Brew Day At Puzzles?

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

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.

Every last drop is in the fermenter now

Just Add Water?

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

brew shop there is a multitude of alternatives to this expensive sugar, my plan was to put some different varieties of malt extract in here to make the flavour more complex and deeper. You can literally add anything at this point which contains sugar, and it will change the flavour of your end product (not always for the best it must be said) There are many resources online where you can see what sugars will influence you beers in what way, what goes well with what etc.

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

Use a cylinder like this to measure Original Gravity

different temperature) take a small sample in a cylinder to measure your Original Gravity, which is used to determine your alcohol content at the end then, and this is the most important step, LEAVE IT ALONE! Do not disturb your beer, resist the urge to have a hoke at it no matter what it smells like. Leave it for at least 7 days, I usually go closer to 10-12 days and then take another gravity reading. You are looking for 2 or 3 days where your gravity stays consistent, congratulations, you have completed the first stage of your home-brew! Ill detail the next steps in a blog post in a couple of weeks when my brew is ready for it. Hopefully I will be able to follow my own advice and just leave it alone!