NZ beers I've tasted recently....

A few NZ beers I had on Saturday, purchased from Liquorland in Forest Hill which has a superb range of local craft beers.

I'm also using the Untappd app to track various beers I'm drinking which is a bit of fun.

The waiting drove me mad....

So after the visit to Hauraki on Saturday I thought I had fixed the airlock as the water was sitting happily uneven between the two reservoirs.  I check the brew again on Saturday night to discover they had reverted to even again.  I decided to leave it as is overnight and then on Sunday morning I gave the fermenter a shake and the airlock is once again uneven.... so who knows what's going on.

Anyway, I'm pretty much resigned to leaving it now for the next 10 days before taking a reading with the hydrometer.  When I checked just now I think I detect a change in the colour to a darker brown but I may be imagining that.

You can see in the photo above that the airlock has reverted to even again... doh.

Testing testing... is this brew working?

Ok so this morning (day 3) I decided to pop back down to Hauraki Brewing to ask some questions because I was concerned that the brew wasn't going as well as I had expected.

What has happened so far:

1.  After 24 hours there was some activity on the top of the brew.
2.  Condensation has formed on the inside of the lid and a few small bubbles have formed in the airlock.

But no further activity and I was concerned that there wasn't an effective seal around the airlock or that the yeast was ineffective to begin with.


What I learned:


1. The brew is working and will work regardless of whether the seal has worked.
2. The water in the plastic airlock must be uneven in the two reservoirs to show that the pressure in the Fermenter is different from the outside and therefore the Fermenter is sealed.  Until now the water has been even between the two which shows it hasn't been sealed.
3. The rubber bung you use to attached the plastic airlock to the lid of the Fermenter which comes with the kit is hopeless.  The lady at Hauraki gave me a replacement but told me not to replace it until the next brew.
4. Don't over-tighten the lid - there is a sweet spot somewhere between not tight enough and too tight which is where the seal is complete.




I was also told not to open the lid but when I got home and fiddled with the lid and the airlock it became apparent to me that the rubber bung was the problem so I whipped off the lid to attached the new one.  Once I carefully put the lid back on I refilled the plastic airlock and it appears the water is uneven! Hopefully now the brewing will kick off again.




It's hard not to want to check the brew every five minutes expecting a sudden change so I'll do my best to leave it for now and hopefully in a few hours the pressure will have built up sufficiently that we'll see some more activity.

The first brew finds a place to stay

From what I've read, an ideal brewing temperature is somewhere between 18-22 degrees.... too cold and the yeast won't work, too hot and you'll end up with a bad brew.

We have an under-stair closet which I think should be a good place to store the Fermenter while it does its thing as it seems to be relatively cool in there and there isn't any direct sunlight or heat.

The 'digital' thermometer on the side of the Fermenter says that it's approx 22 degrees so I'm hoping it's not too hot.  The only other feasible option would be the garden shed but I am concerned that the temperature would fluctuate too much in the shed so the 'gimp' closet is where it'll stay:

Now we wait for 12-24 hours to see if the brewing has started....

Brew One - Mangrove Jack's Munich Lager

Here we go....

After doing a bit of reading I decided to take action... as the title of the blog says how hard can it be?  I guess the proof will be in the taste of the beer but for now I'll summarise the start of the process:

Cleaning and Sterilisation:

It appears to me that the cleaning step is actually more sterilising than the sterilising step since it helps remove any bacteria from previous brews.  It's comforting to know that since this is a brand new kit there isn't a lot that can go wrong with this part of the process.

I filled the Fermenter with 6 litres of water and six teaspoons of the cleaner, put the lid on and swirled it around to ensure all surfaces were covered.  I then rinsed the other utensils and refilled the fermenter again with the same amount of water, this time with 6 teaspoons of the steriliser powder.  With the lid on, you leave the Fermenter for 15 minutes to allow the gas to build up inside to aid the sterilisation process.  Once complete, again rinse the utensils and drain but do not rinse the fermenter.

While I was waiting for the steriliser to work it magic I removed the lid of the Malt to get the yeast and placed can in some hot water.  The malt has a similar viscosity to golden syrup so warming it up helps with pouring it into the fermenter.

Brew Making:

Here is a slightly blurry photo of the Mangrove Jack's Munich Lager kit being poured into the Fermenter:

Once I poured the majority of the content out I used some warm water to wash around the tin to get the remainder into the fermenter.   I added more cold water (approx 6 L) to it before pouring in the Brew Enhancer and gave it a good stir.  

Once well mixed I topped the fermenter up to the 23 litre mark and this is what is looked like:

Before adding the yeast I took a couple of measurements with the Hydrometer - not sure what it was supposed to read other than both readings should be the same to show that the brew is well mixed.  I need to do some more reading to understand some of the science behind the hydrometer readings. 

The final step in the process was to add the yeast and put the airlock on the lid before closing her up.  

Job done.

The kit

So, as I said in my first post I went down and picked up a Copper Tun Starter Brewing Kit from Hauraki Home Brew Services in Rosedale.

I unpacked the box which had the following content:

1. Fermenter with tap.

2. Mangrove Jack's Munich Lager can (with yeast)

3. Copper Tun 1kg bag of Brewing Enhancer

4. Stick on digital thermometer

5. Mixing spoon.

6. Hydrometer

7. Bottle wash brush

8. Bottle wash compound

9. Sodium Metabisulphite steriliser

10. Plastic airlock.
11. Carbonation drops.

Interestingly, Jason from Hauraki replaced the Copper Tun cleaning and sterilising stuff saying that it was rubbish and that their compound and steriliser were much more effective. 


The pack cost approximately $100.  I also purchased thirty 750ml PET bottles for bottling at a cost of $25.50.

The beginning

So I went and purchased a Copper Tun Starter Brewing Kit from Hauraki Home Brew in Rosedale.

I've been enjoying discovering the world of craft beers over the last 6 months or so and I figured that I should really have a go at making some beer so I can satisfy my curiosity about the brewing process.  Actually my interest piqued when watching a few of the NZ Craft Beer TV episodes and seeing some of the interesting folk around NZ doing their brewing thing. 

So what is my goal?  At a basic level I'd like to be able to produce drinkable beer and to be able to experiment with different styles to enhance my understanding of beer in general.  By starting with a simple home brew kit I'll be able to control various factors while I figure it all out.

One resource I've been recommended is John Palmer's How to brew website.  So I'm off to do a bit of reading in preparation for my first attempt.

Some links:

http://www.haurakihomebrew.co.nz/

http://nzcraftbeer.tv/

http://www.howtobrew.com/sitemap.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCGW8nemlY