Smoothie blender and mixer & smooth hummus

I had a couple of mini chopper/blenders for making hummus and salsas. One died, it was the more powerful of the two and more complicated to use, it allowed for pulsing and would make the blade go backwards on one setting. So, I had the more convenient one, but a bit weak. So I was looking out for another that was simple to us, cheap and would do heavy chopping.
Mary had a Nutribullet and they have quite gutsy motors and I thought I might get one of those as a substitute, as if you try to chop up a paua in one it buggers the motor, that is pretty tough to turn into a paua fritter.
Anyway, whilst at Brisco's looking for a lemon juicer, there was a deal on for a Zip blender that would make smoothies for 30$. A lot of the neutribullet type ones are about $100.
I like to try these type of things out, but I dodnt like paying a lot of money for them, especially if I don't end up using them.

So I decided to give this one a try as a smoothie blender plus also as a chopper upper.
The cup itself is narrow and deap, which is a bit irritating, but a long spoon will get to the bottom of  it.
The actual narrow vessel appealed to me as an alternative to a coffee cup to take on a walk. I can try to put this in my  jacket pocket to take for a drink on a walk instead, something cool instead of coffee.

 Hummus and Salsa (and paua?) blender

Not really for hummus as you need lots of liquid to make it work, also because its deep it might be hard to get a lot of it out. It might work for Salsa, but the blitzer does that fine.
Hummus recipe that looks really good as per this chaps videos:

This recipe is more like the lebanease hummus I'm used to, so adding garlic and 2 lemons is definitely the way to go, a more runny mix and more tart too. Very nice. I'll follow this recipe next time.
I'll also try some salsa recipes, although I quite like to weaker blender for that.

 Prices of produce.

its starting to warm up and i was going to buy a cabbage for making coleslaw. In Pak'n'Save it was 3.75 for a cabbage so I thought I'd go to the vege market and get some fruit and veges there. So things are cheaper, some about the same as supermarkets, but well worth going for the deals you can get. The cabbage was $2. But then I give the change to the Shelter people, so in the end I think its about the same price. But some cheaper fruits (apples/oranges) are definitely cheaper nand they are good for the blender, and that will be an addition to my diet.

Smoothie Recipes 

The gizmo comes with some recipes:

So far I've tried an apple & orange mix, but it needs liquid otherwise the bottom pieces pulp and the top bits just sit at the top. So I added some water, vanilla essence & milk and it was very nice.
I'm not sure how it'll do with ice cubes , I'll need to give it as try as I've just taken one of the bags of lemon I got from Zoe and put it into ice cubes (it made 10 quite big cubes. That will add a zing to the smoothies.

SUMMER AND FRUIT & ICECREAM MILKSHAKES

 With summer coming along there will be more fruit, Kiwi's pears (which normally I can leave but maybe the'll work in with smoothies. Also adding some icecream to them may be a way of making thickshakes with fruit (this may not be too healthy a contraption, now I think about it).
Anyway, I'll add some links to some recipes and see what works.

So far dec 2nd

I've been making a few as I bought some oranges and apples. I've been using milk and water as the fluid although adding some lime cordial in adds a punch.
I've bought some vanilla ice cream and put that in with the fruit and its a nice refreshingly cool drink, althoufgh thick.
Also, I've been taking it out on walks, coffee in one pocket, smoothy in the other.
I've used the lemon ice cubes, although I've tried to melt them first.
I found a whole lot of kiwi fruit in the freezer, I have a few bags of that, so I'm using those, taking some out and letting them melt.
Its a good way to get cheap fruit into me. I'm not a fan of apples, pears or oranges (too messy to peel/eat) but they are easy in the smoothie maker.
I've been trying some cheap coke and lemonade I'd bought for trying the beer mixers (totally unsuccessful) and the lemonade works well.
I need to stock up on cheap fruit when I go shopping as it adds a bit of something drink wise.

