Any idea's with whats happening?

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Bigniall666

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Hey

So there on Christmas day, i started a new batch of beer from a coopers larger kit, everything was sanitized correctly and aeration was done on the wort also. im using a 5 gallon food grade plastic fermentor, with spigot and and airlock ( a strange 2-piece one). the only variations to the recipee on the can was that i used 500g of DME and 500g of Dextrose, with an additional 100g of Maltodextrin. the yeast was not pre rehydrated, just pitched dry at 22 degrees celcius, the brew has dropped in temperature from 22 degrees to 18 degrees in the past 80 hours approximately.

initially i got some CO2 production, with the formation of small infrequent air-bubbles, as in i would come back after a day and there would be maybe a dozen little bubbles in the airlock.

for the past 3 days i had a layer of foam approximately 1.5 inches thick on the top of the brew, and today it has disappeared am still getting the small bubbles.

is my brew F***ed?? any idea's?
 
Sounds like normal fermentation to me. Just let it sit and take a gravity reading in a few weeks. If it's where it should be, check it again in a few days to make sure it hasn't gone down more. If it hasn't, then bottle away.
 
cheers,

still a bit worried about it, i've been reading around that larger yeasts are supposed to be pitched and fermented at much lower temperatures but on the instructions provided with the kit is says to pitch much higher, 18-28 degrees C.
 
You not have actual lager yeast. I did a quick search and it appears Coopers may mix a lager and ale strain together. The reason being new folks to the hobby may not have the equipment to lager.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/coopers-lager-kit-151614/
The yeast is a "combined lager/ale yeast" according to someone @ Coopers that I emailed last year. They do that because the average new brewer would have trouble with maintaining Lager temps for fermenting. I usually used whatever they included in the kits.

Heritage Lager is provided with a blend of two strains of yeast - one a
lager and the other an ale. The ale yeast will stall below 16C, after
pitching at 22C allow the temperature of the brew to fall no lower 18C.

Cheers,

Frank Akers
Home Brew Advisor
Coopers Brewery
Adelaide, SA
 
That was the 1st brew I did,since it came with my cooper's micro brew kit. I used the cooper's brewing sugar it came with,80% dextrose,20% maltodextrin. I got about the same amount of krausen since I pitched dry. You'll be fine as long as brew temps don't get too high. The OS lager comes with their common ale yeast. It's the heritage lager that has the mix,while the Thomas Cooper's selection has a lager yeast.
Here's an interesting story with the recipe I came up with for my wife's 2nd brew. I thought to clone Sam Adam's summer ale with the cooper's OS lager as a base. it used;
1) cooper's OS lager can
1lb Munton's plain light DME
1lb Munton's plain wheat DME
1oz US Golding hops,raw @ 20mins
1oz Willamette hops,raw @ 12 minutes
7g packet cooper's ale yeast,re-hydrated in 2C cooled boiled water with 1tsp dextrose.
Primed with 4.7oz dextrose in 2C boiled/cooled water with 12 packets "Trulemon" crystals (equals 6TBSP fresh juice)
After 4 weeks,5 days at room temp,8 days in fridge,even my son agreed it tasted almost exactly like Leinenkugel's summer shandy. Oh well,that's good too. Ya don't always get what ya want,but still something good!
 
ok so, herein lies the problem so, we all know too high and the yeast will die, too low and the yeast will become dormant, at the moment the brew is maintaining at 18 degrees C ( 64.5F) should i adjust the temperature up or down or just leave it the way it is?

Its Gas, this is my first homebrew of beer, but i've done pilot scale all grain brews and remember it being alot easier to figure out whats going on! lol
 
I would leave the temp alone.

If I remember correctly Fermentation creates its own heat so the beer will be a few degrees warmer.
 
Oh Just while im on

could anyone identify this type of airlock? its strange i've seen s-types and 3 piece, but this?

2 piece airlock

can anyone suggest the best way to use it? the lid has no holes in it to allow excess CO2 to escape
 
That is just another design for an air lock. Probably easy to manufactor than the 3 pieces ones.
 
Looks like a variation of the 3 piece airlock common over here. But the "cap" is part of the center piece that looks to float up & down with escaping co2 pressure.
 
That is why I use blow off valves.

CIMG0112.jpg
 
ha ha ha, i've had nothing as vigorous as that, it is simple and all that, but as regards krausen, i really don't know if i've had any,there was a bit of gas build up under the lid, that was evident, but as regards to actual bubbles you see in other airlocks, i havent had anything similar yet anyway.

i'll see if i can post a picture if i can get my phone to connect to this damn laptop
 
Just an update,

just took a hydrometer reading, its now at 1.012, down from 1.042, it will be left to finish and clear for a few weeks while i'm away.

had a wee taste, the flavours just need to settle down a bit, but she aint turned to vinegar yet anyway :)
 
Are you really in Kilkenny? I have to ask ... why are you brewing a Coopers Lager Kit? Won't they take your citizenship away? :)
 
Are you really in Kilkenny? I have to ask ... why are you brewing a Coopers Lager Kit? Won't they take your citizenship away? :)

Yeah i'm really in kilkenny, i live about 10 mins walk from the St. Francis Abbey Brewery.

unfortunately i'm only brewing from kit at the moment due to lack of funds to make myself a mashtun, and get a grain mill, hopefully in a couple of months i will be able to sort it out. this coopers kit came with my current brew kit, with a kilo of dextrose, but i used 500g light DME, 500g Dextrose, and 100g Maltodextrin with the kit, its not too bad.

and no they wont take my citizenship away lol!
 
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