Hello, beer newb (come from winemaking angle) with first beer question

[Mumathomebrew]

Hello beery people.
I normally make country wines so I have a basic winemakers knowledge but no beer experience since a single bin batch many moons ago as a poor student.

I found an ancient Coopers real ale kit in the shed from 2011. I've set the yeast off in a starter bottle to see if there was any life left in it. As expected, it's pretty dormant but there is a tiny crackle or two so there maybe a shred of life life in there.... I'm waiting to see.

Question is... should I bother to see if this kit works? Will the must concentrate be 'off'?

I've always wanted to make beer. My 5 gallon carboy is vacant at the mo so I'm tempted to make this up with a lump of jaggery goor as I read that Coopers kits can be bland.

Do I boil the concentrate or not? The kit says not but online beer advice appears to be yes.
If this yeast is dead, then can I use a cider yeast or must I wait to get a beer yeast? I could pinch some from a craft beer or buy one online.

I'm here waiting to play with it and isn't working yet.... fairly expected but anyhow...

Would love an opinion or few. Thank you.

 

[Jag75]

Not sure I'd use it being that old . It's not worth the time imo . It may work but it may just be a waste of your time . You can get a kit for a decent price .

 

[TurnipGreen]

All of the above will yield beer to some level of quality.

Old malt will still ferment. I’ve gotten off flavors, sort of stale metalalic flavors from old malt. But I haven’t tried anything that old.

I would recommend you by some cheap, dry beer yeast on line. If the yeast does not take off and start fermenting you run the chance of a wild yeast filling that void.

You can use cider yeast, but yeasts for cider target a different sugars (I think, i’ve not done many ciders) To use yeast from a craft beer there would need to be sediment in your bottle and you’d want to build it up to a pitchable amount. That’s a lot of work.

Boiling off a kit will not make it taste better. So there’s no need especially it you are adding jaggery. It will make a higher gravity beer so you can if you want or just add less water.

You should definitely make this beer just for fun. Keep your expeditions low, but it will be beer. And report back how a really old kit turned out.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

The yeast has been sitting now since this morning and there is still no froth. Just about six lone crackles from some lonely yeasts trying hard to live....

I'll buy another sachet of yeast. I love playing with yeast so it's just a fun experiment. Beer making is so fast compared to wines.

 

[Jag75]

Try shaking the crap out of the yeast.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Thank you. It's in a milk bottle with kitchen towel over the top with an elastic band to stop visitors. I have given it yeast nutrient and a dash of lemon juice plus a good shake up. I have no idea if that's what you do to beer yeast but it usually works for tired wine yeast. I'm leaving it overnight to see. The few crackles are a bit lonely sounding now. If it isn't active by morning then it's a dead dodo.

What is the malt extract supposed to smell like when I do open it? Hoppy and caramel? What might I look for as a sign of very 'off' notes. Are they as correctable in beers as they are in wine?

 

[cswant88]

Use the kit and see how it turns out, but spend a few bucks and pick up a fresh packet of yeast, US-05 or something.

 

[TGFV]

While it could always go well, old LmE can have a variety of off flavours.

I made a batch of coopers that I couldn't read the timestamp on (thought was a month expired, turned out to be 3 years and a month) that I got from the person I bought my original gear from.

Tasted like burnt ball point pen.

But I also drank a beer I found from his old bottles thst was years old and tasted fine. So really it's no loss to try, just dump if it is crap.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Yeast starter is utterly separated and totally dead this morning as expected. I reckon it was slightly my fault a little for putting citrus and nutrient in it with a winemaker head on. In hindsight, making two or more starter bottles with it and treating them all slightly differently might have given it more of a sporting chance.

Had ordered a sachet of Muntons premium gold. Yeasts for beers is almost more of a minefield than yeasts for wines. I shall look for US-05 thank you.

I was also looking for either Wyeast thames valley 1275 or white labs WLPO23 because someone said they made something like a Fursty Ferret beer. However that will be far too ambitious for a first attempt with a nearly extinct malt extract... so maybe I'll try that second and do it properly. I can see where this will go. Good job I've only got one carboy (actually also two white brewing buckets).

