Kegging kit beers

[gruntre69]

I'm new to brewing although I did around 50 coopers lagers kits about 20 years ago...

I've decided to take up brewing again and this time to go a little further and I have a keg setup.

I want to keep it simple to start with so am using can kits but want to do the best kit style brewing possible

I have a few questions and would like opinions from experienced brewers.

I prefer darker malty flavoured beer similar to tooweys old an here are the notes from my log of the second brew.

[SIZE=medium]Beermakers old tin [/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Ingredients:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Beermakers old tin best before 9-12-2013[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Yeast Salfale S04 83898 !2-14[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Brewcraft Blend 25 stout booster (Dry malt extract 70%, multidextrose and dextrose)roughly[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Water from fridge filter[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Cascade hops 15 gram pellet bag[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Method:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=medium]Brewed as per kit instructions sanitising with bleach and boiling water. Forgot to put dry ingredients in until after water but already had 23l. Just threw it in dry and tried to mix as good as possible and ended up with 24l. Pitched yeast dry on top.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Followed hops pack instructions: 300ml boiling water just off boil, steeped yeast for 10 minutes. Squeezed bag to extract flavour and poured the lot into wort.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Finished temperature of wort at pitch: [/SIZE]24c
[SIZE=medium]Beginning gravity: [/SIZE]1037
[SIZE=medium]Gravity measurements Day/gravity/taste: [/SIZE]Day 3 1030 Tasted good
[SIZE=medium]Gravity measurements Day/gravity/taste: [/SIZE]Day 7 1018
[SIZE=medium]Gravity measurements Day/gravity/taste: [/SIZE]Day 8 1015
[SIZE=medium]Gravity measurements Day/gravity/taste: [/SIZE]Day 11 1014
[SIZE=medium]Gravity measurements Day/gravity/taste: [/SIZE]Day 12 1014 Tasted quite good.


[SIZE=medium]Notes on process:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Temp dropped to 18 over night with no sign of action. Left at 16-18 for 3 days but not much sign of action. Decided to run heater and Heated back to 23c but not much difference. Left heater off again for a few days then on again for last day but couldn’t achieve lower than 1014. Kegged and chilled on day 13.[/SIZE]

I know I buggered this one by forgetting to dissolve the dry ingredients and I'm not sure if that's the reason for not getting a lower final gravity. This has turned out to be quite a nice beer with more flavour than tooweys old and a good creamy head however I believe (going from the coopers formula) that the alcohol is quite light. Also it seems to have a slightly green flavour. I want to do this one again now using my second keg, see if I can improve it.

Here are my questions:
If kegging should I add more dextrose to get my Alc to 5% (target) to make up for not bottling the beer?
The Salfale yeast says best range is 15-20 and I thing my wort temp was too high to start with, I didn't want to delay the pitch, was this a big problem?
If beer improves in the bottle for up to 2 months due to yeast cleaning up the beer, is this process missed b kegging and chilling straight after fermentation?
How important is it to maintain the fermenter temperature at the same temperature as the yeast pitching temp? Would the fluctuation lead to the high final gravity reading?
Does cold crashing the beer kill the yeast and stop the aging process and improvement of the beer?
Should I keg the beer and maintain the temp at the same temp as the fermenter and age the beer in the keg at this temp? Will this improve the beer similar to aging in a bottle?

Any suggestions and advice appreciated!

Cheers

Grunter

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

The Kit spreadsheet estimates with your ingrediants you should have started at 1.039 and got down to 1.009 so you didn't get down quite as far as it thought you would. As long as it doesn't taste too sweet you are probably all good. With those numbers you probably have about 3.5% alcohol so mid strength tooheys old you cant buy that from the shop! Even if it had got down to 1.009 it still would have only been 4.1%. I also have a keg setup that has been gifted to me but I havent used yet I believe though that you are correct in your theory that you can condition in the keg. If you cool the keg down it may even clear up a bit (probably not important for old?)

Anyway I hope it turns out!

 

[JaseH]

I know I buggered this one by forgetting to dissolve the dry ingredients and I'm not sure if that's the reason for not getting a lower final gravity.

I think 1.014 FG for an extract brew is reasonable, adding your dry ingredients late shouldn't have effected this, it may have taken a little longer to dissolve and may not be as sanitary but you still got it all in there before the yeast went to work.

If kegging should I add more dextrose to get my Alc to 5% (target) to make up for not bottling the beer?

