using spraymalt with thomas coopers pilsener

so i had heard people talking only good things about wheat beer, but i also wanted to first try to brew pilsener.. so i ordered thomas coopers pilsener extract kit and i tought that if i´d use spray malt (wheat 55% barley 45%) and replace half of the additional sugar with it i´d really have good wheat-barley pilsener.. so am i about to **** it up or what do you think ? this is by the way my first batch of beer.

My advice on first Kit batches is to brew it the way the guy who designed the recipe intended. Then if you feel that you can improve it make your changes that way you will have a baseline to compare to when you talk to others who have brewed the kit.

Normally I would agree that it should be brewed following the directions, but not if the directions call for dumping in table sugar. If I were the OP I would substitute a malt for the sugar. I dont have any experience with wheat, but it sounds interesting.

yeah i tought so that using malt would result in a lot better beer than just table sugar, and i didn´t believe that using also wheat in pilsener would make a dramatic difference (?). offcourse this is my first time brewing so i wouldn´t know for sure.

Only one way to find out and thats to brew it. Just to let you know coopers makes a nice wheat kit - I have made it a few times - it is nice and light and sweet if you like that kind of thing. Also as for he malt i usually substitute some malt for sugar when making those kits. Use brewing sugar (dextrose AKA cornsugar) instead of table sugar - im sure whatever you do it will turn out good - eventually yo will find the right balance to find the exact style you like.

Cheers

i actually happen to have about 1 kilo of brewery sugar (grape sugar- glucose) will that do? also does the extract allready have hops or do i have to add it?

ADFQ: Im quite sure glucose is a-ok to use. Don worry about the hops - they are allready in the can of thomas coopers pilsner.

All you have to do is heat up some hot water on the stove in a big pot - dump in your sugar and spray malt in and stir til it is dissolved - then add your can of coopers pilsner mix i all together til its disolved. Once it is all mised good dump it in your primary bucket - fil it up to he 23 liter mark with cold water - stir - sprinkle the package of yeast on top - stir - put the top on - your done. Dont boil the ingredients - it has been suggested that by boiling that you can kill the hop content. They are called no boil kits for a reason - cheers

thanks mate. storing shouldn´t be too hard since its allready pretty cool fall in finland.
Edit: whats wrong with table sugar? it changes to dextrose before fermenting right? it would just make the process of fermenting a bit longer..

Table sugar will give it a cidery sort of taste - im not sure exactly the science behind it. If ya like cidery go for it - but many moons ago i used table sugar instead of brewing sugar and it didnt turn out the best

Right now I have a batch of coopers real ale brewing away - good stuff

Cheers

i pitched the yeast day before yesterday and it seems to be fermenting quite good . smell seems ok to me but then again im just a first timer. it had a bit some dark brown stuff on the foam but i scooped most of it away, hope its not some sort of mold infection

adfg said:

i pitched the yeast day before yesterday and it seems to be fermenting quite good . smell seems ok to me but then again im just a first timer. it had a bit some dark brown stuff on the foam but i scooped most of it away, hope its not some sort of mold infection

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Don't bother scooping the brown stuff (krausen), it's suppose to be there. It will all sink down to the bottom after it's finished fermenting.

adfg said:

so i had heard people talking only good things about wheat beer, but i also wanted to first try to brew pilsener.. so i ordered thomas coopers pilsener extract kit and i tought that if i´d use spray malt (wheat 55% barley 45%) and replace half of the additional sugar with it i´d really have good wheat-barley pilsener.. so am i about to **** it up or what do you think ? this is by the way my first batch of beer.

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Firstly, "Welcome to the Fonderful world of Fermentation"!!

I'm all for experimenting, but the first problem I see is you are "thinking"...you don't have enough brewing experience to start that...

I would recommend keeping the two brews seperate (for now) until you get a few brews under your belt.

Experimentation is fine, but at this stage of the game you really should be concentrating on learning about the capabilities/characteristics of each of the brews ingredients. You've already experienced that with the comments about table sugar and kreusen.

You should know what to expect from each of them...what they contribute to the brew, what a little too much can as well as too little, etc.

Following a recipe is fine for now, but as it's already been mentioned, some of those kit recipes come from a cookie cutter (template recipe) and are not specific to what may be in the actual kit they accompany.

