Coopers Abbey Blonde

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Coups

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Ok so this is take two of this review since this first effort ended with me wondering why i cant add more than one photo. Anyway... I will warn you I have a habit of jumping into things with both feet so when reading dont be surprised at the silly mistakes haha. Ok first review and first beer which involves mashing grains...

Recipe:
1.7kg Coopers Canadian Blonde
1.5kg Coopers Light Malt Extract
500g Light Spray Malt
250g Crystal Malt Grain
14g Styrian Goldings
T-58 Safale Yeast
S-33 Safale yeast

I used half a bag of 500g crystal malt so its easy to make another batch next time plus a little more hops.

First off, poured the 250g into the largest pan we have, added as much boiled water as it would take - approx 3.5 litres and boiled for 45mins stirring constantly. Completely forgot to add hops before the end of the boil, strained through a seive into another pan and left it to cool outside with the lid on whilst i watched my beloved Manchester United beat Liverpool...anyway...once cool i remembered the hops, added it in and boiled for 10 mins, then re-strained.

Poured both the canadian blonde and light malt extract into the fermenter, added 2 litres of boiling water, then the crystal wort. Stirred it all up and added the spraymalt which immediately became clumpy. So more stirring ensued until it all was dissolved.

I used eden falls water to bring the batch to 23 litres as SHWMBO has complained about the water bill so i have been forced to purchase my own, which if it means less hassle im happy. In my haste to get this brew on the go the FV it went into does not have a temp gauge on the side so i couldnt tell what temp i was pitching the yeast. I decided to leave it half an hour to either come up or go down a few degrees.

Pitched both sachets of yeast, sealed the lid, transferred to my brewing room, installed the airlock and slipped over a redundant jumper so the airlock came out of the neck :smile:

As I said at the start I have a habit of jumping into things with two feet and ending up to my ears in it, so I inevitably forgot to take a SG. The morning after making the brew, i took a reading once the froth and fizz had settled it was 1.055 ish. So after 14hrs of fermenting i figured maybe a starting SG of 1.058.

As it stands its currently bubbling away and seems like a success despite not knowing the correct process of getting wort and forgetting various key steps haha. I started this yesterday (Sunday 12th) and have a feeling it wont take long to get to the advised 1.012-1.014 although the usual 3 weeks for my brews will be adhered to. Below is a pic of the kit, and ill post an update once bottled and again after conditioning. Thanks for reading.

image.jpg
 
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Well, all looks good to me, only thing you did different really was using the hops as mainly an aroma / flavour addition as opposed to a partial bittering / flavouring. Probably will have little detrimental effect in practice.

Great brew and thanks for sharing. :thumb:
 
First off, poured the 250g into the largest pan we have, added as much boiled water as it would take - approx 3.5 litres and boiled for 45mins stirring constantly. Completely forgot to add hops before the end of the boil, strained through a seive into another pan and left it to cool outside, once cool i remembered the hops, added it in and boiled for 10 mins, then re-strained.

Pretty sure that's well boiled.

Coups, sorry to ask this, mate, but did you follow the instructions in slightly the wrong order?
 
The day before: Line a pot (at least 4 litres) with a mesh cleaning cloth (pulled straight fromt he pack), then add the cracked grain and 2 litres of cold water.
Fit the lid and sit in the fridge for 24 hours.
Remove from the fridge then gather up the corners of the mesh cloth and lift, allowing the liquid to drain from the grain back into the pot.
Transfer the liquid to a good sized pot (around 8 litres) and bring to the boil with a further 2 litres of water and the 500g of Light Dry Malt.
Once at the boil, add the Styrian Goldings Hop pellets and boil for 10 mins.
Set the pot in a cold/ice water bath to cool then strain into a fermenting vessel (FV)
Add the Canadian Blonde and Light Malt Extract to the FV, stir to dissolve then top up with cool water to the 20 litre mark and stir thoroughly.
Check the brew temperature and top up to the 23 litre mark with warm or cold water (refridgerated if necessary) to get as close as possible to 21C.
Sprinkle both sachets of dry yeast, and fit the lid.

Just really sorry to come across as a pain (ITA)
 
Hi guys, sorry for the delay in replying I haven't been on much recently. The beer turned out well in some aspects but in others it was same as usual for me.

