Splitting a brew

[crowcrow]

Hi all,

Fairly new to brewing - first (beer) brew was a basic wilko lager kit that I'd had sitting in a cupboard with a best before date of 2011. I split this into three - brewing 1/3 as per the instructions, 1/3 with less brew sugar and replaced with brown sugar, and the last with table sugar but with a dry hopping of citra. Since I was worried about the age of the yeast (and the warm warm temp I'd be brewing in) I used an all purpose ale yeast. All 3 primed with table sugar.

All three tasted great (1st a little plain but far nicer than a canned lager etc), so I went back to buy another kit, but on seeing the Coopers IPA was even cheaper - just £10, I grabbed that, 1kg of brew sugar and 500g of medium malt - £17 seemed a bargain. I brewed the above slightly short to 21 litres, plus 100g of soft brown sugar and 100ml of elderflower cordial (as it had started fizzing like mad and I have a load to get through).

I had planned to dry hop again after reading a couple of reviews that spoke highly of doing this around day 12 - but suddenly feels like I'm putting a lot of eggs in one basket. I'd like to split the brew - thinking of dividing it in 3 x 7litre - and to leave one as is, one with a longer dry hope and one shorter.

Does this sound bonkers? Am I just risking loads of oxidisation and potential infection? If I do do this, should I stir up the liquid a little first to ensure the yeast is well spread between the 3 buckets? Very tempted to just try it, as the thought of 40 pints of exactly the same thing doesn't do it for me really (I plan on doing a couple more extra kits and then trying all grain at around 11 litres or less per brew).

Lastly, before I go citra again, any tips on other hops to try?

Thanks guys, looking forward to your thoughts.

L

 

[JapanBrew]

No. That's what I do. You can just think of it as transferring to a secondary fermentation. You'll notice clearer beer and less biproducts from the yeast. Just transfer carefully.

 

[JapanBrew]

Sorry next answer to the "stir the yeast" question. Don't. The stuff ar the bottom is called trub and its protein, dead and lazy yeast, and more. Stuff that doesn't help your beer. Live yeast is actively swimming around in your beer trying to clean up its own mess. So transfer to secondary, do any additions you want and it'll turn out great.

 

[crowcrow]

Excellent! Thanks for your swift response. Really looking forward to trying it out now - will report back how it turns out.

Wish I'd done a secondary on the hopped beer - tastes good but pretty cloudy and unless I pour really gently it stirs a lot up. I was a little scared as it had had the hops bag floating for some time, and though brewed it was slow, and I didn't fancy risking it.

btw all three came in at around 2.8 to 3.1% - hence adding the extra sugars to the Coopers (hoping for around 5.3%) - I'd planned to brew to 20 litre but wasn't paying attention when filling

 

[JapanBrew]

If you bottle condition your beer you'll always have sediment. You can reduce it by cold crashing before bottling. This will drop out a lot of stuff. So after secondary is finished, maybe a week to 10 days, put it in a fridge for 4 days or so. If you don't have one, then you can use a cooler box like the ones for camping. Just keep putting ice in every day.

 

[crowcrow]

Cheers mate - will see what I can do. To be honest I don't mind the cloudiness, and tastes fine, but a certain part of me want it to be clearer for guests... A brewing fridge for the shed is on the list - but it is a long long list of things that I want/need/desire!

Also, just for clarity - if anyone was wondering - the first three brews I did, I did a week apart. I weighed the extract can and then adjusted the scales until it said 1.5kg, and poured out some extract until I hit 1kg - then covered with clingfilm and then foil and stored in the fridge. Kept fine across the 15 days it was open, if anyone is thinking of doing similar.

 

[Braufather]

have you thought about taking it step further and use different yeasts? for example from the same base you could end up with an american pale and a belgium pale ale- just swapping the yeasts! just a thought as i am thinking of doing this at some stage when i get a couple of brewtech mini buckets.

 

[crowcrow]

have you thought about taking it step further and use different yeasts? for example from the same base you could end up with an american pale and a belgium pale ale- just swapping the yeasts! just a thought as i am thinking of doing this at some stage when i get a couple of brewtech mini buckets.

Cheers, yes - I had actually planned on grabbing a couple more of the Wilko lagers - and then trying them across either 3 or 4 buckets for each one. Was thinking different sugars as one variable - picking the 'best' and then trying yeast as the next variable, and so on. But got a lot to drink through now as it is! Also have about 10 litres of elderflower champagne, and 5l of ginger beer (though that might get ditched as tasted far far too bitter currently as I put halved lemons in the fermenter, and I now read that leads to bitterness.)