Brew 7, 8 & 9 Real Ale, Dark Ale & Stout, and mixiers.

I bought a Coopers Dark Ale and a Coopers Stout at P & S and I got the added extracts from the Brew House to go with those as well as lots of PET bottles.
So next brew I'll try the dark ale. Then, maybe the Real ale, then the stout. So thats me set up for the next 3 weeks or so as far as the brewing goes. 

Mixers

I've been getting a bit of a headache from the Double Stouts, especially the OatMeal ones. So I decided to see if there is something I can do to alter them, by maybe mixing them or doing something with them (like watering them down in some way).

So, on looking on Mr YouTube there are beer mixes such as Black & Tan (Stout & Ale/Lager) and also Radlers, which are just the German term for shandies.
Also there is something called Black Velvet, which is a stout and champagne, so I decided to give that a crack and bought a $10 bottle of Brut (lindau, so top of the line stuff, yeah, Right!). I'll see how that works out.
I also bought some Coke & Lemonade to try Shandies with light beers and Coke for combining with stouts. Maybe diluting them will stop the sore head.
Unfortunately, at the moment, as I have is all the potent stuff, so I need to wait for the Real Ale and Lager to come right.
The Black and Tan I can try as I still have a couple of Stella's left. We'll see if that works. A bit like an irish coffee where you try and keep the two beers seperate, so you get the lager at the bottom and the stout floating on the top, lots of videos showing how to pour the stout over a spoon to keep the 2 beers separate. 
 So, a couple of things at the moment. Firstly using the Beer Finings to clear the beer, and secondly shandies or mixers to be tested also.

Coke and stout- yuck. A fail, so I'm glad I bought a cheap coke to try, that just tasted like lolly water.
Black Velvet- Champagne Brut & Stout. Gives a bit of Fiz but its betwixt and between, neither one nor t'other. Pleasant but not that interesting.

So , I'll need to wait for a Shandy but I don't think that will go with real ale, or bitter tops. Jeri was into that but I like the taste of beer, so I don't see much success with that.

So maybe Black and Tan? That one seems a bit mixed up too.
I think I'll just have to carry on practicing until I can get a brew I like and stick with that, or maybe a mix, some strong, some light. I'm still trying to brew a spectrum so I can choose between them.

Brew 7- Real Ale or Dark Ale? 

A dilema, in some ways, depending on the bottling of the lager, it would be interesting to do the test for another Real Ale and use the Finings to see if the beer is more clear than the first test. Although I'm keen for a mix so a Dark Ale would be fun to do too.
I suppose I should do the finings test as I've only just done the other Real Ale, so they will be easier to compare if they are closer together.
So, Tuesday 24th sept, a real ale again. OG was 1040, I added a bit of dextrose, like the first brew (Brew 5).

Coopers kits
 I have only done a couple of Double Stouts and a Real Ale so far (still awaiting on lager (21/9/2019) ) but they have come out all right. I'll carry on exploring these for the time being. I've now seen them at Countdown in Newtown and they have a box of enhancer 2 ($10, versus what you get at Brew House for $8.80) so I'll stick with the Brew House but will check out if they have any different types of Beer can types.
P & S have the Cervesa but that is a bit more expensive than the others, and a light beer. I think I want to get a few Real Ales brewed as well as some Dark Ales as that is what I used to drink in the UK, so will try and see if I can do some of those to get a reliable brew.

Brew 7 Real Ale  friday 4th Oct.

I decided to go with real ale and did all the processing OG was 1040  and FG was  1006 and I included finings for a couple of days and I bottled today. All went pretty steady. I added the brew house enhancer and 330g of Dextrose, so OG was a bit higher than what they say on the can, so alc/vol of 4.45% which is OK, not too strong.
So now I've to wait a couple of weeks to compare against the other Real Ale without finings. As that's drinkable now I have noticed its a little bit cloudy.

Brew 8 Dark Ale

So I've just done the Dark Ale, its supposed to have OG of 1038 but as well as the Brew House Dark Ale Enhncer (1kg) I also added 500g of Dextrose, so OG is 1042. If I get an FG of 1006 then it'll be about 4.7%, still not the 5% I'm sort of aiming for as a standard. It came in at FG of 10065 so about 4.9%. I also used the finings to clear it a bit. We'll see what it looks like in a week.
But that brings up the question of the 2nd fermentation with the added sugar lumps. I'm not sure if that is taken into account, I need to do some research into that. Anyway, the Dark Ale is on its way. Research on 2nd fermentation, as its sugar and no yeast aparently only something like .1% extra, so the blogs I read seem to say. Its more to do with giving the beer a head.
Bottled on monday 14th October 2019.

Review

I'm actually finding this one quite soporiphic. I haven't been blown away by the taste, but have found that I seem to sleep more heavily. No I'm not drinking double the amount of other beers! I'll have to try this again and see if I can get a better flavour into it.
A more dreamless sleeep, I'm not sure that I wake up any more refreshed but I do seem to sleep longer. Maybe a medicinal beer?

Stickers

I've coloured stickers now so hopefully the colour coding will help identify the brew, I'll also put numbers on the caps too.

Brew 9  Stout. Started monday 14th October 2019.

This one I've had for a while. I'm planning to head up to see Zoe & Karl in Waikato for a couple of weeks so will keep an eye on it the first week and then just let it sit. See what happens there.
A bit of a cock up on setting it up. I hadn't turned the tap off after cleaning so the enhancer and 500g of dextrose mix with boiling water leaked out a bit, and I'm not sure how much actually got out. A bit tired after a day of baking and cooking.
Anyway an OG of 1042 (they say 1038 with recomended mix on packet).
FG is 1006, measured on 12 Nov. 
On watching some of the videos I saw people adding oxygen to the mix for fermentation and others stirring up wort to try and get a lot of oxygen into the liquid, apparently this helps with activating the yeast.
There were a few articles recommending you do not necessarily use the yeast with the extract as it cold be old and out of date, some recommend you buy from the brew shop. There are liquid as well as dry ones.
 You can also wash the yeast at the end of the fermentation brew, I may try this out.
Some of the liquid yeasts are about $20 so you'd need to recycle to get the best oyut of them.
There is a comment that some of the extracts are not that flavoursome and can taste a little like each other. I'm starting to notice that they don't have that distinctive a flavour. Still nice to drink though. So I'll maybe start experimenting a bit.
 I gort through a lot of the first Stout brew (because it was the only one I had) but I'm starting to stock pile some now. I have a few under the table that I'll take up to Waikato and try.
 Some light ones next, the lager & upmarket European lager and Cervesa, so I'll brew them with all the bits I have.
My biggest expense sems to be the bottles. Maybe I should be collecting more on recycle day from other people.

Looking to bottle around 12th November. 

I went up to visit Zoe & Karl so  left it doing its first ferment for a month. FG is 1006. So about A 4.76% alc/vol. Which is fine. A light stout for summer.
Now I need to do some bottling.