Brew One - Tasting.... part 2

Here is a pic of the Munich Lager in all it's glory being consumed 21 days after bottling:

I needed the camera close at hand to manage to get a photo of the poured beer with some head on it as it dissipated very quickly.

Co-taster Barney was on hand to sample the beer again on day 22 and he agreed that the taste had improved immeasurably from the first taste and we even managed to drink our way through three bottles quite comfortably.

In between the tasting at 15 days and this tasting six days later I bought a dozen bottles in from the shed and stored in the understairs cupboard in the hope that slightly warmer temperatures and a quick inversion to mix some of the sediment up would improve the carbonation.  The good news is that it seems to me that I was right and the beer is much improved.

Further to co-taster Barney, I shared another bottle with taster number two Russell on Sunday (day 23).  This was the best of the lot so far with a really good head on pouring, a clean crisp taste and enough flavour to make you go back for more.  Lucky I am enjoying drinking it because I think I have about 18 bottles of it to drink!  We've decided to try to do some blind tasting with a few of the also-ran local beers like Tui to see how it compares. I will report the results when we get around to it.
 

Brew Two - Bottling the kit "IPA"

Following on from the gravity reading on Sunday 22nd April I took a further reading on Tuesday and Thursday, both of which gave the same result of 1011-12.  

On Friday I popped down to Hauraki Home Brew again to pick up some more bottles and sodium met for sterilising but let me rewind for a second here: 

I was doing some reading about hop teas and how you can steep some hops in a french press for 10 minutes then add to the fermenter, apparently the longer the better but I figured I wasn't going to bottle until Sunday so two days in the fermenter would be better than nothing.  I picked up a Fuggles hop bag along with the rest of my purchases... I should have really done more research on which type of hop to get (especially since the dude at Hauraki was no help whatsoever) and then added the hop tea to the brew at the same time as I added the finings on Friday.  Only time will tell whether it improves any of the character of the beer.


Bottling on Sunday went off without a hitch.  This time I've stored the bottles in the garage where the temperature is a little warmer during the day (circa 20 degrees today) which will hopefully stimulate the carbonation process.


Now to decide what to make for the third beer... another kit? Something more complicated?  I'll leave that discussion for another post.

Brew Two - Hydrometer reading

The second brew (Black Rock IPA) has been in the fermenter since Wednesday 11th April.  I thought I would take a hydrometer reading yesterday (11th day) to see how it is progressing:

As you can see from the photo above the hydrometer is reading at approximately 1012 which is at the point where I bottled the first beer.  I'll take another reading on Wednesday to see if there has been any change, if not I will add the clarifying agent with the view of bottling on the weekend.

Brew One - Tasting

The first batch of 'Munich Lager' was initially sampled by co-taster Barney and I after it had been in the bottles for only nine days on Sunday 15th April.  The consensus was that it had a very 'green' nose and tasted vaguely like 'cider' with an almost apple like flavour.

As it happens I was away for work last week so wasn't tempted to drink it again so on my return on Saturday (21st April) I was keen to open another couple of bottles to see if it had improved.  The beer had been in the bottle for a total of 15 days before tasting and it had vastly improved on the previous tasting at 9 days.  The 'cidery' taste had all but disappeared and it actually tasted like beer! Pretty dull and boring beer but it definitely tasted like beer!  Here are some more observations:


1.  Colour and Clarity - this would have been helped had I taken the time to add the clarifying agent to the brew before bottling it but in my impatience to get it into the bottles I wasn't prepared to wait the recommended two days.  I would describe it as slightly murky with some residual brew matter in it.

The colour is best described as on the golden side of yellow whereas the Hofbrau Original poured a more yellow colour.  

2.  Tasting the beer - while the beer is definitely carbonated, on pouring it into the glass there was not a great deal of fizz activity and very little head.  I wonder if this will improve over time?  Lagers are generally described as 'crisp and clean' and on tasting the beer I can't say that there were any stand out flavours other than it tasted like a refreshing beer - utterly unremarkable in most respects but still it tasted like a beer.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a Munich style Lager available to taste at the same time to give some perspective on what flavours the style lends to the beer so I picked up a bottle of Hofbrau Original from the bottleshop.  Unfortunately it was two months beyond its best before date which didn't help things at all.  In fact, the home brew was a good deal more pleasant to drink.


