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.

Curry Laksa & Naan

I would have, on rare occasions, Curry Laksa from KC Cafe in Courtany Place, it is a Malay restaurant and serves good, fast Malaysian food that I enjoy.
I started looking at a few videos on how to make it and it required far too many ingrediants that I'd have to shop for specifically for the dish.
I then found the following video that I thought was a better way.

I had a chicken breast that I was going to use in a stir fry, in fact I was looking up Char Kuey Tauw stir fry with thick rise ribbons, they also do this at KC cafe.

Char Kuey Tauw 

Anyway, I went to Pak'n'Save and ended up getting a Thai can of the Curry Laksa paste, it was a bigger jar but more watery than the one in the video. I also put in a 440 g can of Coconut Cream and added some potatoes as another additive as well as Mung Beans, Spring Onion and parsley for garnish. I had some frozen Naan bread and that was a delicious meal. The quantities made enough for 2 meals so I have enough for another. Great tastes, definitely a different flavour of curry.
Both meals were excellent.  I left the other in the fridge and had it about 3 days later. Definitely a try again

Sunday 29th Sept

I'm doing this again with the Asam  Curry Laksa paste, it is only medium but pretty potent all the same. I'm going to cook it up and let i rest for a day or so, as I bought some other meats and food that I have to finish off as well before this, but I thought I'd leave it to imbue the curry flavours into the chicken and potato.
The jar size was smaller, I still used a 400ml can of coconut cream asnd 500ml of chicken stock (2 oxo cubes).

Tofu Puffs

I'm having another crack at Tofu, this time frying them to make puffs for the soup, hopefully the soup  will give the puffs some flavour as tofu is pretty bland. I tried in Air Fryer, but that didn't work, so I used oil in a frying pan instead.

I'll report back on it when I have the 2nd Cury Laksa.

Naan

I'd made naan before and bought a great big tub of yoghurt that I ended up throwing away, and I was pretty dissapointed with the naan. I thought i'd frozen some but I haven't found the dough again.
So I plan to give it another try and cook all the naan's and freeze them. So I want to try that next. 
This video looks interesting, so I'll try that one.

Compared to the video above my naan was pretty dry and needed a lot of working. The recipe is:

• 1 teaspoon Yeast
• 1 Teaspoon Sugar
• 1/4 cup of lukewarm water-

Mix above together and let sit for 5 minutes

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup yogurt (plain unsweetened ) basically half a pottle
• 1 tablespoon of oil
•  1/4 teaspoon Salt (actually I put this in with flour instead)

Mix the flour yogurt and oil, then add the yeast/sugar/water mix. Mix more, then add

• 1/2 cup flour

and mix all together.
Cover with oil  & Then rest for 1 hour
after hour knock back
 and then split into 4  pieces
Roll out and wet one side with water then use a skillet (non -stick frying pans not enough mass) and cook one side until it bubbles then turn pan over and use element heat and brown.
Then butter & garlic.

I did this twice. One with pain flour and once with strong flour.
Have yet to test as I froze both lots for next curry.
I was quite happy with the results from the cook.
A couple of them unstuck and fell on element and burned.
Will need to practice the technique.

I had one of each packet as well as one from the shop bought frozen packet. I microwaved them all for the 2nd meal. Both of mine were too thin. They did not have enough content for absorbing the liquid in the curry, that saying, the Laksa is a very watery curry. If it were more pasty then both of them would have been fine to soak up the food. I have moe so I'll try it sometime.
Overall not that much difference between either of mine, the shop one wa1 1/2 to 2 times as thick so better at absorbing the fluids.

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.

Brew 2. Oatmeal Stout (Black Rock)- 5.76% alc/vol

  Day 1 - Sat 27th July Black Rock Oatmeal Stout

After brewing the first batch I was keen to give it another crack.
The first batch went from 1.040 to 1.012, so doing the maths it is about 3.66% alc by vol, which is a bit light, and the stuff from the hydrometer test was a bit watery.
S when I went to the Brew House I said I wanted something with a bit more alcohol and thickness. So I got 2 cans of the Black Rock Oatmeal Stout and one bag of 1kg of Dextrose.
When I did the OG it was 1.060 and it needs to work itself down to 1.014 so hopefully there will be a beer of about 6% alc/vol. That sounds more interesting, also, because its got 2 tins worth it shouldn't be as watery.
It is going to take 10 days to ferment. They suggest 4 weeks for 2ndary fermentation, hopefully I'll still be working my way through the first batch.
Cost, 2 tins of  Black Rock Oatmeal Stout@29.90 and 1kg of Dextrose (3.50) and carbonation tablets (around 60) for $6.10. All up $69.40.
So steralised all the equipment and also collecting lots of bottles. Hopefully I'll have over 60 by the time its brewed.
I've started to get into the habit of rinsing the bottles out after drinking them so easier to steralise on bottling day. 

