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Hi all, first post, dont be too hard on me. Made first proper KK today, can someone please tell me if it sounds ok and do you think it will be about commercial alc (5%). Can Thomas Coopers Irish Stout
1KG Muntons LDME
300g Maltodexrine
250g Dextrose
Teabag Goldings Steeped 10 min
Ended up chucking the teabag in the fermenter. Should I take it out now or at some stage. Thanks Turtle

Turtle.

Hope you put some yeast with that otherwise might be a malt cordial

Recipe sounds fine.

Just leave the teabag in the fermenter. You can dispose of it once you've bottled your brew and when you clean the fermenter.

turtle4509 wrote:Hi all, first post, dont be too hard on me. Made first proper KK today, can someone please tell me if it sounds ok and do you think it will be about commercial alc (5%). Can Thomas Coopers Irish Stout
1KG Muntons LDME
300g Maltodexrine
250g Dextrose
Teabag Goldings Steeped 10 min
Ended up chucking the teabag in the fermenter. Should I take it out now or at some stage. Thanks Turtle

G'day Turtle - welcome to the forum...

Your recipe looks fine. Next time, I'd recommend you use less short chain sugar and get more sugars from grains. So, I'd drop the dextrose and replace it with 300g of crystal malt - they can be easily bought from your local HBS (cracked or you can mill them yourself) and you simply steep the grains for 30 mins in a small muslin bag in a stock pot with 4L of cold tap water, slowly bringing the pot up to 70C. Rest the grainbag in a colander over the pot and drizzle some hot tap water (2L should be enough) over the grainbag to extract the malt sugars (you don't have to mash crystal malt, it's already been done by the maltster). You can then boil for 30 minutes the resultant sweet liquor and LDME in the stockpot (add some water if necessary to make sure that the stock pot is at least half full) with the contents of the teabag, or preferably, 20g of fresh goldings pellet hops and you'll get a substantially better flavour profile in the final product when you add this wort to the kit and LDME in the fermenter....

Cheers,
TL

Thanks all, yeh I remembered to put the yeast in, its bottled now and tasted great at bottling, cant wait till its ready. Im having trouble with paler larger type beers, they seem to have a rockmelony pang to them, someone mentioned to me its probably the heat in Brisbane causing this. My stuff is 100% cean at all stages and stout and dark ales are going OK. Shoul I use a different yeast here, particularly in summer?

I think you're right in guessing that the fruitiness may be due to the heat. Lagers really need to be fermented cold to get that clean, crisp flavour... preferably below 15 degrees C if possible. That's pretty tricky down here in Melbourne at this time of year, but doable in winter (or doable year round if you can park your fermenter in a fridge). It may be that you have to limit your lager brewing to cold weather.

I suppose that you could try subbing in a neutral ale yeast instead of a lager yeast. Whilst you won't have a lager, you should at least get something crisper and less fruity. Maybe consider using either K-97 or S-05?

turtle4509 wrote: Im having trouble with paler larger type beers, they seem to have a rockmelony pang to them, someone mentioned to me its probably the heat in Brisbane causing this. My stuff is 100% cean at all stages and stout and dark ales are going OK. Shoul I use a different yeast here, particularly in summer?

I suspect your problems are probably linked to fermentation temperatures. There is only a limited window in brisbane to brew a true lager without climate control assistance. In fact, looking through this forum most people who like their lagers have a good climate control, regardless of where they live.

In Brisbane (or Melbourne for that matter) I wouldn't dream of brewing a lager in summer.

Cheers

Smabb wrote:...In Brisbane (or Melbourne for that matter) I wouldn't dream of brewing a lager in summer.

...unless you were using the San Francisco Lager strain, eg, Wyeast 2112.

Cheers,
TL

I'm keen to give lager a go, and living on the Gold Coast, face similar problems to turtle regarding temps. I don't have room for an extra fridge (I am permitted to take over 1 room for brewing purposes, which is the laundry, or, as my girlfriend refers to it, the Brewery!). However, it's completely internal, so it'll never get down to 15 degrees in there. I do have a balcony, where, in Winter, temps might get low enough.

Is it possible or advisable to brew outside? With the longer and slower fermentation, would this just be an open invitation to infection? Are there measures that can be taken to protect the fermenter?

Cheers!

If it is sealed well and you keep an eye on your airlock, it should be fine outside.
I would place a camp mat around it and maybe also a towell over the top to minimise temp spikes.

I think I have solved my temp problem. Over summer I built a swimming pool. The architech tells me it will get down to 14c during winter months. It has steps and the fermenter will sit in the water at the 20lt mark on the 2nd step. Roll on winter!! Has anybody tried the ESB freshworts and ezybrew clones? Interested to look at how they went. Cheers all Turtle

I have a friend that has used the ESB FWKs, they tasted OK to me, all the flaws were to do with ferment temp and handling. If you can pitch lots of healthy yeast, be clean and maintain your temp, I am sure they will make great beer.

One thing if you are fermenting outside, please consider light damage that might occur. I am not sure of the exact ins and outs of your setup, but you want it in the dark.

turtle4509 wrote:I think I have solved my temp problem. Over summer I built a swimming pool. The architech tells me it will get down to 14c during winter months. It has steps and the fermenter will sit in the water at the 20lt mark on the 2nd step. Roll on winter!! Has anybody tried the ESB freshworts and ezybrew clones? Interested to look at how they went. Cheers all Turtle

Your pool will also make an excellent after boil cooler if you do a steeped grains / extract / all grain boil. I've seen some brew kettles cooling in the snow in the US!!

Cheers,
TL