie threads the common wisdom for 'my airlock has stopped bubbling' is the reply 'oh, ale yeasts conk out at 16 degrees so get a heat belt or use a cooler fermenting yeast."

Mate this one is still trying to claw its way out of the airlock at near-lager temps.

Impressed

 

[manticle]

The more I learn the more I see the dogma surrounding certain ideas without any attempt to understand that they are a rule of thumb only and with knowledge and experience, guidelines can always be bent and twisted to shape.

A great example is the 18 -20 rule (a good rule of thumb for sure) being irrelevant to some types of dubbel or saisons.

As far as I can work out the main problems with kit yeasts possibly stem from the tendency to underpitch (7 g might be too little), the freshness of the yeast and how it's been stored (under the lid and on the shelf) and (most importantly) the treament by most people who don't know what they're doing beyond the badly worded instructions under the lid.

The strains themselves are probably quite sturdy if they have the range suggested by the kit and can chew through wort in such small amounts.

Good to see you playing around with subverting mantras.

 

[Bribie G]

Regarding the pitching rates, exactement, that's why I popped two packs in to emulate the 11g that you get with Notto, US-05 whatever. It has always struck me that the cost of the yeast to the kit makers is probably fairly minor in their scheme of things and I wonder if the 7g packs are designed to avoid wild fermentations? Seeing as many K n K brewers are probably fermenting over 20 degrees. Yeasts such as US 05, S 04 etc tend to be used by brewers who have grasped the essentials, including temperature control and can safely be sold in 11 gram packets or bigger so Fermentis et al don't have to cater for inexperienced brewers to the same extent as the kit makers and their yeasts.

 

[Adamt]

How are you measuring these quoted temperatures?

 

[Bribie G]

How are you measuring these quoted temperatures?

http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=2778

In practice you don't just point and shoot once (from about 30 cm away) you do three or four hits and they seem to stabilise out to a fairly accurate mean temp of the readings. And with zapping the outside of a fermenter I always let the fermenter stabilise out for around 12 hours in the fridge or wherever so that the outside of the container is representative of the temp of what's inside it. I've double checked in the past by briefly putting my probe therm in at the same time as sucking out hydro samples and the infra red thermo is usually on the money within a couple of degrees.

 

[Adamt]

Ahh... If there's active fermentation and you are cooling externally your fermenter will be a couple of degrees cooler than the actual beer.

I'm not trying to quash this, but your "14" (as measured by the infrared which you said is usually within a couple of degrees) could easily be 16, or higher.

 

[3G]

Fermenting a CAP ATM and fridge is set to 8 degrees. the wort is fermenting but at around 12 degrees, fair amount of difference between temp around the beer and temp of the fermenting wort.

 

[Bribie G]

Good point, Adam, will sterilize my probe h34r: and check.

(sounds of footsteps and activity)

Yup despite packing with frozen PETs and sleeping bag that's not holding it because it's now out through the airlock again, the infra red thermo now reads 15.1 and the probe into the beer says 15.4 so not too much varience, and it looks like the exothermic fermentation has pushed up from 14 in the last couple of hours.




Back into the lagering fridge :huh: and get it down to about 11.

That was a good exercise though, calibrating the temps. And this is the coldest time of the year in SEQ .... FFS and here I have brews wrapped in doonahs with iceblocks Hats off to FNQ and Territory brewers, hey (not forgetting Broome)

 

[MattC]

Hey bribie, out of curiousity, what did u do with the stout cans u got on special? Did u just buy them for the yeast? Kind of a "in case of emergency brake glass" situation?

 

[buttersd70]

exactement,

C'est une petit peu de pretention, n'est pas? h34r:

:lol:

 

[Bribie G]

Hey bribie, out of curiousity, what did u do with the stout cans u got on special? Did u just buy them for the yeast? Kind of a "in case of emergency brake glass" situation?

I did a partial with one and got third in the stouts and porters in the club comp, done another partial and putting it in likewise in the state comps and have done my n**ga juice toucan with a kilo of dex, kilo of LDME and a handful of Styrian Goldings and entering it as an Imperial Russian. B) Had a bottle tonight and nearly passed out. Woohoo. :beerbang:

C'est une petit peu de pretention, n'est pas? h34r:

:lol:

Moi? pas possible !

 

[O'Henry]

Ahh... If there's active fermentation and you are cooling externally your fermenter will be a couple of degrees cooler than the actual beer.

I'm not trying to quash this, but your "14" (as measured by the infrared which you said is usually within a couple of degrees) could easily be 16, or higher.

So are you saying that the crappy strip I have stuck on my fermentor is not the real temp, it is actually a few degrees higher? So 15 is 18 and 19 is 22?

