Brew Two - Tasting the IPA.... pfft

Well, I've tasted the IPA after it has been in the bottles for two weeks.  What a disappointment.  This beer makes the rather plain flavoured Munich Lager taste like a Imperial IPA in comparison to the dishwater IPA.  I'm struggling to make out any discernible taste or nose on it.

Here is a comparison of the two beers:

The IPA on the left and the Munich Lager on the right.  The only positives I can take out of this brewing process are:


1.  The bulk priming appears to have worked well as the carbonation, even after only two weeks is excellent.


2.  The clarity of the beer is excellent so the finings worked as they should have.


3.  I'm going to make a 'proper' IPA as my next beer.

Brew Three - Amber Ale

Since the second brew I've been doing a lot of reading about home brewing.  Firstly John Palmer's How to Brew finally arrived from Fishpond so I took a read through it - it's easy to follow and clearly explains the process so I understand why people recommend it so highly.  I've also joined the Aussie Home Brewer forum which has a wealth of information and helpful Aussie (and Kiwi) home brewers who are happy to impart their knowledge about all things to do with brewing.  One very useful tool they have on the forum is a spreadsheet which allows you to input your ingredients which then spits out various readings which align with the style of beer you are trying to recreate (e.g. O.G, FG, IBU and EBC).

Armed with all this new knowledge I've been somewhat paralysed by indecision... what beer to I make next? Do I drop the kits altogether or do I keep going until I manage to produce a decent beer? In the end I drove down to Penrose to the Brewers Coup shop with a couple of ideas in mind but no firm plan.  I ended up asking for advice about an Amber Ale recipe which I had taken from the Coopers website and after a really good conversation about the pros and cons of the various kits available I purchased the following:


Ingredients:

1.  Black Rock NZ Draught Kit 1.5kg
2.  Muntons LME 1.8kg
3.  US-05 Yeast
4.  60g US Centennial Hops
5.  60g US Cascade Hops.

I also picked up a fluid thermometer and some more cleaner/steriliser.

The Brewing process:
1.  Sterilise fermenter, stirring spoon and airlock using the remaining sodium met solution.
2.  Add approximately 400ml of the LME to 10L of water.  Dissolve and then bring to boil.
3.  The maximum amount of time you need to boil the hops for is 60 minutes.  Therefore using this as a guide the minute the water is at a rolling boil you make your first hop addition and then start the countdown for 60 minutes.  I used the following plan:
At 60 minutes: Add 20g Centennial.
At 25 minutes: Add 20g Centennial and 30g Cascade
At 10 minutes: Add 20g Centennial and 30g Cascade

Centennial is a high alpha acid hop therefore it will impart quite a lot of bitterness to the beer.  Adding hops in the middle stage of the boil will impart flavours and at the end, aroma.  The Cascade is a lower alpha acid hop which will impart more flavour and aroma to the brew hence only two additions.
5.  Warm the Black Rock kit in some hot water.
6.  Cool the boil as quickly as you can.  I waited for a few minutes then put the stock pot in the sink and fill it with cold tap water which seemed to be quite effective.
7.  Add the kit to the fermenter with some hot water.  Mix.  Add the remaining LME to the fermenter at the same time.
8.  Add the boiled water to the fermenter.  Mix again and top up with cold water to 23 litres.  Check temp and hope it's not too hot to pitch the yeast.
9.  Pitch yeast.  Seal fermenter.



Notes:
1. There are a lot of references to boiling 10-12 litres of water then cooling it overnight so that you have clean cool water to add to the warm mix in the fermenter.  I didn't have anywhere to store the post boiled water so I purchased a 10L container of water at the Warehouse ($6.50) and fridged it overnight.
2. I'm not sure what I expected but when you add the hop pellets to the boil they disintegrate and form a slurry on the top of the water.  When the timer hit zero and I took the pot off the heat I used a sieve to scoop the hop slurry out into a second pot:

Pouring the kit into the fermenter - nice and oxygenated.

Cooling the hop boil in the sink with cold water.

The Original Gravity reading:

The reading is approximate 1042.

Final note:  Having gone through the brewing process I then decided to plug all the details into the spreadsheet from the forum (as referenced earlier) and it says that the beer would be quite highly bitter and that the OG is too low.  I guess I should have done this before hand but then again sometimes ignorance is bliss.  The fermenter is now in the garage and the temperature is reading 18-20 degrees which is perfect for fermenting.

More information about the brewing process

There is so much information on the internet about home brewing that you almost end up wasting a lot more time than you need to trying to digest as much of it as you can while you weigh up how relevant it is to you.

A few key points I've learned over the last week or so:

1.  Whether the fermenter is sealed correctly and airlock working is basically irrelevant.  Having a 100% sealed unit is close to impossible and while obviously the better the seal the less likely bacteria is to compromise your brew, it's not the end of the world if the airlock doesn't bubble.  Ultimately you can use visual indicators to check whether the beer is fermenting and you can use the hydrometer to check whether it is ready for bottling.

2.  To calculate alcohol by volume you take your original gravity reading which is the hydrometer reading taken prior to pitching your yeast into the fermenter, minus the final gravity (which is when you bottle the beer) and divide it by 7.4 to get ABV.  EDIT - there seems to be a few website which will calculate ABV for you but none of them seem to use the 7.4 method.

3. Dextrose added to the fermenter will simply help produce the alcohol but will no impart any additional flavours to the beer.  So, if you only use a kit and dextrose you'll end up with a pretty bland beer and the accuracy of the process itself will have a bigger impact on its quality - i.e. sterilisation, fermentation and carbonation.

4. Dextrose can be substituted with Brew Enhancers which typically contain Dextrose and Malt Extract (amongst other things).  These bring out more flavours in the beer.

5. The sugar you add to the bottles is used by the remaining yeast to create the carbonation - it is therefore a good idea to try to keep your filled bottles in the same place as where you brewed the beer.... preferably in a room with a consistent temperature and ideally around 20 degrees.  Too cold, and the yeast won't work as efficiently.  Too hot and it'll work too efficiency producing a poor carbonation.  Find the right balance and your beer should pour with a good head and remain fizzy.  After about a week you can move it into a cooler place for longer term storage.


So there are a few points about brewing in general and kit brewing.  I'll add some more thoughts and links later....