Coopers Vintage Ale 2018

[Hairy]

30 minutes ago, Beer Baron said:

It was $50 and it is bottle conditioned. I have already checked eBay and someone is selling a bottle for $1000!!

Tell him he’s dreaming.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Is it brewed with that 200 year old yeast they found in that bottle? Pretty sure that was found on a shipwreck.

[Beer Baron]

30 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Is it brewed with that 200 year old yeast they found in that bottle? Pretty sure that was found on a shipwreck.

Yeah that’s the one

[The Captain!!]

Bummer. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Apparently some Dan's stores were selling it earlier than they should have been. I'm guessing my local one doesn't have it but I haven't been up there

[Beer Baron]

3 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Apparently some Dan's stores were selling it earlier than they should have been. I'm guessing my local one doesn't have it but I haven't been up there

Yeah I read that. People are pretty annoyed on social media

[The Captain!!]

I’m going to try get some when I get home from work.i don’t think people around my area will be too onto this.  But ya never know, I might get a surprise 

[robwalk]

I picked up a half doz and tried one a couple of weeks ago, really enjoyed it.  I'm half-half about it being more hoppy.  as a bit of a fan of hoppy beer, I think yes!. As my palette learns about malty and yeasty beers, I think 'maybe not' particularly if aging and maturing.

I also picked up the recipe pack and I know it will be quite different from the commercial bottles.

However, the recipe calls for Coppers commercial yeast and they suggest  collecting from 6 Pale or Mid ales.  Now I don't want to drink that much beer in an evening.  I recon I can manage 3 at a pinch but would prefer 2.  Has anybody grown a culture up from 2 or three bottles and if so can you give me some tips?

I've got 2016 and 2017 recipes still n the shelf and enjoy sampling as they age and comparing them.  2017 is definitely more hoppy than 2016. 

[PB2]

23 hours ago, robwalk said:

However, the recipe calls for Coppers commercial yeast and they suggest  collecting from 6 Pale or Mid ales.  Now I don't want to drink that much beer in an evening.  I recon I can manage 3 at a pinch but would prefer 2.  Has anybody grown a culture up from 2 or three bottles and if so can you give me some tips?

Simply screw the caps back on the decanted bottles and leave them in the fridge until you have decanted all 6.

[PaddyBrew2]

i just bought us05 rather than faffing about with commercial yeast. if its good enough for 2013-2017 then its good enough for 2018

[Malter White]

On 8/4/2018 at 8:52 PM, Greeny1525229549 said:

What's a maritime flavour? Seafoods???

Probably tomato flavour.
I heard Italian fisherman in days of old would take pasta with tomato sauce on their boats because it wouldn't spoil as quickly as a meat based sauce. Hence, it was called spaghetti marinara. But over time people started adding fish and calling it marinara.

[robwalk]

20 hours ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

i just bought us05 rather than faffing about with commercial yeast. if its good enough for 2013-2017 then its good enough for 2018

I'd put that as my fall-back if I couldn't be bothered or couldn't find a way to go from 2-3 bottles and make a starter.  I just wonder what the difference in flavor is.  There's quite a lot of talk about how good the Coopers commercial yeast is and how it adds to the overall beer's flavor.

I'll keep that in mind as an alternative.  I won't be brewing it for about another month,so I'v got some time to think about it.

[porschemad911]

On 9/3/2018 at 2:30 PM, robwalk said:

I just wonder what the difference in flavor is. 

The difference in flavour between US-05 and the Coopers CCA yeast is large. They produce completely different beers in my experience. 

Cheers, 

John

[robwalk]

8 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

The difference in flavour between US-05 and the Coopers CCA yeast is large. They produce completely different beers in my experience. 

Thanks John,

Although I like using the US-05 for many of my ales, that seems to be a common opinion and does give me considerable incentive to step up to harvesting the Coopers CCA yeast and into the whole world of harvesting, storing and calculating yeast count.

Cheers,

Rob

[porschemad911]

Cool, its fun. Don't worry too much about the calculating part. It's all guesswork and not that important to be totally precise.

Yeast cultures are like a nuclear weapon

Cheers, 

John

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

You won't get precise at home, even with a known starting count. I'd agree with that part but I'm not convinced on that article. By that logic you could pitch a quarter of the recommended rate and end up with exactly the same result as pitching at the recommended rate. That has not been my experience or that of others.

[robwalk]

On 9/5/2018 at 8:14 AM, porschemad911 said:

Don't worry too much about the calculating part. It's all guesswork and not that important to be totally precise.

 

On 9/5/2018 at 9:17 AM, Otto Von Blotto said:

By that logic you could pitch a quarter of the recommended rate and end up with exactly the same result as pitching at the recommended rate. That has not been my experience or that of others.

Looks as though I'll be heading down the  Coopers CCA yeast path.

So the idea is make your best effort to get good estimate of starting count and work from there with calculations.  OK so does anyone know what a typical starting count for say Cooper's Pale Ale  (or the Mid Ale) for that matter?  Age would be a significant factor I guess.

Has anyone tried harvesting ans storing the Cooper's CCA yeast from a brew?  And further, has anyone tried freezing saved yeast?