 

[Nick JD]

I had a good look at some Coopers yeast once (can't remember what kit it came with now) and it looked like two types of yeast. One was a fatter dried plug than the other and they were slightly different colours...

Does Coopers mix lager and ale yeasts in the one pack?

 

[buttersd70]

Does Coopers mix lager and ale yeasts in the one pack?

For some of their kits, yes. Can't remember which ones though...there was a post (I think it was in one of the EuroLager threads) where it was listed which kits were lager, which were ale, and which were hybrids.

 

[Bribie G]

[quote name='O'Henry' post='506363' date='Aug 17 2009, 01:49 AM']So are you saying that the crappy strip I have stuck on my fermentor is not the real temp, it is actually a few degrees higher? So 15 is 18 and 19 is 22?[/quote]

I've found that the stick on thermometers give an approximate range, and tend to 'wander off' as they get older and blasted by hot water during cleaning etc. For accurate temperature control you can't have too many thermometers. Many guys use a good glass thermo sitting in a jar of water in the fridge, others use a probe thermometer when taking a hydrometer sample etc. Really as long as you realise that the beer can heat up a couple of degrees by itself during the first part of fermentation and you don't want it to get above 20 in the case of ales, the difference in temp between the outside of the fermenter and the beer inside isn't a big issue. Once the first vigorous fermentation has passed, the beer will settle down to almost whatever the ambient temperature is surrounding it, maybe generating up to an extra degree in my experience.

ATM the Dark Ale is sharing a doonah with a Yorkshire Bitter that has been going for about six days. The dark (outside of fermenter) is 17 and the Yorkie is just over 16.

 

[Adamt]

For some of their kits, yes. Can't remember which ones though...there was a post (I think it was in one of the EuroLager threads) where it was listed which kits were lager, which were ale, and which were hybrids.

I'm pretty sure that was my post (I have the info written down anyway), if I remember this evening I'll put the info up in the Wiki somewhere.

 

[Nick JD]

For some of their kits, yes. Can't remember which ones though...there was a post (I think it was in one of the EuroLager threads) where it was listed which kits were lager, which were ale, and which were hybrids.

Heritage Lager - pretty sure now. I used the yeast on an extract brew - it came out okay. Won't use it again though - good for emergencies.

 

[phonos]

I had a good look at some Coopers yeast once (can't remember what kit it came with now) and it looked like two types of yeast. One was a fatter dried plug than the other and they were slightly different colours...

Does Coopers mix lager and ale yeasts in the one pack?

I'm pretty sure the Mexican cerveza yeast is a mixture

 

[Bribie G]

These are from under the lid of stout kits. The brew has just about stopped fermenting now and the krausen is settling right down. I'll do a hydro check tomorrow and taste it, smells a bit fruity unfortunately. There's still time to do another batch for the comp if this one is going to turn out just a quaffer. I now have carved onto my forehead "Do not pitch at over 20, Do not pitch at over 20" :huh:

 

[mauriceatron]

Hi Bribie,

You know, I tried to make the exact same argument as you not long ago in a thread which was questioning the quality of kit yeast.

Whilst yeast quality is important and we all wish we could get fresh liquid yeast, but using kit or HBS bought dried yeast, the most important things are proper re-hydration and keeping ferment temperatures under control (stable most importantly). I don't want to point to fingers at people because I blamed kits and yeast for not giving me the best beer for my $10 when I was starting out but the real work in any beer happens in the fermentation.

Cooper's cheapo ale yeast can go as low as 11C in my experience as long as the temperature is stable and it has been properly re-hydrated (ie sanitary water, no added sugar whilst re-hydrating, and no f%$king stirring).

The funny thing is that the smarter that you get as a brewer and the more complex (ie now that I can do all grain), the more you realise how perhaps complex and challenging the kits are to get right. When you do, they can taste as good as an all grain. And, dare I say it, the more you want to laugh at the guys who's only suggestion to K&B brewers to who post wanting to improve the quality of their beer is: "go all grain"; you know that their all grain isn't as good as what a great K&B brewer can produce.

Opps, sorry. Bit off topic. Been drinking red wine at dinner tonight as we had a family do.

Agree with your original post. I love the Coopers yeast whether it's from the bottle or from a beer kit. It's a versatile goer. I wouldn't worry too much about the fruity-ness. Let it settle out, be patient and the yeast can clean that smell up.

Finally: Never Pitch Over 20C!!!! You can cool it quickly in a water bath rather than let it sit around waiting to cool before pitching.

Damn red wine. I'm still ranting.

Cheers!
Simon