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How do you improve "thinness" or watery feel of kit beers?


StephenN5

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Lay your hands on some crystal malt, lay your hands on some Wheat Malt Extract, Lay your hands on Light Dry Malt extract, reduce Dex to 300g max... Forget about the BE's (sorry coopers but they dont really add to a brew in my experience) and replace with a Kilo of LDME...

 

steep the grains (overnight in cool water if you want), rinse with hot (not boiling water) add 100g of LDME per llt of liquid and boil for 20 min (hops too if you are adventurous... I certainly do)

 

mix the rest of the ingredients and ferment as usual.

 

Adding extra malts and a BIT of maltodex and wheat malt will make a hell of a difference to the final product.

 

pretty much as said above with a few helpful tips for process...

 

For the Maltodextrine I use carapils grain.

 

so a typical addition for me would read like this

 

Kit +

750g LDME +

200g carapils +

200g Crystal 60 +

200g Wheat malt +

200g Dex

+ loads of freakin Hops

 

Delicious

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I do humbly apologise, I guess 20 plus years of home brewing doesn\u2019t count for much here. I have looked upon the posts at this site with an \u201ceach to their own\u2019 attitude, but have found that its only a friendly forum only if you introduce yourself with a question and completely comply to an answer given by 1 or 2 that knows how a brewery functions.

I don\u2019t have a brewery at home, or even a brew fridge. I use a fish tank emersion heater in winter and look at weather temps for the rest of the year; I haven\u2019t used a sanitizer of any sort bar dishwashing liquid for the last 15 or so years. And make, on average one 18L-23L brew per month. Without a failure.

In saying all that I guess this forum isn\u2019t for me and again apologise to anyone that I have offended.

 

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Whats the problem here? Whos has been unfriendly?... I must have missed something [roll] ???

 

generally very friendly round here as far as I know... hope to hear what your grief is all about.

 

Yob

 

edit: I think you will even find that I have agreed with your first post. Carapils = maltodextrine

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Hey Russell,

 

I had been brewing for 7 years bofore I became a member of this forum. I can tell you that I thought I knew a lot about brewing beer. Well I did know a lot about brewing beer, but... for me anyways, my brewing skills and knowledge has exploded since listening , asking questions and then responding with said advice.

 

My fisrt 7 years were my dark ages of brewing. I knew there were other brewer's out there but I couldn't talk to them and ask (and give) advice until I became a member of this forum. There really is a good community of brewer's here and it seems almost lame to say that a few of them are almost like friends.[bandit]

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There really is a good community of brewer's here and it seems almost lame to say that a few of them are almost like friends

Thanks Chad. That means a lot; I really appreciate it ..... oh, you weren't referring to me [crying]

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sorry to barge in, though i have a bit of the same problem, im making my first brew: the Coopers traditional draught, and the watery taste makes it, well not good, any tips on what i am doing wrong, and is there a way to fix this at this point (i've racked it for the secondary fermentation as of this post), i've used just the contents of the can + sugar+ supplied yeast and of course water (as per instructions from the store owner), also im making it in 3L batches if that effects anything. (no carboys and gallon jugs available where i live).

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sorry? You are making it in 3 (Three) Litre Batches?

 

How are you doing this? I am confused..

 

er....

 

some solutions are listed above in one of my first posts on this topic... anything more specific than that you may have to rephrase your question mate..

 

Cheers

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actually i'm making it in sets of 2 containers, the rest of the malt is napping in my fridge, i already made 6L it was watery, thought that i maybe got the ratio wrong or something, but this next set has the same problem, as for rephrasing my question, is there anything i can do in secondary fermentation to improve its condition.

as for the process, i just do it by weight, 221g of malt, 130g of sugar per 3L of water, if my memory serves me right (the log book is in the modified outdoor sauna ive set my brewery up in and its -30\xb0C outside so that's as good i can get you though the numbers should be close atleast)

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er... not really mate... IM still a bit confused as to what you have done, the usual method is to mix all the ingredients and then fill to 23L, your ratio's may well be out of whack..

 

Yob

 

also, leaving opened (with no active yeast) malt is prone to infection, so please be careful.

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also, leaving opened (with no active yeast) malt is prone to infection, so please be careful.

the can is resealed and frozen for the moment, don't think that was the best option, but i didnt want to risk the infection

also aside from the canned malt i already used( and other kits like that), hops and maybe, (and i emphasize "maybe")some barley malt, nothing from that list is available here, but the bitterness seems to be about right as it is so i don't think hops will do me any good... its just that its watery...

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Liquid malt syrup that has been opened, or is sold in bulk plastic containers, has a much shorter shelf life. While buying malt syrup in this form is normally less expensive, it must be used in less than 3 months, or the syrup will degrade or even grow mold. If you have malt syrup in this form, the best way to store it is in the fridge. Pick the smallest possible container to eliminate airspace and avoid oxidation. While the extremely high sugar content inhibits yeast activity and molding, over a three- to four-month time period the syrup will lose its freshness.

The above is from an unknown source. I just thought it would be appropriate to paste it here.

 

I too am struggling to get my head around your procedure as I have never heard of anyone not in prison making such small volumes. Maybe freezing the malt is damaging it???... I really do not know but would really like to know your full procedure of what you are doing. Maybe during a process of elimination we can work out your issue.

 

On another note: - can you get a water drum? ie like a Jerry can similar to THIS? It doesn't have to be this size but it is made from food grade platic. I would find it very unusual if you can't get something like it.

 

If you can get something similar to above then just use that to do full batches. Sooooo much easier than what you are trying to do imo.

 

 

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im from Latvia, and here home brewing has become a hobby only relatively recently, so there are only 2 shops in the whole country as far as i can tell. as for containers one of the stores has great many carboys in their catalog, but none of them can actually be ordered, for the malts available in my country do you mind taking a look at this? as for the plastic containers, i can try to take a look at kruza (our equivalent of home depot), and as for the small volume of the batches, it was like i said out of necessity, and the process of doing this- i'm not sure what is it that you seem to be too puzzled about, i just took a certain measured amounts of all the things i mentioned before, added water until specific volume was reached, stirred and boiled, after it cooled to about 20\xb0C i added yeast, that's about it

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I would still be headed for a larger container mate, clean sanitised (new) garbage bin... something, something, anything to get to full volume... how do you measure out such a small amount of yeast for 3L?

 

edit: I had a look at that site, seems they have starter kits, of a sort, I dont know the price translation but would (again) be looking to go full volume, they do have a range of grain so and you may want to ask them about their dry range of malt extract?

 

All Im trying to say mate, such small volumes would be difficult get get ballence on, and also difficult to comment on.

 

Sorry I cant be of much help.

 

Yob

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