New User/Cooper's Bitter Question

Hi,

Im new here. My name is Carnell, I'm from Metro Vancouver B.C. and im a history major at Simon Fraser University. I got into home brew because i love craft beer but its expensive for a student in B.C. i also loved the idea of having Draught beer in my home and quickly realized the cheapest way to do so was home brewing. Brewed and bottled my first batch from kit and then decided to jump in head first and bought a single corny keggin system. I Love the ease of Liquid Malt extract brewing and will likely do this until i have lots of time in the summer to give a full grain brew a try.

Anyways i'm on my third batch and decided to do the Cooper's International British Bitter (dual citizen UK and Canada and whenever im in the UK the first beer i grab is real british bitter). It called for Light Dry Malt Extract which i hadn't used before but i picked some up. When i did my initial hydrometer check is showed a potential alcohol of 3-4%. I realize this is potentially because the style is lower in alcohol but i wanted it to be around 5%, so i threw in 500 g of dextrose too. Now i wonder if this will be an alcoholic mess?

Also my wort was super hot at over 36 degrees celsius, i let it cool down to 32 and then pitched my yeast.

Have i wrecked this beer?

What temp is it fermenting at?
As for the extra dextrose, that shouldn't have wrecked it to bad. What was the amounts of LME & DME you used? Was this boiled or not? As some people have been tricked by the sugars not mixing in and the heavy (more sugary) wort sitting on the bottom and giving false low readings.
As for the temp, that will be you issue. Most suggest to try stay in the 60s (°F), low 70s can be tolerated if needed but high 70s to 80s (and 32°C = 89°F) will likely cause some pretty funky flavours to be present and probably some fusal alchohols which if you didn't know you would probably be blaming that extra dextrose for

Don't worry too much. IT'll more than likely turn out ok. The dextrose will boost alcohol content but will ferment out completely so your end result might be a bit of a drier finish, slightly lacking in sweetness, body and/or mouthfeel.

I take it you used a 1.8kg can of cooper's HME, a 500gr bag of DME and the 500gr of dextrose. The volume of dextrose used here is less than 20% of the total grain bill so shouldn't be bad really.

Pitching at 32C isn't ideal but try to get your wort down to around 19 or 20C by the time it starts producing the beginnings of a krauzen. Once the vigorous fermentation starts the temp of the wort will rise a few degrees due to heat produced and it's during the first few days that any off flavours or smells will form, so keeping your fermentation temps down, at the lower end of the yeast's ideal range, will help you get a cleaner fermentation.

Currently I have a Muntons Yorkshire Bitter in my fermenting bucket, and I also pitched my yeast at a higher than recommended temperature of 26.6 C/80 F. I cant comment on how yours or mine will turn out since this is my first one.

see my post #10 on what I added.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/few-questions-before-i-start-my-first-brew-364553/

mattd2 said:

What temp is it fermenting at?
As for the extra dextrose, that shouldn't have wrecked it to bad. What was the amounts of LME & DME you used? Was this boiled or not? As some people have been tricked by the sugars not mixing in and the heavy (more sugary) wort sitting on the bottom and giving false low readings.
As for the temp, that will be you issue. Most suggest to try stay in the 60s (°F), low 70s can be tolerated if needed but high 70s to 80s (and 32°C = 89°F) will likely cause some pretty funky flavours to be present and probably some fusal alchohols which if you didn't know you would probably be blaming that extra dextrose for

Click to expand...

500g of DME was not boiled but was thrown in at the same time i would normally throw in the dextrose after mixing the can contents with water and filling the container. Its Quite cold here right now getting snow in some placces so i can get the temperature down by throwing it outside for a bit. But i wonder if its too late i started about 5 hours ago.

mattd2 said:

......As for the temp, that will be you issue. Most suggest to try stay in the 60s (°F), low 70s can be tolerated if needed but high 70s to 80s (and 32°C = 89°F) will likely cause some pretty funky flavours to be present and probably some fusal alchohols which if you didn't know you would probably be blaming that extra dextrose for

Click to expand...

This is interesting, and I did not know this. So I did a quick Google search on fusel alcohol and I came up with these two links that were interesting to read:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-1-3.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacetyl

CarnellSitka said:

But i wonder if its too late i started about 5 hours ago.

Click to expand...

In that case fermentation hasn't really kicked off yet and you are still in the lag phase so yes, chuck it outside to cool down to about 19 degC and you'll start off fermentation in the golden zone. Keeping it as close to that temp as possible for the next few days will get you off to a good start.

thanks for the help, so because i added the 500g of dextrose i can expect a higher alcohol and less body?

CarnellSitka said:

thanks for the help, so because i added the 500g of dextrose i can expect a higher alcohol and less body?

Click to expand...

Essentially, yes. Less body than you'd have got if you'd thrown in another 500gr bag of DME instead of the dextrose. But then again a total of 1kg DME would have probably required a little bit of balancing out by a bittering hop addition. The dextrose addition as is doesn't necessarily mean the beer won't be good though.

Ogri said:

Essentially, yes. Less body than you'd have got if you'd thrown in another 500gr bag of DME instead of the dextrose. But then again a total of 1kg DME would have probably required a little bit of balancing out by a bittering hop addition. The dextrose addition as is doesn't necessarily mean the beer won't be good though.

Click to expand...

well this is excellent then!

One thing that would be very important for you to note if your going to be using coopers for the future is never to use the yeast that comes with the kit unless you have no other choice. I brewed my first batches with Coopers and in the beginning found my beer to have a very strange whine like aftertaste every time despite keeping extra caution to temperature and sanitation.

The yeast that coopers uses is actually a cheap strain more similar to baker's yeast. That's why its cultivating temperature is so strange, being around 20-32 Celsius, which is a pretty ridiculous temperature range. What's stranger is that almost every coopers beer kit gives you this exact yeast be it ale, stout, and even lager, which makes no sense at all.

My recommendation is to find yourself a store that actually sells different types of brewing yeasts. Depending on your area it could be very difficult (I had to drive 45 minutes away) but being from such a hot spot like Vancouver I doubt you'll have too much trouble. If worst comes, just order liquid yeast online, and as always prep and ferment it at the YEAST'S recommended temp. Trust me, your beer will thank you.