Summary of the first five beers

Here is a quick summary of the first five beers I've brewed:

1. Mangrove Jacks Munich Lager:  The can came with the Copper Tun home brew kit.  While it was fermented with an Ale yeast the good news was that the finished product was a drinkable, if not somewhat unremarkable beer.

2.  Blackrock IPA: This was a virtual repeat of the first beer while I refined and built up my understanding of the brewing process in particular the importance of cleaning and sterilising.  While the end result was lacking in any discernible flavour it has over time matured into quite an easy drinking beer.  

3.  Amber Ale:  This is where things get interesting.  I've got my hands on the How to Brew book by John Palmer and joined the Aussie Home Brew forum for general advice and guidance.  The resulting recipe included a hop boil and a move to LME from the kits.

4.  American IPA: Adding another step into the process I steeped some grains in this recipe.  The recipe itself was based up the 'Brewing Classic Styles' Hoppiness is an IPA recipe.

5.  American Brown Ale:  Once again I've used a BCS recipe to guide me through the process of making this beer.

I've come along way in my understanding of brewing in the last four months and I'm looking forward to continuing on the journey to making great beer.

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 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.

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!

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.