Foxfire
Member
- Joined
- 7/4/14
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 5
So after a trip from Brisbane down to the Snowy mountains and back again, my wife and I finally decided to crack the bucket and dust out the brewing stuff my friend had given us last year.
After discovering the home brew shop shuts at 1pm on a Saturday (after a night where I discovered home made baileys, caramel vodka and milk, 'The Lattino', tastes fantastic) we hit up a Big W to get some Coopers kit for me to try as it's my first go and my wife is working on a mead recipe she found.
All good so far - the Big W had a couple of extra coopers recipe flyers so I decided to go with an Irish Ale. It's one of their recipes that involves the addition of golden syrup.
We got home, cleaned, washed, sanitized and got ready to start getting things together.
I had done a bit of reading, but not too much as I need to actually do things before I really start understanding them. I'd also read the Coopers instructions and watched the video on the Coopers website.
So here's where we start getting things wrong
Step 1) Didn't peel the can before soaking it in hot water. (rolls eyes at himself)
Step 2) I don't think I mixed the can of goo with the enhancer properly before pouring in the cool water to get it to 21l
It should have been properly aired as I had to pour the water in getting it up to 21l so that was a fair bit of splashing.
Step 3) Didn't have a working thermometer strip or temp gauge, so kind of had to guess that it was the right temp (it felt about room temp of 24)
Step 4) This I blame on the instructions - the Coopers instructions say to get in the yeast in asap. So I took an OG reading and pitched the yeast (not rehydrated or anything, just straight from the packet). OG reading was 1.030 which I now know is pretty darn low. I'm not sure if it actually was that low or whether I hadn't stirred/aired/temp properly. I was in a bit of a rush as the instructions were 'get the yeast in asap!!'
Step 5) So then I pitched the yeast, lidded it and put it in the spare room - I hadn't read a lot about temp control and swamp baths etc at this point, so it was more thinking the last week would be approx about 24 this time of year and that should be 'good enough' for a first try. Sunday turned out to be about 31-32 degrees and we were out of the house all day.
When we got home it was still fermenting away heavily. However when I woke up on monday morning fermentation had pretty much stopped. I took a reading in the morning and it was about 1.24 and at lunch time it was 1.22 - so I stopped in the home brew shop, grabbed some thermo strips and some stuff for the wife. The guy said as long as the SG was decreasing it should be fine.
It then got down to 1.018 on monday night and since then it's pretty much stalled. I did open it and give it a swirl with a sanitized spoon to try and stir it up as I read that in a few comments around forums (I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not). It doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference.
I'm not sure what to do from here - it'll be 6 days this evening and it's been pretty stable for the most part (I've taken pretty much daily SG readings as I've a tap on the bottom of the barrel and have been over-excited ;p) but it hasn't changed from 1.018. The coopers site says the irish ale should be about 1.012 or so.
I'm not sure where to go from here -
Do I get some more yeast to pitch and risk cross-yeast infection?
Do I swirl?
Today was apparently 30degrees again (go brisbane! /sarcasm) so it should have got a lot warmer today to see if warming it would help.
Do I bottle on the weekend? The Coopers instructions say it should be about a 7 day ferment and I like following instructions because then I know how useful or not they are later on. But I'm worried 1.018 is too high and I'm risking some bombs that way. If it was 1.020 or over I'd definitely not bottle.
Or do I go with something else?
After discovering the home brew shop shuts at 1pm on a Saturday (after a night where I discovered home made baileys, caramel vodka and milk, 'The Lattino', tastes fantastic) we hit up a Big W to get some Coopers kit for me to try as it's my first go and my wife is working on a mead recipe she found.
All good so far - the Big W had a couple of extra coopers recipe flyers so I decided to go with an Irish Ale. It's one of their recipes that involves the addition of golden syrup.
We got home, cleaned, washed, sanitized and got ready to start getting things together.
I had done a bit of reading, but not too much as I need to actually do things before I really start understanding them. I'd also read the Coopers instructions and watched the video on the Coopers website.
So here's where we start getting things wrong
Step 1) Didn't peel the can before soaking it in hot water. (rolls eyes at himself)
Step 2) I don't think I mixed the can of goo with the enhancer properly before pouring in the cool water to get it to 21l
It should have been properly aired as I had to pour the water in getting it up to 21l so that was a fair bit of splashing.
Step 3) Didn't have a working thermometer strip or temp gauge, so kind of had to guess that it was the right temp (it felt about room temp of 24)
Step 4) This I blame on the instructions - the Coopers instructions say to get in the yeast in asap. So I took an OG reading and pitched the yeast (not rehydrated or anything, just straight from the packet). OG reading was 1.030 which I now know is pretty darn low. I'm not sure if it actually was that low or whether I hadn't stirred/aired/temp properly. I was in a bit of a rush as the instructions were 'get the yeast in asap!!'
Step 5) So then I pitched the yeast, lidded it and put it in the spare room - I hadn't read a lot about temp control and swamp baths etc at this point, so it was more thinking the last week would be approx about 24 this time of year and that should be 'good enough' for a first try. Sunday turned out to be about 31-32 degrees and we were out of the house all day.
When we got home it was still fermenting away heavily. However when I woke up on monday morning fermentation had pretty much stopped. I took a reading in the morning and it was about 1.24 and at lunch time it was 1.22 - so I stopped in the home brew shop, grabbed some thermo strips and some stuff for the wife. The guy said as long as the SG was decreasing it should be fine.
It then got down to 1.018 on monday night and since then it's pretty much stalled. I did open it and give it a swirl with a sanitized spoon to try and stir it up as I read that in a few comments around forums (I'm not sure if that's a mistake or not). It doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference.
I'm not sure what to do from here - it'll be 6 days this evening and it's been pretty stable for the most part (I've taken pretty much daily SG readings as I've a tap on the bottom of the barrel and have been over-excited ;p) but it hasn't changed from 1.018. The coopers site says the irish ale should be about 1.012 or so.
I'm not sure where to go from here -
Do I get some more yeast to pitch and risk cross-yeast infection?
Do I swirl?
Today was apparently 30degrees again (go brisbane! /sarcasm) so it should have got a lot warmer today to see if warming it would help.
Do I bottle on the weekend? The Coopers instructions say it should be about a 7 day ferment and I like following instructions because then I know how useful or not they are later on. But I'm worried 1.018 is too high and I'm risking some bombs that way. If it was 1.020 or over I'd definitely not bottle.
Or do I go with something else?