A new brew on the last weekend of my short summer holidays – trying a Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza, with their Brew Enhancer Type 1. OG surprisingly high at 1.054! Sweet, light wort.
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A new brew on the last weekend of my short summer holidays – trying a Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza, with their Brew Enhancer Type 1. OG surprisingly high at 1.054! Sweet, light wort.
I tried Coopers Cerveza with Brew Enhancer #2, which I thought was the recommendation. To me this was a mismatch of tastes – the light tasting Cerveza with the heavier malt desinged more for European lagers. Brew Enhancer #2 also provided a slightly cloudy appearance. Next time I will try just dextrose or Brewiser’s brewing sugar (available from BigW) to keep the Cerveza light and clear.
Speaking of Chilli Beer, I have received positive feedback from my Black Rock Whispering wheat with 1kg malt (from the Home Brew shop) plus 500g dextrose. After 5 days of fermentation, I strained my chilli mix into the wort – 1 habenjero chilli plus two small red chillis, finely sliced and soaked in Cointreau for 2 weeks. You can’t taste the Cointreau, it was just a spirit designed to avoid the chilli’s from going off. To topp off the citrus theme, I also grated some lemon and lime peel zest into the wort, gave it a big stir and left it another week. The chilli effect is perfect, a real tongue tingle that justaposes the cool beer effect. I am by no means a hot chilli eater, and reckon this beer is fantastic. Of course the wheat beer with full malt is very filling, I haven’t tried any more than 1 stubbie at a time.
Yes, you’re right that’s the recommendation, but I didn’t read the instructions – I just went with what I thought would suit the kit, and used the #1 enhancer. The final brew I have is OK. It’s still light and sweet – nice on a hot afternoon, but not my favorite with a meal. I’m not sure I’ll do it again in a hurry.
Your chilli beer sounds great, and an interesting way to add chilli to the wort – almost like extracting chilli essence using the spirit. I think I prefer a little more heat than tongue-tingling though – I like it hot enough that you feel like a cold drink to take the heat off! (repeat, etc)