Perhaps spring water or a filter will at least give all the other ingredients a chance to help if there's any help to be had. I have campden tablets too.

It's just got to be done to rule it out.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Did the coopers malt sachet with a jaggery cane sugar lump and some brand new muntons premium gold beer yeast using filtered tap water. Made it 20l instead of 23l to keep the hydrometer in the right beer starting place. It was at 30brix. Due to be bottled this Sunday. I was posting but inside a conversation and not on here. Beginner error.
At first

Now

Temp strip from a fish place

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Well I never. We've just bottled this into six large 2L water bottles and an assortment of wine and beer bottles. My husband was amazingly helpful (because it was beer and not wine perhaps)... Not just that, but his face upon tasting it, said it all. A huge smile appeared and he said "I've had worse at the pub". He was amazed it was so nice. I tasted it and it's very ale-ish with a citrussy bitter flavour. Still slightly fermenting I think, as we could see small bubbles still. It's not unlike bitters I've tasted before, but I'm not a beer drinker normally.
We shall be inviting beer drinkers who know what they like, to sample some and report back. Basically it seems to be highly drinkable.

Amazing!!!! So thank you all for your advice here, because it made it work.

Edit:- Tonight we tried re-bottling and putting sugar in a few to condition them. The taste is certainly beery but quite bitter. It'll be interesting to see if this thing smooths out over the next two weeks. I actually like that harsher bitterness but commercial beers do taste more sugary. I tried a tiny bit of fizzy water in to see what it would be like more carbonated and it was lighter and possibly nicer. The ones bottled in the 2l plastic water bottles have carbonated a little on their own 24 hours later. I'm quite scared of exploding bottles so am a bit nervous of conditioning in glass bottles. I've rescued some champagne bottles so maybe I'll bottle into those with corks instead. We don't possess a proper beer top sealer yet.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

20 litres of beer takes up oodles of bottles... I need to go and blag some proper beer bottles from the pub. What a laugh eh? Maybe a lager next time.

Question please. Should we condition it all whilst the yeast is hot to trot, or could we do it per bottle as we go along? Also if the plastic bottles get tight after conditioning, then should one release some gas or not? I've not dealt with fizzy brews before.

 

[ncbrewer]

Question please. Should we condition it all whilst the yeast is hot to trot, or could we do it per bottle as we go along? Also if the plastic bottles get tight after conditioning, then should one release some gas or not? I've not dealt with fizzy brews before.

I guess in theory you could prime a few bottles at a time, but I would have some concerns.

• Assuming you're fermenter has a spigot, cleaning and sanitizing it many times would be a lot of trouble and provide more chances for contamination. (If you plan to siphon, it seems totally impractical.)
• As you draw off the beer over time, the headspace is filling with air - oxidation would be likely.
• You would be forced to bottle prime rather than batch prime.
• As a practical matter, setting up to bottle several times would be tedious.
• Maybe it's just me, but I always feel that the first bottle filled gets more air because the wand starts off empty, and the beer flows and mixes with all this air.

Unless there is some specific problem with bottling all at once, I'd feel much better about one bottling day as opposed to several. (I've never tried a few at a time, so I could be wrong.)

As far as relieving the pressure on plastic bottles, it shouldn't be necessary - but that assumes the bottles can hold the pressure. If you have primed correctly and still release some gas, the beer will be under carb'd.

I hope this helps.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Thank you. Yes, it does help. They are now in the bottles with some bottle primed and some not. I primed in the plastic ones and the snap shut lid ones and put a cork type plug on one of the smaller bottles. If that small bottle blows then I'll know I've got bottle bombs likely.

I used those little long sachets of demerara sugar found in cafe's so I know each litre bottle is primed with the same amount. With the packet still on they weigh 2.7g.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Glad it turned out well! I have some suggestions to hopefully reduce the learning curve...

