Any Brigalow Suggestions?

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 11:42 am

Hey folks!

After searching through the forum for brewers thoughts on Brigalow kits I've had a chuckle at what seems to be the mass consensus - they're rubbish!

Anyways, I just got back from the supermarket (this was before I searched the forums mind you), saw the Brigalow lager and draught kits on special for $5 and thought, what the hell, I'll get one of each to experiment with.

My question is this, does anyone have any suggestions (bar pouring it down the sink

) on how to make this a reasonable brew? I'm hoping I can still throw it together and at least come up with a beer that fulfills the "okay to drink but only when you're already really maggoted" category.

So yes, suggestions?

lethaldog · Post by **lethaldog** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 12:59 pm

add only malt and no sugar, add some hops to it as well if you feel you need a little extra flavour but the main thing for me would be all malt, especially with a draught kit, they are not supposed to be huge on hops anyway

And replace the yeasts with a good lager yeast like a saf or liquid

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 1:37 pm

Yoiks...$5...I better get to the markets. Which one was it out of interest?

wildschwein · Post by **wildschwein** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 2:00 pm

Yeah I had a quick look at these tthe other day when I was in Big W and noticed that the ingredients list said they contained malt and cereal extract. So they aren't all malt and probably contain a certain percentage of something like glucose or unmalted barley syrup. May account for why they're not considered to be very good kits.

warra48 · Post by **warra48** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 5:51 pm

wildschwein wrote:Yeah I had a quick look at these tthe other day when I was in Big W and noticed that the ingredients list said they contained malt and cereal extract. So they aren't all malt and probably contain a certain percentage of something like glucose or unmalted barley syrup. May account for why they're not considered to be very good kits.

My guess is the cereal extract is corn syrup.
If you add at least 1 kg of DME, it will no longer be a cheap brew.

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 7:07 pm

Yoiks...$5...I better get to the markets. Which one was it out of interest?

Which brew or which supermarket? Bought the standard Brigalow Draught tin and the standard Brigalow Lager tin. The supermarket was the Woolworths at Kingscliff (just south of the QLD border). I nabbed the last Lager tin, but there were still five or so more of the Draught.

Cheers for the advice so far, keep it comin'!

I'll have a squiz over at the local HB store tomorrow and suss out some hops / malt / yeast options and prices.

Honestly, I don't really care much for sticking to a budget, I like to grab specials when I can, but I'm into brewing to experiment and have some fun so I thought I'd give the low end brands a run and see what happens. At the very least I can just flog it off to desperate mates haha.

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 7:52 pm

candidates for a twocan?

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Sunday Jul 22, 2007 8:35 pm

If brigalow has stuff other than malt, hops, and water...I am not interested! The other stuff is cheap additive which gives you no benefit other than alcohol, which always tastes better, or better yet doesn't taste at all when you make it properly!

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Monday Jul 23, 2007 2:32 pm

I bought a brewcraft premium recepie kit today, and as a result I have a spare pack of Muntons Active Brewing Yeast, this came with a can of Yorkshire Bitter and I was wondering, since I won't need to use it for the kit would it be suitable to use with one of the Brigalow tins, say the draught?

warra48 · Post by **warra48** » Monday Jul 23, 2007 3:13 pm

Heals wrote:I bought a brewcraft premium recepie kit today, and as a result I have a spare pack of Muntons Active Brewing Yeast, this came with a can of Yorkshire Bitter and I was wondering, since I won't need to use it for the kit would it be suitable to use with one of the Brigalow tins, say the draught?

The Muntons yeast is a good ale yeast , but not as good as the Muntons Gold. Having said that, I used it on a stout earlier this year, and it took off like a rocket. I'd say, go for it.

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Monday Jul 23, 2007 3:17 pm

Make a starter first to be sure it is going to "go off" at all

4 years of brewing and the only problems I have had...have been dry yeast related!

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Monday Jul 23, 2007 3:29 pm

What's involved in making a starter? Is it hard?

Kevnlis · Post by **Kevnlis** » Monday Jul 23, 2007 4:00 pm

Personally I use a 2 litre bottle 3/4 filled with boiled cooled water, I add about 1/2 cup of malt and pour in the yeast. Screw cap on tight and shake real well, loosen cap so it is tight enough for air to get out but not back in (squeeze the bottle if the sides go in and stay in your good) for that ale yeast keep at about 18C for a couple days shaking it when you remember (not necessary but it seems to work better for me?).

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Tuesday Jul 24, 2007 11:54 pm

Well, in the end, I bought an ultra-blend mix from the local HB store, 500g light malt, 250g dex and corn syrup. I wanted 750g of light malt, but that meant I had to buy more ingredients than I needed, inflating the price to something a bit silly.

Anyway, I realize the error of my ways in getting the Brigalow cans, even on special! I'm going to try the draught and most likely throw out the lager tin, so all up I've still paid $15 for this brew, 10 for the ultra blend and 5 for the tin.

Will let you know if how it goes - needless to say, I don't have terribly high expectations!

Maybe I'll surprise myself!

nt · Post by nt » Wednesday Jul 25, 2007 11:00 am

A kilo bag will cost around $10 or less. Have you ever consider buying a 5 kg bag? it cost me $6/kg (all malt) from grain and grape. Depends on your local HB, you might not have a choice...

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Wednesday Jul 25, 2007 12:38 pm

Unfortunately no, they only sell kilo bags and they're about $15, or $8 for half a kilo.

Trough Lolly · Post by **Trough Lolly** » Wednesday Jul 25, 2007 7:34 pm

Heals wrote:What's involved in making a starter? Is it hard?

G'day Heals,
If you're using dry yeast, all you need to do is rehydrate the yeast in preboiled and cooled water. Dry yeast sachets come with their own compounds, specifically trehalose, that gives the yeast a real kick in the shorts as soon as the particles hit the water. A quick and easy way to proof the yeast is as follows:

1. Haul the sachet out of the fridge on brewday to bring to room temp,
2. About 30 mins before you're ready to pitch the yeast, add 200ml of the preboiled and chilled water (aim for 20C) into a pre-sanitised pyrex jug or cup and sprinkle the dry yeast on top of the water. Seal vessel with glad wrap and leave in a dark cupboard.
3. After 20 mins you'll see a pale tan creamy pavlova like foam on top of the water's surface - that's proof positive that the yeast cells have been reconstituted with water and are ready to get stuck into your wort's sugars.
4. Rack the cooled wort into your clean fermenter, pitch the hydrated yeast once the wort is at or below 20C and seal.

Easy.

The only time you need to feed yeast in a starter with some malt extract or a cooled down quantity of the boiled wort is if you're using liquid yeast from a wyeast smack pack or white labs tube - and in some cases, it's not impossible to get a start by simply pitching the smack pack or tube straight into the fermenter. For lagers, I prefer to step up a liquid yeast smack pack or tube in an erlenmeyer flask so I have 2L of active yeast and stuff all lag time - that means that I've been making and building up the yeast starter for a few days before the brewday so a bit of prior planning prevents piss poor performance!

Cheers,
TL

Heals · Post by **Heals** » Thursday Aug 09, 2007 5:18 pm

Well it's been just over two weeks since I threw this Brigalow masterpiece together...

The OG was around 1039 - 1040, and after 15 days in the primary it's still sitting on 1014, and has been at 1014 for about 4 - 5 days. I've given it a shake this afternoon to see if I can get a little more action out of it, but in the event that I can't, do you think it's safe to bottle?

I ended up mixing up the brigalow lager tin, with the muntons ale yeast and the 1kg ultra blend (strange combinations I know!) and it's been fermenting at a steady 20 degrees.