Coopers Kit and the Krausen Collar

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derekge

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Question: when should I pull the Krausen Collar?

Coopers kit; lager; day 4. So it looks likes the bubbles raised and receded in my FV but not all the way (the center has less). I'm at a solid 22°C and I know that is closer to the low end - it's been 4 days since I pitched the wort, should I wait until the bubbles are mostly gone to pull the krausen collar? The recommendation in the instructions just said 12 - 24 hours but I think at lower temps it takes longer. I've attached pics (including the bottom sediment).

Thanks.

day-4-sudsy.jpg


day-4-sudsy-ws.jpg


day-4-bottom-sediment.jpg
 
What is a krausen collar? My only guess is the residue left behind after the krausen falls...but why do you need to remove it?
 
The krausen collar is the center piece of the new cooper's DIY fermenter. When the krausen goes down below the bottom level of the collar,you remove the lid,then remove the krausen collar,& replace the lid.
This is the same as the smaller head space normally associated with a secondary.
So you basically wait until the krausen goes below the level where the bottom of the krausen collar drops into place.:mug:
 
Krausen Collar is part of the new coopers kit design - it takes the place of the airlock and is essentially there to ensure that the floating detritus from the bubbling process is left out of the final fermentation, as well as provide extra space should the bubbling be ferocious.
 
Thanks unionrdr - I will check it tonight. It seemed to be moving outward and "clinging" to the sides. Also: does the sediment on the bottom look normal?
 
yeah,that's fairly normal settlings. It looks like you got some cold break settling out too. I always thought it looked like wet popcorn. The receding krausen will also leave a lot of greasy gunk on the sides of the FV. In your case,on the krausen collar. So removing the collar gets a lot of gunk out of the process when you remove it. That was another point of it's creation according to cooper's. But it's the lid design that replaces the airlock. They give you lid clamps,but many so far aren't using them so the excess co2 has a means of escape that won't let nasties in.
 
I just remove mine when the krausen drops. Definitely comes in handy when it's time to clean the FV.
 
Coopers kit; lager; day 4.
...
I'm at a solid 22°C and I know that is closer to the low end
...
...but I think at lower temps it takes longer.

These lines jumped out as me as being...odd.

First off, if it's truly a lager (someone with more knowledge of the Coopers kits can probably help verify this), then 22C is by no means close to a low end. In fact, it's WAY too warm for a true lager yeast. It's actually a little too warm for a clean fermentation with many ale yeasts.

Is that temp correct? Did you maybe mean 12C?
 
The Original Series (I call OS) lager that comes with the cooper's brewing kits is an ale. Cooper's 7g ale yeast packet inside the LME can's false lid. So it's really a light pale ale. 22C is about 72F. The cooper's ale yeast is said to be best between 62F & 72F. I keep it at 68F (20C) if I can. Pretty good when brewed correctly. I've since came up with a Sam Adam's summer ale clone using it that my wife has in bottles now. Anyway,it was just screaming for an once of Kent Golding,& an ounce of Willamette. Two perfect hop flavors for an English ale version. Or Czech Saaz,& US Perle for a more German spicy,floral/herbal thing. Both are good.
 
These lines jumped out as me as being...odd.

First off, if it's truly a lager (someone with more knowledge of the Coopers kits can probably help verify this), then 22C is by no means close to a low end. In fact, it's WAY too warm for a true lager yeast. It's actually a little too warm for a clean fermentation with many ale yeasts.

Is that temp correct? Did you maybe mean 12C?

This is my first home brew so I'm absorbing like a sponge here... :mug:

According to the Coopers directions the temps should be:
18 - 32 C = absolute limits
21 - 27 C = more effective
 
Do yourself a huge favor. Don't read too much into this. The yeast do all the work. Just let them do their thing. All you need to do at this point is try to keep the temps down below 22c for best results, keep the lid closed and do not open it again for another 2 weeks. This extra time will allow the yeast to clean up any off flavors that may have been created during the fermentation process and make for a better brew. At the end of the couple weeks then bottle and wait another 3-4 weeks for the yeast to do their magic again and eat the sugar in the priming tabs you will stick in your bottles to make co2 to carb your beer.

