Toucan (well, Fourcan) Or Dme Amber/hops For Concentrate Fermentation

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buckerooni

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Hi All,

I've seen lots of positive comments about toucans but have also noticed they get bagged for bitterness and cans have been blamed for the dredded twang. After another thread I started about brewing for efficiency, quality and bulk the suggestion was made to go DME to get rid of the twang.

I'm liking RobboMC's concentrate brew that gets watered down to normal levels when racking:

English Dark Ale
volume 25 litres

1 can Dark Ale
1 can Yorkshire or English Bitter
1 can Light Liquid Malt
1 kg Brew Enhancer 2
1 kg Light Dry Malt
500g Brown Sugar or dextrose ( or more BE2 of you choose )
50g to 100g Hops of choice Fuggles/Goldings/Saaz etc
Yeast of choice ( both sachets of kit yeast if using that )

Once fermentation finishes add 12 litres boiled and cooled water to bottling bucket
with proper amount of dissolved priming sugar ( around 200 g ) and rack in half of finished brew, stir gently and bottle.

Question - what would work out better - a concentrate of toucans (i..e fourcan) or 5-6kg of DME with hop additions? Other suggestions for concentrates are also welcomed.

Buying the DME (probably amber) works out at around $8.50 a kilo which is pretty killer.

Will refine the recipe but am wondering what route I should take (the fourcan does scare me so some reason).

Once I have a direction I'll be back with more insane questions.
 
Not really clear what result you are aiming for.

More info about robbo's recipe/method and your intended outcome will help.
 
hey manticle,

I'm after a batch of 40L of pale ale via concentrate fermenting (i.e. put down 23L or so of concentrate), I'm a massive fan of Coopers Sparkling so something along those lines (harvesting some coopers yeast at the moment).

Wondering whether the foundation of the concentrate should be 4 cans or straight-up DME (with some extras).

that's all I have on Robbo's recipe/method, was going to fill the gaps as they got noticed :eek:
 
Without knowing more: kit tin will be pre-hopped, extract will require hops (and boiling etc).

That's the main difference.
 
Without knowing more: kit tin will be pre-hopped, extract will require hops (and boiling etc).

That's the main difference.

without trying to sound like dkhead, what is the information you need - hop schedude?

obviously I'm new to this but have been getting my head through the 'how to brew' book.

I guess there is a fair time difference - just pouring 4 cans of goo into some pre boiled water and pitching yeast takes 30-60 mins off the brew time.
 
To make a brew like a coopers sparkling i would do something like this
46L

5.5kg of DME
1kg white sugar

60g of POR @ 60 (35 ibus)

Ferment with recultured coopers yeast @ 16.5C

Coopers beers are all about the yeast. So if you use the recultured coopers yeast on any brew it will make it taste coopery.
 
...
I guess there is a fair time difference - just pouring 4 cans of goo into some
pre boiled water and pitching yeast takes 30-60 mins off the brew time.
You might well run into problems with yeast doing it this way - the
recipe listed on your first post above would be getting close to 1.100
OG and you would need to pitch a very large amount of yeast to get
it to ferment out. The MrMalty calculator indicates something like a
5 to 6 litre starter (if using liquid yeast, and since you mentioned
harvesting coopers yeast ) or about 28g of dry yeast is needed.

Not enough yeast and the yeast will likely be stressed when the alcohol
level gets and produced off flavours, and might conk out before complete
fermentation. If you're bottling, when you dilute during the priming/bottling
the fermentation could resume (here, I'm guessing) and you could have
bottle bombs in our hands.

It might be better to get a second fermenter and have two batches
going at the same time.
 
Hi All,

I've seen lots of positive comments about toucans but have also noticed they get bagged for bitterness and cans have been blamed for the dredded twang. After another thread I started about brewing for efficiency, quality and bulk the suggestion was made to go DME to get rid of the twang.

I'm liking RobboMC's concentrate brew that gets watered down to normal levels when racking:



Question - what would work out better - a concentrate of toucans (i..e fourcan) or 5-6kg of DME with hop additions? Other suggestions for concentrates are also welcomed.

Buying the DME (probably amber) works out at around $8.50 a kilo which is pretty killer.

Will refine the recipe but am wondering what route I should take (the fourcan does scare me so some reason).

Once I have a direction I'll be back with more insane questions.
I get the general idea. Brew a concentrate, then water it down when bottling.
Forgetting the bitterness, If you're brewing for economy, I'd be more concerned with the outlay involved in putting 4 kits worth into one fermenter.
There's no fun involved in tipping a beer out when it all goes pear shaped.

Twocan bitterness? We're not talking about chilli here, a bitter beer is not going to kill you. Once you get a taste for a well balanced hoppy ale, you'll love it.
The hops Robbo suggests balances out all the hop extract in the kits.
 
English Dark Ale
volume 25 litres

1 can Dark Ale
1 can Yorkshire or English Bitter
1 can Light Liquid Malt
1 kg Brew Enhancer 2
1 kg Light Dry Malt
500g Brown Sugar or dextrose ( or more BE2 of you choose )
50g to 100g Hops of choice Fuggles/Goldings/Saaz etc
Yeast of choice ( both sachets of kit yeast if using that )


Thanks for liking my recipe.

The idea here is to make 2 K&K batches in one.

Look at the recipe like this:

1 can Dark Ale
1 kg Brew Enhancer 2 should balance can bitterness

1 can Yorkshire or English Bitter
1 can Light Liquid Malt should balance can bitterness

Now for extra punch I add a bit of an extract section:
1 kg Light Dry Malt
500g Brown Sugar or dextrose ( or more BE2 of you choose )
50g to 100g Hops of choice Fuggles/Goldings/Saaz etc some bitterness from the boil gto offset the kg of dme

How long you boil is up to you and how much bitterness you want in the end result. By the way the hops balance the malts, not the kits.

