20150903-CoopersDarkAleMod

I have barrelled the Coopers dark ale mod. There was 13 litres in all. OG was 1048 and FG 1012. Giving an ABV of 4.7%

Taste test of the Amarillo all grain pale ale (20150819-AmarilloPA-AG)

This has been bottled a week and the PET bottles are very firm. I only have 3 bottles as the rest is in minikegs. It looks clear until it goes in the fridge when I see the usual chill haze I always seem to get.

It is not totally carbonated yet, but it tastes fantastic. It is similar, but noticeably better than the extract version I did (which was also very good). It has a slight sweet, malty character and is very drinkable. I will be doing this one again.

Experimenting with the Grainfather and some extract (20150903-CoopersDarkAleMod)

I decided to use up some old ingredients that were lying around and attempted to use the Grainfather for an extract recipe.

I had a tin of Coopers Dark Ale, some US05 yeast, some Goldings pellets, 250g of light DME and a pack of Brew Enhancer 2.

I boiled up 10 litres of water in the GF and added the dark ale extract and the DME. I then boiled 15g of the pellets for 30 minutes and 10g for the last 5 (using muslin bags). I added 10 litres of cold water and used the chiller to cool the mix down to 18-19C. I then mixed in the Brew enhancer.

I ended up with 15.5 litres and on OG of 1048 so I lost 4.5 litres. Pitched the yeast at around 18C.

The Beersmith numbers looked like this, but the IBU will be wrong because I didn't boil the hops in the whole fermentables (enhancer was omitted).

I rehydrated the yeast (which I have not done before).

It took about 3 hours with all the cleaning and the fact that the heater kept cutting out and I had to reset it. So I may as well have just done it in a pan or gone all grain.

Reference: 20150903-CoopersDarkAleMod.