Aroxa “beer uno kit” – an evening of tainted Budweiser

Aroxa Uno kit

Aroxa Uno kit

I bought this Aroxa “beer uno kit” last year. They’re designed to make a litre of tainted beer per capsule so it seemed rather wasteful doing it with just Kat and I so we sat on the kit for a little while until we could organise an appropriate get-together (Note: BBE date on kit was July 2014 and kit was kept in a cool & dry spot). Eventually we managed to get a couple of other people involved and we did the tasting on Wednesday March 13, kindly hosted by The Table in Cambridge. It’s a pity we didn’t have a few more folk, but alas I don’t actually have that many beer-chums in Cambridge. (I should have popped down to North Herts for this I suppose.)

Bud!

Bud!

In the end our tasting panel consisted of Bob Arnott, Andrea from The Table, Kat and myself – plus a random chap who popped in for a coffee and tasted a couple of samples. I rocked up with 2 boxes of Budweiser (much to the amusement of one of the regulars), my own jug, and some plastic sample “glasses”. The Table folk provided water and some palate-cleansing plain bread.

The Table is on busy Regent Street – it has a huge plate-glass window and we were using the eponymous large central table. I definitely got some funny looks from passers by… twisting open colourful medicine-like gelcaps and pouring their content into a jug, whilst surrounded by cans of Bud…

Unboxing

Aroxa uno - Unboxed

Aroxa uno – Unboxed

The Aroxa kit is beautifully packaged. I appreciate the quality and look of it but do wonder how much it adds to the price. What you get for your money includes great presentation and plenty of information.

Want even more information? There’s a QR code on each card leading to the Aroxa page for the flavour. I’d thought at first this could be a useful tool for presenting the information on a large screen… but the format isn’t really right for that, it is also a bit of a drawback that the pages on the Aroxa site really don’t work well on small screens.

There is an instruction card which is clear enough. The only note I’d make is that some of the capsules were quite difficult to open… not so simple as “twist off top”. Half of them needed a firmer grip and a bit of a squeeze to loosen. I gave in and had to rip the top off one capsule.

I poured everyone a “control” glass of Bud, and then we worked through the flavours in the order listed in the box…

Budalicious!

Budalicious!

2,3-butanedione – Diacetyl – “like butter, or butter popcorn”

A classic? Also much debated – most brewers I know seem to hate even trace diacetyl, due to it being an indicator for a pile of sloppy practices. However as the notes for this one say, it is sometimes considered appropriate in some styles of beer. I have also heard it asserted by some brewers that this is total garbage.

All a matter of taste? Sometimes when you’re tasting beer and this one comes up you’ll overhear someone say what a wonderful butterscotch note it has – or what a great buttery mouthfeel. They love it – and this is not uncommon.

Diacetyl has interested me for a long while as it is much discussed and I’ve never been sure if I’m detecting it properly. All of us had some trouble picking this one up on the nose although I think it was pretty distinct on an initial short-sharp snort for me. In the mouth the difference was clear – albeit the taint quite light (according to all of us). The Bud had an added mouthfeel and even umami from the diacetyl. I think we all thought it was actually better than plain Bud!

dimethyl sulphide – DMS – “like sweetcorn or tomato sauce”

Another one commonly talked about – usually in the context of lagers. Not one I’ve given much thought to and I don’t think I’ve ever detected it distinctly in any beer – I don’t drink much lager in general.

Like the diacetyl we all had trouble picking this up distinctly on the nose – but there seemed to be something there. To me the first sip of the tainted beer was “horrid” – from my notes. And correct to its reputation – creamed sweetcorn I thought. The horridness quickly dissipated however, and a couple of sips later it was in “I could drink it” territory.

I really don’t know about the “tomato sauce” element to this. But I’m not really a user of tomato sauce.

ferrous sulphate – Metallic – “like ink or blood”

This one I know mostly from times when I open a bottle and sadly note a bit of rust around the top. Bad quality caps? I clean the rust off and hope the taint isn’t in the beer – invariably it is.

