Just saying hi

[BeerSeca]

Hi to everyone. Originally signed on here in the hope for finding out why a change from a home-brew shop prepared beer (which had plenty of gas and formed an excellent head) to Cooper's International home-brew varieties resulted in a flat beer in 50% of cases with little or no head, however after reading through a few posts I've noticed this is a common problem and have found enough reading material on this site that I'm sure will enable me to make an informed decision (and keep me reading until Christmas )

So rather than add a post which will only make eyes roll as yet another "newbie" hits the send button, I'd just like to thank the readers and contributors at the Homebrew and Beer Forum. I'm doing everything right and the Canadian Blond is to die for, so it could be as simple as too much steriliser not being washed out properly since it's not affecting all the brews. In the meantime, I'll keep reading and learning.
Thanks again,
The Brew Seca

[jello]

G'day and welcome!

Don't be afraid to ask newbie questions. I've asked plenty of them. The guys are awesome here! My other family

[Sonny]

Mate, good stuff.

I did a hefeweissen the other week. Two weeks in the bottle, tasting good. Nice banana, no clove and very clear.
Mmmm, maybe do it again a bit different. I did do more last night.
Today, watching the motogp qualifying I open a bottle. Clove, banana and I can't see through it. Yummy too.

Homebrewing is good, kit or AG, it is just great. Yeh, I've had a few.......BWwaaaaahhhhhh

[BeerSeca]

One of my current problems since moving over to Coopers Home Brew is that I can't get the alcohol content over around 3.5%. The old Home Brew Shop ones were up around 6% and would really kick your butt. Now of course, I'm not looking for an alcohol content over 4.5, but something over 3.5 would be nice. If it doesn't have a "buzz" then it's not real beer!!

I'm using the standard Coopers home brew kit at present and have the immersion heater set at 18-20C. The Coopers brews seem to explode into life within a couple of days and blow out around the seal and up through the air lock making a bit of a mess on the bench. Might look into a genuine Coopers 30 litre fermenter soon. After the initial burst, all goes very quiet and I suspect the yeast is insufficient to produce any more alcohol.

Any suggestions??

[jello]

I suggest not using the yeast coming with the Coopers tins.

3.5 seems low. What's one of your recipes?

[bullfrog]

Kit yeast still has a reasonable alcohol tolerance so that won't be your issue, and the fact that you get very active krausen action suggests that the yeast is still healthy enough to make beer. As Jello said, post a recipe that you haven't been able to get over 3.5% because it sounds to me like you've lost some fermentables along the way. Also, just out of curiosity, include OG and FG with the recipe as there is a possibility that you may have a few grenades waiting to blow.

[Sonny]

as there is a possibility that you may have a few grenades waiting to blow.

........can we all get up yet?

[bullfrog]

as there is a possibility that you may have a few grenades waiting to blow.

........can we all get up yet?

Only sport that has meal breaks and now they've added nap time, too.

[BeerSeca]

Ok. This is what I'm doing. Using a can of Coopers Home Brew, I empty the can into a sterilised fermenter and add two litres of boiling water. Next I add a I kg packet of Coppers beer enhancer 1 (Dextrose, maltodextrin) and stir well to dissolve. I then add cold water using a 1.5lt jug one at a time and stir after every two jugs. After topping up to the 23 litre mark, I make sure the temperature is not above 22C or below 18C then add the yeast and give the lot another good stir to distribute the yeast throughout the brew. Next I fit the lid and drop the immersion heater through a hole in the lid and seal it with the specially fitted rubber bung. It was set to 24C. but recently I've re-set it to 18-20C. Within 48 hours, the brew will boil off gas furiously, then calm down just as quickly and it sits and does nothing until bottling at least a week later (usually 10 days). The OG on the current batch was 1043 and dropped to 1022 within a few days and stays there. Using those figures, I figure the alcohol content of the finished brew to be around 3.5%. So far, none of the reading have fallen below 1020.

