I bought Coopers Lager from the-home-brew-shop who have excellent customer service.
This is my 2nd batch of home brew. The first using Woodfordes Wherry was a big success!
Liquid Malt Extract kit.
Mix
I was confused as to if I needed the flavour enhancer, and if not, did I need to add 1kg of sugar?
AndyW answered it for me:
- what you are adding is the sugar required to ferment into alcohol
- the conditioner is a malt extract that gives body and head
- sugar/dextrose will ferment in the same manner you just won’t get the depth of body.
After steralising the fermentation bucket, I added the contents of the tin into a few litres of water. Then added in the flavour enhancer. I topped up the water to around 20l
It was foamy.
My cold water temperature had to be brought up to 21 with some hot water.
OG - Original Gravity should be approx 1038. It is difficult to read here, but seems about right. Next time I’ll use the beaker to try and get more accurate.
FG - Final Gravity. Then we can use the forumla to calculate alcohol content.
(OG – FG) / 7.46 + 0.5 = approx. % Alcohol By Volume (ABV)
0.5 is added to allow for the extra alcohol produced through fermentation in the bottle. eg. (1036 - 1014) / 7.46 + 0.5 = 3.5% ABV
Stage 1 - Brew the Wort
Recommended temperature is 21-27
After about 6 days at 21 (or 4 days at 27) it may be ready.
Test the SG each day. FG is reached once SG is stable 2 days in a row.
Recommend to taste and smell now.
So it took longer - I transferred mine on the 9th day. It was probably fine on day 8, I just wanted to make sure the FG’s were stable
FG should be around 1010, and I think this is around 1018. But is has been stable for 2-3 days so I’m fine with that. The temperature at night probably goes down to 15, so this may explain why it has taken longer to do the primary fermentation.
Stage 2 - Secondary Ferment
As the instructions are about bottles, and I’m storing in a pressure vessel, I added 85g of dissolved sugar into the vessel.
I syphoned the beer into the barrel. Much better doing it outside where can spill it and don’t have to clean up!
As nighttime temperatures are still low (down to 0) I’m keeping the beer inside for a few days.
After 1 week I tried it and it was:
- watery
- needs more bubbles!
- drinkable
After 2.5 weeks it was much clearer and looks great:
It still needs more CO2 and is a touch ‘watery’ and could do with a more sweet flavour. So, I decided to add in some more sugar to see what happens. I added about 50g into the barrel, and it started foaming up, so I put the pressure relief valve on quickly.
After 3.5 weeks it is tasting much better. Especially if it is nice and cold from the fridge and is has lots of CO2 in it. I’m trying to encourage more CO2 so adding a bit of sugar after I take out a few pints.
After just over 4 weeks it is very good and drinkable. I’d describe it as a very passable lager. Has to be cold, and plenty of CO2. All the neighbours agreed.
