Second brew

[Donnyd03]

I am looking to start my second attempt at brewing using the coopers diy. The first time around was with the ingredients that come with the kit. What would people recommend to try for the second time? I enjoy most types of beers. 

[Cassius]

Donny, I am perhaps only 4 months more advanced in my homebrewing career than you, so I thought I'd give some tips on what I've learned from brewing using hopped kits without temp control.

I'm a big pale ale drinker, and I hadn't managed to make a good pale ale in my first three attempts; until I started dry hopping. My first three were drinkable, especially when very cold, but they weren't very good. Then on my fourth attempt I added a dry hop and it made all the difference. I think it's partly to do with the flavour you inevitably get from using hopped extracts and partly because I was fermenting US-05 at 22ish degrees, when it really wants to be closer to 18 to stay completely neutral. Whatever the case, I believe dry hopping helps to cover those sins.

Similar to the previous, I have had very good results when brewing yeast-driven beers. I think it's partly because you get strong flavour and aroma which can cover up any other issues and partly because I have been brewing wheat beers that like to be fermented at slightly higher temps. The best result I've had so far, and an extremely simple recipe, is the Hefeweizen. I used Mangrove Jack's M20 yeast and fermented at around 24 degrees. It was such a hit that it was fully drunk within about a month of bottling and I'm bottling the second one this weekend.

Lastly, apparently darker beers are more forgiving when brewed by a novice such as myself. Again, there is more flavour to hide any issues. My first attempt at a dark beer was a simple Bock that I created a recipe for with the help of my LHBS. This had no grain addition and a simple hop steep and turned out quite lovely considering how simple it was. I will be doing another Bock soon with a grain steep. I'm planning on brewing a Dunkelweizen this weekend and an Amber Saison, both based on Coopers recipes but with slight tweaks based on things I've learned.

Please note these are only my experiences and there may be other novices out there brewing perfectly crisp lagers and zesty Kolsch's. Happy to answer any other questions or elaborate on anything I've mentioned.

Cheers and good luck.

[Journeyman]

58 minutes ago, Donnyd03 said:

I am looking to start my second attempt at brewing using the coopers diy. The first time around was with the ingredients that come with the kit. What would people recommend to try for the second time? I enjoy most types of beers. 

1st recommendation - Temperature control!

2nd recommendation - Temperature control!

I spent $30 on a 2nd hand fridge - it's all fridge so I can actually brew 2 FV's at the same time. I took one of the shelves and turned it around and fed it into the slot of the shelf halfway up and it barely notices a full FV on it.

I spent $50 for an Inkbird controller to run the fridge.

Now I can brew WTF beer I like with confidence I'm getting something very drinkable and I can concentrate on the recipe and ingredients and not worry about whether tomorrow will be 45° or not. And I can cold crash the brew to get much more clear beer in the glass.

My first brew got to 36° overnight and STILL turned out drinkable, if fruity. The fix was to leave the brew keep going for about 5 days after FG to let the yeast clean things up.

Depends on what beer you like but until you get your process down (my 1st few had multiple 'WTF!' moments as I realised I'd missed a step or forgotten something) I'd say start with fairly simple recipes - maybe a Real Ale can, some LDME and some dry hops - easy to do and let's you streamline your activities. 

One thing I learned that helps me - I do all the sanitising etc the day before brew day. I use stellarsan and a 2L pressure spray bottle from Woollies, clean and sanitise (i clean after use so mostly it's just a rinse and wipe then spray stellarsan) store them in the cupboard and mist-spray the entire interior of the cupboard.

Brew day is then just mix, heat and cool and put the FV in the fridge.

[Marty_G]

As a second brew I would recommend the Real Ale using 1kg of light dry malt powder, US05 or Nottingham yeast and dry hopped with something like centennial, cascade, citra or similar. The RA kit is a widely regarded as a great base kit which is very easy to enhance but tastes great of its own. I would have a play around with that. If you can keep it at around the 20^o mark during ferment even better.   Another great kit is the English Bitter.  they both are great base but can be enhased easily.   

[Lab Cat]

27 minutes ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

As a second brew I would recommend the Real Ale using 1kg of light dry malt powder, US05 or Nottingham yeast and dry hopped with something like centennial, cascade, citra or similar. The RA kit is a widely regarded as a great base kit which is very easy to enhance but tastes great of its own. I would have a play around with that. If you can keep it at around the 20^o mark during ferment even better.   Another great kit is the English Bitter.  they both are great base but can be enhased easily.   

I like the Real ale too, but find it a bit lacking with light malt, much prefer the amber liquid malt. And more a winter brew for me, just my personal preferences.

I agree with the Pale suggestion, it's a solid kit and Pales are simple. With no temp control, I also think Nottingham is the go. Still pretty clean ferment at higher temps. Definitely throw in some hops at day 5. Cascade, Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe - any of the pale ale style hops, there's plenty of them. Easiest way to add flavour and impress yourself.