The taint gave the Bud a sharp astringent aroma, although only lightly so. On taste it was immediately obvious – and pretty undrinkable to all of us… except for a random chap who’d wandered in for coffee. I gave him a sample of this and of plain Bud and he preferred the ferrous sulphate tained one. So there you go… no accounting for taste.

I don’t drink ink, and only have a passing familiarity with blood – but yes, there’s a definite resemblance to the latter. More so iron nails – ever do some woodwork and for lack of a better option hold some nails in your lips? That. It might also be akin to heavily tannic wines.

hop oil extract – Hop oil – “like hoppy ale”

We weren’t sure what to expect from “hop oil” – given this is a bit of powder in a capsule we weren’t really expecting “hoppy” in the modern sense. And it wasn’t – it was a bit odd really.

This one divided us a bit. I got a peppery thing on the nose, not unlike some hop notes – but it really didn’t agree with my mouth. There was a pepper/resin hint but mostly a horrid sort of crushed-ant formaldehyde/plasticy thing at the back of my mouth and up the nasal passages. I found it quite unpleasant. On my side was the random ferrous sulphate lover… odd.

Kat and Bob didn’t mind this one so much, definitely seeming to have enjoyed it at first. Kat says that for her it built up from being OK to being unpleasant.

I’m not sure what the use of this flavour standard is… it didn’t give me an experience akin to anything I’ve had with a beer before. The card says “like hoppy ale”… hmmm.

hydrogen sulphide – H2S – “like boiled or rotten eggs”

The classic “Burton snatch” – the struck match of a Burton ale. I found this pretty much clear and as expected on the nose, albeit a bit on the stronger side than usual. Funnily enough it seemed to improve the beer in the mouth – adding an umami not otherwise present, that fended off the bland sweetness of Bud.

A pretty simple one really – although Bob found it at odds with his typical experience of classic Burton ales such as White Shield (which he drinks a lot of because as well as being a good beer the bottles are great for homebrew – labels come off with ease… noted!) I’ll grab some White Shield next time I see it… for “research” purposes. Bob also suggested trying Adnams Southwold Bitter for similar “research” reasons. (Both are beers I’ve had in the past – but not recently, and very infrequently.)

Personally this one hit home, reminiscent of beers for which I’ve often remarked “this seems heavily Burtonised”. Although I probably have my finger on the wrong button there as the sulphury note is probably caused by other problems.

isoamyl acetate – “like bananas or pear drops”

Yep, banana. Pretty distinctive… and really very odd to drink Bud with this taint alongside normal Bud. It really could have been a crappy Kristallweizen!

Not much else to add… flavour wise just a bit too lolly-banana compared to the real thing, but this is probably because it lacked other flavour elements of a proper wheat beer. Pear drops? I’ve never had one. I must find some to enhance my flavour education because this is used a lot in flavour descriptors. Albeit Bob and Andrea didn’t seem to get much of a pear drop note out of this one – it was all banana.

3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol – Light-struck – “like a skunk or freshly-brewed coffee”

This was an interesting one for all of us. A much discussed beer problem and one we all think we know – but without certainty. How many Brits have sniffed a skunk?

Immediately and distinctly obvious on even “arms length” aroma. I got strong whiffs of it as I prepared the tainted beer. And it really is that “supermarket lager” smell… you know, typical multinational brand clear and green glass sort of stuff. Now I’ve had it confirmed I know I’ve smelt this many many times before.

The taint even came through pretty strongly in the mouth for all of us – which I think isn’t usual when present in beer. None of us really “got used to it” either.

