Coopers Australian Pale Ale improvements

[The Captain!!]

I did use Carapils a bit. I don’t anymore, as I feel my beers don’t need it anymore. 

I found using Carapils in bottle conditioned beer ok but kegging, no. It kinda helped out with the “thinning” of the beer during secondary. 

I don’t like heavier beers and offsetting the body/thinning beer was easier for me rather than changing strike temps. As I was only placing a small percentage in the beer. 

Might seem stoopid but it helped me.

My understanding of my Carapils came about is because some Belgium breweries at the time couldn’t heat past a certain temp. Carapils gave the beer body for the beers they were producing. 

[Beerlust]

16 minutes ago, Hairy said:

Dextrin malts/grains have been kilned in a way to extract dextrins, which are non-fermentable long chain sugars. Not sure how fermentable wort you would get from Carapils but I wouldn’t think it would be much. I could be wrong.

I've found taking the BS story lines out of the equation here to be more helpful than not. Understanding the simple philosophy of time being longer kilned etc. decreases the fermentability of malted grains has worked well for me.

I did have a link to an article that gave the fermentability percentage shift from dextrin malts through to heavily roasted malts at one point, & linked to it here on the forum in the past. It explained the whole thing rather well. A few computer rebuilds later & that link is now gone. 

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Hairy]

I recall a Brew Strong podcast where John or Jamil was saying that some breweries have mash tuns with set temps that they can’t change and Carapils helped when they wanted a fuller bodied beer.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I was always under the impression that it was made similarly to crystal malts where the starches etc. are sort of mashed within the grains prior to kilning. There is a difference between these malts and roasted malts. I could be wrong but I doubt roasted malts go through that "mash" stage before being roasted.

I've made crystal malt at home a couple of times by soaking base malt in distilled water overnight, then "baking" it in the oven in the mid 60s for an hour or so (the "mash") before roasting at a higher temperature until it turned the colour I was after. It was then rested in brown paper bags for a month before use. The last lot I made was rather similar to Caraaroma in colour,  aroma and flavour. I realise the commercial method would differ somewhat from this (they make it from unkilned malt/grains rather than grain already made into base malt from what I've read) but the end results are pretty much the same.

Point being, it's not just time kilned that makes the difference in fermentable sugar extraction from these grains, it's the whole process of producing them. At the same time, crystal malts mashed with base malts probably don't contribute as many unfermentable sugars as ones steeped on their own as the enzymes in the base malt probably break them down a bit.

[The Captain!!]

Was it this link @Beerlust 

http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/understanding-carapils/

[Hairy]

8 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Point being, it's not just time kilned that makes the difference in fermentable sugar extraction from these grains, it's the whole process of producing them. At the same time, crystal malts mashed with base malts probably don't contribute as many unfermentable sugars as ones steeped on their own as the enzymes in the base malt probably break them down a bit.

I guess that is rue. You would have to be mashing in the temp range (say around 67 degrees) where both Alpha-amylase and Beta-amylase are both active. The alpha-a can break up the dextrins into shorter chains to allow the beta-a to work on them.

[porschemad911]

I haven't used Carapils for a couple of years now. I bought it to use in Lusty's Mosaic Amber and Kelsey's Red. I used the leftovers in a couple of other things, realised it doesn't do much and stopped using it.

The most recent time I was tempted to use it was in an American Brown, given that Janet's Brown uses it.  Then thought nah and left it out. I don't see myself buying it again, I tend to minimise grain bills a bit more now, cutting out things like carapils and a little bit of wheat. 

Cheers, 

John 

[Beerlust]

11 hours ago, The Captain1525230099 said:

Was it this link @Beerlust 

http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/understanding-carapils/

I have linked that one before when discussing CaraPils. The one I was thinking about was more to do with the fermentability shift from lighter kilned grains right through to the darkest roasted grains.

Each grain type has an expected "yield" of releasable sugars into solution. These translate into gravity "points per gallon" (PPG) that are then able to be fermented by yeast. Each grain type also has a portion that is NOT fermentable, that will be retained as body in your beer. Through the varying kilning processes/roasting processes etc, each grain type produces different levels of fermentable sugars by weight. I tried to find the article I was thinking about, but to no avail. I did find a couple of links though that hopefully explain it better than I can. The second of the two links displays some charts that show the differences between steeping grains vs using them in conjunction with a base malt & mashing them that Hairy mentioned in his post above.

http://howtobrew.com/book/section-2/what-is-malted-grain/table-of-typical-malt-yields

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/testing-fermentability-of-crystal-malt.208361/page-3#post-2721761

2 hours ago, porschemad911 said:

I haven't used Carapils for a couple of years now. I bought it to use in Lusty's Mosaic Amber and Kelsey's Red. I used the leftovers in a couple of other things, realised it doesn't do much and stopped using it.

