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OK, What's The Plan For Tomorrow?


Beerlust

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10 hours ago, NewBrews said:

How was it? Did you try the Coopers XPA?

I didnt get around to trying it because soon enough it will be in bars and bottles hops. I went for stuff I can't access locally or will never be released outside of GABS. 33 beers I've never had before. Some experimental, some terrible, some amazing and unique.

 

I'll def be going in future years because nowhere else do you get so many different beers under the one roof. All of the samples I had were 85mL so I didn't end up sloshed and can remember every beer. Thoroughly recommend!

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13 hours ago, joolbag said:

I didnt get around to trying it because soon enough it will be in bars and bottles hops. I went for stuff I can't access locally or will never be released outside of GABS. 33 beers I've never had before. Some experimental, some terrible, some amazing and unique.

 

I'll def be going in future years because nowhere else do you get so many different beers under the one roof. All of the samples I had were 85mL so I didn't end up sloshed and can remember every beer. Thoroughly recommend!

That is what I have done most years.

But this year I had a paddle of some 'unique' beers and they just weren't doing it for me. I found I just didn't enjoy them; perhaps I wasn't in the mood to be experimental. So I spent most of my time sampling beers from the brewers stands.

This is probably a sign of where my tastes were at that night. My favourite beer was my first of the night;  a Hawkers Pilsner.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi guys.

I have not been brewing as much as I would like lately. Blew my MOTB keg beer the other day so time to get something brewing.

American Pale Ale:
Coopers Light LME 1.5kg
Light Dry Malt 1kg
Ale Malt 500gms
Aromatic Malt grain 200gms
Vienna Malt grain 180gms
Dark Wheat grain 80gms
Sugar 50gms
Warrior 10gms @ 60mins
Chinook 10gms @ 30mins
Amarillo 15gms @ 15 & 5mins
Bravo & Fortnight 20gms @ flameout
Citra & Nelson Sauvin 40gms dry hopped.
WLP001 from 2ltr starter
Brewed to 21 litres
OG = 1.055
FG = 1.013 (expected)
Bottled ABV = 5.9%
Kegged ABV 5.5%
EBC = 11.3 IBU = 40.3

The grain malts are leftovers that need to be used up. The hop bill is a little more serious though. Will be testing Bravo as a regular flameout hop over the next few brews. The experimentation has been fun over the last 7-8 years, but I'm in the process of honing things to my specific likes now & the flameout area at the end of the boil is now an area I'm going to concentrate on for a bit until I hit a few highs consistently.

I've never dry hopped with Citra & Nelson Sauvin as a mix before & always wanted to as they are beasts aromatically. Looking forward to that aspect of the beer once finished, as well as mixing Bravo & Amarillo a little more heavily in the boil phase moving forward.

Cheers & good brewing all,

Lusty.

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Just as a follow on to this brew, I finally got off my @r$e & harvested a solid amount of a strain of yeast from a known cell count base to use for Kelsey's starter & split method prior to pitching. I harvested a shite load of yeast from my original WLP001 brew back in March, & this has been stored refrigerated since that time. Before I went to work today I prepped the starter & placed it in the fridge to cool from boiling. When I got home I added boiling water until it hit 20°C. Then after pouring off 2/3 of the beer in the stored yeast jar, I stirred up the remaining mixture in the jar to the point of being frothy (oxygenating) & cold pitched the now heavily oxygenated yeast slurry.

In under an hour the 2ltr starter has clouded up very quickly. This is a sign the yeast are up & active. Which in my case is awesome!

Tomorrow on brew day I'll pitch all but 400-450mls of what is in the starter flask. The remaining amount left in the flask I will allow a further ferment for 24 hours to make sure it has completed the starter ferment to maximum cell growth, then I will pour that off into a mason jar for storage & re-use.

I'm hopeful to repeat the method over & over as Kelsey & others do with this strain by following this method repeatedly. Time will tell, but looking really good atm. 🙂

Cheers,

Lusty.

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Coincidentally I have to make up a starter with 1056 on Tuesday, or Wednesday. I'll make the wort and boil it on my work break, then leave it sit on the stove and pitch the yeast into it that night when it cools down enough. Onto the stir plate for 24 hours, then plate off and leave it until Saturday or Sunday morning, stir it up again to harvest some, then starter into the brew fridge for a day to drop the yeast and pitch into the leftovers pale ale. 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

I harvested some CCA yeast from slurry off last weeks Riwaka/Galaxy Pale Ale brew that I kegged.

Late this week I went & purchased some Simcoe, so tomorrow I'm brewing a slight change to the Coopers DIY recipe: Coopers XPA. A few brewers have posted comparison photos of the commercial version next to the DIY ROTM version recipe they have brewed from the recipe pack in the glass & expressed some concerns about the darker colour difference of the DIY version vs the commercial version.

I didn't purchase the ROTM recipe pack so have no idea what the crystal malt grain was that was in the baggy. This is likely the reason for the darkened colour for those that purchased the ROTM pack.

There is a lot of mis-information out there about extract based brewing & that extra caramelisation is caused by using malt extracts & beers tend to be darker than all-grain beers when comparing a recipe from the two sources. It's mostly hogwash (IMHO).

I'm mostly brewing this recipe mainly just to prove that. There are a number of people on the forum that would love to see me with egg on my face after this, but I am confident in the spreadsheet I use & what the numbers tell me.