Second, coming here is your best bet or advice. But, be forewarned, a lot of new brewers leave out WAY too much information for us to come to a definitive conclusion. When asking about a specific recipe or ingredient it would REALLY help if you (and others) listed the recipe in the post. It gives us the big picture of the intent of the recipe.

In time you'll be brewing and sharing great tasting beers with the rest of us.

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EDIT EDIT: Where are you from? I checked your profile and noticed you are only 19 years old. You have to be 21 to legally brew in the States. If you are American and live in the States then I don't think you're allowed to be a member. I could be wrong, but I'm not a Moderator...

adfg said:

so i had heard people talking only good things about wheat beer, but i also wanted to first try to brew pilsener.. so i ordered thomas coopers pilsener extract kit and i tought that if i´d use spray malt (wheat 55% barley 45%) and replace half of the additional sugar with it i´d really have good wheat-barley pilsener.. so am i about to **** it up or what do you think ? this is by the way my first batch of beer.

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it will probably be pretty good. I would drink that.

try and keep the temps down at the lower range of the recommened temps and it will be great

I've brewed that kit a few times with different things, sugar, DME, LME, it will be good - if the fermenter is clean and you keep it from getting warm till its done you can't miss.

ok, against your advices i have allready used table sugar and spraymalt and scooped the brown stuff away damnit! fortunately i only used 300g of table sugar and the rest 500g spraymalt... also a think that might not be too good i got a waterlock on a 3rd day of fermenting (today) but it didn´t build up very much pressure or let air in because i just squeezed the pressure away as it builded up.. and i even desinfied the swissarmy knife that i used to make the hole for the waterlock so if i get an infection it really would be just bad luck. in the instructions were that temps should be vetween 18c and 25c and i think its now about 20-22c i could propably lower it by keeping the window open. thanks for help! just got to hope for the best now..

Relax, you will end up with beer and it will probably be good. There are lots of ways to brew and it's really hard to mess up beer. Start working on your next brew!

actually to me its really easy to mess things up . also i tought that if i´d filter as much of the yeast out as i can and then carbonate with the "soda stream" i got, this way there wouldn´t be much yeast in the bottles and i could adjust the level of carbonation easily, also there wouldn´t be any exploding bottles. maybe i could even kill the yeast with heating or something like that.. don´t think that´s necessary tho. also there would be a risk of affecting to the taste of beer (the hops thing that grasshopper1917 mentioned) and losing the alcohol content.

You are making a wheat beer but want to filter all the yeast out? I'm sorry my dear that makes no sense.

In any case, yeast are microscopic so you won't be able to filter out enough to matter. As for trying to kill the yeast, why bother to make homebrew? You can buy dead beer for less than you can make it.

I've never had more yeast in my bottles than any good microbrewed, bottle conditioned beer. Why are you worrying about it.

so... yeast in beer is good?

adfg said:

so... yeast in beer is good?

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yes it is


10 chars... etc...

****. i was just asking myself why does the wort not foam anymore, so i tought that maybe the yeast has allready used most of the sugars since the waterlock still bubbles.. then i checked the instructions and unlike i remembered it said "keep the tempratures at least in 19 celsius and maximum of 25 celsius" because i tought it said "at least 18 c.." i had cooled the room temps to about 18/19c wich i tought might have slowered the fermenting. then i remembered that all i need to do is check the gravity of it and i can calculate how much sugars have converted to alcohols, but i had not took the hydrometer readings before pitching the yeast as i maybe should had.. the instructions do tell the approx. target reading but since i used spraymalt instead table sugar the gravity has maybe increased?

If the airlock still bubbles, its not done. Leave it alone and wait.

When its not bubbling any more, take a reading with your hydrometer. Then take another reading the next day. If you get the same reading you're done. If you have any doubts, won't hurt to wait an extra day.

I'm a big believer in following the instructions on Cooper's can kits, and ignoring 95% of the advice you read on this forum about how to make them, but the temperature is one area I think you can safely ignore the instructions with the kit. A few of the Cooper's kits come with a real lager yeast, most of the kits - even the Cooper's Lager kit comes with an Ale yeast. If you make the Cooper's Pilsener or the Cooper's Heritage Lager ( with a real lager yeast ) - don't be afraid to go ahead and crank the cold down to like 10C if you can, it helps a lot.

i tasted some of it today and... and it tasted just fine :rockin: tomorrow i´ll carbonate and bottle, or sugar and bottle.