But to your question:

my idea is NOT to use four cans, it is to use 2 cans and add 2 kilo of fermentables.

For simplicty you could forget the extract section and simply make a wort from 2 cans plus 2 KG, if doing this I'd limit it to about 40 litres unless you like mid-strength beer.

Personally I think 4 cans would result in too much of the dreaded 'isohop' flavour they put into some cans.
Certainly a 6kg extract boil would turn out excellent beer when properly hopped;
but the whole point of the original post was how to brew big volumes quickly. I turn these double batches out in about 2 hours for brewday and another 2-3 hours on bottling day. A big long boil means more time. I get most of the bittering from the cans and this shortens the boil and saves time.

As to the amount of money in the fermenter, yes my last black porter double contained close to $100 worth of ingredients.
You do start to feel there's a lot of eggs in one fermenter.
 
hey manticle,

I'm after a batch of 40L of pale ale via concentrate fermenting (i.e. put down 23L or so of concentrate), I'm a massive fan of Coopers Sparkling so something along those lines (harvesting some coopers yeast at the moment).

Wondering whether the foundation of the concentrate should be 4 cans or straight-up DME (with some extras).

that's all I have on Robbo's recipe/method, was going to fill the gaps as they got noticed :eek:


Just going from memory on the CPA recipe I'd do a double this way:

2 cans Coopers Pale Ale
1 can Light Liquid malt ( or Wheat Malt!)
0.75 kg dme
0.5 kg BE2

50g Pride of Ringwood hops ( 25g @ 25 min, 25g @ 10 min )
or perhaps Styrian Goldings might be nice if you can find it.
Yeast of choice ( Coopers harvested would be nice, yum )


This produces 40 litres at approx. 4.5%abv. I haven't done the IBU calc.
 
without trying to sound like dkhead, what is the information you need - hop schedude?

obviously I'm new to this but have been getting my head through the 'how to brew' book.

I guess there is a fair time difference - just pouring 4 cans of goo into some pre boiled water and pitching yeast takes 30-60 mins off the brew time.


The main info I was after was what Robbo's method actually was (via a link or recipe or whatever).
I realise I misread your OP and thought the recipe was yours. didn't understand why you'd mentioned Robbo or what he had to do with it. I now understand that your recipe was in fact, quoting him. My error and now I understand now what you are trying to do.

As I suggested - fourcans of kit will be prebittered and won't require a boil or bittering hops, 4 cans of extract will require a boil and bittering hops.

Just to be clear _ I wasn't trying to give the noob shit. That's not really my game. Just trying to clarify what you wanted to achieve in order to help (although admittedly it was late and I was brief).

For CPA or CSA type: use all pale extract tins, steep 50-100g dark crystal, hop to 25-30 IBU with fresh pride of ringwood (single addition only) and re-harvest some coopers yeast from a six pack of pale or sparkling. Ferment 5 litres* of your brew with this yeast, then use that to ferment your main batch. Replace the extract tins with Thomas coopers heritage sparkling ale tins, drop the hops and possibly the grains for a possibly less satisfactory result. Coopers yeast is essential either way (which you can purchase from whitelabs but I'm not sure how easily).

*I've guestimated this amount but if your beer is concentrated then you will need a good amount of yeast. You could work out the exact rate but that starts to get complicated.
 
Just going from memory on the CPA recipe I'd do a double this way:

2 cans Coopers Pale Ale
1 can Light Liquid malt ( or Wheat Malt!)
0.75 kg dme
0.5 kg BE2

50g Pride of Ringwood hops ( 25g @ 25 min, 25g @ 10 min )
or perhaps Styrian Goldings might be nice if you can find it.
Yeast of choice ( Coopers harvested would be nice, yum )


This produces 40 litres at approx. 4.5%abv. I haven't done the IBU calc.

Thanks Robbo, what would be the difference of taking out the LME and BE2 and doing a:

2 cans Coopers Pale Ale
2 KG DME
Dark Crystal 100g

From what I gather I'd end up with a maltier beer - is this correct?

The reason I ask is I'm very tempted to buy 22KGs of DME, 2kgs of Dark Crystal Malt and a 1kg bag of POR hops and go for it.

The overall plan is get some volume brewing with this and then take on some more complex recipes.

Gonna get the later version of Ian's spreadsheet, the one I have doesn't have the 'brew day' tab :(
 
Yes that's correct... but the CPA tins ( and most others ) are really only meant for the KG of BE2,
using a whole kg of dme does tend to make the result very malty. BE2 also contains
maltodextrin that adds body as well. Now I find malty beers with a hoppy flavour quite nice, but
that's personal preference.

Nothing wrong with this as a malt bill, but I'd also be adding a fair swag of hops in a shortish boil.

Get the spreadsheet and do your homework first, but using these ingredients I reckon
you'll make something quite drinkable. Remember the secret of a great brew is balance
between the malt and the hops.
 
Yes that's correct... but the CPA tins ( and most others ) are really only meant for the KG of BE2,
using a whole kg of dme does tend to make the result very malty. BE2 also contains
maltodextrin that adds body as well. Now I find malty beers with a hoppy flavour quite nice, but
that's personal preference.

Nothing wrong with this as a malt bill, but I'd also be adding a fair swag of hops in a shortish boil.

Get the spreadsheet and do your homework first, but using these ingredients I reckon
you'll make something quite drinkable. Remember the secret of a great brew is balance
between the malt and the hops.

with all that LDME would it be better to use BE1 due as it's just dextrose and maltodextrin, so it's easier to calculate the amount of LDME I'm putting in?
 
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