That home brew taste...

[Jfergus]

Hi all, my friend and I have been doing home brews for about 12 months give or take. Between us we might have 10+ brews completed under our belt with some dry hopping, steeping light crystal as well as standard kit and kilos. The forum has been a epic source of info and I am often finding myself reading posts by the greats such as Muddy, Otto and others etc late into the night ha ha no vain sucking up here intended i promise!

 

So here is the down lo, my mate and myself and just trying to get a nice coopers apa happening, tbh i would actually just be happy with a nice draught kit if thats what it comes to! On the side I like to experiment with the dark ale kit and i have had far more success with those and the stout kit then with the Apa. Man just a dark ale brewed with 1kg LDM with some dry hops tastes amazing!! I actually did a toucan that im drinking atm that was coopers OS stout and a coles lager can that i picked up for $5 just done with the single packet of coopers yeast to 18L and it is tasty only 3 weeks in.

 

Anything he or i have made thus far with the apa kit seems to have quite a home brew taste behind it, not unlike what i have tasted from other friends home brew when they do cheap lager kits from Close or Safeway etc. Its hard to describe this taste but it is constant, comes at the start and at the end of taking a swill. It does not taste like coopers original pale ale or sparkling ale that share similar traits. We have tried using completely LDM instead of be2 or be3 and have still had some taste like it, we have dry hopped a 22l brew with 25g of cascade and that is the only brew that seemed to lack the home-brew taste.

 

have done alot of reading around using less dex, fermentation temp being to high and leaving esters and balancing the beers color with a boil for bittering / dry hopping after so here is my question: Because we have done brews with LDM only and also BE2/3 and are getting the same taste i feel like that mostly rules out fermentables as being the cause, we have never used a plain KG of dextrose. So I am wondering if it is either the coopers yeast depositing esters in the brew because its done to high aka 22 c or if the dry hopping of 25g of cascade actually balances it and thats why that was our one success.

 

Sorry for the long winded post but wanted to give a good picture and its my first time posting :D cheers all.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I reckon it's the temperature. That kit comes with a hybrid yeast, i.e. it contains both ale and lager yeast. 22C is way too high for lager yeast and I suspect that's where the esters are coming from. If you can get it down more around 17-18C I reckon you'll have a much better result.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

J Fergus,

 

+1 to Otto's comments.

 

My first 6 brews were without temp control and while drinkable not all that exciting. These were done in ambient temps and often got 4 degree swings in the brew and temps up toward 24c. Was lucky my brother in law was throwing out an old fridge that still worked so I grabbed it and bought myself a temp controller and the improvement was amazing. Holding ale fermentation <20c (Preferably 16-18 depending on the actual yeast) and lagers 10-12 improved the brews out of sight. Those were the same kit and kilo type brews you are doing. If you can snag an old fridge its worth its weight in gold. There are other low tech ways of holding temp but none as good as a fridge and a set and forget temp controller.

 

Greeny

[Waylon]

Theres good home brew and crap home brew...

And some that's realy bloody ripper awesome and some that's just udder cats piss...

 

Im in a beer club and share my beers a lot with others! its vary humbling and also embarrassing at times getting feed back from other brewers... being extract and all grain!

 

Ultimately sharing and learning and being critiqued on home brew is what gets me all the more inspired... this forum is instrumental in telling the truth and educating ones brewing skills...without the taste testing but still bloody awesome...

 

Thanks again everyone for being honest and telling it how it is

 

Cheers to all

[mickc1525229722]

What is the minimum time you are letting your beer bottle condition ?

 

 

 

 

 

regards mick

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

What is the minimum time you are letting your beer bottle condition ?

 

 

 

 

 

regards mick

 

Hi Mick,

 

For me 1 Month minimum for all types of beers. Plenty of time to carbonate up and mellow with 1 month in the bottle. After that for drinking. Hoppy ales I think the best time to drink is 1-3 months after bottling. Low hopped Lagers I think a little longer 2-5 Months. Stouts get better with age 6 Months or more. High ABV ales (Belgians) 6 months.

