Coopers Lighting Strike Summer Ale

[RobShamrock]

Well gang, I've well and truly got the bug, now onto my 3rd brew already,

1st brew is being consumed a Coopers IPA straight kit just used LME and its great really enjoying it,
a bulldog imperial red cat is conditioning away in bottles i predict its going to need a fair bit to be drinkable being high in alcohol

so wanting to keep momentum i stumbled across this recipe while browsing the web and decided I liked the sound of it

so ordered up all the ingredients and started it last night.

a Coopers Lighting Strike Summer Ale

http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/82/

now after the two farily straight forward kits above I' know i made a few school boy errors last night

firstly i was under some time presssure mistake no.1.  and I was also baking with my 8yr at the same time.

Now if you read the recipe I didnt have a big enough pot, but I dont think thats going to impact the boiling and adding of the first batch of hops, I think I managed that alright in a smaller pot and followed that instruction fairly well.
I will admit my daughter was not at all pleased with helping with the hops or there smell !!

Next problem and lesson learned was I had some clumping of the DME when adding to the fermentor, and while I managed to be fairly patient and remove a most of them a few did remain (see mistake no.1 time pressure) so any advice offered regards clumping appreciated (can I use LME next time)

mistake no. 3, while rushing to get all tasks completed I read the yeast instructions and not the coopers instructions and rehydrated the yeast as per the yeast instructions while coopers said just add the dry yeast. This schoolboy reading error I'm guessing is not going to be too much of a problem as long as I didnt make a bags of the rehydrating (no thermometer)

pitched a right temp etc so hoping for the best

mistake no.4 - forgot to take an OG, again time pressure and rushing, but no big deal.


also the vacum packed hops I've left over how can i store these and how long will they last for for another brew day

so some valuable lessons learned for an early beginner


ohh another mistake I made right at the start, I forgot to open a home-brew to drink at the very start of brewing - my biggest mistake I think !!!!!!!!!!

any advice appreciated

thanks

R

[LordEoin]

Good job RobShamrock. It can be tricky brewing with a kid under foot

Stirring the DME in always clumps for me, but the clumps will dissolve and get eaten up by the yeast anyway, so all it affects is your OG reading.
To avoid clumping DME, put the DME into a dry FV and then add your hot water (about 2L). Pick it up and swirl it until the DME is dissolved.
Alternate direction occasionally. Then add your kit extract and swirl this in. Finally rinse out your can with any and add this in. Swirl or stir until it's all dissolved and then continue with the cold water.

You should be fine with your yeast regardless of whether you pitched dry or rehydrated. Don't worry about it so long as the temperature is good.

Guess the OG or if you stuck to the recipe, just take their OG.

Push out as much air as possible from the hop bag and stick it in a ziplock sandwich bag. Put it in the freezer until you'll use it.


Not having a homebrew while all this happened is unforgivable though. Get out and never come back!

[RobShamrock]

I promise to never let it happen again !!!  in fact I'll drink two during the next brew day, the missus is flabergasted at all my efforts !!, shall freeze up the remaing hops this eveing and ta for the advice

[oinkely]

That is the recipe I was going to do next, having done two of the craft range kits to date.  Sounds like it is a simple enough process, and I have a 10 litre pot so should be good.

It will be two weeks before i can start on it though as i have to wait for the current kit to be evicted from the fermenter. 

Keep us updated on your progress, interested to see how it goes.

cheers

[johnrm]

DME always clumps, just dissolve in boiling water but watch for boilovers!

[RobShamrock]

its tipping away nicely, felt it was slow to start compared to others I've done but receipe stated lower temp which thankfully with the month in it the room is helping me out with, with my time brew-belt on i've been pretty steady around 20c, will give it another week before I test gravity but will leave for min. two weeks probably bit longer as I started on a weekday and will most likely bottle on a saturday

[oinkely]

ordered all the ingredients for this brew recently, so as soon as i have the current batch out of the fermenter I'll be giving this a whirl.
I'll read the mistakes above first again though!

[oinkely]

Quick question on this one:

Did you use the yeast pack that came with the Coopers Blonde Can or did you get a seperate one?

I ordered all the bits (except the yeast) as I was planning to use the coopers kit yeast?

Any ideas if this will be up to the task?

thanks

[RobShamrock]

Sorry mate been so busy havent been online, I ordered a seperate yeast as per the coopers instructions, I actually bottled it up on Easter Saturday, was a bit disappointed I was short on bottles and ended up chucking about 8/9 500ml bottles worth down the drain, did a batch prime for first time after siphoning off to a secondary so hoping it'll be good to go in about 3 weeks

[RobShamrock]

Finally had a few of these  in bottle since 4th April so still young but absolutely delicious    best brew I've done yet

[oinkely]

that looks great.
have to get mine brewed up......

[Drzava]

That looks flipping tasty!

[oinkely]

Just got my attempt at this recipe into the fermenter.  Went well, but did get a lot of dme clumping too.  Also, took my eye off the pot of dme at the start and had a lovely sticky boil over mess to clean up.

I used the yeast that came with the coopers can so hopefully it will be up to the job.

Have it sitting in the basement with an ebay brew belt hooked up to an stc1000 that I wired up last night, thanks to lordeoins instructions. Have it set at 18 degrees which should be achievable in the basement. 

I'll check it for action in a day or two and then ignore it for two weeks. I'll aim to bottle it the weekend after two weeks in the fermenter.

[RobShamrock]

Good on ya  have to say it's the best kit I've done from the three I've done the last couple months had another few during the week and finding them as good as anything you can buy  bursting to get going again but have communion coming soon and not a decent spot with temp. considerations to brew

[oinkely]

I happened to come across the instructions that came with the Kit of Blonde ale and they say the yeast is happiest from 20 to 23 or something like that.  So i have been upping the temp on the STC1000 by a half degree each day for the last few days to bring it up to 20.  Hopefully it will work out well.  there is a good ring of krausen around the top of the fermenter and lots of condensation inside the lid so something is happening anyway.