Hi Mr Goomba,
Thanks for your support here. I agree that the temp would be partially responsible for the fermentation time but also the quantity of fementables added would surely have added to this time. I wont be adding BE2 and LME together again (taste / cost / ferm time).
This was also the first brew away from just Can / BE2 / stock yeast and thus have learnt a bit about adding hops, malts and the use of differnet yeasts.
manly though, I am not happy with the quality that the brew produced when weighing up the cost and the time it took.
I will contiue to experiment, but I will be taking small steps at a time!
Cheers
Lano
G'day Lano,
I have found myself in the same position as you. Otherwise known as the brewing impasse. You get to two options:
1. Your confidence takes a battering and you give up trying things (or give up brewing); or
2. You keep trying (or even better try something harder and see how to stuff it up).
I used the "brew enhancers" once and once only and concluded that they didn't improve anything. Also the LHBS at the time (I wasn't living here) just had "stout enhancer" or "brew enhancer" and I thought to myself "it could quite easily be flour, cornstarch and icing sugar" - I don't like that.
So I realised that I would prefer to know what junk I put in there. That lead me onto using liquid malt extract to enhance my brews and after, steeping grains to enhance my brews.
This worked for me. I put on a brew with a good tin (morgans, blackrock, etc), extra liquid malt extract, hop t-bags and US-05 yeast.
Then I thought "I'll try those grain bags". So I steeped those and put the resulting liquid into my brew. And used good yeast and hop t-bags. This also worked.
I then thought "those tins are just extract goo and someone else has chosen the hops", so I bought two tins of extract goo unhopped, chose some hops and good yeast and tried that. This worked so well I did this for 10 years.
Now I do All grain Brew in a Bag (BIAB) - I used the guides here to help and lots of research about hop boiling, mashing and yeasts to get the concepts right.
In hindsight, what I'd do differently:
Never use hop tea bags - they are old hops and expensive. The sight sponsor in Brisbane has a massive variety of hop pellets and these are way cheaper per kg.
Moved to AG using the BIAB method quicker. It isn't that hard, though it is far more time consuming than doing an extract brew.
If I may suggest a recipe for you, something along the lines of:
2 tins of extract (if you want a light beer 2 x tins of light coloured or one each of amber and light; if you want a dark beer, one of amber, one of dark)
Nottingham yeast (or US-05) - both are dried. Notts has a high temp tolerance, so should do for your climate (cold nights, warmish days). It should finish in no more than 7-10 days.
East Kent Goldings hops - boil 15g in the wort for 60 minutes, 15g for 15 minutes and 15g dry hopped (chuck in fermenter).
Nelson Sauvin Hops - boil 15g at 30 minutes, 15g at 15 minutes, 15g dry hopped.
This should yield an IBU of 32, BU:GU of .61, which will be a well balanced beer. ABV 5.3%.
The initial cost of hops might seem prohibitive, but then you'll have 30g of each hop left over for another brew (stick it in the freezer). Eventually you'll have such a repetoire of hops in the freezer than you'll buy just the yeast and malt and make a selection from stock on hand.
Hoping this is of benefit and if not, sorry for wasting your time and the forum's time with my musings.
Good luck.
Goomba