The most recent time I was tempted to use it was in an American Brown, given that Janet's Brown uses it.  Then thought nah and left it out. I don't see myself buying it again, I tend to minimise grain bills a bit more now, cutting out things like carapils and a little bit of wheat. 

Cheers, 

John 

I'm much the same with it too these days John. Most of my beers aren't that light in colour so I don't really need it & I'll often use other grain types.

For light coloured beers like Pilsners, Lagers, Kolsch's though, It's certainly still my grain of choice to add body & mouthfeel without darkening colour.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Beerlust]

20 hours ago, Hairy said:

I recall a Brew Strong podcast where John or Jamil was saying that some breweries have mash tuns with set temps that they can’t change and Carapils helped when they wanted a fuller bodied beer.

I've also read articles where steeping certain grains separately from the mash can actually be beneficial. The logic behind it is sound (IMHO). These articles were both for commercial brewing, & home brewing. A number of these grains affect mash pH that can be detrimental to the whole process of producing wort of particular fermentable/non fermentable percentages.

Pretty serious stuff when you are a commercial brewer making giga-litres of beer.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Norris!]

What about using some munich malt? That would definitely pimp the beer.

If you dont like carapils then sub in another spec grain that would compliment the brew, or do a partial mash to replace some of the extract, that would freshen up the beer and provide some experience working with grains. That is the best part about homebrewing, we can pick and choose what we do in our brewery.  Possibilities are endless! 🤯

Cheers

Norris

[Norris!]

Coopers has answered your prayers! This recipe looks ok, a little bitter for me, but still nicehttps://www.diybeer.com/au/recipe/anarchy-ipa.html

 

[ChristinaS1]

On 2/4/2019 at 3:07 AM, Sam Trankle said:

Hey guys

Looking for ideas on improving/experimenting with the coopers Australian Pale Ale kit.

I currently have:

1x Australian Pale Ale 1.7kg

1x Brew enhancer 2 1kg

I also have on hand Simcoe, Centennial and Riwaka hops.

Just wondering what hop schedule I could do for the above hops or if could add any specialty grains to pimp the standard kit out a bit

Any ideas or input would be great! 

I am a bottler, so I have to wait for my brew to carbonate before I can start drinking it. The clock is ticking on the hop flavour during this time. I used to be frustrated with the flavour falling off before I got to the end of a batch, especially with FO only, or DH only, or FO + DH additions. I saw much better flavour retention adding a boil. A ten minutes helps, but 20 minutes is better. My current methodology is to start with a very tiny addition at 20 minutes, then add a few more grams at 15 minutes, then a larger amount at 10 minutes, then a more at 5 minutes. Since I prefer APAs, the total amount used in the boil does not add up to very much, but I find it makes a big difference to the durability of the flavour in the bottle, whilst staggering the additions adds complexity and "roundness." If using two or three different hops, I tend not to use equal amounts with each addition, but rather alternate, or use different proportions . I don't add any hops at flameout but wait for the temp to drop to 85C, when I wrap the FV in a blanket, add the hop stand addition and let it stand for 20 minutes, after which I put the FV in a sink full of ice water and try to cool it to 20-25C ASAP, then I pitch the yeast. 

That being said, I find that the APA kit is too bitter for a 20 minute boil, given I am aiming for an APA, so last year I switched to using the Mexican Cervesa kit as a base, but YMMV.

Cheers,

Christina.

[ChristinaS1]

On 2/7/2019 at 4:34 AM, Norris! said:

Coopers has answered your prayers! This recipe looks ok, a little bitter for me, but still nicehttps://www.diybeer.com/au/recipe/anarchy-ipa.html

 

Not sure why, but when I click on the link I get a "not found" error message. Is that because I am outside Australia? What is the recipe?

[#granted+brew]

1 hour ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Not sure why, but when I click on the link I get a "not found" error message. Is that because I am outside Australia? What is the recipe?

[DonPolo]

Where is a good source of dry wheat malt?

[Titan]

Cheeky Peak does it.

[DonPolo]

23 hours ago, Titan said:

Cheeky Peak does it.

Ta had a look at their website.