Hoegaarden\Coopers Wheat Beer and other Q's

[Methos]

After trying sopme Hoegaarden I decided that i like it quite a lot. I would like top try and make my own clone of it. I haven't yet progressed to making All-Grain beers or even Partial. I use the Thomas Cooper extract can in wich you just basically add the hopped extract to boiling water in your fermenter and add the brewing sugar. then add water to the 23l mark and add yeast and stir. Viola

Coopers have a extract can called Wheat Beer.
This is the description on the their site:

"A pale, cloudy beer, refreshingly spritzy and tart with a delicious creamy frothiness, Thomas Coopers Wheat Beer is made from premium malted wheat, pale malted barley and selected hops. Wheat beers are a great summer refresher, low in bitterness and considered by many as the “champagne” of the beer world. Intended to be mixed with 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt and 300g Coopers Dextrose to 23 litres."

This sounds like a good base to start from. All that will be needed is the corriander and citrus flavours right ? How would I go about getting them in there ?

I made a batch of Lager last night. Last week I had a batch of "Mexican Cerveza" in the Fermenter. The Fermentation of the Mexican one was quite slow. It was quite cool weatherwise. Last night I put the Fermenter in a old disused fridge and left it. It was colder than last week. This morning when I went to check on it and it has blown foam out of the airlock, popped the lid of the Fermenter. Would the difference in the fermentation process be because of the different yeasts and does the Lager extract perhaps contain more sugar?

On another topic. My beer have quite a yeasty taste to it. Would that taste get less as the beer age ?

Then another Question:
When I made the Lager I had a pack of hops that just said Hops on it. I put it in a cup and poured hot water over it and shook it around a bit, I added this to the beer extract. Will this increase the hops smell of the beer ?

Cheers

[guildofevil]

First of all, welcome to the board and the obsession.

I'll try to address your questions in no particular order.

Originally posted by Methos

When I made the Lager I had a pack of hops that just said Hops on it. I put it in a cup and poured hot water over it and shook it around a bit, I added this to the beer extract. Will this increase the hops smell of the beer ?

Yes. What you basically did was make a hop tea, which is a way of adding hop aroma, without adding extra bitterness.

Originally posted by Methos

On another topic. My beer have quite a yeasty taste to it. Would that taste get less as the beer age ?

Yes. As you age the beer it clears, which means the yeast falls out of suspension and forms a sediment at the bottom of the bottle/keg. This happens quicker at lower temperatures.
How long has the beer been in the bottle/keg? What temperature is it at?

Originally posted by Methos

This sounds like a good base to start from. All that will be needed is the corriander and citrus flavours right ? How would I go about getting them in there?
Fist of all, the kit in question is more than likely designed to make a hefeweizen as opposed to a wit, so the yeast you get with it will probably be a hefeweizen yeast. Having said that, you might be happy with the results anyway, it depends on how much of a purist you are.

When I make a wit beer, I put some ground coriander and orange peel into the wort ten minutes from the end of the boil. Converting this to your method, I suppose you could boil up some coriander and orange peel for ten minutes, in a little water with corn sugar, and add this to your wort.

The amounts used depend on how much of the relevant flavour you want. 10-30g of coriander, 20-40g of peel. Up to you. Experiment and enjoy.

Originally posted by Methos

I made a batch of Lager last night. Last week I had a batch of "Mexican Cerveza" in the Fermenter. The Fermentation of the Mexican one was quite slow. It was quite cool weatherwise. Last night I put the Fermenter in a old disused fridge and left it. It was colder than last week. This morning when I went to check on it and it has blown foam out of the airlock, popped the lid of the Fermenter. Would the difference in the fermentation process be because of the different yeasts and does the Lager extract perhaps contain more sugar?

I don't brew lager, so others will be in a better position to address the specifics of this question, but for what it is worth here's what I think:

First of all, it's most likely the yeast and temperature causing the difference in fermentation, rather than the sugar content of the wort.

