Why is it so? FWK vs Extract

[Liambeer]

Hi gents,

I am a little curious as to why you have to add an adjunct/sugar/dex to an extract kit, yet that’s not necessary for a fresh wort kit?

 

can someone explain it to me? I thought an extract was an evaporated wort? 

 

 

[Pickles Jones]

29 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

why you have to add an adjunct/sugar/dex to an extract kit, yet that’s not necessary for a fresh wort kit?

You don't have to add anything to Coopers extract if you don't feel the need, however you may wish to enhance the brew you are making by adding adjuncts. You can see this in the recipes section of this site.  I have not used a fresh wort kit so I can't offer much on that.

[Shamus O'Sean]

58 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

Hi gents,

I am a little curious as to why you have to add an adjunct/sugar/dex to an extract kit, yet that’s not necessary for a fresh wort kit?

 

can someone explain it to me? I thought an extract was an evaporated wort? 

 

 

Coopers design the 1.7kg cans of concentrate to be used with 1kg of other adjuncts to get a typical ABV around 4-4.5%.  It is just the decision they have made.  It probably gives us more flexibility regarding how we make up the 1kg of adjuncts.

As @Pickles Jones says, you do not have to add any adjuncts, but it will mean your brew comes out around 2.5 - 3% ABV

The Craft kits can be brewed to about 8.5 litres on their own for a brew around 5%.

[Pickles Jones]

15 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Coopers design the 1.7kg cans of concentrate to be used with 1kg of other adjuncts

Very well explained.

[terminal2k]

I assume you can only condense the wort so much. There is another company around that does 3kg cans that you only need to add the yeast to

[ozdevil]

fwk is also an all grain brew  and is generally ready  to ferment straight from the cube  or bag depending on how it comes

Also with FWK's you can also add adjuncts as well and you just top up with water to your desired level wether that is 21-23 litres


 

[Classic Brewing Co]

9 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Coopers design the 1.7kg cans of concentrate to be used with 1kg of other adjuncts to get a typical ABV around 4-4.5%.  It is just the decision they have made.  It probably gives us more flexibility regarding how we make up the 1kg of adjuncts.

As @Pickles Jones says, you do not have to add any adjuncts, but it will mean your brew comes out around 2.5 - 3% ABV

The Craft kits can be brewed to about 8.5 litres on their own for a brew around 5%.

I reckon that is the beauty of everything being so flexible, in my case I quite often take advantage of bulk buys offered by some of the LHBS & I have 3 x 30l & 1 x Craft FV so I don't have to stick to the 'rules'. I have quite often used a 1.7 can of extract I bought on special in the Craft Kit with adjuncts of my choice & made it to 11litres instead of the normal 20-23litres.

It gives me a wider scope on the different styles of beers available & we can style it on whatever we want at the time.

[Marty_G]

Because the OG of a 15litre FWK is between 1060 and 1090 depending on what you buy.  The OG of a Can of goop and 23 litres of water with no added sugars is around 1030 or there about, that may not be accurate but you get the drift.   Need to add the extra stuff to get the OG up or use less water. 

[Hairy]

2 hours ago, ozdevil said:

fwk is also an all grain brew  and is generally ready  to ferment straight from the cube  or bag depending on how it comes

Playing around with semantics, "All Grain Brewing" can sometimes be a misnomer.

Full extract beers could technically be all grain because the extract is just a concentrate of an all grain wort.

And some AG beers that use adjuncts like sugar (Belgians, English Bitters etc.) technically aren't all grain.

This kind of thinking out loud is why I don't get invited to parties.

[Aussiekraut]

I'd say the goo has been condensed as much as it can be in order to fit into a can of the size it comes in. If it contained all the fermentables needed for a 23l full strength batch, it would likely need to be a much bigger can. An FWK on the other hand is not boiled down at all, it is just wort made with enough fermentables to make a 20l batch of beer from 15l of it. 

[Geoff S]

It's about making a beer to your tastes as well, adding brew enhancers, dry malt or brewing sugar makes a brew you want to drink & as strong as you like, if it comes premixed, just add water your making a brew to someone else's likes, all about experimenting a bit at a time till you get a brew that gets an "awww, Yeah!" with every sip.

[Liambeer]

23 hours ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

Because the OG of a 15litre FWK is between 1060 and 1090 depending on what you buy.  The OG of a Can of goop and 23 litres of water with no added sugars is around 1030 or there about, that may not be accurate but you get the drift.   Need to add the extra stuff to get the OG up or use less water. 

So how do they get a higher OG, do they add fermentables to the fresh wort kits when they make it? I thought the sugars came from the grain

 

[Liambeer]

On 10/22/2021 at 5:07 AM, ozdevil said:

fwk is also an all grain brew  and is generally ready  to ferment straight from the cube  or bag depending on how it comes

Also with FWK's you can also add adjuncts as well and you just top up with water to your desired level wether that is 21-23 litres


 

I understand you can add, but they don’t say you should like coopers extracts do. And I wondered why. 
 

are they stronger in grain than coopers? Or do they already add this stuff?

[Liambeer]

21 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

I'd say the goo has been condensed as much as it can be in order to fit into a can of the size it comes in. If it contained all the fermentables needed for a 23l full strength batch, it would likely need to be a much bigger can. An FWK on the other hand is not boiled down at all, it is just wort made with enough fermentables to make a 20l batch of beer from 15l of it. 

Condensing would still retain the sugars that coopers are saying need adding? 

[Marty_G]

7 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

So how do they get a higher OG, do they add fermentables to the fresh wort kits when they make it? I thought the sugars came from the grain

 

Because it is mashed grain as in fresh WORT kit.  They use enough grain and water to get a higher OG.  Same way an all grain brewer would. 

