Brew Day at Puzzles?
Last night I started my
fourth home brew kit, this time I chose the American Amber Ale kit
from Youngs. I have previously done an American IPA from Youngs and
it was amazing. This time I had full intentions to hack the kit
within an inch of its life to turn it from an Amber Ale, to an Irish
Red.
Unfortunately real life got
in the way and I was unable to get to my local brew store, and time
is against me on this one it has to be drinkable by mid July. An
Amber Ale for Orange fest?
If you’ve already got the
hardware, such as a fermenter (adapted bucket) then Kit brewing
really is as easy as brewing a cup of tea, for almost a month. Its
cost effective too, for £23 you get 23ltrs of beer, roughly 50p a
pint! If you haven’t got the kit then I would recommend the Coopers
Starters kits, which include a primary fermenter that doesn’t
require an airlock. Airlocks seem complicated to me.
So onto my brew day. If you
look anywhere on the internets for a guide to home brew the first
thing you will always see in any guide is to sterilise your
equipment, this cannot be understated the easiest way to make 23ltrs
of rubbish is to get an infection in your beer, and this is or can
be caused by even the smallest amount of dirt or bacteria getting in
contact with your wort. My technique is much like myself, simple, I
put everything in the dishwasher, put it on a quick cycle to wash it,
then put it through a second cycle but instead of adding soap I add
steriliser. This also helps keep the dishwasher clean too. Then
finally just rinse out all the soapy bubbles and reminisce of the
steriliser with some fresh cold water, and put the lid back on your
fermenter for now. I also like to sterilise the work surface i'm
using on brew day, and for that I just use Flash wipes. |
| The pouch of LME |
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| Warm it slightly will make it easier to get all of it |
The Youngs kit like some of
the more “upmarket” home brew kits is a Liquid Malt Extract, or
LME kit, the other alternative is Dry Malt Extract or DME. I’ve
used one DME before but I find it is definitely worth the extra few
quid to get a LME kit. A step in the brewing process that isn’t
always written on the instructions is to heat the can or pouch that
the LME is in with some warm (not hot) water, let it sit in a
saucepan with some warm water for about 5 or 10 minutes before you
start. This tip turns the LME from a semi solid goop that you will
struggle to get out of the container, into a proper liquid albeit
very sticky but it becomes much easier to get every last drop out.
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| Every last drop is in the fermenter now |
Just Add Water?
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| stir it until it looks like its fizzy |
Next you add roughly 3 ltrs
of boiling water this will soften the LME further, the instructions
generally tell you to add your sugar now but I hold off instead
making sure there are no lumps in my fermenter, by giving it a good
vigorous stir. You aren’t stiring soup and you are in a 40ltr
container, stir the absolute you know what out of it, the more
bubbles you get on the top the better, more on this later. Then I add
the sugar, and stir again, you’ve not added any more liquid but
added maybe a kilo of extra solids you want dissolved. Every bit as
vigorous as before for a good minute. Youngs comes with a packet of
“Brewing Sugar,” or as it is sometimes called, Caster Sugar. Yep
that’s right the expensive brewing sugar is no different to the
expensive cake baking sugar from Tesco, which co-coincidently is just
your normal granulated sugar from your tea or coffee ground down
really finely. This is the first place you would consider “hacking,”
the kit, in any good
Next you just top up to
23ltres with cold water, I like to pour as violently as possible, to
get as much oxygen into the fermenter as possible, notice a theme
here? Not much I can say about this stage, except I am very lucky
where I live and I can use tap water. Tap water is a bit risky
because I cannot control what baddies are inside the pipes, but the 4
brews I have done so far none of them have been infected. Most people
recommend using filter or bottled water but this obviously increases
the cost.
Add the magic fairy dust!
Now comes the magic, at this
stage the instructions tell me to stir the mixture getting as much
oxygen into the mix as possible..... oh wait I've been doing that at
every stage. Its not easy to stir 23 litres of liquid, and you are
much closer to the top of the bucket now so you are more susceptible
to splashes and spillage! If you've done what I have you'll already
have a fair few bubbles at the top almost like a cheap head of beer.
I give it a quick whisk near the top just to get a few more bubbles
up there and then, I open the smallest pack in the kit, the yeast.
There are many varieties of yeast for beer and each has its own
characteristics and traits, it is after all a living thing. There are
two schools of thought on how to add yeast, the first it to
re-hydrate it first using a small amount of water and the other is to
just buck it in and hope for the best. I use a kind of hybrid, I
sprinkle the contents of the yeast across the full surface area of
the head and let it settle in by the power of gravity. The
instructions say to give it a good soft stir at this point allowing
the yeast to diffuse evenly throughout, I skip this. I guess in my
head the yeast rehydrates in the head before getting to work, but
then in my head yeast looks like Pacman and spends the next few weeks
running round the maze of your beer eating sugar and shitting out
alcohol!
Now its the patience game,
replace the lid, fix your airlock if you have one put it somewhere
where the temperature is constant, (ill not go into too much detail
about temperature because each beer style needs a
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| Use a cylinder like this to measure Original Gravity |