Day 8 fermenting - Sunday 4th August

Initially it was bubbling away like mad, also the temperature was about 24 deg C to begin with, it then started to settle down a bit to 20 deg C and not so active about day 5. It dropped down to about 17 deg C so I had to raise the temperature a bit more with the oil heater about day 6 as there has been a bit of cold snap. Its back up around 18-20 deg C. Tomorrow or Tuesday I'll check the  FG to see where it is at.

 Day 10/11 fermenting- 6th/7th August

 Checking for density it is 1.016 day 10, just a bit higher than the target of 1.014. Day 11 the same at 1.016, so ready for bottling tomorrow. I'm going to be using glass bottles for this so a slow process, over 60 bottles.
Electricity bill in and it is 11$ higher than normal. This is because I've been running the heater in the hot press so that brew temperature stays within range of 18-24 deg C. A bit of a cold snap at the moment. Also part of it was hot water for Zoe & Karl as invoice is from Thursday to Wednesday so 4 days they were here. It should drop back as there may not be many more brewing days for this batch.
So based on the calculation this one should be about 5.7% alcohol/vol. I'm looking forward to a taste of it.

So alc/vol is 5.76% which  is OK, I was hoping it would be at  6%. 


Bottling- Crisis
This was a bit of disaster. There may be a couple of dud bottles where I forgot to put in the carbonation tablets. Also the bottle cap double lever press did not work very well. I was putting quite a lot of pressure on it and the cap was still on skewed.  I thought I'd tested it, but obviously hadn't. I had 60 odd bottles of beer open and not capped. Oops!
So I did a mad dash down to the brew house and ended up buying a single lever press bottle top press for $69. That worked great and they glass bottles were capped in next to no time.
So the idea of saving on the bottles (about $16.50 for 15 PET bottles, so $33 for 30 required for the 23l) was not the saving that I thought I'd get. Anyway I prefer out of bottles rather than plastic but need to collect lots of bottles. I need about 70 333ml bottles for one batch. So I need to keep my eye out for them.
I'm also getting into the habit of rinsing the bottles straight after use so they are easier to sterilize.

So this one says 4 weeks until ready. I'll do an update when they are ready for tasting.

Tasting.

The directions recommend 4 weeks for 2nd fermentation. I did notice that there was a lot of settlement in the bottles. The front one is the bottom of the barrel so you'd expect a bit.
I tried a bottle after 2 weeks and had a wicked headache the next day. Obviously too much stuff still floating in the beer and not settled out yet. This one I'll definitely leave for the 4 week period.
15th Sept 2019
 A bit of a aching head in middle of night from this one, so only one bottle at a time so far. Maybe it needs to settle more.
Similar to the double can Coopers Stout, I can't taste too much difference, but I get a bit of a headache from this. One normal .33l bottle OK but any more and headache.
Its not as strong as the Coopers Double Stout but maybe too much residue from yeast. I wouldn't spend the extra for it again.
I may leave these to sit for a while and see if they improve with age.

Brews 3 & 4. Coopers Stout x 2 malt extract tins, one with dextrose(5.76% alc/vol) one with Dark Ale Brew Blend (6.55% alc/vol)

Brews  3 . Coopers Stout x 2 malt extract tins, with dextrose 1Kg- alk/Vol =5.76%

I thought that brew 2 Oatmeal stout extract tins were rather expensive.
I noticed that Pak'n'Save sells Coopers Home Brew cans and sanitizer and carbonating pills so I've been keeping an eye out for some Stout cans as the first time I saw the area there was only one can of stout.

