Better Brew, IPA

[peelman]

Had a good few of these last night at 5.6 ABV I was quite merry by the end of the night.. :drunk:

I used a cascade hop tea with mine 20g. I will try dry hopping next time. The hop profile was there, but a bit more would be even better I think.
Great pint all the same.. Only about another 30 pints left!!
:drink:

 

[DamageCase]

I picked up one of these the other day. I'm going to do it straight with a kilo of Muntons brew enhancer at 23 litres.

 

[Do_you_realise]

Bottled this 5 days ago after dry hopping for 5 days and must say, even after the 5 days carbonating at about 20c the bottles are clearing up fantastically. Almost clear and I haven't moved them into the garage yet!

I'll be away for a month while they sit in the garage waiting for me... excruciating!

 

[Hopping Mad]

I picked a couple of these up. The mrs went into a local shop called Boyes and told me they had homebrew in there. got a good selection but had these kits Betterbrew kits on for just £12 so grabbed a couple, will be going back this weekend for a better look (and when i get paid :) )

going to brew'em up and dry hop, so just deciding which hops to use with them.

 

[Do_you_realise]

Bottled this 5 days ago after dry hopping for 5 days and must say, even after the 5 days carbonating at about 20c the bottles are clearing up fantastically. Almost clear and I haven't moved them into the garage yet!

I'll be away for a month while they sit in the garage waiting for me... excruciating!

Alright, I've had this in a warm environment at between 19 and 21 celsius for 5 days (basically I found the sweet spot on my fan heater and have left it plugged in constantly) and, as above, I was even now seeing some amazing clearing up by the yeast. I gave the bottles a bit of a squeeze (I used Coopers 500ml brown plastic bottles) and they were really quite firm compared to the initial bottling. On a whim I stuck one of them in the fridge and "crash cooled" it for a couple of hours and just poured it out to taste the beer.

Two things:

1) It still has a very "yeasty" taste, in a similar way to the hydrometer sample I had a sneaky sip of before I bottled. The smell is kind of yeasty and almost like... erm... a TINY hint of raw beef? For want of a better way of describing it, haha. Will this disappear with an extra week in warm env carbonating, followed by a month in a cold garage?

2) There is practically no carbonation at all. There was a small "tss" when I opened the screw cap but when I pour it there is no head at all and when I taste it there is hardly anything there. I used Coopers Carbonation Drops, one per bottle, and the advice I found on the web at the time was to use 1 per 500ml bottle. Could it be that this was not enough? Or could it be that the carbonation process is not yet complete? It doesn't taste particularly sweet.

If it helps to answer the above queries, I have probably another week before they need to go into the cold garage when I'm out of the area for a month.

FG when I bottled was down from 1.050 to 1.010 - I used 1.5kg liquid light malt extract instead of the 1kg dextrose called for in the instructions. I went to the full 23L in the FV.

Thanks!

 

[DamageCase]

I've read before that the coopers carbonation drops aren't up to much. Your problem may lie there. I batch prime with brewing sugar and that works just fine for me. Also I tend to put my beers in the warm for around a week before I transfer them somewhere cooler, they may just need a bit more time.

 

[vanderkidd]

I've used the carbonation drops on about a dozen bottles for my first brew and the results have been inconsistent. I ended up pouring some bottles down the sink and others were just drinkable and no more. The batch priming I used for the rest of the bottles has given flawless results.

Leaves me with two packets of drops I don't think I'll want to use!

 

[warnie]

Brewed this with Muntons brew enhancer last sunday, it's now down to 1014 from 1046og, necked the sample as per usual and can already tell that this is going to be a beauty! I loved my coopers IPA but this tastes a lot better at this early stage. So fingers crossed

:

 

[Plumber79]

Just had a little sample of mine after a week at room temperature and a day in the cold and couldn't really taste much other than a marzipan type aftertaste

 

[Do_you_realise]

I'm having taste issues with mine too, after 2 weeks in my warm room (~22 celsius, I've had a heater on constantly) I've now ran out of time and this is going to have to go be left un-heated for a month until I get back.

The carbonation is marginally better but zero head really even when poured from a height!

Still tastes heavily of yeast. Not pleasant

Is there any chance at all of this taste dissippating with either a month in either my room (which will be mostly cold apart from the odd hour where the heating comes on) or a month in the garage (which will be whatever temp it is outside in the north east of the UK) ?! Which one would be better at this stage?

