Kearnage Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 Having made two very simple brews (Stouter Stout and Irish Ale) as my return to home brewing, I think today is the day for something silly. I have cans of Dark Ale and Pale Ale* sitting looking at me. Possible recipe: 1 Pale Ale 1 Dark Ale 500g Light dry Malt (or I could sub a Brew Enhancer 2) Dark brown sugar (say 250g?) 100 g roasted barley (cracked, steeped, strained, boiled) I also have some Fuggles hops that could be thrown in the mix. As you can probably tell from the above I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, so any comments as to whether this would be drinkable or appropriate tweaks to ingredients would be welcome. Cheers Dan * They are actually the products of a far southern competitor purchased at clearance prices (porter and pale ale) but I didn't want to stress PB2[rightful] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 G'dy Kearnage, PB2's fabulous SMOTY ALE is a winner and you could whip up somethin similar with your cans and the fuggles. [rightful] Obviously as they are inferior products it may not shape up quite as well as if you used Coopers products [biggrin] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 20, 2010 Author Share Posted June 20, 2010 Thanks Muddy. Is there any point adding other fermentables/malt, or just the two cans? As they are indeed a vastly inferior product to Coopers I thought they might need the extra body of some Coopers light dry malt...[innocent] Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 20, 2010 Author Share Posted June 20, 2010 Well I went ahead with my crazy experiment with roughly the above recipe. It has an OG of 1074 [crying] It smells and tastes terrible. If it ferments (and that may be a big if) I will let you know how it tastes - maybe in 6 months or so!!!! Yikes Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 What yeast (and how much) did you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 20, 2010 Author Share Posted June 20, 2010 Muddy, I just used the two sachets that came with the concentrate, 'Bohemian' they call it. I rehydrated one, pitched the other dry. I'm a bit scared! Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rutherglen Rambler Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 It won't work. Their yeast is dud[devil] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 23, 2010 Author Share Posted June 23, 2010 I'd heard the same thing elsewhere - and figured I had some expensive sludge on my hands. Funnily enough, my dogs are refusing to go into the (outdoor) laundry due to the noise coming out of the airlock, something's brewing in there. I'll take an SG reading in a day or two. No guarantee it will be drinkable though - will keep you posted. (They were just insanely cheap and I needed something to experiment with in the lab!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 Even if you want to use cheap cans always use good yeast. They're usually cheap because they are old and the yeast will usually be in very poor shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 24, 2010 Author Share Posted June 24, 2010 Thanks Muddy. I did check the best before dates and they still had over a year to go. By 'good yeast' do you mean in date yeast, or a non kit yeast? Do you regard the Coopers kit yeast as OK? It's done pretty well for me so far. I've not tried non kit yeasts as yet (although I am about to try the Pale Ale re-culture trick, if only they would stay in the fridge long enough). Final yeast question - do people crack the lids of concentrate and put the yeast in the fridge? Is this worth doing if you're not using them immediately? Sorry for all the clueless questions! Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 Some Coopers kit yeast will do the trick (as long it isn't too old). It is good hardy yeast. I tend to crack the lid and keep the yeast in the fridge. I haven't used the kit yeast for a while as I've been using liquid and recultured yeast a lot. As a result I am creating quite a pile of kit yeast that I don't know what to do with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 Yes, to keep the yeast in best condtion possible, get the sachets into the fridge asap. [cool] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesN Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 sounds like it's going to be a great brew, it's going to be pretty dark and a bit on the strong side, use the malt, with the hops in both cans it's going to be very bitter, you need the sugar (malt) to balance it all up. call it a Belgium stout, they always do funky stuff like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luthien Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 sounds nice :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted June 26, 2010 Author Share Posted June 26, 2010 Thanks for the comments! The Frankenstein brew seems to be coming along OK - from the OG of 1075 (adjusted for temp this time) it is down to 1030 today, 6 days in fermenting at 18 - 22 deg (giving it a potential 6.4% alc already). It tastes a bit like beer now and the early sulphur odours from the airlock have settled. It is dominated by bitterness and chocolate flavours, and looks like mud. Hopefully the balance will be OK at the end, but it will be one for larger fans, not lager[wink] Any bets on what the FG or final alcohol content will be?? Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted July 7, 2010 Author Share Posted July 7, 2010 Well, Godzilla (as I have named it) has fermented and has been bottled. It turned out at an alcohol level of 8.2%, which is difficult to achieve a balance with, and not something I had actually intended. It is not undrinkable, but it will need to improve a lot in the bottle to be a winner. The main thing is that to a novice, it's been a brilliant learning experience. I've figured out a lot of things not to do! Thanks to all for all the advice and comments along the way. Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrewk5 Posted July 7, 2010 Share Posted July 7, 2010 [happy] sounds like its going to very interesting [happy] and sounds like it might do ok with some time in bottle.........im very curious to hear how it turns out.....keep it posted along the way [happy] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 You may have over-estimated the alcohol content?? Did you make this up to 23l with ingredients as per the recipe in your OP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 Paul, I didn't believe it myself and double checked the figures. I had an OG 0f 1075 at 28 deg (so corrected to 1077 thanks to the online calculator recently provided)and a FG at 20 deg of 1018. That was stable over 3 readings. I used 2 cans, 1 kg BE2 and 300g of dark brown sugar, with 100g of roast barley steeped (and 12 g Fuggles). I also plugged all of my ingredients into an online SG estimator and the figures came out pretty much the same as my actual results, so I had assumed they were OK. My volume was just a bit under 23 L. Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 As an example: 2 x 1.7kg cans + 1kg dextrose in 23 litres gives an OG of about 1060 and yields approx 7% ABV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted July 8, 2010 Author Share Posted July 8, 2010 I must be using a dodgy calculator - for 2 cans + 1 kg dex I get 1067, 1013 and 7.8%, so add the extra dry malt, grain and sugar in my recipe and I'm about at the 8.2%. Hmmm, I'm confused. (I'm using a calculator that adds 0.5% for bottle fermentation BTW) It's certainly more than strong enough either way! Do Coopers use SG readings to calculate commercial beer alcohol contents, or refractometers, or something fancier? Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoyG Posted July 11, 2010 Share Posted July 11, 2010 Hi all. Thanks for the tip on getting the yeast packets into the fridge asap. Just ripped them all out and put them in.[biggrin] Should have guessed this because i keep my bread yeast in the fridge as well. Will try not to mix them up.[lol] Good luck with the brew. Sounds good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muddy Waters Posted July 11, 2010 Share Posted July 11, 2010 It may be overkill but I put the cans in the fridge too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kearnage Posted July 11, 2010 Author Share Posted July 11, 2010 My wife would kill me! I'm in enough trouble about the yeast in the fridge. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Posted July 11, 2010 Share Posted July 11, 2010 My wife would kill me! I'm in enough trouble about the yeast in the fridge. Dan You should try keeping liquid yeast! [roll] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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