Surfingobo’s brew day’s

[Surfingobo]

Hi all
First brew down here in sunny Somerset today. A coopers brew A IPA kit.

First off had to drill a hole for the bucket tap. May have drilled it a bit low as I have to rotate the tap to get the bucket to sit flat, but it’s not the end of the world.

Then mixed the can with 2L water out of the fridge (filtered for chlorine), topped up with a bit of hot water from the kettle and stirred it in.

Moved the FV to underneath the fridge and proceeded to fill it from a height. This worked fine for about 10L until the fridge cut out (some sort of leak prevention) so moved the bucket back to the sink and filled up straight from the tap (soft water here, doesn’t smell hugely of chlorine but definitely more than water from the fridge)

Filled to 18L. First mistake, haven’t added sugar and DME. Chuck in 1kg light DME and 0.5kg brewing sugar. Second mistake, Wort approx 22 degrees, big clumps!! Queue 30 mins of vigourous stirring, think I got it all!

Topped up to 21L, OG reading 1.051 (brewers friend says 1.052 so I’m happy with that!)

Pitched the yeast at 22 degrees according to bucket strip thermometer. Currently sitting in shed, ambient temp 20 degrees. Shed has heating and insulation so will set it to 18 to ensure a minimum temp. It’s generally shaded by trees apart from first thing so unless day temperatures get above 25 I’m expecting to be able to brew in the shed till Christmas, at which time I’ll need some sort of temp control as heating the whole shed gets expensive!

Fingers crossed for a good first brew!

 

[Banbeer]

Nice one, had my first one of these today, kegged it yesterday and burst carbed it at 40psi overnight. I must admit that when I brewed this before it was quite bitter but not very hoppy so added 50g Simcoe hops 4 days before kegging(dry hopped) and it was ok, needs a bit of clearing and conditioning. As for your DME clogging I find that I add the boiling water to the FV and then put the tin contents in put more boiling water into the tin, swill and add to the FV, thoroughly mix it all and then add around 4 - 5 litres of cold water, only then do I add the DME slowly and stirring continuously once all the DME is added then top up with cold water stirring vigorously, no clumps.

 

[Surfingobo]

Thanks Banbeer, that’s a good guide to adding it. I was a little worried about boiling water straight into plastic FV though, probably not an issue though.

Any experience with how long the coopers yeast takes to start?

 

[Banbeer]

Thanks Banbeer, that’s a good guide to adding it. I was a little worried about boiling water straight into plastic FV though, probably not an issue though.
Any experience with how long the coopers yeast takes to start?

No issue whatsoever putting boiling water into an FV, I've been doing it a while now without any problems, the yeast takes around 12 -18 hrs normally as long as you've mixed the brew so there's lots of foam (oxygen) for the yeast to get stuck into, as well as the fermentables of course. Good luck with your brew, as long as you're patient and sanitise well you'll be ok.

 

[Clint]

Sounds like you done good...and got the tap in the right place!

 

[Surfingobo]

Second brew kit, a wilko cerveza, gone in a second bucket today with 500g xldme and 500g sugar. all went smoothly except this time I dropped the yeast packet into the FV, doh! And I used 2 kettles of boiling water which gave me a 30 degree wort which I had to wait for, Pitched at 26 degree and in the shed at 20 ambient.

The coopers took 36 hours to get going, bubbled for 24 hours and has sat at about 1016 since. I’m hoping it’s not “stuck” but
I will give it two weeks in the FV before bottling.

got a bulldog evil dog and a woodfords wherry ready to go as soon as I have space. I need to do some serious bottle collecting!

 

[Surfingobo]

Wow, less than 12 hours in the FV and the cerveza is nearly continuously bubbling. I followed the kit instructions to stir in the yeast, rather than sprinkle on top as coopers say to do and it seems to have made a big difference.

 

[Surfingobo]

Anyone know how to take the apostrophe out of the title? I thought it wouldn’t bother me but it does.

 

[Surfingobo]

Ok, brew 1, the american ipa was bottled yesterday. Plan is to dry hop the cerveza on Monday. Brew 3, a bulldog evil dog is in the FV and bubbling nicely.

I have ordered the wilko 12(15L) stock pot, a nylon bag and £40 worth of hops and malt from get er brewed. Planning to do a mosaic smash and then a summer lightning clone as my first Biab attempts. Few questions below if anyone can enlighten me:

I assume it is ok to ferment approx 10L in a 25L bucket?

ive tried to use brewers friend to scale recipes but is there an easy way to change the final volume to automatically adjust the hop and malt weights?

 

[Fireside Ales Homebrewery]

Ok, brew 1, the american ipa was bottled yesterday. Plan is to dry hop the cerveza on Monday. Brew 3, a bulldog evil dog is in the FV and bubbling nicely.

I have ordered the wilko 12(15L) stock pot, a nylon bag and £40 worth of hops and malt from get er brewed. Planning to do a mosaic smash and then a summer lightning clone as my first Biab attempts. Few questions below if anyone can enlighten me:

I assume it is ok to ferment approx 10L in a 25L bucket?

ive tried to use brewers friend to scale recipes but is there an easy way to change the final volume to automatically adjust the hop and malt weights?

Hi, from not so sunny Somerset (Bath) To adjust a recipe malt weight. It’s weight X by desired volume, divided by original volume. For instance- 4.367kg X 20 litres divided by 21litres = 4.159. So 20 litre was my desired volume. 21 litre was the recipes original volume. I have found that this calculation is fairly solid each time.