[Otto Von Blotto]

That's why you can't get precise, it's hard to know how many viable cells you're starting with in a bottle. I think there was something posted about how much they dose the bottles with though which might help, I won't bet my life on this but I seem to recall a figure about 1 million cells per mL in the bottles. Even when I buy smack packs that say 100bn cells on them it's still not precise as you don't really know the exact viability. As long as it's close enough around the right numbers though, it will be fine.

You could alter the pitching rate to try to get certain flavors from the yeast too. Generally speaking the more you pitch, the cleaner the flavor but it is somewhat strain dependent too. I haven't used CCA yeast, so I won't advise what pitching rates to use to get the flavors you might be chasing from it as I don't know. I don't really like yeast derived flavors which is one reason I haven't used it, but it's also the reason I pitch at or above the recommended rates, to allow the malt and hops to dominate the flavor.

[Beerlust]

50 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

...I haven't used CCA yeast, so I won't advise what pitching rates to use to get the flavors you might be chasing from it as I don't know. I don't really like yeast derived flavors which is one reason I haven't used it, but it's also the reason I pitch at or above the recommended rates, to allow the malt and hops to dominate the flavor.

The CCA yeast is like any other strain. Pitch healthy volumes & ferment lower for a cleaner yeast profile in the beer, or ferment higher for more yeast derived flavours & esters.

If you fermented higher with the 1469 you're using of late, the "moderate nutty and stone-fruit esters" would become more prominent in those beers you use it in.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Beerlust]

I had one of the 2018 commercial Vintage Ales the other day.

It was surprisingly quite bitter. I'd definitely be ageing this batch for sometime before consuming.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I figured as much Lusty. Those esters are precisely the reason I don't ferment 1469 warmer, as the beers I normally use it in other than English bitters when I brew them, I don't want those esters.

[porschemad911]

4 hours ago, robwalk said:

 

Looks as though I'll be heading down the  Coopers CCA yeast path.

So the idea is make your best effort to get good estimate of starting count and work from there with calculations.  OK so does anyone know what a typical starting count for say Cooper's Pale Ale  (or the Mid Ale) for that matter?  Age would be a significant factor I guess.

Has anyone tried harvesting ans storing the Cooper's CCA yeast from a brew?  And further, has anyone tried freezing saved yeast?

I had great luck leaving a 6 pack of pale in the fridge for a week, then pitching the dregs of all 6 bottles into a 500ml / 50g LDM vitality starter. I pitched this into 11 of 1.065 OG Coopers BES clone (all-grain).

I repitched the slurry several times and got great beers each time. Was very sad to tip the yeast cake down the drain after the last batch. It was going strong, but I was moving onto lager yeast and wouldn't have got back to it for quite a while.

Edit: I don't even try to work out my yeast count, doesn't really matter all that much in my experience, particularly if repitching. Having yeast that is active and fermenting strongly is more important imo. Google 'vitality starter' for more. 

Cheers, 

John

[robwalk]

Hey guys,

All very interesting.  Just went on a 'Google' walk and did some reading on vitality starters.  

4 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

I repitched the slurry several times and got great beers each time.

Very encouraging! Some new adventures await.

And back to the 'Kilt Lifter' - still a couple of weeks away before I have another try.  Looking forward to that.

[Wobbly74]

With the CCA yeast I found it fermented very clean at 19C. Actually cleaner than I wanted for my coopers session ale clone. Next time I'm going to try it at 23 to get some more character out of the yeast. And go with a lighter touch on the hops, particularly the galaxy

[robwalk]

Kilt Lifter with orange zest and coffee update.

Checked my notes and discovered it was Just on 6 weeks since bottling and decided to try a bottle last night.
The flavour is settling and integrating more.  It is not quite in the direction I was hoping for.  For me, the coffee is about right. - quite subtle but noticeably there in comparison to the first brew  In fact, I'm not sure if the coffee flavours come from the coffee ore the chocolate malt.

The orange has a zest overtone ( I guess not really surprising) that sits out of the flavour profile a bit.  In itself, not unpleasant and the beer is quite pleasant.  It is not something I'd rush back to, though.  

The thing that was a bit unpleasant was a slightly 'pucker mouth' that developed after finishing the drink which gradually went away over about an hour.  It was that dry mouth feel that water doesn't relieve.  I suspect this comes from the oils extracted from the zest.  These may gradually soften or disappear over time.  So I'm thinking that using vodka on the zest may have been a bit too effective and extracted too much of the oils, in particular some of the heavier, less volatile and less pleasant tasting ones.  Diluting the vodka more, reducing the steeping time or finding an alternative extraction process may result in more satisfying flavours.  Or maybe zest just throws flavours I don't really want.

Using juice instead may be an alternative.  Has anyone tried adding freshly squeezed orange juice to a brew?  I guess if the squeezer and jug were sterilised, the juice from freshly cut oranges would be basically sterile also.
And when to add it: early in the ferment, in the late stages?

So far, this has been very interesting for me as my first foray into adding  other than standard beer brew ingredients.  I'm still interested to see how it develops over the next 6-12 months (or even longer).