CmdrRyekr
Well-Known Member
So i've been brewing lagers with coopers cans from big w for a long time now, probably 8 years or so. Always made a good beer! But I want to make it better, so now i've gone All Grain. I made my first beer but it didn't turn out very well, my good old can brews came out much better. Can you guys help me? I'll cover what I did.
I watched a brewing video on the internet which showed making beer with grain to find out how much I needed, he said he used about 5kg of grain. I don't get why he used a chilly bin (probably borrowed from his dad!), I laughed and thought that will melt on his stove when he tried to heat it up. He clearly had no idea, so I turned it off. I should link it, you guys would find it pretty funny! Watched another video, this guy had a pot, he used the same amount of grain, so I went with that. When I got the grain I picked up 20 of the 250g Caramunich grainbags from the local brew shop and tipped it into the wife's big pot (I said POT you grubs!). Some of it overflowed, so I scooped it up and put it back in the pot. I think I washed most of the dirt off first but some might have got in - oh god hopefully that's not what ruined the beer!
Anyway I put some water in the pot with the grain until it just covered the grain, which is pretty much how I do rice too. I put it on the stove to heat up and boiled it for 90 minutes to get all the sugar into the beer. I think it's then wort, right? I got a couple of the hop bags from the local brew shop and put them in the fermenter after I had tipped the bleach out, then I strained the beer into the fermenter and used the garden hose to top it up to 23L like I did with my coopers cans. I put so much water in with the grain though I don't know where it all went?
I'm not dumb though, I waited for it to cool down enough to put the yeast in, I used a spare dry yeast packet from an old tin of Coopers Lager. I made it a couple of years ago but it got stuffed up before I put in the yeast. I checked the temp and on the temp sticker it said about 40c I think when i put the yeast in. I put the fermenter in the bathroom because it's cool there usually, and it only gets used for showers a few times a week.
I don't bother with checking gravity readings, I never had one go longer than a month so I always leave it that long and it's gaurenteed to be finished by then, and no wasted beer; which was handy because I had to go away for two months the next day. I had my cousins dad bottle it up for me, he said it wasn't like any beer he's ever tasted but it was probably because it wasn't bottle conditioned yet.
Now that it is bottle conditioned, it does taste a bit strange, a bit sweet (I didn't add any sugar!), and not much head (just like my wife!). I think it might be a bit of a burnt flavour too? And caramel? what the hell is that doing in my beer!
Did one of the flaming kids ruin my beer, perhaps even sabotage it by putting caramel lollies in it? That would explain the sweetness and the caramel flavour... I know going all grain was a great idea and my process was perfect, I spoke to a brewer at work who said that was basically what he did, so it can't have been any of that!
I watched a brewing video on the internet which showed making beer with grain to find out how much I needed, he said he used about 5kg of grain. I don't get why he used a chilly bin (probably borrowed from his dad!), I laughed and thought that will melt on his stove when he tried to heat it up. He clearly had no idea, so I turned it off. I should link it, you guys would find it pretty funny! Watched another video, this guy had a pot, he used the same amount of grain, so I went with that. When I got the grain I picked up 20 of the 250g Caramunich grainbags from the local brew shop and tipped it into the wife's big pot (I said POT you grubs!). Some of it overflowed, so I scooped it up and put it back in the pot. I think I washed most of the dirt off first but some might have got in - oh god hopefully that's not what ruined the beer!
Anyway I put some water in the pot with the grain until it just covered the grain, which is pretty much how I do rice too. I put it on the stove to heat up and boiled it for 90 minutes to get all the sugar into the beer. I think it's then wort, right? I got a couple of the hop bags from the local brew shop and put them in the fermenter after I had tipped the bleach out, then I strained the beer into the fermenter and used the garden hose to top it up to 23L like I did with my coopers cans. I put so much water in with the grain though I don't know where it all went?
I'm not dumb though, I waited for it to cool down enough to put the yeast in, I used a spare dry yeast packet from an old tin of Coopers Lager. I made it a couple of years ago but it got stuffed up before I put in the yeast. I checked the temp and on the temp sticker it said about 40c I think when i put the yeast in. I put the fermenter in the bathroom because it's cool there usually, and it only gets used for showers a few times a week.
I don't bother with checking gravity readings, I never had one go longer than a month so I always leave it that long and it's gaurenteed to be finished by then, and no wasted beer; which was handy because I had to go away for two months the next day. I had my cousins dad bottle it up for me, he said it wasn't like any beer he's ever tasted but it was probably because it wasn't bottle conditioned yet.
Now that it is bottle conditioned, it does taste a bit strange, a bit sweet (I didn't add any sugar!), and not much head (just like my wife!). I think it might be a bit of a burnt flavour too? And caramel? what the hell is that doing in my beer!
Did one of the flaming kids ruin my beer, perhaps even sabotage it by putting caramel lollies in it? That would explain the sweetness and the caramel flavour... I know going all grain was a great idea and my process was perfect, I spoke to a brewer at work who said that was basically what he did, so it can't have been any of that!
