by bt1 » Sun Oct 13, 2013 7:40 am
Bloke,
It's all personal taste and every beer drinker has a different pref but there are kits that suit specific styles.
thinking is your wanting a dry finish Lager, clear not overly malty or dominated by hops = suggest a kit for ease and starting point..Coopers Cerveza as a base.
Clean, bright, same body/mouth feel, low/pale straw colour, about same alco volume.
The two Morgan's kits, Black Rock stuff this style I found a little disappointing.
So the kit you can get at supermarkets, BigW, Kmart , Dan Murphy's @ a tad under $12. The instruction say add a Coopers BE2 pack which is a pre packed sugar/malt combo.
BE2 is 1kg in weight, 50% Dextrose, 25% DME, 25% Malto
By using more Dex you'll naturally get a dryer tasting beer cutting back on Malto first then LME. Will need some LME other wise reckon it could be too thin a taste....say
75% Dex=750gm and 25% LME=250gm.
As you'd know if it's super dry tasting two things assist here, dry beer enzyme sachets $2.50 and a cooler longer ferment time = 2 weeks <18c as lager is slower.
K got the recipe decided...
Requirements
Access to a sink, bathtub, laundry sink for 2 weeks
1 Coopers Cerveza kit $12
1 Coopers BE2 pack or mix and match DEX and LME approx. $5 see notes above
1 Dry enzyme sachet $ 2.50
1 Finings $1.50
Fermenter 30lt+
Steriliser soln.
Good thermo
tea towel or cloth
Process(short)
Sterilise the crap out of every thing that comes in contact with beer....Starsan, No rinse etc
If using tap water add 19lt to fermenter night before to piss of chlorine.
Aerate the water with a paint stirrer, paddle, stick blender
Boils a kettle full of water...stand aside
Open can poor in bulk of tin.
The instructions bullshit on about dissolving in 2lt boiling water = bullshit cos you won't make pitching temps 21c. So use just as little boiling water you need to rinse out can. add to fermenter.
Whip the fermenter up with a paddles so its swirling rapidly. Progressively poor in DEX then LME...it self dissolves mostly.
Using the hot water remaining in kettle and additional cool water , adjust volume to 23lt at 21c
Get into it with paddle to aerate, mix and ensure all dissolved nothing sitting on bottom of fermenter.
Gently swirl fermenter again, add yeast.
Tea towel over it for 30 mins - 1 hour.
To avoid yeast shock I wrap fermenter in a windcheater for first day, gradually allowing fermenter to drop <18c ... simply sit in bath tub or laundry sink and add more cold tap water to bath.
Allow to sit and ferment until kegging or bottling - 4 days, post the active ferment phase.
on day -4 and -3 we're going to increase temp to around the 21c mark dicetly rest...good for lagers
day -2 Cos you want it bright and clear add 1 sachet of dissolved in hot water finings
Boil in 250ml of water 5 - 8gm of Cluster hop pellets for approx. 15min. Short boil = more aroma, longer boil = increased bittering. Can do both so a 20min boil for x gms and a short 5 min boil for x gms.
Poor in strained hop "tea" you made, gentle stir, poor in finings, reseal fermenter
There are hundreds of variation on hopping methods, dry hopping for instance but the method here suits the style you mentioned.
Filter if you have one if not the finings will do most of the clarity job for you.
That's the hard part done.
If you want to discuss kegging/ bottling let me know.
bt1