 

[Surfingobo]

Cheers fireside, I understand the maths i
just thought for such a simple algorithm that brewers friend would have a simple “change Brew size” option but I cannot find it so perhaps they don’t.

 

[Fireside Ales Homebrewery]

Cheers fireside, I understand the maths i
just thought for such a simple algorithm that brewers friend would have a simple “change Brew size” option but I cannot find it so perhaps they don’t.

Ha sorry, I miss understood, I thought you where after the calculation. If you change your brew pot size from 20litres to say 14litres in the recipe editor, then the app will ask if you want to scale the recipe? I think this is as close as it gets. I have found that it is not as accurate as the pen and paper option.

 

[Surfingobo]

Brew 4 is AG number 1!! Went for a simple mosaic smash. All went swimmingly, took about an hour to cool to 35C in a water bath, at which point i poured to a Pyrex FV, and then took a further 3 hours to cool to 28C!! Lesson learnt.

Target was 1.048 and I hit 1.041 for about 64% BH efficiency. Looks like the boil off rates in Brewfather were about spot on.

comments on recipe welcomed, I put it together from a few different sources and scaled it to batch (8L)

yeast was half of a 1L stepped up St Austell proper job. Bottle shown in picture is a 250ml bottle (I poured off the top half of the litre before transferring to smaller bottles.)

 

[Surfingobo]

After a week in the bottle I couldn’t help but crack a bottle of brew 1 to see how it’s doing, the coopers brew a ipa.

nicely carbonated, a little sweet but not as much as the sample jar at bottling time. A bit of a dryer finish coming through. I’ve gone from thinking this one will be a dud to quite looking forward to it in a few weeks!

 

[Surfingobo]

Brew 5

Promised I wasn’t going to do another brew for a couple of weeks on Sunday.

had a spare evening on Monday so cracked on with a summer lightning clone recipe adapted to my kit.

All went very well, cooled to about 35C again, I seem to struggle to get it below this in the water bath in the sink. I think I need a larger builders trug as only half the pot is actually in the water! Anyway, poured into the FV and left to finish cooling over night.

pitched with some harvested wilko cerveza yeast which I believe is just their standard ale yeast. Was bubbling happily within a couple of hours.

Also update on AG1, the proper job yeast tried to climb out the FV in day 3, very cool!

evil dog kit on left, dry hopped today at 1.015 SG, AG 1 center and this brew on the right.

 

[Surfingobo]

Ok, brew 1 coopers IPA has been tried after 2 weeks in the bottle. Not overly impressed, quite a twang to it which I can only guess is the “homebrew twang” everyone talks about. Over carbonated (, no scales so was just one “level” teaspoon which when my scales arrived turned out to be 4-6g per bottle! On top of that I think I bottled it a little early so maybe dropped a point or two.)

brew 2 the wilko cerveza has been tried after a week in the bottle. I tried the batch dry hopped with mosaic. Lots ofstone fruit flavour/aroma and not much bitterness at all. Personally I’d have liked a little more bite but it is very drinkable and reminded me of some of the very expensive “tropical” craft beers I’ve had. I’m hoping this balances out a bit over the coming weeks. If not a slice of lime may help!

Both brews fairly clear, especially the cerveza.

 

[Surfingobo]

Brew 3, the Evil dog DIPA was bottled after 2.5 weeks in the fermenter, it just didn't want to stop! Came out at 1.007 FG for a whopping 8.1%. Tastes very nice already but I think it could have done with more than the 50g of simcoe for the dry hop. If i ever do it again I will probably add another 50g of mosaic, citra or galaxy.

Brew 4 and 5 bottled, my first two all grain batches after 14 and 12 days in the FV respectively. Brew 4 the Mosaic Smash finished at 1.008 for a 4.1% brew. Brew 5 finished at 1.020 for a 4.1% brew. I believe it finished so high due to a slightly high mash temperature... lesson learnt!

Brew 6 and 7 have been completed with my partners father over the weekend, he got into kits the same time as me about 2 months ago but hadn't tried all grain so was excited to give it a go! We made an english bitter (with pilsner malt, it was all i had!) and a NEIPA that I had planned for part of the verdant competition at Malt Miller that I didn't enter. Both using propogated Proper Job yeast that I am going to try to maintain as a 'House Strain'. Hoping it will subtly change over the next few years and I will be able to compare it to a fresh strain one day to see how it's changed! Both brews are already down below 1.020 already and taste great from the sample jar.

 

[Surfingobo]

Currently brewing a Vienna Saaz SMaSH. Brew number 8. 2KG Vienna malt and 10g Saaz at 60 min, 5g at 15min and 5g at flameout then no chill (straight in thick glass fermenter)

Then I plan to use the spent grain plus some pale chocolate and some Carafa 2 to make a “table stout” ala Brulosophys short and shoddy. No idea what OG to expect but hoping to add 500ml of cold brew coffee if I get a high enough og to not drop below 2%abv. I hope it turns out well I really like the idea of a low alcohol weeknight stout!

 

[Surfingobo]

Should have said both 8L batches so each will get half a pack of Mangrove Jacks M54 Californian lager yeast. Another good reason to try this double brew method as I don’t want to store open packs of dry yeast!