Whats that twang?

[PhilB]

Hi bigtoe

What we need is a 100% certain way of brewing a kit, regardless of where its from that will not produce the twang, even if it has to be kit by kit, change yeast, use RO water....etc, there has to be a way to guarantee the brew will be sublime and worth the extra effort you put in.

... well, "100% certain" is a big ask, but I reckon if you put together the collective learning of this (and plenty of other) forum(s) then you should get high 90s% anyway ... I'll try to summarise what I think I've seen of that, and use Ditch's Stout as a case study in the approach (I'm sure he won't mind), because let's face it, that's close to "100% certain" for most people and when people have problems with it, we usually find that they just didn't follow Ditch's instructions

So, I'd suggest the learning points go ...

1. Use fresh ingredients - like Laripu suggests above, stuff goes off if you leave it hanging around and the LME in kit cans appears to go off quicker than other stuff ... Ditch gets his stuff from Shane at the Homebrew Company, Shane doesn't have a warm retail shop where the kits he sells sit around for ages, Shane has a high turnover so the kits he sells come in to him and go out to customers pretty soon after, and while they're with him they're probably in a big cool warehouse. Ditch doesn't hang around either, he gets a batch of kits, brews them and drinks them in pretty short order. So nothing's hanging around
2. Keep simple sugars to a minimum, use malt extract instead - The kit instructions may say to add 1kg sugar (or whatever), but you should already have thrown those away anyway, do yourself and your yeast a favour and use malt extract ... Ditch adds 1kg of DME to his stout recipe, he may add some sugar nowadays, but the proportion of simple sugar when he adds a mug full will be minimal
3. Pitch enough, well prepared yeast into well prepared wort - those little 7g packs in most kits probably aren't enough (especially if the kit hasn't been stored well enough) and sprinkling direct onto the wort kills too many of your yeast. So it will probably help to pitch a bigger 11g pack of yeast, bought separately, and learn to rehydrate it in luke-warm water first. You should then pitch your rehydrated yeast into well aerated wort ... now, you might say "But Ditch uses the kit yeast and sprinkles" to this point, but you have to remember that Ditch uses the virtually bullet proof Cooper's yeast and he's pitching it into wort that he's aerated with his drill and paint stirrer to within an inch of its life (and Ditch has tried the alternatives (see point 6 below ) and found this to reliably work, so he can get away with that approach, with that kit )
4. Keep fermentation temperature stable - Get your FV to a good temperature for fermentation for the yeast, and maintain that temperature ... you may say that the 22C that Ditch ferments his stout at is a bit warm for the yeast, but Ditch has found that temperature to work by (a great deal of) trial and error, and he maintains his fermentation temp by sticking a (thermostatically controlled) fish tank heater straight into his FV in a cool room. None of this cold at night and warm in the day fluctuations for Ditch's brews. Temperature stability can be at least as important for a clean ferment as the chosen fermentation temperature so it's worth putting some effort into making sure you control it
5. Let it ferment fully - Don't try and rush the ferment, just because there's no bubbles on the wort/beer (or even coming through your airlock if you use one) doesn't mean it's finished. Let the fermentation finish properly by letting the yeast clean up after themselves, after they've finished all the sugars in the wort ... Ditch leaves his ferments for 10 days, whenever I've done a Ditch's Stout the yeast have looked finished after about 5-6 days, but those extra few days are when the yeast go around and clear up all the rubbish tasting by-products they made during the ferment, before settling down and hibernating, and it's a good idea to make sure you let them do that
6. Keep trying - if at first you don't succeed, etc ... the Ditch's Stout Master Class thread (link) wasn't posted at the start of Ditch explaining how to get this beer right, the first post was actually posted by him to try to finish it, to put a definitive instruction post together, and since then there have been another 177 pages of posts about it My point is that Ditch hasn't just got lucky getting this recipe, with this kit, to work he's tried the combinations, developed the recipe and tried those, over and over, to get there. So if you taste a "twang" in some beer you've produced, look at the above points and see what you could have done differently, and then try it again and do it differently in that way ... don't just give up on brewing that kit

At least that's what I've got from reading these forums

Cheers, PhilB

[Laripu]

All of the above is good advice. I'd add: use yeast nutrients, plus half a teaspoon of Marmite, which is a very good yeast nutrient. Boil these in some water before adding/mixing.

Something else that might help: steep a couple of pounds of crystal or caramel malt for 30 minutes in 155°F water, before removing and adding LME to boil. That should help with yeast nutrients. I like 1 lb 120L crystal + 1 lb crystal rye for dark beers.

I've read that what degrades in LME is FAN (free amino nitrogen). But I'm nothing like a chemist, so I can't evaluate that. But maybe it'll tweak someone else's memory who knows better. Have a look at this.

Never use cans that are bulging: botulism risk.

[bigtoe]

PhilB

Now coopers stout, done around 10 now and being dead honest they are utterly bomb proof, right now im doing a toucan with 1Kg DME and 500g demarara and its chugging away superbly and already over 5% ABV in just over 48hrs. Ferment temps are 20C with no heater although I usually dangle in one of the 2 heaters I bought but its not cold enough in the kitchen for them.
When it comes to other Coopers kits I have 3 under my belt now BUT they are all massively tweaked, one is kegged and while lovely to drink it never cleared up totally. It can sit till Christmas for me however so its got chance, around 9L left of that one from 15. This is real ale brewed to 15L with a 1.5KG can of coopers light malt. Now I too buy from a high turn over shop although i did not ask how long the LME had been sat there but the date on it was huge so im thinking pretty fresh.Then I brewed the same again, this time just bottled it into 330ML bottles...again this can sit till late December at least if not longer,slightly shorter brew at 14L and 8% ABV although its FG was higher so has a sweetness to it....
Last is a APA again brewed short, this one has light DME along with golden syrup as per the other 2 kits....its getting close on fermented out and should hit 6.5%. It tastes already superb.

Now...all 3 same water, all 3 same temperature, all 3 mixed with paint stirrer for 5 full mins, the 2 real ales kits used safbrew s33 yeast, just 1 packet, im thinking its not enough although the calculators showed it was, The APA uses 2 coopers yeast and i have to admit its fermented way better. Now im not always going to have spare yeast to hand so I will have to research what they use.

Regards rehydration...I will have to try this, not bothered to date but thinking its a must do, also building a starter may help with the smaller 7g packets to get going and pitching this when the wort is exactly the same temp etc.

projects for the future (with kits) will be RO water, whether sourced locally or bought in online its not too expensive to experiment with, I have 2 30L plastic water containers (food grade) on the way and can use these for collection once sanitised etc. I'm intrigued about the mineral content going to high if you use some kits with standard water or mineral water.

In the end though as Ditch said he never had the twang with a Coopers kit but has with other kits, its a strange one for sure. Out the last 3 St Peters kits I brewed 2 had the twang, all fermented out over 2 weeks, all fermented at 20c or just under, all used the same water and supplied yeast....I have 1 IPA kit to go although was going to split it into 2 brews. I am starting to think this is the kit to test the RO water on etc and go the full hog with the yeast etc. Would be interesting for sure to compare as the last one was pretty twangy.