 

Greeny

[Otto Von Blotto]

I think lagers are one type that depends on the fermentation/packaging schedule used. When I used to cold crash the whole fermenter for 4 or 5 weeks prior to bottling it, I never found any improvement in them after leaving them for 3 months or more over what they tasted like at 3 or 4 weeks. However, if you don't bother with a cold crash then some extended time in bottles stored cold (fridge temps) AFTER carbonation has occurred should see improvement.

 

My current schedule involves a 2 week cold crash prior to packaging. I now keg my beers, and they show improvement faster than bottles. My kegged lagers are usually pretty much at their peak after 3-4 weeks in the fridge. The only problem is getting them to last that long.

[Jfergus]

Hi all, firstly thanks so much for your informed replies and taking the time to comment!

 

I think as suggested we will do our best to keep temperatures down around 17-18 from now on. I was wondering why the coopers put a hybrid yeast in the apa kit? Which kits could i buy that have ale yeast only to do when things get warmer and my ambient house temp is less ideals (thinking summer brewing here and wont be able to set a fridge up in foreseeable future due to flat lacking space). Really want to avoid that taste completely from now on.

 

As for conditioning time Mick we can usually wait a month if we try but the brews affected with the taste as described do no change much. I did a Coopers Mild Ale in Feb and it still has it now 6 months later.

 

Thanks again all, just put a Muddy's Downtown Brown on, very keen to see its results!

[Chuznut]

Hi Jfergus,

 

Not sure if this is the same 'homebrew taste' that you're referring too, but I found that the majority (about 2 out of 3 batches) of beers I brewed using pre-hopped kits, tasted like it had too many tannin's in it (kind of like an excessively bitter aftertaste that dries your tongue, similar to what you get from drinking coffee or red wine).

 

Ever since I switched to extract brewing though, I've never had that problem. It also seemed to reduce a few other undesirable tastes that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

 

The obvious conclusion I pulled from that, was that the bad tastes somehow came from the hops that were in the pre-hopped kits.

 

Maybe it's worth trying an extract brew to see if that maybe improves the taste (even if the taste you're referring to is different to the one I'm referring to)?

 

Here are the extract recipes on the Coopers website that I'm aware of. They give you pretty easy to follow instructions -

 

http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/54/

 

http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/59/

 

http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/114/

 

http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/113/

 

As long as you have a half decent size pot, and about an extra 45-60mins to do the brew, you'll have no problem with brewing an extract brew.

 

Alternatively, if you didn't want to try making an extract brew, maybe you could look into cultivating the yeast out of a few Coopers PA bottles, and try using that as your yeast, instead of the packet that comes with the can? I've never done it myself, but I've heard that it can give you a beer a bit closer to the commercial version.

[Otto Von Blotto]

https://www.coopers.com.au/coopers-forum/topic/14826/

 

This post here details what yeast are in what kits. All the OS tins contain ale only yeast, as do most of the Thomas Coopers range. A couple of the International tins also contain only ale yeast.

[Waylon]

I personaly can tell the difference in all grain taste and extract taste!

 

Its all home brew good and bad... good lager good ale...

 

Ive got heaps of extract bottled beer and personaly I prefere my recent allgrain beer 100%

Infact the allgrain beer im making awesome allgrain at almost half the price of extract~

 

I still make good kit beer too but I keg it for my mates... but I can taste extract as clear as day now...

 

I still enjoy some extract beers but a choice allgrain is the bomb

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I usually can too, although I haven't brewed an extract beer for years. Someone brought some to a party a couple of years back though, and I immediately knew it came from a kit. They just have 'that' flavour. It's not necessarily a bad flavour, but it's noticeable.

[Waylon]

Yep its the same smell and taste pre fermentation...

 

I always taste my wort especially as im doing my run offs...

 

Theres always that pleasant aroma of extract on brew day that rings true in the finished brew...

 

But that heavenly flavour and aroma of the first runnings from my mash tun as im sparging out into my boiling kettle! MAN I taste GODS nectar at work!

[Otto Von Blotto]

I taste my AG worts before fermentation as well, it's interesting to see how the flavours change, or rather, meld together properly, once the yeast does its work.

[ChristinaS1]

Hi Jfergus, and welcome to the forum. It seems you have made some good observations so far.

