Coopers Lager - Original

[ewgchard27]

Hi guys,

I started brewing a coopers original lager (the one with the green and white label) i spoke about it in my intro post.


Anyway its on its 7th day of Fermenting. I took a hydro reading yesterday and it read 1.020 and took one today and it read 1.009.

From what i have read i should be putting it into my pressurized keg but i'm going to leave it one more day as the temps have been fluctuating between 14C and 18C. When i took the reading yesterday there was no foam on the top but it did look like there was if you looked on the side and this got me a bit worried that it might be contaminated or the yeast had died.

EDIT: There isnt much documentation regarding how much sugar i should put in my keg when transferring anybopdy have a rough idea ?

However i had a quick taste of it and it tastes like a really sweet lager. Has anybody else had similar issues with their brews ?


Cheers guys

 

[ScottM]

My Euro Lager finished around 1.006 IIRC so yours will be fairly sweet I would have thought.

With the lagers I wouldn't recommend going with a keg, you won't get enough pressure/co2 in the keg without a lot of hassle. Bottling is generally best if you want to get the right amount of fizz in a lager.

If you're set on the keg though I think the general amount is 80g per 23L :)

 

[Ian...]

Not an expert by any stretch but I have read a lot on here against putting lager in kegs. from what I remember, the malt is not as strong as an ale malt and doesn't hold the co2 very well. I will be doing a lager shortly to take advantage of the lower temperatures, and I will bottle it, probably upping the priming sugar by around 50%. I do use kegs for ales though, and whilst I am only on my 5th brew (from kits at the moment) I have been pleased with the results.

cheers

 

[ScottM]

Not an expert by any stretch but I have read a lot on here against putting lager in kegs. from what I remember, the malt is not as strong as an ale malt and doesn't hold the co2 very well. I will be doing a lager shortly to take advantage of the lower temperatures, and I will bottle it, probably upping the priming sugar by around 50%. I do use kegs for ales though, and whilst I am only on my 5th brew (from kits at the moment) I have been pleased with the results.

cheers

I hadn't heard of that as a reason. The main reason, from what I understand, is that a lager is always a lot more fizzy than an ale. If you compare just about any ale to just about any lager you will always have a lot more fizz in the lager. You can't get away with this due to the body in an ale (unless going for a really light one) whereas a lager has very little body and is very light as standard.

When kegging you will get just as much fizz in a lager as you do in an ale, the trouble is that the fizz will be perfect for an ale but nowhere near enough for a lager.

Options include pressurising the keg manually while keeping the contents at a very low temperature or using a keg that can handle much higher pressures without exploding or venting.

I've got myself a couple of corny kegs and I intend to put them to good use in the near future

 

[ewgchard27]

My reasoning behind putting it in a keg is that I don't have bottles but I will be purchasing some for the future. For the keg I have the co2 bullets and the holder to go on top so no doubt I will use these just before I drink.

 

[Brett]

The recommendation on my European lager is 8g per L

 

[Green Ninja]

The carbonation in a keg is really to force the beer out, not to make it fizzy.

There's too much volume in a keg to pressurise it enough to make the beer truly fizzy.

Also there is a device in the lid to release excess pressure, if it wasn't there the keg would explode or a seal would be blown out.

 

[Madferret]

If it helps I recently did mine and used 2L fizzy drinks bottles (such as a cheap cola) with 3 tsp sugar, and it was perfectly gassed.

Kept at between 15C an room temp, it cleared out within a week and was 'drinkable' in two weeks.

I was very impressed...

 

[ewgchard27]

That's awesome. I kegged the lager last night and added 80g of sugar. I have it in my cellar for the time being its nice and cold down there. I hope it will be drinkable for Xmas

 

[ScottM]

That's awesome. I kegged the lager last night and added 80g of sugar. I have it in my cellar for the time being its nice and cold down there. I hope it will be drinkable for Xmas

It's best to have it somewhere at room temperature for a couple of weeks, to allow the yeast to ferment out the added sugar. Once that's done it then gets moved to the cool for a bit to allow the brew to soak up the CO2 (smaller bubbles).