Bottle priming doesn't really add a lot of alcohol, if your after a higher alcohol percentage then by all means add a little more malt extract in but don't feel you need to hit a specific alcohol percentage, if the flavor balance is right then whats the ABV matter?

The Salfale yeast says best range is 15-20 and I thing my wort temp was too high to start with, I didn't want to delay the pitch, was this a big problem?

A couple of degrees probably wont matter if its on its way down - I think its better to pitch a little high then to wait too long and risk infection.

If beer improves in the bottle for up to 2 months due to yeast cleaning up the beer, is this process missed b kegging and chilling straight after fermentation?

I always leave beer in the fermenter for a few days(usually a week) after FG to ensure its cleaned up. Some beers still improve in the keg but its more of a maturation improvement then a fermentation by product improvement. If you leave the beer in the fermenter for a few days after FG then it shouldn't need the extra time after bottling or kegging.

How important is it to maintain the fermenter temperature at the same temperature as the yeast pitching temp? Would the fluctuation lead to the high final gravity reading?

Mostly temp fluctuations during fermentation can lead to yeast throwing out undesirable flavors. Getting a little cool towards the end could lead to the yeast going to sleep but at 1.014 I'd say it was pretty close to finished anyhow. If you really want to get the those last few points you can try warm it up a few degrees towards the end of fermentation to help the yeast out. Try and keep the temp stable at the right range for the first few days though as this when most of the damage is done.

Does cold crashing the beer kill the yeast and stop the aging process and improvement of the beer?

Cold crashing doesn't kill the yeast, but helps drop the yeast out of suspension and clear the beer before transferring to keg/bottle. It will stop any 'fermentation cleanup' effects as yeast needs to be still active to do this.

Should I keg the beer and maintain the temp at the same temp as the fermenter and age the beer in the keg at this temp? Will this improve the beer similar to aging in a bottle?

As above, better to just leave it an extra few days at fermentation temps after FG to do the cleanup before kegging. If its a big malty beer then aging in the keg is a good thing but this is not related to fermentation and temperature is not as critical.

Hope this helps - good luck!

 

[gruntre69]

Thanks for the very informative replies lads! A big help which reaffirms that my reading of this excellent forum has me on the right track. I was going to switch to US06 yeast but now I think I'll try this recipe again sticking with the S04 and try to get the ABV up to closer to 5%. I do prefer a full strength beer...

I got carried away at the start and bought a 25 Kg bag of Dextrose. I was thinking of trying to lift the OG up to around 1045 to achieve the target ABV and thought about using the Dextrose. I actually thought that my OG reading on the last brew might have been a bit erroneous on the low side due to the dry ingredients not being fully dissolved and a bit lumpy???

Do you reckon if I added 500 Gm Dex to the recipe I would be in the ball park without changing flavour too much?

I'll use the correct procedure this time and I will probably hydrate the Yeast as per the Fermeties instructions on the datasheet. Strange though how they say on the packet to dry pitch onto the top of the wort but they suggest hydration on their website and datasheet. From what I gather from various text, hydration is the way to go. My aim is to get some consistency so I can then start to improve and experiment with small changes.

Cheers again for the help!

Grunter

 

[slcmorro]

In my experience, and it's only limited, Dextrose doesn't really add much to beers other than alcohol. I started off with 5kg of Dextrose, and now all I use it for is priming bottles for the excess left over after kegging. I personally would stay away from using anymore than say 250gm of dextrose in any brew, and even then my own personal preference is to either use malt extract to boost the alcvol/improve the body, or just leave it as is. Dextrose has it's place, but it's not a 'quality' ingredient in making 'most' good beers.

 

[Rocker1986]

I got carried away at the start and bought a 25 Kg bag of Dextrose.

That's what I need for my priming for bottles instead of going and getting 1kg bags every so often. :lol:

Anyway I would agree with slcmorro about limiting the dex to about 250g in a brew. Dextrose fully ferments out, all it adds is alcohol. If you use too much it thins the beer right out and makes it taste rather like cider. Brewing recipes with mainly malt extract will give you much better tasting beers - that actually taste like beer.

That being said, I did throw a kilo of it into a toucan stout brew (Coopers OS Stout + OS Dark Ale tins) and it definitely doesn't lack body or taste like cider. But I guess technically I was only adding 500g to each kit. It depends on the recipe and beer style although if I was to do that again I'd probably chuck in a kilo of malt extract instead of dextrose just to compare the difference it might make.

At the end of the day, experimenting with different ingredients to find something that suits your tastes is what it's all about.