 

Yes, pre-hopped extract, and extract brews in general, are never going to taste like all-grain, even if you do everything right. It has gone through an industrial process after all. Milk made from dry milk powder never tastes as good fresh milk, and orange juice made from frozen concentrate is never as good as fresh squeezed.

 

With dark kits the high percentage of roasted malts can mask the extract flavour to a certain extent, but light coloured kits don't have them. As you have noticed yourself, dry hop additions can mask the extract flavour in light coloured kits. Unfortunately the effects of both dry hopping and short hop boils are short-lived, so drink those ones up quick, as soon as they are carbonated.

 

Kits can be freshened up with a partial mash; light coloured kits especially benefit from this, but they are a lot of work. If you are going to do partial mashes on a regular basis, you might as well bite the bullet, buy yourself an urn, and go all grain....If I lived somewhere with 240 volt current that is probably what I would do.

 

On the other hand, I like the way kits allow me to get a batch on in 45 minutes, so I put up with the extract taste and live with the limitations.

 

Cheers! And happy brewing! -Christina.

 

 

[Jfergus]

Wow things move quickly on the forums, thanks yall for the warm welcome and good conversations/advice.

 

So i had considered trying the all grain method previously but there were a few things that put me off mainly concern over start up costs and wondering if my poor little electric stove in our flat could handle the boil. I am wondering if anyone has any advice on what kind of Kettle/Urn i might need to get and how it can be done on the cheap is possible. You mention 240v Christina, like are we just talking a big stainless steel Urn like we have for the cuppas on sunday morning after church? ha ha ha where has the Urn gone they will say...

[Otto Von Blotto]

If you're in Australia it's all run on 240 volts. I have a 40 litre Crown Urn which I do BIAB in, have had it nearly 4 years now and it's still going great guns. Have produced some excellent beers wit this set up.

[Jfergus]

If you're in Australia it's all run on 240 volts. I have a 40 litre Crown Urn which I do BIAB in' date=' have had it nearly 4 years now and it's still going great guns. Have produced some excellent beers wit this set up. [img']biggrin[/img]

 

Sweet man, am in aus here. I was just imagining trying to find a stainless steel pot big enough to go on my tiny electric stove and then dreading the temp control side of things as ours is terrible, its either frying the bacon or gently warming it ha ha

 

I also had another question re possibly trying extract only while i keep my eyes out for a urn. I have been reading up on the SMaSH idea, singe malt and single hop. I feel like this would be a great way to get familiar with various hops and pale ales and like the idea.

 

Do you think i could just put two cans of coopers light malt extract together, with some us-05, grab some cascade or centennial and do a boil with some at 60m and some at 15m? The idea would be i could do the same brew again next time but change hops to see how they varied etc but still get a really drinkable beer so to speak.

 

Cheers!

[ChristinaS1]

If you're in Australia it's all run on 240 volts. I have a 40 litre Crown Urn which I do BIAB in' date=' have had it nearly 4 years now and it's still going great guns. Have produced some excellent beers wit this set up. [img']biggrin[/img]

 

Sweet man, am in aus here. I was just imagining trying to find a stainless steel pot big enough to go on my tiny electric stove and then dreading the temp control side of things as ours is terrible, its either frying the bacon or gently warming it ha ha

 

I also had another question re possibly trying extract only while i keep my eyes out for a urn. I have been reading up on the SMaSH idea, singe malt and single hop. I feel like this would be a great way to get familiar with various hops and pale ales and like the idea.

 

Do you think i could just put two cans of coopers light malt extract together, with some us-05, grab some cascade or centennial and do a boil with some at 60m and some at 15m? The idea would be i could do the same brew again next time but change hops to see how they varied etc but still get a really drinkable beer so to speak.

 

Cheers!

 

Yes, you could do that. How big a boil can your pot/stove manage?

[Jfergus]

Heya Christina I am thinking 3-4l max atm, its our biggest pot ha ha.

 

Would 12.5g be enough for each of the hop additions do you think or would that have hardly any bitterness flavor at all? I have 50g of cascade, galaxy or centennial i could use all up for a brew like that so perhaps could dry hop as well just not sure how to best split it. (will only pick one to use to try and explore its flavours etc).

