The Mexican experiment

[Goldcoast Crow]

So with my third brew I thought I’d try something to see what happens, I recently purchased an 11.5lt malt n shovel kit(mainly for the extras like two glass hydrometers) for$15, now I thought with my Mexican cerveza, as it comes as a 1.7lt can meant for the 23ltr kits, that I would split the can in half and make 2 8ltr batches and see how the different vessels go.....

initial og was interesting to say, the coopers craft was 1.030 and the malt and shovel was 1.035, low but meh it will make lighter beers.... the interesting thing was after day 1 I thought I would just check that sg as they did seem low, the coopers has gone to 1.025 and the malt n shovel to 1.02.... there is plenty of klausen in the coopers but I’m not opening the m n s as to not introduce oxygen.

will this quickly dropping gravity make the beer taste any different as it looks like it might be an early bottling....

[Goldcoast Crow]

By the way, even only a day old it tastes and looks really nice

[Otto Von Blotto]

The vessel won't make any difference to the OG or how quickly it ferments. Probably just got more of the kit contents in one than the other. Did you add any malt or whatever to them? If not that would explain the low OG readings. 

[Goldcoast Crow]

No I didn’t but if the flavour is not quite there I will do next time as it seems to be quite subtle early on, no bitterness at all.... so malt will bolster the abv I’m guessing.... I have a can of Apa so that may just go in as a toucan if this is a little light on punch...

[Shamus O'Sean]

Good pick-up OVB. Of course this kit should have a kilogram of fermentables. 

@Goldcoast Crow what yeast did you use?

When I do a split batch, I typically add the can and fermentables and make up to 8 - 10L. Then i decant half of the wort into a second fermenter.  Easier,  cleaner and more accurate than trying to split the concentrate straight from the can.

Then I wil make up the half batches however I want.  Maybe different yeasts, different hops at diffent stages (boiling, steeping, dry), other different additions, different temperatures, etc.  The options are virtually limitless.  I enjoy comparing the results. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

14 minutes ago, Goldcoast Crow said:

No I didn’t but if the flavour is not quite there I will do next time as it seems to be quite subtle early on, no bitterness at all.... so malt will bolster the abv I’m guessing.... I have a can of Apa so that may just go in as a toucan if this is a little light on punch...

Yeah what you've effectively done is make a 16 litre batch with the kit and nothing else. Obviously the OG in this instance would be higher than it would be in the standard 23 litres due to the lower volume but it will still make a light-mid strength beer.

[Shamus O'Sean]

A 10 gram dry hop using a differnt hop in each brew would be a good experiment. 

[Goldcoast Crow]

I will keep experimenting I think, the cerveza is a fairly subtle flavour which probably makes it a gd beer to play with.

[Goldcoast Crow]

If the gravity settles really early would you just bottle it up even if it’s only 4/5 days?

[Otto Von Blotto]

I'd still let it clean up for a few days after FG before bottling. 

[Goldcoast Crow]

Yeah I’ll keep tabs on in for settling gravity and then bottle at 3 days settled, it’s been gd to know what can happen but moving fwd I’ll start looking into enhancers or just go the full toucan in the 10ltr... best thing about this hb thing is experimentation for knew flavour combos....

[Goldcoast Crow]

18 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

A 10 gram dry hop using a differnt hop in each brew would be a good experiment. 

Would I go to a local hb store to purchase these ingredients as Coopers have there brew enhancers.... not sure what they have ingredient wise, and at what stage in an extract brew does the extra ingredients get added, at the same time as the extract?

[Journeyman]

29 minutes ago, Goldcoast Crow said:

Would I go to a local hb store to purchase these ingredients as Coopers have there brew enhancers.... not sure what they have ingredient wise, and at what stage in an extract brew does the extra ingredients get added, at the same time as the extract?

Brew enhancer ingredients are here... https://www.diybeer.com/au/faqs/#FAQ_4_02

So you can buy just those ingredients at your LHBS or online. e.g. beerbelly does 5kg of LDME for $41 and ship it to me for $8.50. That's MUCH cheaper than 500g packs. So those ingredients (in the BE's) are added with the tins. Note if you add the tins or LDME to a boil it can darken the beer. I often do partial mashes with grains (and usually some oats for that creamy mouth feel and head) and I drop some hops in late in the boil and I add the can(s) of extract into the hot wort when I take it off the stove. Just mixes easier.

Hops are different. You use them for bittering, flavour or aroma and what you want changes when they are added. Bittering normally means a boil, flavour can be a short boil or while the wort is hot, aroma is normally dry hops. It depends on the %'age that you see listed for each type of hops. The higher that is, the more bittering the hops can do.

But it all varies - e.g. mosaic has a fairly high % rating but from what I have seen it is more normal to use it for flavour/aroma. If it's used to increase the bitter it is often also dry hopped.

[Shamus O'Sean]

44 minutes ago, Goldcoast Crow said:

Would I go to a local hb store to purchase these ingredients as Coopers have there brew enhancers.... not sure what they have ingredient wise, and at what stage in an extract brew does the extra ingredients get added, at the same time as the extract?

What @Journeyman said.

Big W has 12g teabags of Galaxy hops in their brewing section.  However, they are not kept in a freezer and who knows how long they hang in the store.

[Journeyman]

2 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

What @Journeyman said.

Big W has 12g teabags of Galaxy hops in their brewing section.  However, they are not kept in a freezer and who knows how long they hang in the store.

There has also been a couple of posts (here and on other sites) where brewers think the tea bag hops caused infections. Go fresh and get them from someone trustworthy.

[Goldcoast Crow]

May I ask a possibly stupid question, but what is the point of the little plastic air trap thingy?

[Shamus O'Sean]

26 minutes ago, Goldcoast Crow said:

May I ask a possibly stupid question, but what is the point of the little plastic air trap thingy?

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable question.  I use the current design of the Coopers fermenter.  It does not use one. An air lock that is.

Perhaps those that use them can explain the benefits of them.  There are those on the forum who just put a piece of sticky tape over the hole in the fermenter lid meant for the airlock.  Others just back off the screw top lid of their fermenter so pressure does not build up.

I do read of those on the Forum who love the blip blip sound of the airlock as CO2 is escaping safely from their fermenter.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

45 minutes ago, Goldcoast Crow said:

what is the point of the little plastic air trap

Basically, yeast generates alcohol and CO2. Excessive CO2 in a closed environment creates pressure which isn’t always a great thing. Additionally, once yeast moves out of the reproductive phase, oxygen becomes a bad thing for beer.

The airlock uses the water to let out the CO2, but stops the O2 from coming back in.