I'm just trying to work out whether I can get my hopes up that when I return I'm going to have a lovely drinkable beer a la the countless reviews on this site where people had massive success, or whether it's going to be exactly the same and I'll just end up pouring it out in frustration.

Cheers.

 

[warnie]

My wherry was like this after 2 weeks in the warm, very yeasty not good at all. It's now coming only just coming round after 10 days in the cold. Where as some on here have been drinking a clear pint out of the keg after 2 weeks.

I always get worried but they always seen to come right in the end.

:

 

[peelman]

Having a few of these tonight, what the heck it's Friday!!!

Very nice they are too......

:drunk:

 

[Plumber79]

What does yeast taste like? I'm no beer tasting expert, I like what I like and this ipa is now starting to taste really good especially as a week and a half ago it was pretty tasteless,it's still got a marzipan type after taste which I don't mind at all but is this normal for this kit? Ive only had a small sample as I'm trying my hardest to leave this for 4 weeks in the keg before I drink it, only a week and half left

 

[PuggledPrune]

Gonna order one of these for my 2nd brew. I generally only drink lager but really like Punk IPA so thought I'd give it a try.

Any suggestions to make it a bit like PunkIPA? What hops to use, dry hop in secondary or hop tea in primary or both?
Was gonna use light dry malt extract for fermentables is that ok?

TIA.

 

[muddy90]

I used light dme for priming. It's a right pita to get into the bottles.
If I did it again I'd weigh the dme & add it to a second fv & syphon the beer onto it, then bottle.
Toying with doing another ipa with dry hops, I think that would just make it really good.

 

[peelman]

Any suggestions to make it a bit like PunkIPA? What hops to use, dry hop in secondary or hop tea in primary or both?

TIA.

I did a Cascade hop tea. Could taste the hops a bit but not a great deal. But next time I'm going to dry hop it with about 7 days left in the FV. I like Punk IPA too and would think dry hopping with Citra Hops would make it taste something like it?
:pray:

 

[warnie]

Brewed this with Muntons brew enhancer last sunday, it's now down to 1014 from 1046og, necked the sample as per usual and can already tell that this is going to be a beauty! I loved my coopers IPA but this tastes a lot better at this early stage. So fingers crossed

:

This came out in the end at 5.2%, and after 10 days in the warm the bottles are lovely and firm with hardly any sediment in the bottom, and to top it off they're perfectly clear!.

Tried 4 last night, really impressed! As I said clear as a pub pint, great mouth feel and a great long lasting creamy white head. Taste wise its not yet as good as my coopers IPA but its only had 10 days conditioning, I'll leave them now for a few weeks and I'm sure it will be my best brew yet.

:

 

[warnie]

Brewed this with Muntons brew enhancer last sunday, it's now down to 1014 from 1046og, necked the sample as per usual and can already tell that this is going to be a beauty! I loved my coopers IPA but this tastes a lot better at this early stage. So fingers crossed

:

This came out in the end at 5.2%, and after 10 days in the warm the bottles are lovely and firm with hardly any sediment in the bottom, and to top it off they're perfectly clear!.

Tried 4 last night, really impressed! As I said clear as a pub pint, great mouth feel and a great long lasting creamy white head. Taste wise its not yet as good as my coopers IPA but its only had 10 days conditioning, I'll leave them now for a few weeks and I'm sure it will be my best brew yet.

:

 

[rpt]

I made this at the end of January with 500g light spray malt and 500g dextrose. It went from 1.056 to 1.011 in 10 days so it was the quickest fermentation of any kit I've done although I suspect that is to do with the added sugar (my other kits were two can). It cleared very quickly and has never suffered from the homebrew tang. However, it does suffer from a cidery or marzipan taste although that is fairly subdued now. I think this is due to the amount of sugar used - more than 20% which is a bit too much I think. It is a decent enough pint though. If I did it again I'd do it with 1kg of spray malt and no sugar.

 

[Rilers]

Brewed this one last night to 20 litres with 1kg light spraymalt and no sugar - OG 1052. Planning on dry hopping after primary fermentation is finished. Sitting happily at 22C because of mini heat-wave here in Ireland and bubbling away nicely!