Sourdough Sandwich loaf & Sandwich loaf(yet to try)

A couple of weeks ago I had a hankering for Fish and Chips, so went to the local chipper to get some. I have a bit of a pommy habit of having Chip butties with them, so went across and boaght a white sliced loaf. As I make most of my bread at the moment, either Ciabatta or Baguettes from John Kirkwoods recipes this is a rare occurance.


Anyway, it got me thinking about making a sandwich bread. I looked up John Kirkwoods recipe for it and saw that he also had one for Sourdough Sandwich bread:

After being up country and leaving my sourdough startewr, which I mainly use for pancake mix nowerdays, I have been thinking ofdisposing of the sourdough starter.
Then I thought I'd try this recipe so decided to try it out.
It has the polish sponge that you put away the night before and after mixing ingredients in mixer there are just 2 rises, so a bit like the other breads I make. If the process is similar its worth a try.

Well, my adaptation was not as good. First, I had 2 baking tins, one metal and one silicone. The metal  one has a little rust on the bottom, and i use it for putting ice cubes into in the oven for steam.
Anyway the bread expanded sideways instead of being even, so it bloats in the middle. Its also splitting a bit in the vertical direction, I think because it hadn't risen much in the tin rise (of 1 hour in the oven slightly warmed).
I decided to put some seseme seeds on the top, as that is my current method.
After 30 minutes on 180 degrees C this is what it looks like.

I've sprayed it again and put it in for a further 5 minutes to brown, not in the tin. I've sprayed it, like I would the Ciabatta and baguettes. Then another 4, then another 4, it didn't get much browner than the first 5 minutes.

Now wait for 1/2 hour to let it cool down before I can taste.

Conclusion
I'm finding the sourdough starter not really giving very good results. I'll think about going back to Pam's yeast, that seems far more reliable and consistent.
I had some after letting it cool down and it was lovely, but all bread does after coming fresh out of the oven. In the morning I made some bacon and omelet sandwiches and the bread was very sour. There was a lingering flavour that I didn't like.
I did an extra hour rise on it and mabe that gave it the extra sourness. Also, I'd just topped up the sourdough starter after using it for pancakes that morning, and although just mixed it was not as gluey as it normally is after a week. Also it didn't seem to rise as much as the video, so that is why I gave it a 2nd rise.
Overall this is not something I'd rush back to do. I'll keep what I have and see if its any better toasted.
I've decided to make the recipe below, with one heaped teaspoon of yeastit will rise a lot faster than thios one. 

Basic Sandwich Bread recipe. I need to try this one instead

The video of basic sandwich bread. Dissapointed with the sourdough one above I decided to have a go at this one.

Ingredients
430g / 15.2 oz of Strong White Bread Flour
245g / 8½ oz of Warm Water 40°C / 104°F
 20g / 1½ tbls of Vegetable or Olive Oil
 7g / 1 heaped tsp of Active Dried Yeast
 9g / 1½ tsp of Kosher Salt or 6g / 1 tsp of Table Salt
 6g / 1 tsp of Granulated Sugar

It mixes well, and I've just got its first rise on the benchtop, and that went pretty quick at 30 minutes, so I've buttered and oiled the baking pan and put timer on for 20 minutes, so I can heat the oven whilst it does the last 10 minutes of the 30 min proofing.
It did not rise that much in the tin, but it baked well and browned better than the loaf above. After cooling for 30 minutes I tried a sandwich. It was crusty on the end piece and soft.
The proof will be in trying it tomorrow. 

Vanilla Extract

I have been experimenting with mint extract and left some in a bottle with some alcohol for quite a while and in the end used it as an aromatic in the bathroom. It evapourated quite quickly but was very pleasant.

I'd watched John Kirkwoods video on Vanilla Extact, quite a while back, and thought it was a good idea. I use vanilla essence when I'm making pancakes.

