Brew # 18 - Little Creatures Bright Ale Clone

Paul Middleton -

This is a kit recipe for a Little Creatures Bright Ale clone I ordered from Aussie Brewmakers. As well as the ingredients, the kit includes easy-to-follow instructions that are described below. Within an hour from starting I was waiting for the temperature to reduce so I could pitch the yeast.

Start date: 16 OCT 21

Equipment

  1. Old-school HDPE fermenting bin
  2. Sanitiser in spray bottle
  3. Long handle spoon
  4. Paint strainer
  5. Kettle

Ingredients

  • 1x 1.7kg Thomas Cooper Bootmaker Pale Ale kit tin
  • 1x 1.5kg Briess CBW Pale liquid malt extract (LME)
  • 250g light dried malt extract (DME)
  • 150g cracked Munich grain
  • 2x 12g Centennial finishing hops (like tea bags)
  • 2x 12g Motueka finishing hops (like tea bags)
  • 10g M44 US West Coast dried yeast pack
Ingredients for Little Creatures Bright Ale clone

Cleaning/Sanitising

The fermenting bin was soaked in Sodium Percarbonate solution for a number of days before I started this process. This was emptied and rinsed with warm water and allowed to dry. I sprayed with Iodophor (iodine) to sanitise. Rinsed with cooled boiled water after about 3 mins.

Iodophor sanitization repeated with the long-handled spoon.

Brew Day

Part of these instructions are reproduced with permission from the Aussie Brewmakers recipe.

  • Sit both extract tins in hot water for 10 mins
  • Boil 1.25L water in kettle
  • Step 150g cracked Munich grain in 1L water for 20 mins
  • Steep 1x each of the Centennial and Motueka hop bags in 250ml of boiled water for 10 mins
  • Boil 2L water in kettle
  • Add 1.5L of the boiled water to the sanitized fermenting bin
  • Add the Briess CBW Pale LME, plus the 250g light DME to the fermenter
  • Stir to dissolve thoroughly
  • Add TC Bootmaker Pale Ale kit tin to the fermenter
  • Stir to dissolve thoroughly
  • With boiled (hot) water rinse each of the tins  into the fermenter
  • Strain the steeped Munich grains into the fermenter (do not add the grains) - I used a paint strainer for this
  • Rinse the grains - I used what boiled water I had left for this, then a couple of litres of cold water
  • Add cold water to the fermenting bin to 22.5 litres - I used cold filtered water
Very straightforward process

Once added, the temperature was around the 30C mark, so I had to wait for the temperature to reduce to between 18-24 degrees before progressing.

During this time I took a hydrometer reading:
OG: 1.047 @ 27C = ~ 1.050 @ 20C

  • Added the steeped hop bags and water

Once the temperature was achieved I opened the fermenting bin and pitched the dried yeast onto the surface of the wort.

Primary Fermentation

  • Because I was using the HDPE fermenting bin, and not the Fermus, I attached the air lock - much easier than worrying about pressure and PRVs
  • The wort started to show activity after ~24 hours - the downside of the HDPE is that it's opaque, so you can't see what's happening, but it was nice to hear the old 'gallump' of the air-lock again.
  • Primary fermentation continued for another 4 days

Dry Hopping

  • Add the 2 remaining hop tea bags and leave for 72 hours

Kegging

  • Remove the hop bags from the fermenting bin and start to reduce the temperature of the beer (0.3C every two hours) until it reaches 4C
  • Approx. 24 hours before the beer reaches 4C, place a cleaned and sanitised keg into the keezer and chill to ~4C
  • Pressurise to 8PSI
  • Transfer beer from fermenting bin to keg
  • Allow to sit in the keg for at least a week, then attach a CO2 to keg at 49PSI for 36 hours to carbonate
  • Drink

Improvements for next time

This was the quickest and easiest extract method I've followed, made possible by the pre-packaged ingredients - the proof remains in the pudding, but I'm confident enough with what I've smelt coming from the fermenting bin so far to have ordered my next kit from Aussie Brewmakers - their Balter XPA clone recipe kit.