Beer did not turn out can someone help me?

[jig4fish]

I used Coopers Lager and 2 pounds of organic corn sugar.
It had one week in primary and two weeks in secondary fermenting.
It has been bottled three weeks than one week in the frig with little carbination and taste very bitter. Anyone have ideas as to why this is?

 

[JAG410]

Batch size? Hops? Gravities? Yeast? More details will get you better answers.

 

[jig4fish]

5 gallons , no hops added, 1.400 s. g. 1.013 f.g. the yeast came with kit temp 68- 71 the hold time.

 

[beerthirty]

Let it sit another couple weeks. I'm guessing the kit had prehopped extract. Give it some time and taste again, I don't even bother tasting until week 5 of aging.

 

[bell0347]

I am far from an expert but most lagers are meant to be lagered or cold conditioned usually for an extended period of time. The yeast is also designed to be used in this fashion. Perhaps putting those bottles in the fridge for several weeks might help? Just kind of guessing here, never brewed a lager.

Also, next time, use DME or another can of extract instead of the sugar. If you want to lighten up the beer some you can replace up to a pound or so with rice syrup or corn syrup.

 

[beerthirty]

oops, I missed the lager part. Lagers are meant to be fermented at about 55* for extended periods of time. From what you posted you treated it as an ale. Steam beer is the only lager that is ale fermented that I know of. Lagers use a bottom fermenting yeast that IIRC is much less flocculent than most ale yeasts. At this point if it were me I would try what bell suggested which should help the remaining yeast drop out of suspension. The beer will clear up and you should get a layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. Pour slowly to avoid disturbing the yeast and see what it taste like.

 

[Yooper]

I think there is a misunderstanding here. I'm not really all that familiar with the Coopers Lager kit, but my understanding is that it's not really a lager. It's an ale kit, using corn sugar for much of the fermentables.

A couple of reasons that it may not be very good, in my opinion:
1. The fermentation temperature was higher than about 65-68 degrees. Their instructions call for too-high temperatures, to ensure fermentation, and that causes off-flavors.

2. Corn sugar in the amount of 2 pounds means that nearly half of the fermentables came from the sugar. That's not going to taste very good, but it's cheap and easy. Especially if fermented at a higher temperature, it can taste pretty bad.

It might mellow out some. Let it sit for another couple of weeks at a decent room temperature (not too hot but in the 60s would be great) and then try one in about three weeks.

Next time, try using a different kit, or using more extract instead of so much corn sugar. That will give better results.

 

[PavlovsCat]

My first kit was a German Pilsner, which is a lager, but the instructions said nothing about ferm at lower temps, so it was either an ale, just labeled as a lager, or it was a common. It fermented at my co-brewer's house in his bedroom, and his wife wouldn't let the thermostat go below 75! So the actual fermentation temp was probably over 80. After I started reading about brewing beer, I really fretted about this. That is until I got a taste of the finished product. It was very tasty, clear with good head retention, and no off flavors that I could tell at the time. ABV was 7 %. So it just proves what everyone on this forum tells you. Relax, wait it out, brew another batch in the meantime, don't worry, and have a home brew. If you don't have one yet, support the craft brew industry.

I second Yooper about the corn sugar. I think in Palmer's book in the first chapter or so, he warns of kits with sugar substitutions instead of more malt for the fermentables.

 

[nallanrex]

I've brewed this kit a few times. It is not a real lager. The kit comes with Coopers Ale yeast.

I've done it with corn sugar and drank it within a couple months. Ive also done it with malt extract instead of corn sugar. I let those sit for a long time and the bitterness subsided (7months). The bitterness was still there but was more of a woody flavor. I don't know how well it ages with corn sugar though, but this bitterness is normal for the kit.(Ive done 3 coopers lager kits. A friend of mine has been brewing them for 8 years. Always has that bitterness.)

You should really try making a extract beer by boiling your own hops. It makes all the difference in the world. You'll go from making ok homebrew to "best homebrew I ever had.":rockin:



-Nick

 

[Eves]

nallanrex is right about the Coopers Lager kit coming with ale yeast. It is designed for ale fermentation temps. The use of corn sugar isn't a bad thing. But it is less than ideal. When you switch to a better beer enhancer (DME + dextrose) things get better. ANd then of course switching to DME only is even better.

I have to ask: Did you carb with the Coopers Carb tabs, Munton carb tabs, priming/corn sugar....? My experience with both Cooper and Munton carb tabs left me with bottles that were rarely carbed well (though I liked Coopers tab slightly better). Muntons tabs often didn't carbed well and left little bits of the tablets floating in the bottles. Coopers tabs often lost their outer layer of sugar and no two Coopers tablets were the same size. Leaving me wondering how any bottle carbed with them could end up with the same level of carbonation.

Anyways... If you did use the carb tablets I am going to bet that your beer's carbonation will improve when you move on to bottling with priming sugar. And if you've already been doing that...well...then I don't know what the problem could be.