Also do not get bummed out and give up if the coopers pre-hopped lager like kit tastes like crap. I started off with an older version the same kit. Their lager kit tasted like S**T however it was a good test to learn how the whole fermentation process works. After this one is done move on to extract kits that come with hops + grains. You will produce a much nicer product than possible with the prehopped canned coopers extract kits and move closer in the direction of actual brewing. Also after the first batch you will want to invest in a bottling bucket so you can bulk prime and get away from the expensive coopers carb tabs. Next on the list should be a capper, some caps, and some glass bottles. Finding a good local home brew store should be your next adventure :)
 
This is my first home brew so I'm absorbing like a sponge here... :mug:

According to the Coopers directions the temps should be:
18 - 32 C = absolute limits
21 - 27 C = more effective
Those temps are def way to high from my experience thus very wrong if you don't want lots of esters & off flavors. I learned that on my 1st brew real quick.
24C is the upper limit I've found & not get the off flavors. Just that fruity ester cooper's,like several other ale yeasts,produce.
18-22C is def better in my experience. So I usually am able to maintain 20C,or 68F this time of year with little problems. I generally don't use their instructions as far as times are concerned. They're designed for 23L,or 6.072 gallon batches as well. As a point of comparison,5 gallons is 19L. Ans re-hydrating the cooper's ale yeast gets it going way faster. I've even made small starters with them with excellent results. But I also re-hydrate them with a little dextrose,where I'm finding 1tsp to 2C boiled/cooled water is enough for 1-4 of those 7g packets. But plain re-hydrating is ok,just not as vigorous from what I've experienced thus far. And starters or dextrose in water doesn't weaken the yeast cells in my experience. At least not enough to kill,weaken,or otherwise render useless most of them.
My ales when pitched on with these solutions start giving the blow off tube a workout in a few hours.
I hope this helps get the creative thinking going...:mug:
And I used cooper's cans as a base in all but one recipe. They work fine when you get a good process down. Or at least make sure temps are good,& if they're not,how to fix it. That's what I learned real quick. I can make good ales with those cans,But I re-combine different extracts,hops,etc to get what I want them to be. Not exactly what they are. My gallery has some examples.
 
Agree with unionrdr... Keep the temp at 20* which shouldn't be tough.. I kept my DIY in a rope handled plastic bucket and had about 6 frozen water bottles that I rotated thru it to keep mine between 18 and 20*.

Pull the ring when all VERY active fermentation is done.. ie, when the krausen drops. There might still be a small ring of foam on top of the brew.. but that's the idea of the ring.. it adds a bunch of headspace so you don't get overflows of krausen such as the bottle and bucket brewers get.. when they blow their tops.. you sit back and smile with the DIY.. :D

Finally, if you followed the recipe with your "lager" ale.. you will get a watered down beer.. that's the problem with the kit.. or instructions.. IMO. The kit really needs to have about an added pound of light DME. It will be beer.. but, search the posts here.. unionrdr has made some nice posts where he has modified the kit to make better beer.

My "lager" turned out watery.. but, I'll likely do it again with additions to improve it.
 
This is my first home brew so I'm absorbing like a sponge here... :mug:

According to the Coopers directions the temps should be:
18 - 32 C = absolute limits
21 - 27 C = more effective

This is typical of what Coopers and most of the pre-hopped extract can kits advise. I've been trying to think why they would give that advise and I come up with 3 posibilities:

1. fast fermentation - this might make their product more sellable
2. fool-proof fermentation - your not likely to get a stuck fermentation if ferment in that range
3. higher temp fermentation might help make up for the small quantity of yeast provided. They provide 7g of yeast instead of the typically recommended 11g.

