St Peters Fresh Wort Kits

[alcoadam]

For anyone keeping track: the norwest pale ale kit at 15 litres is OG 1.060. I've made a 6 litre 1.045 wort bittered to around 78 IBU (50 gms %14 galaxy and 60 gms %6 cascade for 5 mins), this has got me a 1.056 wort of questionable IBU (as I haven't found the calculation for the math, but I can handle the bitterness - 1:1 suits my tastes if it is that drastic - and I intuitively think it will still be drinkable down to a medium /40ish IBUs as long as my attenuation is ok). Pitched a few scoops of fresh, first gen wy1272 yeast cake, sitting in the fridge with temp mate at 19c. Going to dry hop with cascade and galaxy in a few days (the remaining amounts to get to 100 gms of each).

I will report back on how this little experiment goes. While I really hope it makes a super drinkable beer I don't want it to be in the same ball park as my AG efforts hahaha (given that this took all of 45 minutes to do).

The Norwest is my favourite from this brewer.

For a rich malty finish I make it to 18L and finish it off with around 20g of cascade (post fermentation). I've left the finishing hops sit for up to 2 weeks....I love it, makes a Guinness taste like water :icon_drool2:

 

[Lecterfan]

Bottled this recently (see my post a few replies back for the process I did). It is as cloudy as chicken soup.

I have not done a kit/extract type brew for a long time...I had a 6L wort at 1.045 using light dry extract. The beer had over 100gms hop material dumped in at 5 minutes, most of which went into the fermenter also, the boil went for 15 minutes, was then chilled, poured into the fermenter with the FWK, wy1272 at 19c for a week, dry hopped with 50gms galaxy, then raised to 21c for a week just to finish it off etc. Cold conditioned for two weeks, bottled, sitting at room temp as cloudy as anything (if it was one one of my AG beers I'd be concerned that I messed up somewhere).

Why is it so cloudy? It's not just hop resin as I still generally get pretty clear beers with double the hop quantity I used for this (even accounting for the fact that it already had been hopped as a FWK). The taste doesn't indicate anything wrong (although I should have bittered it more for my palate).

Part of me wants to think I did not do a long enough boil with the LDME to precipitate break etc etc, but I'm not sure if that is an AG hangup or not...surely out of the thousands of people on here using LDME in conjunction with kits and FWKs they can't all be doing extended boils etc etc...and surely they aren't all drinking soupy looking beer???

An odd, slightly reassuring feeling, that my first non-AG beer in many years has proven itself problematic.

 

[mwd]

Could try gelatine. I do kits and bits and don't do long boils and find gelatine works for me.

 

[Lecterfan]

Cheers, but it's already bottled.

There must be something in the process; I don't gelatine or filter any of my AG beers and they are generally much clearer than this turned out. I used to remember my kit beers being consistently being very clear (clear, not 'bright') with no effort/intention...

Admittedly the racking for bulk priming stirred up a bit of of the 'trub' that had formed from cold conditioning and they are a bit clearer in the bottles than they were on the day, but it seems odd.

Anyway, I'm not losing sleep over it... I have another 'kits and bits' fermenting at the moment and about to do a G+G artisan ale 2 this arvo. In 9 days (and counting) I have scheduled a day for a glorious return to my keggle to knock out another AG, and then will hopefully squeeze in one more during the study break...and then probably nothing until November.

Very glad I chose a return to kits and to experiment with FWKs in the meantime though!

 

[petesbrew]

I've got a ND Five Malts Amber Ale brewing with WLP013 London Ale yeast.
I just had a taste of the hydrometer sample (1014, about finished) and
It tastes like jersey caramels. so delicious!
:icon_drunk: :icon_drool2:

 

[contrarian]

Am getting back into brewing after a reasonable hiatus and thought putting one of these down would be a good way to make a start and get a cube for my planned BIAB no chill set up. Given it is 45 degrees here today the summer ale looked tempting but I have no idea what a good yeast to use with this wort would be. Any suggestions?

 

[donburke]

Am getting back into brewing after a reasonable hiatus and thought putting one of these down would be a good way to make a start and get a cube for my planned BIAB no chill set up. Given it is 45 degrees here today the summer ale looked tempting but I have no idea what a good yeast to use with this wort would be. Any suggestions?

us05 should do well, or wy1272 if you want a little more complexity

might want to dry hop it with 20g of your favourite fruity hop

 

[stux]

I use these cubes for 60L batches (4x15), but I wouldn't recommend them for single batches. They're just too small.

You either want to get a 20L cube cube, or the willow 20L water jerrys, as they each hold about 23L which will get you a nice 20-21L in your fermenter.... which is a perect keg filler