[Otto Von Blotto]

Heya Christina I am thinking 3-4l max atm' date=' its our biggest pot ha ha.

 

Would 12.5g be enough for each of the hop additions do you think or would that have hardly any bitterness flavor at all? I have 50g of cascade, galaxy or centennial i could use all up for a brew like that so perhaps could dry hop as well just not sure how to best split it. (will only pick one to use to try and explore its flavours etc).[/quote']

 

12.5g probably wouldn't really be enough.. that's only 25g for the whole batch assuming you're brewing it to ~23 litres. In a small boil like that I don't think you get as good utilisation either so you need more hops to get the same bitterness that you'd get from less hops in a bigger boil. Also if you're boiling for an hour, 3-4 litres ain't big enough. You'd need it at least twice that size to account for the amount boiled off over the hour.

[Jfergus]

Heya Christina I am thinking 3-4l max atm' date=' its our biggest pot ha ha.

 

Would 12.5g be enough for each of the hop additions do you think or would that have hardly any bitterness flavor at all? I have 50g of cascade, galaxy or centennial i could use all up for a brew like that so perhaps could dry hop as well just not sure how to best split it. (will only pick one to use to try and explore its flavours etc).[/quote']

 

12.5g probably wouldn't really be enough.. that's only 25g for the whole batch assuming you're brewing it to ~23 litres. In a small boil like that I don't think you get as good utilisation either so you need more hops to get the same bitterness that you'd get from less hops in a bigger boil. Also if you're boiling for an hour, 3-4 litres ain't big enough. You'd need it at least twice that size to account for the amount boiled off over the hour.

 

Hi Otto I didnt know boil size mattered :O With the pale ale kits we have been doing we just do something along the lines of boil 3l of water, throw 20g of cascade in for 20mins then once the time is up we throw in the bottom of fermentor, chuck in water / the kit so the temp usually ends up around 20 and then we pitch the yeast. Am i right in understanding you are saying that this kind of method does not utilize that 20g of cascade very well and that we need to do bigger boils? Also do we need to have anything in the water or is it fine just adding the water to boiling hops as we cant really boil the kit.

 

Cheers

[Otto Von Blotto]

Hi Otto I didnt know boil size mattered :O With the pale ale kits we have been doing we just do something along the lines of boil 3l of water' date=' throw 20g of cascade in for 20mins then once the time is up we throw in the bottom of fermentor, chuck in water / the kit so the temp usually ends up around 20 and then we pitch the yeast. Am i right in understanding you are saying that this kind of method does not utilize that 20g of cascade very well and that we need to do bigger boils? Also do we need to have anything in the water or is it fine just adding the water to boiling hops as we cant really boil the kit.

Cheers[/quote']

Those sorts of boils are fine to do like that as they are mainly only for flavour/aroma, not bitterness. It is better to boil the hops in wort though, simply mix up 100g dry malt or 120g liquid malt per litre of water, then bring to the boil and add your hops for the 10 or 20 mins or whatever. Strain into the FV (you don't want boiled hop matter in there) and mix the other ingredients as usual. Boiling hops in plain water can extract a harsh bitterness.

 

There's a bit of debate on whether boil size affects utilisation regarding bitterness contributed. I think it does based on my experiences brewing extract beers. I used IanH's spreadsheet to design recipes, and always had the utilisation factor adjusted for the boil size I used. Without adjustment the IBUs skyrocketed. The beers all turned out as expected, certainly not the way over the top bitterness that was suggested with no adjustment to the utilisation factor.

 

 

[ChristinaS1]

Heya Christina I am thinking 3-4l max atm' date=' its our biggest pot ha ha.

 

Would 12.5g be enough for each of the hop additions do you think or would that have hardly any bitterness flavor at all? I have 50g of cascade, galaxy or centennial i could use all up for a brew like that so perhaps could dry hop as well just not sure how to best split it. (will only pick one to use to try and explore its flavours etc).[/quote']

 

Hi J. 3-4L is a really small pot, maybe a bit too small? But if you still wish to proceed the way to do it would be to boil your hops in 4L of mini-wort that you make with 400-425ml of LME and water. In the last 15 minutes of the boil you can add the remainder of the can; since it has been sitting open for an hour you should pasteurize it. If you have room in your pot at the end of the boil you can add the other can of the LME to the pot to dilute it, or add it to the fermentor and dump your hot wort on top of it. Since it comes from a pasteueized can, it does not have to be sanitized.

