Australian beginners looking for tips

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BMBARON

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A couple of beer brewing beginners from Australia just looking for any helpful tips. Were on to our third brew at the moment were using a 30 liter fermentor and basic 'coopers home brew' (the syrup stuff) etc. we have been letting it ferment for about 7 days then bottling and have been told to leave it in the bottles for 3 weeks so we currently have a week left till we can apparently drink our first batch.
We are hoping for any advice to help make some good tasting beer, thanks
 
My first advise move over the ditch :D

Joking aside, did you get a hydrometer with your kit? If not buy one, if you did use it. Most people round here say ferment until the gravity is stable over 2 days (usually takes about 5-7 days to ferment out) then leave it in the fermenter for another 5ish days to clean up any off flavours that might of been produced. Then bottle for 3 weeks.
Bottling without checking the gravity is stable leads to the risk of bottle bombs (hopefully after 7 days you had fermented out so don't panic too much).
Since it is summer down here try keep the fermenter cool, Cooper's state to keep it between 21-27 °C but that just so it ferments fast and can give off flavours. Try keep it around 20 °C, most use a tub of water and a T-shirt to help keep the temp down a bit (some even throw frozen milk/water bottles in to help)
I am guessing you are using the can + 1 kg sugar as suggested? One of the first things I did was try out toucan brews (2 can), basically 2 cans of hopped malt extract with no sugar, depending on the kit you might get a bit to much bitterness but the simplest one would be 2 lager cans (the plain green ones) to make a 23 ltr batch.

Other than that if you really can't wait, throw a couple of those first batch (or even 2nd batch ;)) in the fridge and give them a try. Its not like they magically go fromt asting crap to awesome the day it hits 3 weeks, it's a gradual thing - worst come to worst you will know what "green" beer taste like :)
Good luck & welcome :mug:
 
BMBARON said:
A couple of beer brewing beginners from Australia just looking for any helpful tips. Were on to our third brew at the moment were using a 30 liter fermentor and basic 'coopers home brew' (the syrup stuff) etc. we have been letting it ferment for about 7 days then bottling and have been told to leave it in the bottles for 3 weeks so we currently have a week left till we can apparently drink our first batch.
We are hoping for any advice to help make some good tasting beer, thanks

G'day mate and welcome to HBT,
try to get the book "how to brew" by John palmer,it's really helpful and explain all the process of brewing beer with nice recipes.
I started to brew 3 months ago and thanks to this book and the recipe section on HBT I'm brewing better beers each batch.
Leave your brew at least 2 weeks in the fermenter and at least 2 weeks in the bottles( 3 or 4 weeks is the best)...
 
Thanks guys, we do have a hydrometer and we got consistent readings but they were low (about 1010-1020) and then we bottled, both bottled brews were in the fermentor for a total of 7 days. Up until we found this site we had herd nothing about leaving it in the fermentor after getting consistent readings for another 5 or so days but our 3rd batch has been fermenting for almost 4 days now so we will leave it sitting longer than the last two.

We have been trying to keep the beer in the fermentor at 24 degrees and have been using a heat belt at night to maintain that, so is this unnessercary, we live in the blue mountains and even know its summer it can get cold at night
 
We have been trying to keep the beer in the fermentor at 24 degrees and have been using a heat belt at night to maintain that, so is this unnessercary, we live in the blue mountains and even know its summer it can get cold at night

I'm not familiar with Cooper's, but that fermentation temperature seems too warm - most people ferment typical ales at more like 18-20º C (64-68º F), although Palmer does say "A warmer temperature of 75º F (24º C) is OK, but above 80º F (26º C) the flavor of the beer will be affected." During the most active part of the fermentation, I keep the fermenter in an ambient temp. of 17-19º C, letting it warm a little (to about 20º C or so) as activity dies down.

Palmer's "How to Brew" is an excellent resource - the first edition is available on-line, but the more up-to-date third edition is worth buying.

http://www.howtobrew.com/
 
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