Kit O' Beer #12 - Cascadian Blonde

[Glass]

Underway with KoB #12. Everyone enjoyed #8 so we are doing again. I'm actually going to do 2 of these this weekend. I'm expecting to give most of these next two brews away. Slight difference in fermentables but not much. Will dry hop the same.

Not much to report.

The recipe:
1 x 1.7kg Coopers Canadian Blonde
1.25 kg Brew booster - from the preferred LHBS
1 pkt Bry-97 yeast - 11gms - 1st time I've used this one.

~31 gms Cascade pellet hops - dry hopped ~ day 7 - 8.


Changes: Last time I did this in # 8, I used 1Kg dry LME and 300gm (10oz) Dextrose.

OG 1.051
Volume: 23L

Brew temp: 18C - ambient
Pitch temp: 21C - wort
Current temp: 21C - wort

Notes: Straight forward brew. I picked up a food grade plastic jerry can today for secondary fermenting. Was thinking of dry hopping with it. So long as I can get the hop bag in and out of the fermenter we should be ok. I want to have a couple brews on the go and need more containers for hopping/lagering/fermenting.

I think the blanket has stopped working. Need to keep an eye on it. Might have creased it. Its 2AM and cold/4-5C/41F. Going to be the same for the next week at least

[Libertytree]

Just curious, why are you expecting to give them away? Is that about 4-5cs of brew?

Also, thanks to your note about the time there I now know there's a 12 hour difference and I would guess that your 2am is Sat, as it was 2pm Fri here.

Thanks for the temp conversion too! Thats friggin cold!

[Glass]

Hey LT, I share some of the beer around to get some second opinions. Haven't had any complaints on any of the beer but this one got the best response so far. The #7 Clone did alright as well but people seem to like the sweetness of this one. So I will give a couple half cases here and there. By most I probably mean half plus 1 or there abouts. So I might still end up with half less 1. A couple cases for my stocks.

I'm enjoying the brewing but I don't think I can drink it fast enough at the rate I'm brewing and I want to brew even more. I'm already stacking beer elsewhere to condition due to space. I also want to see how much stock I can build up for summer time.

And yes it's a bit cool. Its right for this time of year though. It seems to drop another 4 or 5 degrees when we hit August. It is like someone hits a switch. We don't get as cold here as it does in the US or Europe. It snows in the east but over not here. This is about as cold as it gets in the city.

[Glass]

I've lost track of which one of these brews is in which fermenter. I know that one brew is a few days older than the other but I can't recall which fermenter is which.

Fortunately I said this in KoB #11:
KoB #12 (regular 30L barrel fermenter)

Ok so I tested this yesterday and got:
SG 10.15

A little way to go. It was still very foamy in there. Lots going on still. Clearly this fermenter is not airtight as the airlock gets no action at all. no biggie as there is a cloud of CO2 sitting on top. Hoping this will be ready for racking to secondary by Friday. Give or take.

Beer smells fantastic. yum.

I've been rinsing the new jerry can fermenter. Make sure no soap residue remains which was a bit of a task. Seems containers like this just keep making foam. It's now clean and no sign of soapy residue but it does smell strongly of Hallertau. I wonder if that will infuse with the next beer to go in there? Time will tell.

[Glass]

Checked the SG on this one after work. 4 Days since the last check. things move fast.

SG 1.008

Time to rack to secondary. Using the jerry can. Got most of the hallertau aroma out. It reminds me of ginger ale. Not ginger beer but ale.

Dry hopped 30gms of Cascade. I had some of the original packet plus a new 3oz pack. I have had it a month or so. It has been in vacuum bag in fridge. It turned out to be an ounce so I went with that. Was more than I thought. New pack stays sealed until #14.

Used a stocking that I didn't need for #11 because those hops were tea bagged. 2 boils still color leaching. Need to get some made of different stuff.

Beer had interesting smell, light bitter or sour. Lot of yeast still suspended. There was not really any yeast cake to speak of. Thick krausen on the walls. I think I will need to drop the temp on this one for a few days to see if the yeast will drop. Temp have been warm here past week. Low mid 20c/72-77F. Unusual. Will need to water bath it.

Probably be bottling this one about Wednesday.

[Glass]

Bottled tonight. About 7 days secondary dry hopped. Everything went ok. Its smoother when you can control flow. Every thing was done in two's. Rinced everything twice for no soap residue. I did put all the bottles through the capper twice. Wasn't happy the regular ones had sealed as well as they could. 2nd run was better.

Twist top glass bottles Vs regular crown seal, (smooth lip) bottles.

Way back I said I would compare results using pet bottles and regular bottles. I have a lot of twist tops because nearly all beer comes that way now. Internet says not clear if good or bad. They seal ok but it is not as complete as the regular bottles which curl over the lip. Twisties don't have a lip because they have a thread.

Anyway we test this batch and #14. I did ~50/50 + some PET for checking carbonation progress. See if there is a difference.

[Glass]

This one is as good as the first time I did it. KoB #8. That brew everyone likes so far. It's sweet, fresh and summer style beer. People asking me to sell them some.

Carbonation varies from good down to drinkable. I'd say 50/50 using all twist tops. It needs a bit more time. I am going to see if I can get a friend to keg a batch for me and run off a case of bottles using gas and see how it tastes. I think the gas used for carbonating gives beer an odd smell and sometimes taste. People describe it as skunked or dank. Not sure if they are the same thing.

[Glass]

I think this one is mostly done. Maybe a couple left. I'm not sure we got close to as good as it could be. I never really chilled these down properly. I always crash chilled them to drink. I'm getting to the point where I'm over this flavour. Too much of a good thing. I'm going to do another one or two and hopefully I can ignore them long enough to see what they are like after a couple months.

KoB #17 will be pale ale based. After that I'll do one more of these and then some KoB #7's and vary the hops. Need to get a spare fridge because I've seen some good kit recipe packs go by for lagers. Coopers have one out now for an interesting euro lager.

The LHBS had some new kind of beer kit the last time I was there. Maybe 1 month. I didn't understand it but I think it was just add yeast and ferment. They were in no chill cubes so maybe it was ferment in the container as well. It was 15L. I asked if you need to add water and the answer I got was no. No convinced. Interested to try them. If it's ferment in the container would be convenient.

[Glass]

just cracked another one of these. I have noticed that for the beers that make 4+ weeks in the bottle and get chilled properly in the fridge over a day or two I am seeing a lot of carbonation. The head is most of the glass.

need to reduce the priming sugar. I was going to do this with #25 but the dextrose fell out to exactly 168gms. Happened a few times like that.

Not sure what to make of it now as a beer. It has a distinct taste but I am getting some funk in there. Could be just how it is or it could be the storage. I haven't paid any attention to regulating the temps of the bottled beer any more.

I think there maybe 1 left. I think it should be drunk sooner perhaps.