Last week they restocked, and the Coopers cans are about $14 compared to $24 for the extract.
So a couple of cans of this and dextrose should do Ok.
 I started the fermentation process on the day I bottled the Oatmeal (4 weeks before I can try), that was Thursday 8th August.
I inspected it on Sunday and the air trap was clear of water and covered in froth at the top, also the top of the fermenter. A bit of spatter on the duvet wrapped around it too. It was a bit too active.
I cleaned the air trap and put it back, hopefully no damage done and the brew will be fine.
The OG was 1.058 and the bits of docs that I can see online suggest it should get down to about FG 1.014. I'll leave it for about 10 days , like the oatmeal stout as its also a double can brew.
So if the Coopers stout is tasty that is what I'll aim to use.

I don't think I'm making headway on the financial side of the brewing yet.
 I've had to get extra kit (the bottle press).
I thought I'd save by using empty beer bottles but the extra money on the press has offset that to date.
Also the heating of the cupboard to keep the temp above 18 Deg C, that's an added cost component I hadn't foreseen.
Hopefully I'll get a brew that I can make and enjoy so that I can maintain the process for budget reasons.
The first brew I'm drinking now, as its not that strong I'm drinking a lot more of it, so that's not working, although alcohol content is low.
I need to collect a lot more bottles, and I do prefer beer from a bottle (rather than a PET bottle). Its a bit like coffee from a wax paper cup, what extra flavours are you getting from the vessel?
I'll re-use whatever I have, bottle or PET and carry on, I need to justify the bottle cap press.
So not as economically viable as I'd thought to begin with, and I've got to get a few brews made and aged in the bottles so that I've got a few different types to try. That is going to be my next objective, to get a few successful brews that I enjoy.

Bottling

I've had issues doing the bottling in the laundry room as the bench is standard height and you are bending down to view the level of the fill in the bottles.  Also there is not that much room in there for the process.
So I moved it to the dining area and used a chair on the table and the process went so much more smoothly. The bottle fill was nearer eye level so easier to judge when to stop, so less waste.
 I also put the carbonation drops in all the bottles first, so I ended up with a more efficient process.
I didn't have that many glass bottles so bought another 15 PET bottles for this batch, I only needed about half of them.
I had 10 glass bottles so used the bottle press, which is nice to use. 

So now they are bottled I'll have to wait for 2nd fermentation before drinking them.
The FG of this was 1.014   so its alcohol content should be about 5.76%.

Brew 4 -Coopers Stout x 2  tins with Dark Ale Brew Blend- 20/8/2019- Alk/Vol =6.55%

This is same as before but putting a bit more body in with Dark Ale brew blend from Brew House.
I picked it up when I went to get extra PET bottles.
I had everything ready for when I did the bottling so could just steralise everything and set up for the next batch.
It was not as frothy a mix as the previous batch, maybe the Brew Blend has less sugars. The OG was 1.060 which was slightly higher than Brew 3 (1.058). Hopefully it will not blow the seal.
I've put the duvet around the tank and as the first days are more active than the later days I wont heat the cupboard but monitor the temperature. Its started at 24 deg C.
I'll leave that to ferment  for about 10 days then check.
I'll most probably need some more bottles as although I've bought some Stella's I'm working my way through the first batch of Brew that I've made, about 8 bottles to go then back onto the lager.
Actually, I should hold a few of the original batch back to do a taste test on some of the other brews.

The OG of this was 1010, so that is a 6.55% brew, so quite strong.

 
The new bottling process went well and minimal spillage.

Next batch? 

I feel I've made enough Stout for the time being, so maybe make some lighter beers. There is a Coopers Real Ale and Dark Ale so maybe I need to try doing some of those as well. It would be good to have a variety of beers to try.
So I should prepare to purchase something next time I head to the shops.
I'll stick with the Coopers for the time being.  I'm not sure whether to do a double extract or add an enhancer.
I've bought a couple of  Coopers Real Ale cans and dextrose, but I think I'll try only 500g of dextrose for this.
Brew 4 went mad, like brew 3 and frothed out of the air lock, a couple of times. So I think its a bit too active. Not sure if that's too much yeast or too much sugars. Will try with a reduced sugar level initially(see comment above).

Too Much Yeast

In the last 3 batches I use 2 cans of extract and I used 2 sachets of yeast. I think that sped up the reaction causing it to overflow on all the first fermentations on the first couple of days. I'll have to check up on that next time I do a double can. Maybe test out only one sachet of yeast.