Have a read:   http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3/how-the-mash-works/mashing-defined  

[Liambeer]

13 minutes ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

Because it is mashed grain as in fresh WORT kit.  They use enough grain and water to get a higher OG.  Same way an all grain brewer would. 

Have a read:   http://howtobrew.com/book/section-3/how-the-mash-works/mashing-defined  

Yes I understand. But isn’t an extract that same stuff, just evaporated??

[Aussiekraut]

20 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

Condensing would still retain the sugars that coopers are saying need adding? 

But in order to get more fermentables into the same volume, they'd have to sacrifice liquid. Then it wouldn't run out of the can anymore and you'd need a spatula for it. 

[Marty_G]

1 minute ago, Liambeer said:

Yes I understand. But isn’t an extract that same stuff, just evaporated??

I would think not,  The process  would be very different.   My thought are it would be liquid malt extract that has been bittered and flavoured using liquid hop oils and colourings.  None the less they have a lower OG. I am pretty sure they do not evaporate fresh wort and then can it.  The reason why it has lower OG would be as mentioned before packaging size, 1.7kg as opposed to say 2.5kg or larger to get the same OG you need not to add a fermentable. 

 

[Aussiekraut]

9 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

Yes I understand. But isn’t an extract that same stuff, just evaporated??

The difference is in the process and the volume. The FWK is a high SG wort (also hopped a bit more to cater for the dilution) which will become "normal" SG wort once diluted with 5l of water. What's in the can is hopped for 23l but is low SG before it gets condensed. Likely due to restrictions in regards to volume and weight. Hence it requires extra fermentables to make said 23l.

[Liambeer]

8 hours ago, Aussiekraut said:

But in order to get more fermentables into the same volume, they'd have to sacrifice liquid. Then it wouldn't run out of the can anymore and you'd need a spatula for it. 

How do they remove the fermentables. I would think they would already be there if they originate from the grain 

[Liambeer]

8 hours ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

I would think not,  The process  would be very different.   My thought are it would be liquid malt extract that has been bittered and flavoured using liquid hop oils and colourings.  None the less they have a lower OG. I am pretty sure they do not evaporate fresh wort and then can it.  The reason why it has lower OG would be as mentioned before packaging size, 1.7kg as opposed to say 2.5kg or larger to get the same OG you need not to add a fermentable. 

 

Fair enough, I hadn’t thought they made it that way

[Shamus O'Sean]

15 minutes ago, Liambeer said:

Fair enough, I hadn’t thought they made it that way

@Coopers DIY Beer Team said something about this a little while ago:

On 8/16/2021 at 4:23 PM, Coopers DIY Beer Team said:

We have three product streams coming out of the brewhouse, commercial beer wort to be fermented into beer by the Lager Cellar operators, wort for hopped malt extract and sweet wort for unhopped malt extract, both of which are further processed (condensed through reduced pressure evaporation) by the Brewhouse operators in our Alpha Vap.

 

 

[Bribie G]

11 hours ago, Liambeer said:

Yes I understand. But isn’t an extract that same stuff, just evaporated??

Yes but, (flame suit on) Nescafe blend 43 is the same stuff as freshly brewed coffee, just evaporated, and Carnation evaporated milk in the can is the same stuff as fresh milk, just evaporated.

All good if you enjoy the product. Fresh wort kits are basically the fresh brewed coffee and the milk, if you get my drift and that's the attraction for people moving on from tins.

Now as to quantities, I haven't seen the UK Muntons kits around for ages but they generally came in a two-can pack that was complete in itself for a 20 - odd litre brew. The problem being that they were up in the $30s dollar range and if Coopers etc adopted that model I guess their sales would take a hit.

Now something that you young whippersnappers probably don't remember but back around 1980 Coopers actually put out their Pale Ale and Stout worts in square 20L jerries as FWKs.  At that time I was managing a home brew shop in Maryborough QLD.  They were expensive, although they  hung around for nearly 12 years, but freight eventually killed them. At one stage they even put them into polypins (big version of a wine cask) to try to make them more transportable. 

I distinctly remember brewing some in 1983 - bloody lovely - and then cutting the tops off the jerries to use as plant pots, grew a choko up a fence out of one of them.

Their lightbulb moment came when they went to the tins and the rest is history.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Bribie G

[Pickles Jones]

At the risk of stating the obvious and for clarification in this discussion evaporated means that at the water is evaporated usually under a vacuum, discarded and what is left is the desired product.

As an example in refining crude oil, the light ends (fractions) are specifically evaporated off under a controlled vacuum and condensed as petrol, kerosene etc until only tar is left.

In essence lowering the pressure lowers the boiling point allowing the wanted/unwanted stuff to be boiled off resulting in the concentration of the final product as required.

[Aussiekraut]

15 hours ago, Liambeer said:

How do they remove the fermentables. I would think they would already be there if they originate from the grain 

Nothing is taken out, it's just not put in to start with. Most of my beers are brewed with 5kg for grain and I end up with a nice 22l batch of full strength beer. If I was to use only 3kg, the beer would be thinner because there are less fermentable sugars available. If I was to evaporate this down to a 1.7l can size, I could either make a thin low ABV beer or add about a kg of fermentables to make a full strength beer. 

The need to add fermentables gives you, the brewer a chance to influence the resulting beer by adding various things. From table sugar to dextrose, maltodextrin, honey, dried malt, liquid malt, etc, to a combination. This will allow you to "steer" the beer into a different direction, change the flavour profile, influence head formation and retention and so on.