So that concludes the first attempt at home brewing.  I managed to follow the process to a sufficient level which resulted in drinkable beer.  I'm looking forward to keep on tasting it over the next couple of months to see how it changes in the bottle but now my attention will turn to more home brew research and the 2nd brew.

Some thoughts in between brewing...

A few pieces of information I've gathered over the last couple of days:

1.  I've purchased John Palmers 'How to Brew' from Fishpond for $22 which should arrive in time for the next brew.  While I can just read it on the website I figure it'll be easier to digest in paper form.

2.  The Brewshop.co.nz website has some interesting comments about starting up your home brewing and how to improve the brew which I'll summarise here:

a) You can improve the brew by using a specialised yeast as opposed to that supplied in the brew kit - the rationale being you don't know the quality of the yeast supplied.  

b) Rather than pouring the yeast on the top of the brew in the fermenter you can rehydrate the yeast in some warm water (important that the water is between 24-30 degrees which suggests you need a proper thermometer to measure the water temp) and then pour it into the brew.

c) The beer kits often don't have enough malt or hops in them... which begs the question if you aren't satisfied with the yeast, hops or malt in a kit why bother in the first place?


Conclusions:

One option I could continue to use the base kit but add a different yeast and add some hops... if I used this approach with the same IPA kit then I would have a 'base' beer to test different mixes of hops from.

Maybe I should abandon the beer kits altogether and source the malt extract by itself, add hops (and yeast) and brew yourself.... how hard can it be ;)  But seriously, this could be a good intermediate step before I consider moving to making a wort.

Brew Two - Black Rock IPA

Brew number two away!

The whole process was a lot smoother this time as I expected it would.


I've opted for a IPA using a Black Rock kit.  I was reliably informed that Black Rock and Mangrove Jacks are produced in the same factory in Christchurch but that Mangrove Jacks has slightly better ingredients.  Given that this is only my second attempt at home brewing I figure the quality of the ingredients aren't likely to have too much impact on the final result.  The other thing is that Mangrove Jacks didn't have as many interesting types of beer to make - after making a Munich Lager I was hardly going to go for a Dutch or Czech Lager.

I checked on the first batch which is quietly biding it time in the shed and all appears to be in order.  The sediment is collecting nicely on the bottom of the bottles.  It's less than two weeks until I can try a bottle... something to look forward to!

Brew One - Bottling

Easter Friday I took another reading using the hydrometer... three same readings in a row all but decided it for me to bottle the beer.  I figure it's not going to be perfect the first time round anyway!

Bottling was a pretty straight forward process - gave the bottles a quick dunk in the steriliser/water mix in the sink and let them sit for 20 minutes, cap on.  Once drained it was just a matter of chucking two carbonating drops into each bottle and filling away.  Of the thirty 750ml bottles I think I managed to fill 27 before the beer turned to sludge at the bottom of the fermenter.

The beer has taken up residence in the shed under lock and key.  I'll be trying my first beer on my return from Singapore on the 21st - something to look forward to.

Time for a new brew....

One more thing: strictly speaking I should have added a clarifying agent to the beer two days before bottling it but I didn't this time.  It will be interesting to see what it looks like when I pour the first bottle.

Ok, another thing:  It's interesting to talk to other home brewers about the process - both Grant and Harry have offered sage words of wisdom about their experiences thus far which is encouraging.  I'm looking forward to sharing a beer with them soon.

I've tried the home brew and it tastes like beer!

Last night I rescued the fermenter out from the closet to take the first hydrometer test to see if it is ready to be bottled.

I poured some beer from the tap - as you can see from the photo it looks quite yellowy brown and smells like warm beer (funny that).  Incidentally the digital thermometer on the side of the fermenter was reading in the 18-20 degree range which is a couple of degrees cooler than last week.

The next step was to dunk the hydrometer into the beer and check the reading:

 According to the instructions from Hauraki the reading should be somewhere between 1000 (the bottom line of the blue section) and 1005 (the bottom of the orange section).


More importantly, you have to wait for 48 hours to re-test the beer.  If the reading changes then you wait another 48 hours.... and repeat until you get two readings the same.


I expect that there will probably be a change in the reading when I retest on Wednesday but I'm not far off.



The most encouraging news is that after testing it I took a swig of the homebrew and it tastes like beer... proper beer!  I couldn't convince Kelly to taste it but she did agree that it definitely smelled like beer.  This means that so far so good!