Skunks I don’t know… and whoever thinks freshly brewed coffee smells like this really needs to buy better coffee. Yuck! All of us were drinkers of good coffee in various formats, and we were sitting in a good coffee shop – the opinion on this was unanimous. However – the strong aroma gave me an immediate shot of nostalgic recollection. It’s a smell I’ve come across bushwalking back home in Western Australia. But from what? I think it is particular to scrubby coastal area. Most likely a particular plant. Sort of a heavy musky animal aroma.

trans-2-nonenal – Papery – “like cardboard or oxidized beer”

Ahhh… all cask ale drinkers know this one far too well. Sadly. It is a serious problem in UK “real ale” drinking, oxidation is rife in cask ale.

Yet I drink with folk who’ll happily down several pints of a really quite nastily oxidised beer and claim it is wonderful. Then there are the ones who’ll drink a good hop-forward golden ale and claim it “nasty” but love it when it is still on three days later because it has “smoothed out” and “mellowed”. Ah, anyway, enough of a rant.

On the nose this was pretty typical and what I expected. In the mouth *POW* … yuck. Worse than I’ve ever found in a beer, thankfully. It was pure “wet cardboard” – the flavour sense directly akin to a strong wet cardboard aroma.

2,4,6-trichloroanisole – Musty – “like corked wine or a damp cellar”

A slight odd-one-out being a taint none of us had really heard much about before. “Musty” beer?

The aroma was distinct and horrible. Mildew. Damp. I took a sip. I spat it out. Disgusting. It was like drinking the smell of damp. Retch. Quoting Bob: “Fuck, that is revolting!

In the distant past I’ve done a wine tasting and sales course and had to taste corked wine. And yes, quite similar – horrible mouldy flavour. Sometimes well hidden in big strong reds, but distinct if you know what you’re looking for. Thankfully I have never had this in a beer, and I hope that remains the case. However I do think I’ve had very similar in several ciders. Cider is a minefield of horrible flavours.

4-vinyl guaiacol – Phenolic – “like cloves or wheat beer”

On name alone this didn’t come out as we expected. In the beer world “phenolic” tends to be use a lot to describe smoky flavours, we were thinking Islay whisky – “yay” thought me, and “yuck” thought Bob. It’s Islay versus Speyside – I’m firmly in the Islay camp.

However – this is a different phenol, much to Bob’s relief. The aroma was a bit Belgian, and the flavour more so. Whilst the notes say a signature of German-style Wheat beers Bob though more Wit than Wheat. I thought Hoegaarden – so that’s about right.

This is another one that made the beer more palatable to me, even if in a very odd “flavoured beer” sort of way. As for “cloves” – I’m not so sure, maybe lightly so but with a slight coriander seed element, or that could just be some associative memory. I’m the sort of weirdo who will occasionally fish a clove out of the spice cupboard to chew on, so as a flavour I know it very well.

Wrap Up

Finished...

Finished…

All up this was an excellent fun exercise. I think if you have 8 or so folk in a homebrew club, or similar, it would be well worth splitting up the cost of a kit a like this and giving it a go. For some this will just be for confirmation and thus confidence… yes, that really is “skunk”, etc. For others it might be a bit more eye-opening. The advantage of having at least 8 people is that it won’t cost you much more than a tenner each. Not bad for the experience.

However – a single pass like this is fun and interesting, but I don’t feel it is enough. If I had such a club of people I’d try to arrange four dates and get four kits. Do the first run and then do a series of blind tastings. Really lock in some certainty. It’d still cost you less than 50 quid per person – if you’re a flavour and beer nerd like me that’s money well spent I reckon. I’m not personally sure the 10 flavours in the Aroxa kit are ideal though – and I’d carefully consider the competition, FlavorActiV is a bit more expensive but has a different set of flavours and also a 20-flavour kit. And I could really have done without that “mouldy” 2,4,6-trichloroanisole … despite hardly putting any in my mouth I thought I could still taste it an hour later. [Edit: Rich of The Beer Cast has now written up his experience with FlavorActiV kit – check it out for a comparison!]

