First Brew

[Dragon]

Only recently bought myself a Coopers micro brewery and am planning to start my first brew this week, perhaps tomorrow or Wednesday.

Starting out with the Lager kit that comes with the Coopers MB, I figure its safe to start out simple. I did grab myself some saflager yeast to swap out the ale yeast thats included and 30lts of spring water - stop gap measure until I can sort out a filtering system.

Anyway I'm sure its nothing exciting for you lot, but is for me being a newb at this. I thought i'd make my maiden post to say g'day, and hopefully all will go well with my first brew. Can't wait to get a few under my belt and start mucking about with extra malts and hops.

Cheers all!

[warra48]

Good luck with that Dragon.
Hope it turns out OK for you.
Given we are in the depths of winter, try to keep the temperature of your fermenter down to about 10 to 12ºC, and give the saflager yeast 2 or 3 weeks to do its job.

[aurelius121ad]

I agree, starting out simple is a good idea. You'll soon find that brewing from kits is a pretty simple process and as long as you are sanitary and you dont do anything ridiculous the worst you will end up with is a brew that is drinkable.

Do start using malt (liquid or dry) for your additional kilo of fermentables and some extra hops though. I have finally been able to track those ingredients down and was amazed at how much my brews improved.

[2fast]

Welcome Dragon!

Stick around and read heaps, you have found yourself one of the worlds greatest hobbies

[StuTee]

I tried buying spring water a couple of times, never really made any difference for me. But I guess it depends on where you live...
My first brew was a horrid, horrid thing... don't feel too bad if it doesn't come out like liquid gold. But then again, in all likelihood you'll take more care than I did.
The (other) biggest thing I got wrong was how much sugar to put in the bottles to prime them. My genius friend, who had brewed one batch before I started, offered the worst advice ever. I believe it went:
him: "If you don't put enough sugar in, the beer will be flat."
me: "ok, is this enough? (one teaspoon)"
him: "No, you'll need at least three times that much"
shrrrrrrrrrrbooooooooooooooooooom
looking back, I wonder if he was making a zoolander joke...

[Dragon]

Haha, luckily I have the carb drops to make it easy. Cheers for welcome all, didn't get a chance today, tomorrow is looking good!

[Iron-Haggis]

Spring water is probably a bit of waste of money, but you may live somewhere with pretty poor water quality. Even the water is Sydney is good enough for brewing.

[Dragon]

Finally found the time to start my first brew. Couple of hiccups. Somehow we ended up filling the fermenter to 24.5L instead of 22L. Also I have just noticed this morning there is a small piece of the Coopers label on the surface of my brew!

[KEG]

don't stress, she'll be right

[Dragon]

Do you think I should open the fermenter and try and get the bit of label out? Or just leave it to add some adhesive flavor?

[homebrewer79]

sanitise some tongs or tweezers and wait till it's fermenting fairly vigorously, just so you can get the oxigen purged out quicker. I would take it out, but KEG's a more knowlegable brewer than I, so I might just be a little too paranoid

[warra48]

Leave well enough alone.
If it is to do any damage, and I don't think it will, it's probably already happened.
If it hasn't done any damage, why risk doing some by opening your fermenter and fishing around for a snippet of label?
The alcohol in your brew will sanitise it anyway?

[Dragon]

The label should be fairly clean, it did soak in hot water for 10-15mins. I am just spewing a bit got in there. Will leave it be and hopefully it won't make the brew taste funny.

Cheers.

PS - What effect does adding extra water have? A little less body and flavor I assume?

[Chris]

Good decision with the label. Often trying to correct 'mistakes' is what buggers up the brew.

And yes, the beer will have a bit less body and flavour than otherwise.

[homebrewer79]

Just wondering exactly how big/small is the piece of label. Is it big enough to clog the tap when bottling?

[Dragon]

Its about 4cm square, its already looking very soft and I can't see it blocking the tap. After 2-3 weeks it might even be broken up completely?

[homebrewer79]

Should be all good mate, the only reason I was thinking to take it out was there might be some glue on it, but I suppose the hot water would have taken care of that. Should form a nice compact sediment in the bottle you reckon Ahh the joys of brewing, always something interesting going on

[nath76]

If it turns out to be a nice beer add it it to your recipe... Im sure thats never been posted in the "recipe" forum..

[Chris]

Label Lager. Has a nice ring to it.

[Tipsy]

Also I have just noticed this morning there is a small piece of the Coopers label on the surface of my brew!

I did that once, it looked like mould floating on the surface.

I put it down to drinking while brewing