Improving Beer Flavoured Water

[junior06]

Hey guys thanks to ross i should have some hops in the mail shortly and plan to do a few more brews, i've still only done a handfull of batches i'm keen to improve further.

My last couple have tasted good but were flat and light bodied.

I'm thinking of doing...

1 coopers real ale
coopers brew enhancer 2
1kg dme
handfull of amarillo

fill to 20L

Now my theory is adding an extra kilo of dme is to add to the body(hopefully i wont get watery beer again??
Also will the supplied yeast be enough for me to ferment out all the fermantables?
I only recently read about aerating wort before pitching i'll try that also.
I really would like a decent bodied brew, how should this go?

Cheers
Andre

 

[barfridge]

Scrap the brew enhancer crap altogether. They contain dextrose (which thins beer), a little malt, and corn syrup (which does a crappy job of trying to add body).

Just use the kit and the DME, if you want extra body fill only to 18 litres or so. And of course hops are fantastic for covering thinness in body, or you could try steeping some darker grains, they will mask it as well.

 

[DrewCarey82]

Dextrose is fine in small qty's and the brew enhancer 2 works great just make sure you fill it to more than 21 litres though, half the amount of DME as well.

 

[Samwise Gamgee]

Scrap the brew enhancer crap altogether. They contain dextrose (which thins beer), a little malt, and corn syrup (which does a crappy job of trying to add body).

Just use the kit and the DME, if you want extra body fill only to 18 litres or so. And of course hops are fantastic for covering thinness in body, or you could try steeping some darker grains, they will mask it as well.

I agree with barfridge, replace the brew enhancer with the dme, that alone shold make a noticable difference.

 

[DrewCarey82]

If your going to do that then you might as well fork out for a can of 1.7 ESB LME.

 

[pint of lager]

Go with Barfridge's suggestion.

For your next brew, have a break from the Coopers kits and have a look at some of the 3kg LME kits.

The ESB 3kg paint tin range, the Country Brewer XTRACT range, or if you are in Adelaide, have a look at the Grumps masterbrew range.

 

[DrewCarey82]

That we can agree on all of the ESB 3kg tins are superb with no effort what so ever.

 

[Stuster]

Or even the ESB Fresh Wort range. :chug:

 

[DrewCarey82]

Never been lazy enough to use one of em but apparently they are premo.

 

[lpa]

Hey dude,

Welcome to the never-ending challenge. Re: is one sachet of sprinkled enough; well, sometimes/usually is the answer. It certainly doesn't hurt to bang two in there and recently I used a massive bread yeast sachet which did a remarkable job eating up all the sugars without tasting bad at all. No, really, and it's even aging nicely. I think the next step would be to buy your yeast seperately for a couple of bucks and even try re-hydrating the buggers , following the instructions on the packet or vist howtobrew.com. It's just mixing the yeast with warm water for a bit before pouring it in. Not as scary as it can sound. Word is this gets more of the yeasts playing for your team. I've done it twice now with no probs - and the beer tasted great. At the very least, allow your sachet to warm up a bit before sprinkling. It's rumoured that yeast don't like going from snow into the spa-pool.

Re: flatness, sometimes the bottle conditioning can take longer than you think. If you you plastic bottles you can pop in a sneaky extra couple of grams of sugar if you want too, without the fear of glass killing the neighbour's cat. And a few days in the fridge before drinking doesn't hurt either.

My beer improved the most when I added hops, kept the fermentation temp down to 20deg, let it go for 10 days, and got freaky with my sanitation.

Cheers

 

[Trough Lolly]

I agree with Barfridge...

I'd toss the enhancer, keep the kilo of DME and steep 200g of Caramunich I - if you want some extra body you could always toss in 100g of maltodextrin powder or preferably add 150g of Carapils to the steeping bag. Make sure you rinse / sparge the grains too...Steep in 4L, sparge with another litre or two and voila, you have a 6L mini boil ready to be hopped...

The grains will freshen up the flavour and do a hell of a lot more than what a similar amount of dextrose could ever try to add, other than alcohol...

Boil for at least 30 mins and maybe split the hops into an addition at the start and an addition with 15 mins to go...

Cheers,
TL

 

[pint of lager]

Nice recipe TL. But isn't 4 litres a bit excessive for 200 gms specialty grain? Or did you mean to chuck the DME in there too?

Nobody mentioned aeration which was also asked about. At the very start of fermentation, plenty of oxygen is needed by the yeast to multiply. Kit brewers top up with a lot of cold water with lots of splashing. This helps. Also, get in there with your stirring spoon and give it a stir with plenty of agitation type actions after you have topped up to your final volume.