Since switching over to Coopers, I've now done a Pale Ale which was practically flat, had no head and no alcoholic kick, a Draught that had a much better head and gas retention, but mid strength alcohol content, a beautiful Canadian Blonde which had a superb head, flavour and gas retention, but once again, mid range alcohol, a Real Ale which I've not yet touched and the current brew is another Draught. I let all my brews sit in a warm room wrapped in a blanket for a minimum of two weeks with the air temp around 22 -24 through the day and down to 18 O/night. I always leave my brew for at least two months before opening.

To bottle, I sterilise the bottles using a home brew bottle wash and then rinse in hot water. I should also note that I'm on tank water. I'm using the same brew enhancer to prime the long-neck bottles at the rate of 1 level teaspoon per long-neck (ex CUB) bottles, or half a teaspoon for a stubbie. This never missed with the home brew shop recipe and if I came home tired, one bottle of the stuff would knock the legs out from under me. Can't speak for the Real Ale yet, but so far none of the three batches I've tried have an alcoholic content over the mid strength range. And yes, I'm carefully rotating the filled bottles to mix the brew enhancer through the bottles before leaving for their secondary fermentation. The technique I'm using is no different from the old days of using the home brew shop mix which was prepared by the HB shop and sold in a plastic tub with a packet of yeast. Maybe it was simply better yeast??

So there you have it. See if you can spot the fault for I'm darned if I can. And of course, thanks for your help.
BeerSeca.

[squirt in the turns]

Your process sounds fine to me. The inconsistency you're experiencing with carbonation could be due to the temperatures at which the bottles are stored. Where are you, and what has the temperature been like during the conditioning period for your flat pale ale? Other than that, have you changed the way you measure your priming sugar? Were you priming in the same way when you were using your LHBS's pre made mix?

I assume you're using a hydrometer to measure the SG? If you're using a refractometer, you need to make some calculations when you're doing your FG reading, as the as alcohol present throws the reading off. I've never used one, so others here may be able to advise, or just Google it.

If you're using a hydrometer, check that it reads 1.000 in 20C water (or 15C, depending on how it's calibrated - most are set up for 20C). I doubt that this is the problem, though, as your OG looks normal, and if your hydrometer was off, it would skew your OG reading too, not just your FG reading.

When you refer to an "alcoholic kick", is this something you were tasting in your previous brews, or just how it made you feel? You shouldn't really be able to taste alcohol in a 4% or 5% beer. If you were, it may have been some fusel oils (undesirable "higher-order" alcohols) produced as a result of your higher fermentation temperature.

[BeerSeca]

Hi 'Squirt in the turns' and thanks for the reply.

I'm not doing anything differently to when I used the home brew shop recipe, so not sure where the problem lies. In answer to your questions, after bottling, I put the bottles in cardboard boxes which have been already placed in garbage bags. The idea being that should they explode, hopefully most of the mess will be contained within the garbage bags. Of equal hope is that the cardboard will minimise the explosion and prevent broken shards of glass penetrating the plastic garbage bags. I live in S/W Victoria and over winter I have a solid fuel heater going night and day. The room air temperature rarely falls below 18C, even though a near naked body tries to tell me differently first thing in the morning, especially following a frosty night, yet the mercury doesn't lie. In the evenings, the air temperature is anywhere from 22-24C and I wrap the freshly brewed bottles in their boxes and garbage bags in a thick, woollen blanket and leave in the same room as the heater. A thermostatically controlled cupboard would be an improvement I suppose, but in the past I never had a problem.

I bottled my first home brew back in 2009 and so far I've never had a bottle explode and the old home brew mixes had wicked heads and excellent gas retention. I took a long break from brewing due to the strong home brew smell of the HB shop mix. It always had a strong smell, but one day my nose simply said "enough!" With the hope of a brew more pleasant to the pallet and the nose, I only recently changed over to the Coopers and in both respects have not been disappointed. I love the taste and it smells great too, but the Pale Ale was a disappointment concerning both gas and head retention. I really don't believe the problem is caused by the secondary fermenting process, but am happy to be proved wrong and will give all suggestion a chance. With the old HB shop mix, the Hydrometer (yes, that's what I use) used to start at 1042 and drop back to 1001-1002 slowly over an 8 to 10 day period. I never had the rapid fermentation reaction I'm experiencing with the Coopers. It's like it blows it's top and then fizzles out! The current Coopers Draught I'm brewing started out on Friday the 7th of this month at 1043. I just did another reading in the middle of writing this and it's now 1008. That's with the hydrometer given a spin to dislodge any bubbles. Oh, and thanks for the calibration tip. The hydrometer does read very close to 0 in plain tank water. Now to the formula which relates to the current brew......

