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.

Brews 5 & 6 Real Ale, Lager & costs

I have 4 batches of Stout now, so I thought I'd start doing some lighter brews for summer, so I got a couple of cans of Coopers Real Ale. I may move on to lagers later for a light drink for summer, but I thought I'd try the Real Ale first.

Too much frothing on fermentation

One thing I thought might have caused the frothing of the last 3 batches was that I put 2 sachets of yeast into the brews. So over frothing of the air lock. Also , I seemed to get a lot of sediment. Maybe the next time I do a double can I'll test out a single sachet. 

So, instead of using just dextrose I went to the Brew House and got some dry brew enhancer ($8.50/Kg x 2) when I went to pick up some PET bottles. I do not seem to have enough bottles, usually I have about half the amount of bottles so need to supplement with some more.
I suppose I'm developing a bit of a store of Stouts at the moment. I'm putting about 8 buy of each batch so that I can test them out at a later date.

Costs

1/ $13.50 for can of Real Ale ,  Brewblend $8.50 , carbonizing drops $5- Also 15 PET bottles $16.50  So about $27 + $33 for 2 lots of bottles = $50
23 l  is about 70 bottles of .33l
Heineken for 24 bottles = $40 (on special), 72 bottle = $120
So costs are good.
2/ For the Stouts its about $13-15 for 6 in the shops, so between $156 to $180 for 72 bottles
So for the double cans, with Coopers $13.50 x 2 + Brewblend $8.50 , carbonizing drops $5- Also 15 PET bottles $16.50 is about $64
One of them is 6.55% alc /vol  (other is 5.76%)whereas a lot of the shop standard stouts are at 4.2-5%
3/ The 2nd batch was oatmeal and those tins were around $30 each, so that was a bit more expensive so that added up to about $96. alc/Vol 5.76%

On tasting batches 2 (Oatmeal)& 3 (Coopers Stout) I haven't seen a real difference so far, although I'm still drinking them before they are supposed to be drunk. A slight headache from both, maybe due to lots of yeast in the brews.

Setup equipment

On top of the basic measure for measure is equipment.
The brewing starter kit was $110
The initial bottle press (that didn't work) was about $25-30
The bottle press that works $70
Bottle Caps $7 for about 150 - these seem to be lasting as I'm onl capping about 20 bottles at a time, the rest are PET
Sanitizer- $6 (on 2nd one- first came with kit)

So extra stuff - 110 + 30 + 70 + 7 + 6 = $223
Divided by 5 batches so far = 223/5 =44.60
Divided by 6 batches so far = 223/6 =37.17
Divided by 7 batches so far = 223/7 =31.85

So factoring this into costs
1/ 50 +45=     $95  vs  $120
2/ 64 + 45 =  $109 vs $156-180
3/ 96+45 =    $141 vs  $156-180

So not that great until the setup equipment costs is distributed across a lot of brews.

Whats standing out?

From processes so far:

• Paying for brew blends seem to add extra alcohol to the brew, and hopefully flavour too. 
• Too much yeast may be causing over frothing and lots of sediment. 
• I'm testing the cheaper extracts (Coopers) at the moment, they are half the price of the ones in the Brew House and even the extracts alone in the brew house are more expensive that the cooper beer kits. So I'll persevere with those.

1.  I Need to test 2 cans and only one sachet of yeast. It may take longer but less sediment (I think). 
2. All I can do at this point is brew a few batches and keep, then do a tasting of a few of them together. That way I can compare what is the best balance of value/flavour/alcohol content versus cost. 
3. Hard to do on a few batches, I need to collect and brew a few first. So, carry on brewing. 
4. I'm on a 10 day ish  cycle at the moment. I'll maintain that at present and try and create a number of batches to try and get an overview of what works. 
5. Later I need to add Hops as extra dimension to the beers

Back to the Real Ale

My next objective is to brew a few lighter beers, I'll try single cans but boost flavour with the Brew Blends. I can't seem to find the Cooper Enhancers anywhere in Wellington for sale.

If the Real Ale is Ok I may want to see if I can get the alc/Vol up to the 5% of all the standard beers, then I can always play with the hops for flavour.

I decided I wanted to try 1/ A lighter beer, and 2/ A weaker beer. I've been brewing some stronger ones but want some weaker ones (so I can drink more- for summer).

Brew 5. Real Ale 1

The OG of the Real Ale which was just one can, 1Kg of Ale Brew blend and a further 290g of Dextrose (just to push the alcohol up a little bit) was 1040. So a bit light.
I'll try this one out and as I have another can I'll do the same, maybe with a bit more dextrose for the 2nd batch.
It is far lighter than the stouts I've been brewing, in fact it looks quite watery. I've noted on some of the posts that they let it sit for a few days to get the beer to clear a bit. Its still a bit cloudy.
The OG was about 1.006 so about 4.45% Alc/vol
Not quite the  5% I was looking for. It settled at about day 7 so I bottled it early. It was a bit cloudy but hopefully it will settle in the bottles. I see there is another fermenter where you can take the yeast out of the bottom, but they are about$145 so I'll leave that for the moment.
It was a bit chill at times so I had to put heater on , sometimes for day and night. It did dip to 16 deg C but then it was back up in 20's. 
Overall brewing process went well. I'll have to wait for tasting.
On getting bottles from Brew House (and enhancer for Lager) I went to Countdown and saw they had some brew kits there. The Coopers web site say use Brew Enhancer # 2 , which they sell for $10. The lager enhancer in Brew House was about $7.20.
I'll think about doing a single can stout with coopers and use Brew Enhancer # 2 from there. That is the first place I've found that has the Coopers Brew Enhancers in Wellington.
Countdowns cans are about $14.50 where they are about $13.50 in Pak'n'Save so I'll carry on using Pak'n'Save  for Cans and other bits.

Brew 6. Lager Friday 13th Sept (sounds ominous!)

I thought I'd  break from the Real Ale and do a straight lager. I went to Brew House and got some lager brewing enhancer. I also added in, with the one can of Coopers Lager, 300g of dextrose, just to get alcohol content up. So OG was 1.042 at start.
Friday 20th FG at 1.008
Saturday 21st FG at 1.007
So this is about 4.58 alc/vol
Final check on Tuesday 24/9 OG at 1005
Which brings it up to 4.87 so around the ballpark for a general lager. 

I went to Brew House to get some PET bottles and talked about issue of frothing over, his suggestion was more yeast OK. I'll try a double extract with only one yeast another time.

Anyway, on chatting, I talked about lager being a bit turbid and he suggested putting some Beer Finings in. As this is a lager I thought it would be worth doing.

 So I bought a couple of sachets (each 1.90$), although you can get a litre of clear fluid to do the job and that is 13.50$ and you use 100ml per time, so get 10 uses out of a bottle, so that works out at 1.35/time. I'll try out first on the light beers and see how that goes.
 The thing is, I now have to wait a couple of days for the beer finings do their work. I can't bottle until Monday.I'll set aside some time to do that.
I bottled on tuesday 24/9 and it was still a bit cloudy. The sediment was definitely more settled. I was impressed.

 After a week I looked at the La ger and it is pretty clear, so the finings seemed to do the job. I also looked at the Real Ale that had no finiings and that was pretty clouded after the first week but after 2nd seems to be settling down

 I'm holding the bottles in my hand and camera so a bit wobbly, but both are quite clear.