A brief discussion was had about whether or not you could do this sort of thing as a paid-for gig. A format involving sampling tainted beer followed by some good beers and food would be the way to go we thought. But what would people pay? Probably not enough… the 10-flavour Aroxa kit is £82.80 (FlavorActiV do a similar one for £96 inc-VAT), the required 11 litres of Budweiser (or similar) is about £25, add in some food and decent beer at a price of, say, £15 per head … assuming 8 to 10 people you have a per-head cost range of £25-£30 quid. Would someone pay £50 for a session like this? (First test: would I? I’m not sure. I’d probably consider it… but then I’m a beer nerd, I’m shelling out much more to do a 2-day Beer Academy course.) Maybe with the good food and beer split out of the price as an optional “good food and beer will be available to purchase after” – and thus a price for just the tasting of about £35?

Thanks once again to The Table for providing space (and bread) for the tasting session. Do visit them – they have great food, excellent coffee, and also some tasty beers in the fridge. We were mighty glad to cleanse our tastebuds with some Pressure Drop and Five Points brews after the session.

Five Points - Hook Island Red

Five Points – Hook Island Red

 

 

 

 

Y-Brew 0x04 – Dark Elder Saison

This post is an account of my fourth fumbling attempt to get into homebrew – yielding a drinkable, dark, rich beer; albeit a slightly odd one. Otherwise this is a not-very-exciting log of the creation of Y-Brew 0x04 – Dark Elder Saison. It’s actually a bit messed up and when I next try a similar thing I’ll be doing it completely differently!

Cooper's Stout Tin

OK, only the 4th brew in – but went a bit “silly” for this one back in July. The nucleus for this is a can of Cooper’s “Stout” (yes, from the local Tesco-megahypermart I’m afraid) – but I mixed it up big time. Steeped grains, weird yeast, and an odd ingredient. I bought a vial of liquid White Labs Saison II yeast with this crazy thing in mind. The poor beasties were cultured up once in sugar for an elderflower fizz, then some of them split off this culture were then cultured up in dark DME and put in the fridge for a couple of weeks until 16:00 Saturday July 20th, when I started it culturing again in another 1.5l ~1040 batch of dark DME. By 16:00 the next day I had a thick layer of yeasty beasties ready to play…

The weekend before doing the brew Kat had harvested some elderflowers and made a tea, which has been sitting in the fridge for a week steeping. (I was away on my sudden, unexpected, EBBC trip.) The tea had a particularly “herbal tea”-ish flavour with a distinct but not really punchy elderflower note. There was about 800ml of this tea. A “secret ingredient”?

This was my first attempt to brew using some real malts and grains using a “steeped grain” method to get colour and flavour, with the fermentables coming from the kit-tin and some added dark DME to boost the ABV of the final beer. This is also the first time I’ve tried using a brew-calculator, specifically the Brewer’s Friend website – so the full “recipe” can be found here: Dark Elder Saison. With the recipe devised I used, for the first time, the services of The Malt Miller to buy my grains, next day delivery – no fussing about.

Brew Ingredients

Brew Ingredients

For steeping the grains I brought 4 litres of water to 71°C and dumped in 200g chocolate malt (rich toasty flavours and dark colour), 200g roast barley (dry toasty flavours and dark colour), 200g flaked wheat (theoretically for head retention), and 150g caravienne malt (a little caramel richness). After 20 minutes this was at 61°C so I blasted it with a little heat to get to 67°C – not sure if there was any point to this really. TBH I’m not really sure about the wisdom of combining this set of added grains with the “kit” tin, I was just bored with kits but still had the tin lying around! It got another 25 minutes steeping and was then put through a chinois (fancy strainer) into my 10 litre stock pot. The grains were then rinsed with 2 litres of 70°C water, then an extra litre of cold tap water. This process – steeping – is just to obtain flavour and colour from the grain, it isn’t a proper brewing “mash” that yields fermentable sugars.