I'll post a picture of the commercial beer & my more defined use of a lower EBC crystal malt beer side by side once it is on the pour.

🤞

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

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Hey Lusty. How do you find the riwaka. I’ve only tasted it in the Pirate Life IPA and I love it. Others have commented that it tastes like motor diesel 😂 Which I can kind of see their point. It’s like the simcoe cat pee that some people get and others don’t. I’m thinking of using riwaka in my next brew 

cheers

 

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Hi PaddyBrew. 🙂

I'm sorry to hear about recent goings on in your personal life, & hope you're doin' OK mate.

33 minutes ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

Hey Lusty. How do you find the riwaka. I’ve only tasted it in the Pirate Life IPA and I love it. Others have commented that it tastes like motor diesel 😂 Which I can kind of see their point. It’s like the simcoe cat pee that some people get and others don’t. I’m thinking of using riwaka in my next brew

You love it in the Pirate Life beer because they use the hop how it should be used. The comments by others that say it tastes like "motor diesel" sound like morons that have boiled the s@#t out of it thus removing the majority of its positive traits & likely introduced some resiny/herbal traits that might surface when the hop is long boiled.

If you're going to boil it, don't boil it for more than 15mins (IMHO) or else you're just killing off everything that makes it great for your beer. Dry hopping it is awesome. I used a mere 40gms dry hopped in the beer I just kegged & it smells terrific without being overpowering. A few years back I used it at 15, 10, 5, flameout & dry hop with the Coopers IPA kit (at the time) & handed it around to a few AG brewers afterwards who all said it was really good. It was too. 😉

Riwaka late boil/whirlpool/dry hop = Winning. 😁

Cheers & good brewing,

Lusty.

 

Edited by Beerlust
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12 hours ago, Beerlust said:

There is a lot of mis-information out there about extract based brewing & that extra caramelisation is caused by using malt extracts & beers tend to be darker than all-grain beers when comparing a recipe from the two sources. It's mostly hogwash (IMHO).

Hi Lusty,

In my previous experience I’d have have definitely agreed with the statement of extract and kits brews being generally darker, but I think I’m starting to challenge it myself and (shock horror) may even agree with you.

My prior purchases of kits and extracts have generally been through either big chain providers (woolies or Big W) or through my LHBS. My last kits/extracts I got from Coopers directly and used in my last batch added barely any additional colour to the brew past what was already there from the initial mash. In fact the OG sample of the mash from the second batch I did and a served glass of the first batch were barely distinguishable in colour from one another.

I might even agree that the darkness of the crystal in the ROTM pack probably contributed to the darker colour of the finished brew, but I also found it quite a bit sweeter than the commercial product, probably again contributed by the darker crystal. Note that I never expected them to be identical. 😉

i actually intend to rebrew  it (or something similar) as a partial mash shortly, purely as a learning exercise for myself, and was aiming to use a much lighter crystal in it as well. I haven’t finalised the recipe quite yet but will stick it on the brew day thread when I get to it, which best be soon as I intend having this ready for Christmas!

Cheers mate,

Jamie

Edited by NewBrews
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  • 1 month later...

Have been playing around with some WLP059 Melbourne Ale yeast in a starter, & have had that in cold storage for a week or so now, & brought it out earlier today. A short time ago I swirled it up & poured off approx. 400-450mls for re-use. I made up another 500ml/50gm LDM mix & added it back into the remaining starter mix just to get it up & active for pitching into the wort I'll create tomorrow.

Old School Pale Ale:

Coopers Light Liquid Malt Extract 1.5kg
LDM 300gms
Dextrose 100gms
Coopers Schooner Malt grain 1kg
Munich Malt grain 400gms
CaraMalt grain 200gms
Wheat Malt grain 200gms
Mt. Hood 25gms @ FWH, 30, 5, dry hop
White Labs WLP059 Melbourne Ale yeast
Brewed to 23 litres
OG = 1.051
FG = 1.013
Kegged ABV = 5.0%
EBC = 10.6 IBU = 28.4

I hope all my screwing around with the base yeast volume won't cause any issues. Pitching active yeast has always worked well for me though.

My last experimental brew for a while as I plan to brew some more hoppy type brews over the rest of the Summer/Autumn months that I have brewed well in the past.

Cheers & a good brew weekend for those brewing,

Lusty.

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My tomorrow is a bottler... 😄 2 x brews to bottle & stick in the cupboard.

I've been given a few odds and ends from ex-HB people, saved long necks for a while, and spent about $190 so far on ingredients, fridge and some PET's. After tomorrow I will have ~86 long necks and PET's on the shelf, 2 fridges, 3 x FV's, associated gear for all the steps and I've drunk or given away 26 bottles from the first brew.

I got asked yesterday why I would bother with HB and after about a minute I think he regretted asking. 😄 

Mind you, he must have listened because he wants to come around and see what's involved. 😄

Edited by Journeyman
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  • 3 weeks later...
24 minutes ago, Hilltop hops said:

No kids activities tomorrow for a change so gonna start brew day early. Simcoe/Chinook pale again. Also have some brisket and ribs to cook up. Mate coming over in the arvo for a few. Looking forward to a relaxing day. 

What time do you want me over. I’ll bring a poker set

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