With two packets of yeast I was always wary that the beer would have a lot of sediment and cause the beer to be cloudy when poured, but also have a yeasty taste. I wasn't wrong but I think that's down to me, I've been brewing now for nearly a year and always struggle with two much yeast sediment in the bottle so when poured out (even leaving 1-1.5cm at the bottom) the beer does taste yeasty. I think I need to rethink my fermentation environment conditions. (I'm thinking of buying a fermentation fridge to help this - thoughts please?)

Very nice when young, plenty of malty ness which I loved, nice spice from the yeast and hops. As it got older it seemed to loose abit of malty flavour, but maybe that's because the yeast was upsetting the flavour.

All in all I'd definitely do this again as it was a different brewing technique that I'm used to and the beer was very nice. More than just a few tweaks needed for me to make it into what it deserves to be.
 
Hi guys, sorry for the delay in replying I haven't been on much recently. The beer turned out well in some aspects but in others it was same as usual for me.

With two packets of yeast I was always wary that the beer would have a lot of sediment and cause the beer to be cloudy when poured, but also have a yeasty taste. I wasn't wrong but I think that's down to me, I've been brewing now for nearly a year and always struggle with two much yeast sediment in the bottle so when poured out (even leaving 1-1.5cm at the bottom) the beer does taste yeasty. I think I need to rethink my fermentation environment conditions. (I'm thinking of buying a fermentation fridge to help this - thoughts please?)

Very nice when young, plenty of malty ness which I loved, nice spice from the yeast and hops. As it got older it seemed to loose abit of malty flavour, but maybe that's because the yeast was upsetting the flavour.

All in all I'd definitely do this again as it was a different brewing technique that I'm used to and the beer was very nice. More than just a few tweaks needed for me to make it into what it deserves to be.

Did the recipe ask for 2 packets of yeast?

There is a few things you can do and look at.. firstly how long did you leave it in the fermenter and how exactly do you bottle

Also something else to consider do you move the FV physically before bottling or transferring to a bottling bucket? If you can cool it down for a day or so before you bottle it helps but thats not easy for everyone to do.

If you do either try and leave it a bit before you do another transfer, I have to move my FV before I rack to bottling bucket but I try and do it either the night before or several hours before I transfer to BB.. and when I transfer to BB I try and again leave it 30 mins or so before I bottle.

I know it sounds meticulous but little processes like this can make a difference. If and when you switch to using large QTYs of grains you get more sediment so its something to help work on..
 
My advice would be:

a) splash out on liquid yeast. You can harvest it and use again several times, and there's a wide variety of Belgian yeasts available that are much better than the dried options according to regular users. Belgian ales are really all about the yeast, it makes sense to use the best you can get if you are going to the expense and trouble of making one.

b) Get a fridge or some other way of cold crashing the beer before bottling/kegging. That will remove most of the sediment from the primary fermentation. You could also do a secondary stage by racking to a second FV for a week or two.

3) Don't rush the fermentation stage. Don't be bottling until at least 3 weeks in the FV. Let the yeast do everything it wants to do. 3-4 weeks I reckon.
 
Thanks covrich & clibit.

I do move it yeah I have to heave it from upstairs down to the kitchen where I'd then bottle from the kitchen table. I hadn't realised it would stir it up that much but I'll definitely try leaving it on the tiles for 24hrs before bottling.

I haven't used liquid yeast before but I'd like to try it. I have never fully understood the term 'cold crashing' is this to take it from room temp to around 6-8 degrees? Can you give me some advice on what cold crashing is & how to get the mist from it please?

I usually do leave my fermentation for 3-4 weeks then 2 weeks in the spare room in front of the radiator and then used to take them out to the shed.
 
I suspect carrying it down the stairs will lift the sediment up a fair bit, I know moving it from my downstair toilet to the kitchen and I only carry it through the living room and slide it across the kitchen floor kicks it up a little. It would drop down again but if you carry it down and start sucking it straight out it will certainly get more in. I transfer to a FV / bottling bucket and after I do that I move that up and leave that for 30 mins.

Cold crashing I think is something which is good if you can do it, my last one I left in my conservatory overnight with the window on the breather and it was about 5ºc.. I actually have a fridge in there so might move the bits that's in there into my beer chiller and stick the FV in the fridge for a day.. if you could somehow do that?

It isn't an essential step but does help.
 

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