Your First Batch

[rotten]

My first brew came with the coopers kit from BIG W about 5 years ago, tin of goop, kilo of sugar, stir like crazy. I think it fermented at about 28c, and tasted like it too. My first 10 or so brews were drunk (forced down) before I gave up. a few years later I found a few very helpful sites including this one, and never looked back. The move to AG was very quick once I found the info.
I actually make beer now :icon_chickcheers:

 

[vykuza]

I had a housemate that brewed kits for a couple of years, and I'd have a few now and then. They weren't too bad to be honest, a Coopers Mexican Cervesa in a longneck with a wedge of lime went down OK on a hot summers day. Not what I'd pick to make, but I wasn't making it! I do remember coming home one afternoon with a case of something like Carlton Draught under my arm and thinking that his beer wasn't fantastic, but this one wasn't either! And he wasn't paying $35 a case for his!

After we went our separate ways I was left with his old bottle capper in the laundry cupboard when I cleaned the place out. For some reason I took it with me to my new house and stuck it under the laundry tub. A year or so later I found it again and chucked it out. It got me thinking though - why not give it a burl myself?

One Coopers kit and lager tin later - I had my very own collection of paint stripper that I choked down out of the principle of the thing. Did some research after that!

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

I brewed on and off for 10 years making terrible beer (i did my first one when i was 15 . It wasn't until i stumbled across this site that my beer became drinkable, and then finally tasty when i went to ag.

There are so many kits on ebay from people fermenting one brew at 25C++, tasting it and then selling up. They'd only need to change one line on the can. I spent years fermenting at above 25C, at one point i even had an aquarium heater in there! If the can had just told me to ferment at 17-20C i would have been making drinkable homebrew years ago.

I know and they all want retail prices for them too.

Some have noted that the 25 plus degrees is a conspiracy theory.

I didn't bother keeping it above that temp, I was too lazy to put the effort into it. So it turned out okay.

It's funny - the worst temp control issue beer I had was the 2 batch I made over the summer (during the flood when I was trapped at home with nothing to do). fermented too hot and it tastes like metho beer. I'll leave it under the house over winter and hope it gets better.

So I've now invested in a fridgemate. Once I nail down my electrician mate to fix it, I'll start doing my winter beers.

Goomba

 

[Nick JD]

1988 or 89. I think it was Coopers Lager.

 

[marksfish]

first tried home brewing in the early 80s fermented it in a tin shed in summer and it lived up to the name i gave it " cat piss lager" :icon_vomit:

got back into it a coulple of years ago after my son got the bug, and the beers are slowly improving.

 

[Gormand]

First brew was a morgans docklands stout, 1kg DDME and 200g Lactose fermented for 1 week at 22 degrees with S04 Yeast, bulk primed with 140g of dex for 23L. I read a fair bit before I started though

If your planning the coopers stout next ditch the 1kg of dex and add Dark dry malt(Or at least go half and half). I would also maybe look at some hops as well, mine ended up good but a bit 1 note. I have remade the recipe with a smaller volume (19-20L I think) and some hop additions to try and round it out a bit more. Tasted great out of the fermenter and I think I can crack my first bottle of it this weekend.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

I remember my first brew very well. Back in 2003 my housemate and I stumbled upon a brewshop near where we lived (in Canberra). Neither of us knew such a shop existed and being avid drinkers, were keen to investigate. We thought we were in heaven! A shop that sold stuff to make beer at home!

The guy who ran the shop was a lovely old bloke keen for a chat and so we spent a good couple of hours there listening to him describe what to do and what not to do etc, and pointing out all the different bits of equipment and what they did. We ended up walking out of there a hundred or so dollars poorer, but with everything we needed to make our first beer.

Our first beer was a Morgan's Smoked Ale with half a kilo of dextrose and half a kilo of DME. It was by far the best beer I had ever tasted, and still a favourite - and in fact I might make a batch this weekend.

I'll never forget the day we first opened the beer to taste it. It was the day Canberra was hit by that massive bushfire. We were sitting in the backyard watching the flames race up Mt Taylor behind us, thinking it appropriate to be drinking something smokey.

Cheers
Brad

 

[Fodder]

My soon to be wife's dad and grandad both do home brew, and after tasting a few of his (the Dad that is) I much preferred it to the VB or Carlton Cold that he previously offered me. From that point on I would always ask what brews he had on the go and would always prefer them over whatever else he had in the fridge.

After showing such interest, my GF though it would be a great idea to buy me the Coopers Home Brew Kit for my birthday one year and I haven't looked back since. I'm sure she now regrets this idea however, as the brew equipment and brew day processes are steadily taking over the house and my weekends.

First brew was the standard Coopers Lager with whatever sugar it came with (1kg of Dex IIRC) and it turned out ok. Not great, but certainly drinkable. Had a few good ones following that, the Coopers Bitter was always pretty good and then they slowly started getting worse and worse as I added more and more differing ingredients without really knowing what I was doing.

The biggest mistake I made was getting a brew belt (heating element) for winter and leaving it on 24/7 with the fermentor at 28+ degrees. Never seemed to work out my my brews were tasting worse than ever until I found this site...