[Cassius]

1 hour ago, Lab Rat said:

I like the Real ale too, but find it a bit lacking with light malt, much prefer the amber liquid malt. And more a winter brew for me, just my personal preferences.

I agree with the Pale suggestion, it's a solid kit and Pales are simple. With no temp control, I also think Nottingham is the go. Still pretty clean ferment at higher temps. Definitely throw in some hops at day 5. Cascade, Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe - any of the pale ale style hops, there's plenty of them. Easiest way to add flavour and impress yourself.

I was actually going to make a topic on this but you've given me my opening. I had been using US-05 for pale ales but considering I'm often brewing at 22-24 degrees, do you think Nottingham would be better? Everyone on this forum seems to have no trouble finding an oversized secondhand fridge for free or next to nothing, but I've been looking on gumtree, ebay and facebook pages for over a month with nothing really suitable coming up. I live in Metro Sydney so maybe there's just more competition.

Also to add something to the thread, I made a brew recently in order to get rid of the Brew Enhancer 1 that came with my Coopers kit. It was a Real Ale can, 500g BE1, 500g dry amber extract, 25g cascade steep and 25g cascade dry hop. I've only tried one of the bottles at 12 days but I think once it's a bit less green it should be a really nice, complex beer. Lovely colour and slightly herbaceous.

[Malter White]

@Donnyd03 I'd recommend the real ale or dark ale. Don't think I've ever brewed a bad one of those two. I prefer the dark ale but you might not want to be drinking that during summer.

And I only use the kit yeasts. I'm not against using different yeasts but I'm too tight to buy it.

Edited January 29, 2020 by MUZZY

[Lab Cat]

10 minutes ago, Cassius said:

I was actually going to make a topic on this but you've given me my opening. I had been using US-05 for pale ales but considering I'm often brewing at 22-24 degrees, do you think Nottingham would be better? Everyone on this forum seems to have no trouble finding an oversized secondhand fridge for free or next to nothing, but I've been looking on gumtree, ebay and facebook pages for over a month with nothing really suitable coming up. I live in Metro Sydney so maybe there's just more competition.

I had mixed results with US05, I got a couple of stalls with it, this is purely anecdotal and might have been due to other factors. Nottingham has always been very quick and predictable in fermenting.

With fridges, I had the same issue, but being in Perth, not being able to find them was the issue. Took me 6 months to get one.

 

[Aussiekraut]

1 hour ago, Lab Rat said:

I like the Real ale too, but find it a bit lacking with light malt, much prefer the amber liquid malt. And more a winter brew for me, just my personal preferences.

I agree with the Pale suggestion, it's a solid kit and Pales are simple. With no temp control, I also think Nottingham is the go. Still pretty clean ferment at higher temps. Definitely throw in some hops at day 5. Cascade, Mosaic, Citra, Simcoe - any of the pale ale style hops, there's plenty of them. Easiest way to add flavour and impress yourself.

I agree, the RA with a can of amber ale and brewed with Nottingham yeast makes a pretty nice, yet easy to make beer. 

[Thirsty Jim]

For the fridge hunters try Freecycle. org.

"The Freecycle Network® is made up of 5,000+ groups with over 9 million members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

Membership is free, and everything posted must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. As a nonprofit, The Freecycle Network's server and operating expenses are funded by corporate underwriting, on-site advertising (in the form of a Google sponsor bar), grants and individual donations."

You can both post the things you want to give away and WANTED ads.    

[Cassius]

39 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

$20...
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/parramatta-area/fridges-freezers/samsung-fridge-needs-to-go-asap/1239972531

 

I don't really want to get into this but the intent of my post wasn't for people to find fridges for me. Nevermind that searching a greater metro area of over 12,000 square kilometers and over 5 million people isn't particularly helpful anyway. I could go through each of those and say why they're not suitable but I think it would probably bore the other forum goers.

[Cassius]

26 minutes ago, James of Bayswater said:

For the fridge hunters try Freecycle. org.

"The Freecycle Network® is made up of 5,000+ groups with over 9 million members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

Membership is free, and everything posted must be free, legal and appropriate for all ages. As a nonprofit, The Freecycle Network's server and operating expenses are funded by corporate underwriting, on-site advertising (in the form of a Google sponsor bar), grants and individual donations."

You can both post the things you want to give away and WANTED ads.    

Thanks James. I'll give it a look tonight.

[Lab Cat]

1 hour ago, Cassius said:

I don't really want to get into this but the intent of my post wasn't for people to find fridges for me. Nevermind that searching a greater metro area of over 12,000 square kilometers and over 5 million people isn't particularly helpful anyway. I could go through each of those and say why they're not suitable but I think it would probably bore the other forum goers.

Try a WANTED on your local buy nothing group.