 

I don't want to stop you from doing anything that you really want to, but if it was me, I would wait with "SMaSHing" until you get an all-grain set up. You can still experiment with single hopping though, but just for finishing and not for bittering. I'd use the APA/OS Lager/OS Draught kit with a can of light LME. If you are only boiling hops for <20 minutes you can use plain water instead of a mini-wort, and a much smaller volume. As for how much hops to add, it depends on the AA level of the hop, and how long you boil them, and your preferences, but I'd say 12.5gm is a good place to start. As an example boiling 12.5gm of a dual purpose hop like Cascade X 15 minutes = 5 IBUs, and a higher alpha hop like Citra X 15 minutes = 7.5 IBUs. The closer you are to flameout, the less IBUs are extracted. Flameout and dry hopping additions don't give any IBUs at all, just aroma, so you can go crazy with them....

 

You should probably get yourself a copy of Ian's Spreadsheet, from AHB, if you don't already have one. Once you go all-grain you can get Beersmith.

 

Good Luck J. Cheers! -Christina.

 

PS Don't throw the kit yeasts away. They aren't bad, but there isn't enough in one package to cleanly ferment this amount of malt. Buy two kits, put both kit yeasts in one brew and US-05 in the other. And keep your fermentation temps 18-20C.

[Beervis]

Resurrecting this old thread to give new brewers my 2 cents on kits. I'm planning to move to extract once I've drunken the backlog of kit brews so wanted to give my thoughts on the kit experience. Since this forum sorta functions as a wiki as well as a conversation!

 

I've brewed heaps of kits and ROTM's now with mixed results. Definitely temp control with the brewing fridge has made the biggest difference in quality, the next biggest difference has been using hop boils/dry hops and the steeping grains come in 3rd. The best kit beers I've made have had generous amounts of both grains and hops.

 

I'm not that experienced at picking out yeast flavour profiles except the really aggressive ones like Saison, but my hunch is the coopers kit yeasts don't add much even when you use 2 packs so getting better yeast for the style is also really helpful. Or reculturing the coopers stuff.

Getting the carbonation right to style is also important. I've found all the beers I've made with 'kit taste' have also been a bit flat, and we all know what 3 day old flat lemonade is like.

 

Also, not all kits are created equal! I think it's a useful approach to try a whole bunch of different ones and see what flavours you're enjoying. I've found some consistently produce better results. The more robust flavoured kits like dark ales/stouts/ sparkling etc mask off flavours better and tend not to have 'kit taste' which Christina mentioned above in this thread, and some others suit the style they are supposed to be emulating better. That could just be personal preference. Personally, if I was gonna make a k+k it would definitely be something like a dark ale or porter rather than a light flavoured kit. Overall I reckon the Thomas Coopers series are the best by far, I haven't tried the new lager and I didn't like the Bootmaker much but the rest of them are really nice with some additions. I had a Franziskaner at the pub the other day and I think it was only maybe 15% better than the Zesty Blond ROTM so there you go.

 

Others might disagree with me, but IMO the worst kits are the craft series. I've brewed heaps of the craft ROTM's, a couple of the recipes were a big success but by and large they haven't been very good. Marked kit twang in quite a few of them and they often taste like the flavours aren't well blended even after a few months of cellaring. I think it has something to do with the high alcohol content and the small volume of the brew. Something definitely wrong in there. The most recent one I tried was a hop bomb (Bridge the Gap 25g Centennial 25g Riwaka 25g Simcoe) and the kit twang was clearly detectable under all that. Gave a couple to my mates and they struggled with it. Did a direct comparison with a Bootmaker k+k with a 30 gram Chinook hop steep and they thought that tasted much less like 'home brew'.

 

Anyhow that's that, I'm steering away from the craft ROTMs from now on but will use the little fermenter for small extract brews. Happy brewing!