Wine making

This looks interesting too, I watched a couple of videos on that and the process is similar to the Beer kitset process. I'd like to give it a try sometime. The basic kit is about $129-$140 and the concentrate pack is about $120 ish. This will do about 30 bottles. You also need a corker and maybe a sealer too.
Also the bottles, but I could collect those. About 4 weeks from start to bottling.
It works out about $8.50 per bottle (starter Kit & concentrate kit) and 2 bottles a week  would work out about 3 1/2 months worth of wine.
This is one vid that shows a process, seems reasonably straight forward.s:

Tasting

Brew 2, only about a week for the 2nd fermentation, but as I've hidden away the first brew (mild strength) I thought I'd like to try it. I've been wondering about the coopers flavour, and I like it. A bit of sediment in the bottle, I'm drinking this one first so I can have a couple of lagers after, so hopefully the sediment wont be too hard on my head. Nice taste, flavoursome, more body than the first brew, so a thumbs up for this one so far. May not be the same view tomorrow morning.

15th Sept 2019 - Tasting Brew 3. 
This one has a bit of strength to it. You do not notice the alc content but it is a thick and rich flavour. I like it. I've been mainly drinking these over the OatBear Stout as that gives me a bit of a head. Although this one is mainly in 750ml bottles so I tend to drink more of this and get mellow, then i drink some of the Oat one , so its sneaking below the radar and I'm drinking too much at times.
 The 4th brew is ready, so I'll have to try some of that one now and see how that is doing.
I like the flavour of the Coopers Stout. I will have to try to make a milder one  with only one can to have for summer. Its good that I've got some strong ones now, but its time I got a few more milder ones for summer.

Paua slices & Squid tubes

Karl got some Paua and he has a different method of eating them to Sam's Paua fritters. His are sliced.

For prep, he cuts the muscle  off  the middle of the paua, slicing straight, and then divides the rest in half.
He then boils for about 40 seconds, the 3 pieces, so need enough water so that there is not an immediate cool down when the pieces are thrown into boiling water.
After that he heats up frying pan with sweet chili sauce (The Trident brand has a nice bite to it) and olive oil and garlic. Then he puts the 3 pieces of paua in and turns them over regularly until the white side is caramelized, about half way through he takes out the muscle bit and sets aside. Throw in a bit more olive oil (otherwise chili sauce dries and goes black).
When done he takes out the other 2 sides and slices them into about 2mm thick slices.
 Then on a plate and dig in.

I also wanted to have some squid as well, I'd bought some frozen tubes, so looked on Mr YouTube and found this video:

  I did the slicing of the tubes and cut them into pieces and threw them in the boiling water for about 30 seconds (they were very thin tubes) and then plunged them into cold water.
 I cooked them up with the garlic, chili sauce and olive oil with the Paua near the end of the Paua cooking time.
I had a light salad with the seafood and it went very well.

Pizza Dough Filled Bread Balls and Buns

I worked in Germany a long time ago and there was a small Italian restaurant close to the Pension where I stayed.
As a entree for the table there was usually a small basket of pizza dough buns, freshly baked in the Pizza Oven, and some garlic butter (with salt and sauce so it looked pinkish). It was delicious and I usually ordered more and struggled to eat my mains.

Anyway, I was watching a couple of snack videos and they were showing little pizza dough balls with sauce, mozzarella cheese and salami wrapped inside the dough and then baked. I had to give that a try.
See the video below about 13:40 minutes into the vid.

 

 I also tried just dough balls with olive oil over. Both in the air fryer for about 8-10 minutes on 200 deg C. Both very tasty and simple snacks. I think I'll have to make some garlic butter to spread on the buns. 

 

I tried the straight dough balls, actually forgot some in the air fryer, they were a bit tough the next day. 

The filled ones leaked the mozzarella so I used a tin to put them in so the bubbling cheese did not go all over the air fryer. Good but I'd like to get them so the cheese doesn't leak out. 

Also the Mozzarella cheese is a bit tasteless so needs to be mixed with some cheddar or something to add some flavour. 

A quick and easy snack but the dough didn't puff up as light and fluffy as the ones I recalled at the Italian restaurant, so they must have used a different mix, more like a bun dough, they were far softer and fluffier. 

Would I do them again? I think so, they are easy enough so I can experiment with different fillings.