OG of 1043 minus FG of 1008 = 35! 35 divided by 7.46 = 4.69. Add .5 for the secondary ferment should result in a total alcoholic content of 5.19. Those readings and calculations are taken from the Coopers instruction instruction booklet and with a 1kg packet of "Beer Enhancer1" added to the fermenter, that should be about right. Now that should knock my socks off, yet so far none of the brews have been what I'd call "potent." Maybe I'm a bigger p...pot than I thought?? I really don't get it, yet my eldest son said he thought the alcohol content was quite powerful. And when I talk about "alcoholic kick" I am referring purely to the way it made me feel. I couldn't taste the alcohol, but that old HB shop mix seemed like a much more potent dose!!

Anyway, I think that covers all the relevant points.

[squirt in the turns]

Based on your info, the most obvious cause that I can think of for your previous high finishing gravities is yeast health. It's possible that when you switched from your HB shop's mix to Coopers, you got a few cans that had been stored or transported badly (too hot). The sachets of yeast in most kits (7g if I remember correctly) are really just about enough to ferment out a 23 L batch. Abuse the kit a little bit, and the viability of the yeast could decrease to the extent that you'll get a stalled ferment, meaning a higher than expected FG, and not enough viable yeast in the bottle to carbonate properly. Although you describe vigorous ferments, how long was the delay between pitching the yeast and seeing this activity? A long "lag time" is indicative of fewer viable yeast cells. Also, did you find these beers to be sweeter than expected? A high FG would mean more unfermented sugars than normal in the finished beer.

In contrast, your HB shop probably supplied yeast packets that were stored more appropriately, and the low FG of 1.001 to 1.002 indicates that their mix included a lot of simple supars that fermented out to produce those high alcohol brews.

Your latest OG of 1.008 is fine. Take another hydro reading in a couple of days, and if it's the same, you can bottle it without fear of making bombs. I have to say, for someone who's never had a bottle bomb, your box-in-bag process is admirably paranoid

See point #3 in this thread. In fact, all of those points are worth reading, if you haven't already. Coopers yeasts are usually a half-decent strain, but after bouncing around in the Coles shipping container, can suffer from the issues I already mentioned.

[emnpaul]

admirably paranoid

Gold!

P.S. I know the feeling.

[BeerSeca]

Based on your info, the most obvious cause that I can think of for your previous high finishing gravities is yeast health. It's possible that when you switched from your HB shop's mix to Coopers, you got a few cans that had been stored or transported badly (too hot).

Your latest OG of 1.008 is fine. Take another hydro reading in a couple of days, and if it's the same, you can bottle it without fear of making bombs. I have to say, for someone who's never had a bottle bomb, your box-in-bag process is admirably paranoid

Thanks again for the info. I have been wondering about the yeast. I might even have a talk to the HB shop to see what they think, although it's been almost two years since I last visited them. And yes, the batch of Canadian Blond I brewed did seem a little on the sweet side, but it suited my tastes and those of a friend who stayed over for a few days. He actually remarked that it was one of the best beers he'd ever tasted including commercial varieties. I bought another Canadian Blond mix yesterday and it's going in the barrel next in the hope that I can replicate the same taste, but if it was the yeast that had lost a little of it's productivity, then the chances are that the next batch of Canadian Blond will turn out totally different and appropriately disappointing

As for the "bomb-resistant boxes", I'm allowing the bottles to sit on the carpet in the lounge room wrapped in a heavy blanket to get their second fermentation. I once had a can of Ice beer leak onto the same sort of carpet in the spare room from a damaged carton and I still can't get the stain out. It sat there too long before I found it. One of the problems of buying crap beer in bulk because it's cheap guzzling beer I don't want a repeat in the lounge room where everyone can see it. I also don't want to initiate a "China syndrome"