Have since reviewed my temp control system and will be bottling a little ripper this weekend! :beerbang:

 

[TmC]

I just bottled some of my coopers kit lagers, they look pretty cloudy but thats to be expected when i brewed them at 27 degrees :lol: I have a pale ale sort of thing in the poor mans fridge (esky) to see how that goes. The first thing i noticed was that on my coopers lager the airlock was working 12 hours later, on my ale, no signs of airlock after 24 hours but i had a peek and it looks like the yeast is working. I think its due to the colder temps. Have run out of bottles so doing the rest tomorrow, have a few lined up from a 70+ person birthday function thats on tonight, hopefully get a good haul.

 

[pimpsqueak]

I just bottled some of my coopers kit lagers, they look pretty cloudy but thats to be expected when i brewed them at 27 degrees :lol: I have a pale ale sort of thing in the poor mans fridge (esky) to see how that goes. The first thing i noticed was that on my coopers lager the airlock was working 12 hours later, on my ale, no signs of airlock after 24 hours but i had a peek and it looks like the yeast is working. I think its due to the colder temps. Have run out of bottles so doing the rest tomorrow, have a few lined up from a 70+ person birthday function thats on tonight, hopefully get a good haul.

Good ol esky. Mine works a treat, I just had to figure out how much ice to use and how often to change it to get a target temp. Letting it climb up to 20-21 at the moment before I bottle tomorrow.

 

[TmC]

Good ol esky. Mine works a treat, I just had to figure out how much ice to use and how often to change it to get a target temp. Letting it climb up to 20-21 at the moment before I bottle tomorrow.

I've been struggling to keep it below 20C but its pretty humid up here. I have frozen a dozen or so milk bottles and rotating 2 every 2-3 hours, going to try and keep this up for another 3 days until the airlock slows down and i wont pay as much attention. Smells good though

 

[Acasta]

My first was the lager kit that came with the coopers kit. Did all the bad things and ended up holding my nose to try and drink it for the first few weeks haha. After some time, it started to get better in the bottle and thats how i learned about conditioning! haha

 

[Fodder]

I've been struggling to keep it below 20C but its pretty humid up here. I have frozen a dozen or so milk bottles and rotating 2 every 2-3 hours, going to try and keep this up for another 3 days until the airlock slows down and i wont pay as much attention. Smells good though

dedication!

Best I can do is morning and night...pitty this work thing, gets in the way of all sorts of other goodies I would much rather be up too

 

[TmC]

Yeah, i've been caught sneaking home from work more than once :lol:

 

[HeavyNova]

My first was the Coopers Pale Ale knk that came with the Coopers kit. My girlfriend bought it for for Christmas after seeing me get all excited upon spotting it while walking through Big W one day. I got the brew on soon after I got the kit so it was fermented warm - probably the mid 20's. The end result wasn't good but it wasn't terrible either - it just had that 'homebrew' taste. Did a couple of Coopers ginger beers after that and they turned out rather well to be honest. Had a break for some reason (prbably distracted by other hobbies) then mid 2010 I was down in the Margaret River region for a week and speaking to the guys at various wineries and seeing their passion sparked my interest in having another go at brewing.

Found this site and things immediately got better! Now I'm always itching to put another brew on - so many things to try!

TmC - I've only seen you around the forums the past few days but with your enthusiasm, stick around, soak up all the info and your beers will be improving in no time!

 

[TmC]

TmC - I've only seen you around the forums the past few days but with your enthusiasm, stick around, soak up all the info and your beers will be improving in no time!

Yeah only joined a day or two ago, a lot of my mates have tried home brew and failed and the only thing i wanted to do was go one better and make a home brew that was actually drinkable Now i am finding that the fun is in making it!..and very kind on the wallet

 

[Housecat]

My first was about 5 years ago after a good mate of mine had started brewing and I saw that he had lots of cheap reasonable tasting beer to drink. I was staying at my Sisters place at the time and her husband had done HB on and off for many years (way before I cared about drinking :excl: ) so, I had access to most of the stuff already. Me and my mate got a Coopers K&K and from the instructions, I actually thought that yeast wasn't allowed to go below the recommended temps so I kept it as warm as I could. (28 rings a bell ) We bottled it and I think it tasted good. Either that or it was the fact it was cheap beer lol. :chug:

I am about to embark on BIAB in a couple of weeks thanks to this site and the advice I have gained from it.

HC

 

[TmC]

Knowing how much it costs definitely makes it better for your first batch :lol:

 

[funky]

I bought the brewcraft kit in january after tasting a mates homebrew. It came with morgans aussie lager and 1kg dextrose i believe. absoloutely loved it, didn't last long at all.

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

First kit was a brewiser lager and a KG of dex, with my old man. I wanted to do 1 around the start may (when i noticed homwbrewing kits in Big W), but dad said "its getting too cold to brew, We'll wait till the end of october"......... :icon_vomit: Being new to beer drinking, i thought it was pretty good.

My first solo kit was a Beermakers Bitter and a KG of dex in feb 2009 (no temp control again) continued to improve my kits with maltodextrin, light dried malt and finishing hops. Got temp control, and now been AG brewing for about 15 months. and WILL NEVER look back!