"Mexican Cerveza" is kind of vague. I would really need to know what the yeast is to get to the bottom of this. Actually, both yeasts, as I have heard of kit's marked “Lager” being supplied with a relatively clean fermenting ale yeast as opposed to a true lager yeast.

This is important as the two yeast types are very different and have distinctly different environmental preferences. What temperature is it in the fermenting beer? Note that it is the temperature of the beer I am interested in, not the surrounding air, as the respiration of the yeast can cause the temperature to rise by a few degrees.

Lastly I would like to point you to this website: How To Brew (http://www.howtobrew.com/) which is an excellent, free, online brewing book.

Séan

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by guildofevil

Lastly I would like to point you to this website: How To Brew (http://www.howtobrew.com/) which is an excellent, free, online brewing book.

Séan

All of seans advise is solid, but this last bit is key. There is a lot we can tell you on this subject, but the best bet is to read here and then ask us to clarify anything you need help with

[Mill Rat]

In my experience, most liquid malt extracts are consistent at about 90% dry malt extract content by weight. The correlation for granulated sugar of whatever type (dextrose, sucrose, etc.) to dry malt extract is that it takes about good half again as much DME to equal the granulated sugar. The rest of the stuff in the DME are proteins and other grain components that don't ferment, but provide the flavors that we associate with beer, as opposed to some other sort of alcoholic beverage. I believe that you would produce more satisfying beers if you would use another 500 g of DME instead on the 300 g of dextrose.

Temperature control is important. You stated you put it in a disused fridge. If the fridge was not operational, you just put in in an insulated box (which might not be a bad idea in a southern hemisphere winter), but the fermentation process does release heat, which will increase the fermentation rate and have no place to go in your insulated box. This will indeed cause fermentation rate and off-flavor issues. Get a cheap stick-on temperature strip and put it on the side of your fermenter.

[Methos]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Sean
I have no idea what the temprature of the brew is at the moment. I will get a themometer soon and from then onwards I'll be able to check it.

"How long has the beer been in the bottle/keg? What temperature is it at?"

The beer has been bottled on Saturday morning - It already has a yeast ring at the bottom. If I filtrate the beer through a coffee perculator bag when bottling will it have less yeast at the bottom ? Will there be enough yest to corbonate the beer ?
The Beer has been standing in a cupboard at around 16-18 degrees celcius.

As for the hefeweizen\Witbier - I'm not too much of a purist when I make my own. As long as I enjoy it.

The Mexican Cerveza - It is all that the kit says. The yeast is included in the kit. Don't have a name on it.

Another Question that I have is this.

I'm planning to make a stout after the hefeweizen\witbier. I read a lot about the Oatmeal stouts. If I were to take normal oats (they sell it as Jungle oats here in SA) and put it in a bag and boil it for say 1/2 and hour and use the result of say 3 to 5 litres of liquid instead of just normal tapwater would it qualify as oatmeal stout if I use it with a stout kit ? Is it possible\advisable ?

Cheers

[Mill Rat]

In response to two of your questions:

Forget filtration at this point. Coffee filters won't do what you want, and they will delay your brewing and increase your chance of spoiled beer. If you want to get rid of the yeast, you'll need to get a filter designed for this ($$$), a pump so you'll complete your filtration before next Tuesday ($$) and a system to force carbonate ($$$$).

Many home brewers make oatmeal stouts, but your proposed method won't work. You'll be putting unfermentable oat starch into your brew kettle. You will need to mash the oats with some barley in either a full or partial mash to change those oat starches to sugars. Rather that describe it here, you can read about those procedures in any of the usual how-to-brew books, or see what Palmer has to say at howtobrew(dot)com.

[dparsons]

I'd also recommend reading at least the basic instructions (chapter 1) in "How to Brew" (linked previously) for extract type brewing. It will answer a lot of your questions easier than people can give you that information in this format.

Enjoy.