RDW

Yeah, a kind of Earl Grey-y bergamot-y and another lemony grapefruit-y something else going on too. So yeah citrus and citrus.

Looks lovely, but running naked through a cornfield just leaves me thinking of a scratched up nut sack. Dig the Timmy Taylor glass…I’ve got an AG Landlord clone recipe queued up for a few weeks time!

Earl Grey IPA Coopers Craft recipe. Ooooh, this is bloody lovely with subtle bergamot and citrus flavours from the Earl Grey beautifully balanced by the sweet malts and subtle hops (I tweaked the recipe by replacing the unhopped malt extract with sugar, as per another discussion on this forum….thanks again @Shamus O'Sean…and chucked in some Falconers Flight hops to up the citrus notes). Perfect early (geddit?) Friday knock off drink. Deelish!

Hi again @Shamus O'Sean been a longish time between drinks (rest assured I’ve had a few between then and now though!) and I thought you’d like to know I’m just sampling another recipe where I substituted a malt pouch with some sugar….this time the Earl Grey IPA craft recipe. And what a ripper!!! Don’t think I’ll ever use the pouches again. The balance is perfect now…the malts shine through without overpowering everything else and, in this brew particularly, the delicate Earl Grey flavours come through amazingly. I’m sure if I’d used the pouch it would have been so malt-heavy as to have spoiled everything else so, sincerely, a thousand thank yous for pointing me in the right direction!

Cheers @Hairy @Shamus O'Sean

I’ve been brewing the craft kits for a while and am taking a step into BIAB all grain with a 5 litre small batch kit. I’ve been looking at recipes on Brewfather and, after scaling to 5 litres, many include the likes of miniscule (0.5g to 1g) additions of calcium chloride, Epsom salts, lactic acid, gypsum and so on. After doing a bit of research my understanding is this is to make the wort more acidic, particularly for paler beers. I am in Bayside Melbourne with pretty good water quality....what are the collective’s thoughts on these additions? Can I get away without? Would it make a discernible difference for a home drinker wanting to make a decent brew but not looking to win any gold medals? Cheers!

Me too re. the weekday drinking, but my impatience got the better of me this time!

Hi @Shamus O'Sean thought you might like to know how I went with your recommendation…I just cracked the first bottle (11 days or so since bottling) and it was bloody beautiful…just what I’m looking for…plenty of hoppy bite but with tropical hoppiness aromas and not too malty. I basically followed your rec. re adding sugar instead of the malt extract pouch but boosted with some crystal malt grains in a 30min steep (this basically came out like a porridge so I’ve got some learning to do there methinks!). Plenty of hops in the boil and the dry hop and I was a very happy little hop head tonight! Will be sticking the rest of the batch in the fridge ASAP.

Based on the Coopers Craft recipe ‘Really Satisifies Stout’ but with more lactose and no peanut butter powder. Not wanting to blow me own trumpet too much, but this is a tremendous drop! Very much like the Exit Brewing Milk Stout, which is one of my fave’s so as you can see in the picture, I’m pretty made up with this!

Mine started at 1055, finished 1015 (my hydrometer is about 3 points high so would/should otherwise be about 1012 FG)

Oh no, no sink pours here…Still a grand old brew!

Commiserating an extended lockdown with an early doors arvo IPA. This was meant to be a hazy but turned out a lot darker, sweeter and more malty than expected. Was my first effort with the lallemand verdant yeast and was mildly disappointing…a decent ale but not what I wanted…

I did the Laneway Latte Stout craft recipe which asked for 30g coffee beans ‘dry hopped’ as it were for 4 days. I checked after 24 hrs and the coffee taste was very strong so I removed. I drank the last bottle at 6mths old a few weeks ago and the coffee taste was there and was beautiful...soft, smooth and not at all bitter. I was talking to one of the brewing assistants at West Side Ale Works about it and they said be careful when using whole beans as they can leave a very bitter and astringent taste very quickly, so if using the whole bean route, taste regularly and get ready to fish them out!