"Hopback"

“Hopback”

The stock pot was topped up with water to 10 litres and 1.7KG of DME added along with 700g of dark muscovado sugar. As the wort heated a 1.7kg can of Cooper’s Stout was added – yes, too early and shouldn’t have boiled as it is a pre-hopped extract? Oh well. As soon as a rolling boil was reached 20g of whole-hop Simcoe (14.1%AA) was added. Then 25 minutes later 20g of Sorachi Ace (13.2%AA) was added. I like Sorachi Ace, the idea was that I think it would compliment the elderflower flavour. Five more minutes and “flame out”. The hot wort was poured through a “hopback” (chinois again) containing 37.5g of Sorachi Ace (to use up what I had left from the bag), the hops were additionally rinsed into the fermenter with 2 litres of cold tap water. All of this went into a 25l fermenter along with the 800ml of elderflower “tea” (hm, probably should have gone in at end of boil to “sterilise”).

Icy Bath

Icy Bath

The fermenter was plunged into an icy cold bath and took about an hour to come down to 20°C, the OG was, amazingly, as-desired at 1074. The yeast culture (with excess liquid poured off) was pitched… cap and airlock fitted… and the beer was left to sit “blubbing” away…

… three months later, “blubbing” was still happening but at an incredibly infrequent rate. I’d never intended to leave the beer this long of course, but work and life just got in the way so there it sat for all this time. Finally I’d had time to gather and clean enough bottles to finish this bugger off. I siphoned the beer out of fermenter into another vessel that has a convenient tap and filling wand for bottling. I had 19 litres of beer at FG of 1014 – just over 7% – tasting pretty good too. Rich, quite banana-y alas, though I don’t mind that. The brew was primed with enough brown sugar to give about 2 vols of CO2, bottled, and then popped into the airing cupboard (about 22°C) for 4 weeks. Now… what do we have…

Dark Elder Saison

Dark Elder Saison

…verdict: not an easy-drinker. A 500ml bottle is a little hard going for me, but Kat and I can share and enjoy one. This is good, it is a sipping beer not a quaffing beer. The summer ferment peaked above 25°C and I guess this is where some strong banana-y esters have come from, these have cleared a little since bottling but are still distinctly present. A simple description for the beer would be: dark-bitter-chocolate-coated-overripe-banana. Not really what I was aiming for! And those elderflowers? No sign of them really, so the beer hasn’t come out true to name or intention. Next year I hope to revisit the recipe but trying for a cooler temperature fermentation. Definitely without the Cooper’s kit tin, and maybe by then I’ll be all-grain. As for the temperature, it is about time I tried making myself one of these “brew fridge” setups… if only I had space for it. As it stands I have a beer that we’ll be happy with over the winter. In fact it seems to be getting better with time. Or maybe it’s just “growing on me”. Next up… the saison yeast lives on! I rescued and “washed” it and knocked up another brew using something “different” from the back yard. Y-Brew 0x05 is on its way.

Colin joins the Dark Side

Colin joins the Dark Side

Y-Brew 0x03 – Aussie Pale Ale – “Willy Hop” mod

@RecentlyDrunk's excellent AG 04

@RecentlyDrunk’s excellent AG 04

Today I had a bottle of @RecentlyDrunk‘s lovely “Simcoe Amarillo” homebrew. I hope to be able to make a beer that good myself one day. For now, however, I’ll be sticking to what I can manage with “kit” brews. My Cooper’s kit has done good work producing two batches of ale so far. My Sorachi-hopped Cooper’s “Lager” worked rather well… not as good as proper Bristol Beer Factory Acer (no surprise), but well enough to be identifiably an attempt to mimic it. I had Acer at the Cambridge Beer Festival and my first thought was “this reminds me of my homebrew” ;)

Y-Brew 0x03 - Getting Ready

Getting Ready

Inspired by the weather, a bit of gardening including running a trellis for our “Willingham Hop”, and by Bob’s excellent “Simcoe Amarillo”… I did a quick “brew” today. I picked up a Cooper’s “Australian Pale Ale” can and some Brew Enhancer #2 earlier in the year and then promptly put it away and forgot about it. Today I dragged it out, cleaned up all the kit and got stuck in. It’s all very simple really, the beauty of kit brewing: I spent more time sanitising stuff than actually “brewing”. (In quotes because I won’t really consider it proper brewing until I go “all grain”, kits are just cheating really.)