But when I've brewed their kits using their yeast I've gone to the low end of that recommendation - around 20C - and given it at least an extra week.
 
Thanks for the replies everybody!

I removed the collar, measured the gravity, and tasted the brew: it was so watery! I will let it sit for a few weeks and then bottle it for about a month, I want this to taste good.
 
Probably will stay watery.. but it's beer.. no sense in dumping it. I mentioned this earlier. Next time you use the kit.. or want to try coopers.. buy the extract and follow one of the suggestions made in other posts.. Using added LME or DME. If you use plain extract, you'll have to add hops, etc. Do a search on Coopers and you'll find a lot of suggestions.. and comments from folks who just plain don't like kits or extracts. And that's ok.
 
I did follow the Coopers instructions pretty good on this one except for one thing: I pitched the yeast at about 30*C when the highest temp recommended is 27*C. Could this be why the beer tastes watery?
 
OK - your beer has been fermenting what, 5 days now?

It's WAY too early to be worrying about how it tastes. What it tastes like now and what it will taste like when it's done will be two very different things.

Your yeast, even if it's fully fermented out, still needs to clean up any fermentation by-products that are still in your beer.

Your beer still needs to be carbonated (carbonation does incredible things for the mouthfeel of your beer - the moutfeel due to lack of carbonation is VERY often observed as a watery taste among new brewers).

Best bet, is to drop your ferment temps a bit (prolly too late for that now) and forget about that fermenter for another week, week and half at least. Then come back to it, bottle it up, and put those bottles away for another 3 weeks before you chill them and start tasting things. It's fine (even advisable, for educational purposes) to taste things along the way. But don't start to draw any conclusions until the beer is actually done!
 
No,that high of a temp should've given fusel alcohols,& other off flavors. Besides the fruity esters the yeast produces. Using plain sugar or dextrose will dry it out more & make it seem watery. Besides the fact that it's still green. Carbonation rounds things out with conditioning time.
But adding more malt extract & some hops to the Cooper's OS cans can make some darn good ales. Go to my recipes & check out Sunset Gold APA for an example of what I do. I'll post more when the recipes get tweaked at least one more time. They're pretty close to what I want now,but not quite there yet.
 
I don't know why Coops prints out those high temps. It might be a workable yeast at 21-27*.. but, at the high end.. prolly not recommended. When I bought my kit, I talked to makebeer.. the US distributor for Coops.. and he said no lower than 18*C.. but try to maintain between 18-21*.. which I did. It might work slower.. but, I think you will be more effective at those temps.

Others will comment if I'm wrong.. :)
 
Midwest carries the cooper's ale yeast,7g & 15g dry. Under the 15g's description it says it's good from 62F to 72F. Both packets are the same yeast. But I get good results from 18C to 22C,most often brew at 20C (68F).
 
I am new to brewing and have also just purchased a micro brew kit and would like to understand a few of the concepts that are being talked about here.

I do not understand what the krausen collar does. You mention that it does the same thing as an airlock, what function does an airlock do and how does this collar do a similar thing? Also, when the krausen subsides the collar needs to be removed, right? At the moment (24hrs after mixing) my brew has some white and creamish sort of bubbles on the top. Is this the Krausen, and will this go away after 24 hrs or so? then will i remove the collar? Also it was mentioned that removing the collar removes particles or debris etc, I do not understand how this collar will remove anything (or what it actually does) because it just fits into the sides of the barrel, eg there is no filter mechanism, and just extends the height of the barrel a bit.

Second question (which may seem stupid to seasoned brewers), is the coopers beer kit can a mixture of malt, hops and grains? What step in the brewing process is skipped by using this can? When you talk about extract brewing, is that when you purchase a malt extract and add your own hops and grains etc and boil it up.

Thank you very much for your advice, very sorry if this seems incredibly elementary, but im yet to acquire an understanding of brewing jargon and terms etc.
 
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