Thanks Shamus. It’s not so much I don’t like the malt flavours per se, more so they are not desirable in the style I’m going for, which is a more of a hopped up West coast IPA. So...If I were to substitute the 250g Coopers unhopped malt extract pouch which appear in the majority of the craft series recipes with plain white sugar as you suggest, I suppose that would give me a similar alcohol content without the strong maltiness? Do I literally just dissolve the sugar alongside the tin extract straight in the FV, and add a hop boil as per normal recipe? Thanks for the guidance...much appreciated!

I’ve been brewing for several months with the craft kit, working my way through the database of recipes. Thus far I’ve tried 17 recipes and have been pretty impressed by most. The darker stouts and browns have been very good. The IPAs and pales not so. I’m a hop head and have dialled up the hops in the boil and the dry hop/hop tea and have found a good balance there for hop flavour, aroma and bitterness, but I do find that the recipes come out far too dark, malty, biscuity and caramel-y. Could this be the use of the malt extract pouch? Any thoughts or advice on leaving it out of a recipe and what that would do to the final brew, or replacing with DME? If I were to replace with DME would that help with body and alcohol content but reduce the heavy maltiness? Cheers!

Hi. I brewed as per the recipe kit and got OG reading of 1055, and FG of 1012 after 7 days and bottled 4 days later when was still at 1012. I added the hazelnut syrup at day 3. Tried a bottle after nearly 3 weeks and it was amazing...good luck!

Yeah - soz 'bout that. Big sample + empty stomach = all sorts of trouble!

The recent craft ROTM hazelnut chocolate stout. I actually had the Bad Shepherd double choc hazelnut brown last night (one of the best beers in Oz I reckon) and this one is pretty bloody close! Beautifully creamy and full of body and that hazelnut on the nose and chocolate at the end! Oh man! Only been in the bottle about 3 weeks and is only going to get better

“Don’t fancy yours much”

Yes...always good practise to rinse your glass just before the pour, regardless of how they were washed. Nothing worse than a mucky/detergent residue glass (well obviously there are lots of things worse but you get my drift! )

Keep your eye on gumtree / Facebook marketplace for one of these beauties. I picked one up for $20 and made my life so much easier. My regime is to rinse bottles after drinking. I make a mix every few months or so of a couple litres of water and stellarsan solution and use this to swish around the FV before brewing and then use that in the below to sterilise bottles on bottling day after leaving them to soak overnight in the Aldi laundry soaker others have mentioned. I take the ‘belt and braces’ approach, but I only have the craft fermenter so only do a few bottles at a time.

I’m sure I read somewhere that starsan at the correct level of dilution will last several weeks. As long as ph level is something like 3 or lower it will be ok. Happy to be corrected but I’ve been reusing a batch for about 6 weeks at a time or longer before chucking away and (so far) not had any issues. Bought some pH testing strips from eBay to double check.

Thanks - just read in another forum that some use a growler and thought to myself oh yeah, I've got one I've not used in ages just laying around...much easier than trying to rummaging around in the tupperware cupboard trying to find one that's big enough, then find the matching lid!! Cheers @ozdevilpanic over!!

Urgent help needed please. I was just about to brew up a stout (the Coopers Craft Laneway Latte recipe). I had recently bought a stash of the 1.3L tins and thought I had the required Bewitched Amber in the cupboard. I had boiled the chocolate malt grains (not yet added the lactose) but when I went to the cupboard....no Amber Ale tin! I used it the other week in another recipe. What a plonker! Now my question is...If i keep the boiled wort in the fridge in sterilised container over the next 72hrs or so, will it be ok to add to the extract when I get it from the LHBS on Monday? Or should I just bin it and start afresh again...thanks in advance!

Also agree the Bridge Road Saison is a fantastic beer. For another good Aussie example of the style try https://www.boatrocker.com.au/products/saison-du-bateau