Last autumn we harvested the hops from our hob bine, a hefty 200g (dry weight) in all. We have no idea what sort of hop this is as it was here before us, so we just call it the “Willy Hop” (we live in the village of Willingham). My mod to the APA recipe is to add some Willy Hop and up the BE#2 by 50% to get a higher ABV. Today’s recipe goes:

Y-Brew 0x03 - Rinsing Hops

Rinsing Hops

  1. Boil 4 litres of water
  2. Add 1.5kg of Cooper’s Brew Enhancer #2 and dissolve
  3. Add 15g whole-cone “Willy Hop” – boil for 5 minutes
  4. Add 15g whole-cone “Willy Hop” – boil for 5 minutes
  5. Turn off the gas… “flame out”
  6. Add the tin of Australian Pale Ale hopped-extract, stir in thoroughly, this is stirred/steeped for 5 more minutes
  7. Strain into fermentation vessel
  8. Pour 10 litres of tap water through strainer to thoroughly rinse hops, remove strainer
  9. Make up volume to 23 litres while checking temp – aiming for ~25C
  10. Stir very very thoroughly
  11. Take sample for measuring original gravity – was around 1046
  12. Sprinkle on yeast nutrient (not confident of my Cooper’s yeast sachets)
  13. Sprinkle in content of 3 Cooper’s yeast sachets – they’re not old, but just in case…
  14. DONE! Lid on, put somewhere warm and dark…

I’ll be adding a good charge of Willy Hop for “dry hopping” once this is fermented. Stay tuned! (and fingers crossed…)

Y-Brew 0x03 - OG 1047

OG 1046

Y–Brew 0x02 — St. Peters India Pale Ale

Well, Y-Brew 0x02 is in the fermenter.

A simple kit again — St. Peter’s India Pale Ale. In no way adulterated… yet.

The OG at 27°C looked to be about 1048, which the Brewer’s Friend temp adjustment calculator suggests to be about 1049 @ 20°C. This seems right for giving a FG above 5% (final target ABV is 5.5% — but that takes into account priming for secondary I expect).

I’m relying on a new glass hydrometer now, as the Cooper’s one seems to be way out of whack. (So who knows what Y–Brew 0x01’s ABV actually is!)

The hop powder provided was scattered in onto foam from 5 minutes of vigorous agitation (oxygenation), followed by the contents of the yeast sachet. “Pitch” temperature was about 27°C.

Vague intention to split this into two two–gallon pressure barrels and dry–hop one with Simcoe. But to do that pressure barrels must be bought, which is about £50. Could be very useful for making split brews in future though, a two gallon barrel is easier to take away and also fits in the fridge better.

This will be the last kit brew I do. Going to try extract next, probably with steeped grain using a recipe from either the Brew Your Own British Real Ale or Radical Brewing book.

Now… the waiting begins. Time to pop a Y-Brew 0x01 into the fridge perhaps!

Brewsheet:

  • Brew Kit: St. Peter’s India Pale Ale (5.5%)
  • Hops: Provided, sachet of Goldings powder plus “hop enhancer”
  • Yeast: Provided
  • Pitch Temp: 27°C
  • Date: 2012-08-27 @ ~16:00
  • OG: 1048 @ 27°C (thus ~1049)

Y-Brew 0x01 – Cooper’s Lager – Up-hopped

Brew done...

Brew done... and trying some hop-tea: hoppy & quite bitter.

