Recent content by HughRichardson

Thank you again, Rory. I will do a bit of further research on that technique and give it a try. Meanwhile, it looks like my current brew is functioning normally now. Seems like Wyeast liquid smack pack may be a deal more robust than I thought at first - but takes a while longer to get started...

Hi Rory. Thank you for your input. At the moment, it looks like I have got away with this batch. The airlock is bubbling at a fairly steady 4.5 second intervals, and a thick krausen has formed of about 1 1/2 inches thick with a few brown streaks. Temperature at around 18 to 19 C and all...

Thanks for that, Bob. I pitched the Wyeast at 20 C, then left it overnight at about 19 C before letting it come back up to 20 again. The package recommended rangte says 18 to 22 C. Good idea on the re-hydrating. I was planning to pitch it in dry, leave a half hour and then aerate a bit (as...

I currently have a batch of Coopers Real Ale brewed with Muntons DME and Wyeast 1968 (smack-pack liquid yeast). Due to a hold up in delivery I think my yeast may have got spoiled by exposure to high temperatures (Singapore climate!!) before it reached me. The pack swelled up OK but when I...

At present, all I am doing is rinsing the caps under the tap for a few seconds, and letting them sit in a bowl of sanitiser for a half hour or so while I am washing the actual bottles. One or two of them look a little stained as I have been using them for a while and have but recently...

I am using easily obtainable 1.5 litre Coke bottles for bottling. These PET Bottles cannot be washed in hot water as the material can be damaged, so I use cold or warm water for rinsing. However the bottle caps are of a more normal type of hard plastic, and I would like to give them a...

Well, as they say – “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” – and for sure the proof of the brew is in the drinking thereof! I always bottle a few ½ litre bottles for sneak preview sampling – I guess I know my own patience – and I just cracked one of...

Thanks I'll try that !

Hercher, Actually the Coopers kits do require the addition of fermentable sugars in order to generate the alcohol. The instructions say that you can add a Kg of white sugar - or replace that with other fermentable sugars to taste - or words to that effect. While plain white sugar does work, I...

That is good to know! From what you say, I ought to be OK with around 2 Kg of liquid maltose plus a can of Coopers beer mix for the future? Since getting away from white granulated sugar, the only sugars I add normally are liquid maltose and sometimes some honey. In the latest brew, I just...

That is certainly most informative. From your remark that: Yeast needs glucose in the fermentation during the lag time IIRC, you couldn't make a 100% maltose beer without an impact on the fermentation. I would gather that I have probably been messing up by using just Maltose. In some brews I...

Thanks Kontrol I think my pitching temperature was fairly good on both batches, although I have thrown out that part of the records. The Real ale was at 24 C if memory serves. I recall it took about a day to bring it back down to 21 C afterwards. It sounds more and more like I may have...

Thanks for useful input, Hercher I am not too sure what crystal malt is, so cannot answer to that. The Maltose is in the form of a honey-like thick viscous liquid. The beer kit can has gone out in the trash, but I have one last can (English Bitter) bought at the same time, and it has an...

Thanks for your input, El Caro, and I agree that 1.03 sounds too high – but I think the FG is probably correct. I got a reading of 1.03 after 8 days in the fermenter, and I left it there for a further week, thinking like you, that the reading was too high. However during that week, I got the...

I have been experimenting with liquid maltose in conjunction with Coopers kits. In the first test case I used a Coopers English Bitter kit with 26 litres water plus 1.8 Kg Maltose and Safale S-04 yeast to get a FG of 1.014 and an estimated 4% alcohol which is just about right. I normally...