Oxidation: Oxygen is the enemy of beer. Use a proper airlock and avoid introducing oxygen as much as possible throughout the process with the exception of aeration before pitching. Beer doesn't age well because of oxidation.
Oxidation causes loss of flavors followed by a generally stale taste with flavors like wet cardboard or paper.
Although, I've heard that much or all of the commercial beer in the UK is oxidized, so maybe you wouldn't notice a problem regardless.

Temperature: Proper temperature control is one of the major aspects of brewing beer. Beer yeast are generally more sensitive than wine yeast.

Yeast: Always use beer yeast for beer. Wine yeast will not be able to ferment wort. Proper pitch rate produces quality beer.

Sanitation: Beer is WAY more prone to contamination than wine. Get a good no-rinse sanitizer and a good cleaning product and use them appropriately. Use good handling techniques as well to avoid introducing wild microbes.

Bottling: You definitely need beer bottles, caps, and a bottle capper. Most people enjoy carbonated beer and wine bottles aren't designed to hold pressure.
Most people prime and bottle the entire batch at once. A priming sugar calculator and scale for the sugar ensure the correct level of carbonation.
Make sure the beer is finished fermenting before you bottle, otherwise you risk gushing or exploding bottles. Use a hydrometer; never rely on bubbles.

Cheers

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

You’ve made beer! Congrats, and got a co-brewer in your hubby. The bitterness level in prehopped LME is always a guessing game. What they use how much etc. The bitterness is likely to mellow given some time, but I’m sure you know most beers are better when they are fresh. I don’t know what’s available to you as far as supplies, but plain extract that you could add hops to (and you would definitely boil) would give you creative control.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

It may have been the jaggery goor that added so much to the bitterness. I put it in there instead of the plain sugar that the kit suggested because I'd read somewhere online that the Coopers kits can be uninteresting at full dilution. Strange how nowhere in proper beer recipes does neat sugar get mentioned much. Wonder why kits use it.

I tasted some jaggery again on its own and tried to imagine it without the super sweetness. It certainly has a citrussy/bitter background. I actually like it but it does seem to have made more of a dark bitter and not a light ale. It's certainly a useful flavour tool for future reference. I've been testing it in fruit wines too.

 

[TGFV]

It may have been the jaggery goor that added so much to the bitterness. I put it in there instead of the plain sugar that the kit suggested because I'd read somewhere online that the Coopers kits can be uninteresting at full dilution. Strange how nowhere in proper beer recipes does neat sugar get mentioned much. Wonder why kits use it.

I tasted some jaggery again on its own and tried to imagine it without the super sweetness. It certainly has a citrussy/bitter background. I actually like it but it does seem to have made more of a dark bitter and not a light ale. It's certainly a useful flavour tool for future reference. I've been testing it in fruit wines too.

Most kits don't use sugar anymore, or atleast as much.

For the most part home brewers feel sugar is a cheap way to make beer and that it results in it becoming "cidery" tasting.

Unless you are talking about Belgian beers, or invert sugar, or British Brown ales. Then they are either mandatory or some sort of amazing ingredient.

Truth is though, all white sugar does is dry out the ale and leave it with a higher abv.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

I wandered into the brew cupboard and found this unconditioned jaggery beer still sitting there waiting. We tried a bottle last night and it's a very bitter sort of bitter but not fizzy. Not unpleasant but quite tart with a citrussy, hoppy finish to my unbeertrained palate. So today I decided to condition the two x 2l plastic bottles with 14g of sugar each....

....and i've just found out how to make a volcano. Quite funny. Is that a rite of passage?

Managed to keep my hand on most of it and called a son to help me get the lid back on. Did the second in the sink. Late conditioning that will either improve the beer or ruin it. I'm too scared to put sugar in the ones bottled in the screw top wine bottles. I'll wait for some vacant beer bottles and a proper bottler if this works.

 

[Mumathomebrew]

Got a proper capping gadget so we glued the sugar lumps onto the lids first. Cap was on before the volcano could happen.

First proper beer. Its very bitter and has an odd fruity twang to it. Probably funky too, but hubby and oldest son think it's great for a first go. Somehow it looks properly convincing in a bottle. It actually isn't too bad. A dark hoppy bitter.