 PART 1. MAKING THE ESSENCE

Mary told me Vanilla pods came from Sri Lanka and I didn't think any more about it. Today though, I was down the sunday vege market at the Waterfront and there was someonew selling Vanilla pods, apparently they grow them in the Cook Islands, so I thought I'd give making a vanilla essence a try.
The prices of the pods were from $1 to $4. The $1 ones were for making in to essences , so I bought 3 of them. 
I've got a couple of old glass bottles that did have Vanilla Essence in them, so I used one for this exercise, it is 50ml.
 I chopped up the pods and put them in the bottle then poured in Gin. Unfortunately I did not watch the video above first, so only chopped them up, I didn't split them leanthways to increase the surface area and expose the inside.
 I only have Gin so used that instead of vodka, but any alcohol in a storm.
So, I've put the bottle in a cupboard with the coffee with today's date on it,so I'll shake it every day for the next 3 months then give it a try.

PART 2 . TESTING IT

To be continued in 3 months

Homemade Sausage rolls to pam's sausage rolls & steamed BBQ pork buns

I went back to look at some of John Kirkwoods baking videos and came across this one for sausage rolls:

 

Sausages and pastry. Simple really. 

I'm not sure what it is, NZ sausages do not have the flavour of English Sausages, that said, it may be the chemicals they put in them in the UK. 

I like a sausage but recently I have found them not so appealing. But since I've had the air fryer I've been going mad on sausage rolls. The frozen ones from the supermarket, Pam's ones as they are the cheapest. 

One issue I have with Kiwis and mince, they always throw frozen veges in with them. Same with the sausage rolls!!!! I can't quite get the hang of that as a pom. 

Anyway, John Kirkwood uses sausages to make sausage meat and flaky pastry for the sausage rolls. Simple.

I was in Countdown supermarket and there were some sausages on special for $5.50, Italian pork sausages, 6 of them in the pack. So I bought them and some flaky pastry sheet, 6 sheets (1kg) for 4.50$. It was the countdown brand, not the Edmund's ones. So I got them as well. 

At home I took 3 sheets of the flaky pastry and cut them in half, then sliced the sausages down the middle, peeled the skins and put them in half of the pastry and rolled it up. 

I ended up with 6 sausage rolls, about the same length as the Pam's ones I get  for $5 for 4 of them.

A half of the pastry was too much for the sausage half. I need to trim off about 10mm at the end, so not enough for 3 per sheet, but too much for 2. 

In the air fryer, the pastry was not that fluffy, I had to use oil spray to brown the pastry. 

I have not been using any oil on the Pam's ones of late. They still seem to come out golden and puffed. 

Tasting

The ones I made definitely have a more flavoursome sausage filling. They are narrower than the sausage rolls from Pam's (only 1/2 a sausage thick. The flaky pastry does not puff as much as the Pam's ones

Arithmetic. 

Pam's rolls           =   $1.25 per roll

My made up ones = $1.29 per roll (only accounting for 3 sheets of pastry) 

And a bit of effort in the kitchen making them, but not a great deal

 So, Pam's are cheaper, more fluffy pastry but filling not as interesting. 

Made up ones, more flavoursome filling, but countdown pastry not very good. 

Conclusion on sausage rolls

The price differential is not that high. 

I think I'll do some more testing with some Edmund's flaky pastry to see if that is any better, or maybe even some filo pastry. 

That is the thing with sausages that I'm tasting a bit of chemical in them that I don't enjoy. I may try some Moore Wilson ones sometime to see if they are tasty without the chemical taste.

Steamed BBQ pork buns

There were single buns on special in PaknSave  for about $2 (The single ones are bigger than those in the pack of 4). 

You can microwave them for a minute and then eat them. No paper on their bottom, and I think they taste pretty authentic, light fluffy bun and the filling is pretty tasty too. A very fast snack, and not oil at all.

I got a pack of 4 at $7 , so about $1.75 each and snacked on them and finished them pretty quickly. 

The Asian Supermarket has a pack of 6 for $10.80. I will need to try those as they work out roughly the same price as the 4 pack on special.

 As a simple, quick snack they are pretty good. The 4 will fill you up. Not the cheapest but definitely convenient. I dont think I could make them very well, so to get a reasonable authentic tasting bun for that price is good. 

I'll have to see how much they charge at Yum Cha next time I go. 

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.