Well, here we go – my first homebrew… finger’s crossed it isn’t a dud first experience! I’ve followed the kit instructions pretty closely with a minor, I think, tweak in the hop department. I bought the kit, plus some other bits and pieces including extra hops and a St Peter’s IPA kit from http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/ – prompt delivery with a tracking code and everything intact except for the very flimsy Cooper’s DIY Beer DVD, which was cracked! No worries, as the video is also online along with many other instructional videos from other folk on YouTube.

I started with a Cooper’s Original Series Lager Kit… and did some research online. It isn’t quite a lager, for starters, it comes with an ale yeast so is really a light ale. Quite a few reports of using this kit with extra hops (in various ways) can be found on the popular homebrew forums too.

In a more general sense, there were various things said about water treatment, with the primary concern being to get rid of chlorine. There was some talk about boiling water to achieve both de-chlorination and to remove some hardness.

On Saturday I boiled 25l of finest Cambridshire tap-water and popped it into a 5 gallon plastic barrel I’d included in the order. This sat for about 24hrs to cool, with the lid off (covered with a teatowel). This plus a little Brita filtered water from the fridge was my brew water. Used with a little reservation as it did taste a little “odd” – not bad odd, just different from the tap water.

Come Sunday evening, I sanitised all equipment as best as possible and started my brew!

I made up 20 litres as per the kit instructions. I.e. dissolve the Brew Enhancer 1 in hot water, mix in the hopped malt extract, top up with water to 20 litres.

Boiling Saaz in Wort

Boiling 20g of Saaz in 2l of Wort

This is where I went off-plan. I took off 2 litres of wort and brought this to boiling point in a large saucepan. I then added 10g of Saaz hops, then after 6 mins I added another 10g, then boiled 6 more minutes. I added this extra-hopped wort to the fermenter through a strainer.

Pitching Temperature

Pitching Temperature - A Little High @ 28C

After mixing this in the temperature was up at about 30C, so I added 2lt of chilled water from the fridge – through the hops in the strainer – then topped up with room temp water to just a little over the 23lt mark. This left the temp a little high at 28C.

I sprinkled the packet of yeast and moved the fermenter to the warmest room in the house – the study. I’m currently a little concerned that there doesn’t seem to be much activity in the brew, though there is some. Perhaps I should have followed the frequently seen instruction to toss the kit yeast and buy some brewing yeast separately. Well, time will tell.

I also just tasted my OG sample and… hmm… it’s a bit bitter. At room temperature mind you. I thought I was being conservative with the 2x 10g hopping with the Saaz, which is only 3.1% alpha acid. I’d seen forum posts where people popped in 2 x 30g and then another 30g dry-hops post-ferment. I do intend to add some dry-hops too, I have some Sorachi Ace for this!

Original Gravity - About 1034

Original gravity - About 1034

The OG was a seemingly low 1034 – though this looked more like 1033 after it had been sitting for a couple of hours.

Well, for the timebeing, here’s live Y-Brew-Cam: Hm, light’s not so great for beer, isn’t it? Brew-Cam cloaked… here’s an older pic:

Y-Brew 0x01 - Live!

Y-Brew 0x01 - Live!

 

The notes I’ve written down on my Cooper’s brew-sheet are:

  • Brew Kit: Lager
  • Adjuncts: Brew Enhancer 1 – 4099110704
  • Hops: Boiled in 2lt wort – 10g Saaz at boil, 10g more Saaz after 6 min, 6 more min boiling.
  • Yeast: Coopers – 7g – 31111
  • Date: 2012-06-17 @ ~21:00
  • OG: 1034 (1033 after 2 hours)

One review comment on the coopers kit: why on earth does it come with a non-permanent marker that wipes off the shiny brew-sheet provided?

I finished with a cup of tea made by steeping the spent hops. It was quite bitter, but tasty. Was drinkable with a teaspoon of light brown sugar added. :)