8 brews from 4 cheap kits!

[Monkeybrew]

OK thank you, i will send them a email. Any advice on dry-hopping please? I was planning on putting into a hop bag with a couple of marbles to weigh it down, on the 2nd Fermentation. Does this sound OK?

Thank you.

Sounds fine to me.

I prefer to chuck them straight into the brew, but I crash chill my brews and then filter them out when siphoning.

Have a scroll down page 6 of this thread.

Citra is an awesome hop, how much do you plan to use?

MB

[Monkeybrew]

Happy to report that this Wherry brew has taken a turn for the better, and is now rather good!

The Windsor yeast has definitely given this brew a noticeably silky mouthfeel and the hops have left some really fruity notes. The bitterness is noticeable, but less harsh now which is good.

The only downside is the unstable yeast sediment in the bottle, but I can live with that

MB

[Monkeybrew]

Happy to report that this Wherry brew has taken a turn for the better, and is now rather good!

The Windsor yeast has definitely given this brew a noticeably silky mouthfeel and the hops have left some really fruity notes. The bitterness is noticeable, but less harsh now which is good.

The only downside is the unstable yeast sediment in the bottle, but I can live with that

MB

I completely ballsed up the quoting of my Feb post, and managed to delete the text and replace it with this update of my Progress Wherry

[Monkeybrew]

I made up my last can of Wherry this afternoon. Rather than adding various hops and other fermentables, I decided to use this final Wherry as a yeast testbed.

I acquired some fresh yeast from the Ringwood brewery last May, and used it in an AG porter. I have kept a few bottles back to have a go at growing the yeast dregs up in a couple of DME starters. After letting the bottled yeast dregs ferment out in an initial 300ml starter, I then poured off most of the liquid and then pitched the settled yeast into a 500ml starter, that I left for 48 hours before pouring off most of the liquid again. I then made up my last can of Wherry to 11.5L (1.038 OG) and then pitched my liquid yeast.

I don't really know if there was enough yeast, but it is only a small low gravity brew, so we shall what happens.



Cheers

MB

[Monkeybrew]

Well something is certainly going on

This was what I came home to yesterday evening, about 36 hours after pitching.

MB

[Monkeybrew]

I've racked the Ringwood Wherry tonight on day 12, and checked the gravity again and it's about 1.007!

Cheers

MB

[Monkeybrew]

I kegged most of this Wherry brew last night in my little 2gal PB and bottled a couple too.

It finished at 1.006 (4.3%), and tasty quite hoppy too. It had a very estery aroma, but not off (I think).

I will try and leave it alone to condition for a few weeks before reporting back.

Cheers

MB

[Monkeybrew]

This time I am brewing with 1 can from the Woodfordes Admirals Reserve (32pt) kit. I will be brewing the other can as standard, because I tasted my mates brew a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed it. But this brew is being brewed nearer to the Woodfordes Headcracker (24pt) kit.

MB

Well that's not going to happen, as I am finally going to brew the 8th and final brew on this thread, and have decided to brew a Chinook Reserve with my last tin from the Woodfordes Admirals Reserve kit tonight.

I was going brew this standard, then I thought about using some Fuggles additions, but after reading a reply from seymour on a thread about hopping a Coopers English Bitter, where he suggested to be creative, I had an ELC moment and thought blow the Fuggles and let's use up that 25g of Chinook.

So here's the planned brew-

Chinook Reserve

9 Litres
1 X 1.5kg can of Woodfordes Admirals Reserve
150g of Demerara sugar
10g of Chinook Whole Hops 12.5%AA boiled for 5mins
15g of Chinook Whole Hops 12.5%AA steeped from 80C for 30mins
7g of yeast from a Coopers Wheat Beer kit (It's a commercial ale yeast according to Coopers) @18C

This will all be going in my 9L mini PB

Cheers

MB

[Muppetdave]

Sorry, total newbie, so much of it is beyond me for the time being, but I like the sound of these experiments (and it's where I'd like to get to eventually). Nice to see a local bod on here too MonkeyBrew

[Monkeybrew]

All went well with this brew and it's already fermenting a bit too lively.

I got an OG of 1.054 @23C and pitched the rehydrated yeast at around 11pm last night.

I checked on it about 12 hours later, and it is already touching the inside of my little FV's lid! It's fermenting in my 10L FV that has a total capacity of 11L, but if the early signs are anything to go by, I could be in trouble

I did some more reading around online, and found a few people suggesting that this particular yeast that ships with two of Coopers kits (Wheat Beer and Irish Stout), is actually Windsor.

Early signs may be proving this correct as Windsor is a fast starter and lively too.

Cheers

MB

[WalesAles]

MB,
Is that kit still in date? The Dunelm sale was last Year!

WA

[Monkeybrew]

MB,
Is that kit still in date? The Dunelm sale was last Year!

WA

It was out of date, but I had already used the yeast when it was in date, and extract keeps fairly well.

It smells amazing Mun!

Cheers

MB

[Monkeybrew]

Sorry, total newbie, so much of it is beyond me for the time being, but I like the sound of these experiments (and it's where I'd like to get to eventually). Nice to see a local bod on here too MonkeyBrew

Hi MD

Welcome to JBK!

Have you brewed anything yet or are you still picking up info?

Where abouts in Essex are you from, I'm really lucky to have a well stocked homebrew shop here.

There are some really good kits on the market now, that contain hop pellets to enhance flavours and aromas.

It's best to brew some straight forward 2 can kits first to get a feel for things IMO.

Cheers

MB

[Muppetdave]

Thanks for the welcome. I'm in Clacton, but always in and out of Colchester. There was a shop here (well in Holland), but he seems to have packed up.

I've got a Woodford's Wherry kit to have a crack at (hopefully get it on tonight amongst de-gassing a wine kit I've also bought - assuming baby #2 who's imminent doesn't mess my plans up...). Exactly as you say; my plan is to get to grips with simple can kits to start with - get my hygiene sorted out etc etc. But eventually to have a go at the sort of thing you're doing

[Monkeybrew]

Just checked the SG of the Chinook Reserve on day 8, and it's sitting at 1.014

Cheers

MB