Compared to kit and kilo brews, ag brewers need to pay greater attention to this, as the wort has been boiled and all dissolved oxygen has been removed.

 

[DrewCarey82]

I use a 2 litre jug to fill up my fermentor and after each one I stir vigorously and when I pitch the yeast(started ofcourse) I stir it for a good 5 mins before sealing it up and fermentation normally kicks off within 1.5 - 2 hours.

 

[Trough Lolly]

Nice recipe TL. But isn't 4 litres a bit excessive for 200 gms specialty grain? Or did you mean to chuck the DME in there too?

Nobody mentioned aeration which was also asked about. At the very start of fermentation, plenty of oxygen is needed by the yeast to multiply. Kit brewers top up with a lot of cold water with lots of splashing. This helps. Also, get in there with your stirring spoon and give it a stir with plenty of agitation type actions after you have topped up to your final volume.

Compared to kit and kilo brews, ag brewers need to pay greater attention to this, as the wort has been boiled and all dissolved oxygen has been removed.

[post="110355"][/post]​

Good point there POL...
I use the DME and the spec grains to help key in the hops, so yes, I like a mini boil of around 6 litres. I suppose I should have been more specific - I infuse the steeping bag with around 4 litres of cold water and then warm it up - adding the DME as I get closer to the 65C mark. A litre or two of 70C water from the kettle to sparge the grain bag (and that's flexible - if the sparged extract looks insipid I'll stop rather than extract tannins) also helps keep the DME where it should be - in the boil along with the sweet extract from the spec grains.

Of course, one could always steep the grains in a small pot (which always turns into a mess with my clumsy hands!) and sparge the bag into the boiler, top up with water to the 6L mark and add DME but I prefer to use the boiler to do the lot and thus cut down the amount of kitchen kit to wash up afterwards...

Bottom line: I tend to not have to rely so much on a good sparge, if I steep the grains in a generous volume of warm water to begin with. If I can hang the bag over the boiler (courtesy of tying the nylon bag to a metal skewer laying across the boiler) it will effectively be suspended in solution which makes for a better steep and eliminates burning the bag and grains since it doesn't touch any part of the boiler sides or bottom...

I seemed to get reasonable starts splash pouring the water into the fermenter prior to pitching, but yes, a sterile airstone and a cheap airpump does wonders for the yeast and besides, it's a good long term buy, especially if you think you'll go all grain down the track...And I've never found a need to filter the air - I never filtered the air when I splash poured the water into the fermenter before, did I?!

Cheers,
TL

 

[wiggins]

Just out of curiosity,how do you totally dissolve the DME in water without boiling it to get rid of the lumps? <_<

 

[junior06]

Thanks for all your answers guys, this brewing a a slow learning curve which can by quite frustrating at times, i keep keeping on because of the help from this website, cause i'm sure there's guys brewing great beers, i'll be one of them soon.


Another quick question?
Is there any difference between the coopers light dry malt to the spray dried malt you get @ the hbs?

Cheers

 

[Keifer]

Wiggins, Stir the shit outa it for a few mins in really hot water and most lumps will disapear, plus will give some more aeration too

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

Even easier for DME is to think of it as gravy powder, as it acts in much the same way.

Add and stir a little at a time to cold water and there will be no/very little "clumping".

Then you can boil it/add it to the boil (although I think Wiggins is avoiding boiling for some reason).

I hope that made sense :huh:

PZ.

 

[Trough Lolly]

Yup - what they said!

If you have the grain bag in the kettle, steeping away, you can pour in some, stir, pour in more, stir, etc etc...It easily goes in when the waters warm and I've even been lazy enough to forget about it altogether and add it after the steeping ends and the boil is about to start - as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Don't worry about aeration prior to the boil - any air you add to the steeping extract will soon get boiled out. I aerate after the boil and certainly not before the wort has dropped below 50C. If you sit the kettle in a sink of iced water (actually I used two esky freezer bricks to quicken things up), stir VERY GENTLY when its first in the sink to avoid Hot Side Aeration - you'll have plenty of opportunity to add air to the wort when you top up in the fermenter prior to pitching the yeast.

Cheers,
TL

 

[colinw]

... I used a massive bread yeast sachet which did a remarkable job eating up all the sugars without tasting bad at all. No, really, and it's even aging nicely....

[post="110344"][/post]​

You made a beer with bread yeast??? :blink:

What does it taste like??????