Original Gravity (OG)
19/5/2008: 1052 or maybe 1042!
Specific Gravity (SG)
20/5/2008: 1032
21/5/2008: 1020
22/5/2008: 1010
23/5/2008: 1006
24/5/2008: 1006
Final Gravity (FG)
25/5/2008: 1006 - Time to bottle!
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Bottling Day
The Coopers kit comes with 30 740ml PET (plastic) brown bottles with screw tops. Actually, they're better quality than they look and not too flimsy. I prime the bottles each with 2 of the supplied "carbonation drops" (sugar tablets basically) and fill each bottle with the beer from the fermenter using the supplied "little bottler" which is really easy to use. I leave about an inch of headspace at the top of each bottle as recommended to help with the carbonation that the sugar will create.
After the bottles are filled I store all 30 of them on a spare shelf in the airing cupboard which has a small heater in the bottom so I can maintain a constant temperature over 18 degrees Celsius.
After the bottles are filled I store all 30 of them on a spare shelf in the airing cupboard which has a small heater in the bottom so I can maintain a constant temperature over 18 degrees Celsius.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Did I read that wrong?
Hang on a minute. Yesterday I measured the OG and it read 1052. That can't be right surely? It says here in the little Coopers instruction booklet that Microbrew worts tend to have an OG of between 1021 and 1040 so mine seems rather high. Ah well, maybe I read it wrong. Maybe it was 1042? It was my first time with a hydrometer after all. No matter. I'll measure it everyday to see what's happening with the fermentation. Today's SG reading is 1032.
Monday, 19 May 2008
First Brew
I've finally managed to clear a space in the back of the garage to start up the MoltenHops Brewery. It's not as warm as inside the house but as this part of the garage used to be the toilet and shower part of a self-contained bedsit it does mean it benefits from running water and even a toilet basin for disposal of liquids (hopefully not failed beers but we'll see!).
The ambient temperature of the garage is about 16 degrees celsius so it's too cold to brew this particular beer without a little help. I bought an electric "brew belt" for about £17 when I bought the starter kit so I'm hoping that this will suffice in maintaining the required temperature for fermentation.
I've sanitized the equipment and the can of concentrated malt extract has been warming in the sink. This extract, having had about 80% of its water removed back at Mr Cooper's house in Oz, is a very thick treacle-like substance. Warming the can in water helps the extract pour.
Now it's time to add it all to the fermenter and brew some beer!
The warmed extract goes in first which is like pouring Golden Syrup from a tin. I add a bit of hot water to the tin and swirl it around so I can get most of the residual extract out. I add the bag of brewing sugar (1KG) along with 2 litres of boiling water and stir it like crazy until it's all mixed together. I now fill the fermenter up with cold water up to the 23 litre mark. Apparently it's important to aerate the mix when filling up at this stage as the oxygen helps the yeast in its early days of fermentation. Luckily my cold water tap expells in every direction other than straight down so aeration is no problem.
I have now created WORT! (pronounced WURT and not spelt WART). If you are doing this yourselves and have ended up with a WART then I suggest you have somehow strayed off-subject and into something else, perhaps, a little unsavoury. Keep them to yourselves please.
Ambient temperature in the garage is 15.2 degrees. I check the temperature on the stuck-on thermometer and it says 21 degrees. This is bang-on the bottom of the recommended 21-27 range where the supplied yeast works best at (although it says that the yeast can work its magic between 18 and 32). I plug in the electric Brew Belt, wrap it around the fermenter and tighten it a little. Hopefully this will get the temperature up a little to my preferred 24 degrees and maintain it at that level day and night.
Now to add the yeast. I open the yeast sachet and sprinkle its contents over the top of my wort and immediately screw on the lid tight. I previously assembled the bubbler airlock and grommet into the hole in the top of the lid.
Note: When I was inspecting the contents of the starter kit just after I bought it I did notice that the grommet was split and, not wanting to risk spoiled beer because of something so small, I searched for a replacement. After hunting high and low, well during my lunch-hour anyway, I managed to purchase a similar sized replacement from a car auto-factors. I had to buy a packet of them so at least I have some spares. I guess that it's silly things like this that can hold-up or spoil the production of a good beer.
OH CRAP! I forgot to take the Original Gravity reading before I added the yeast! The Original Gravity (OG) is the density of the brew before the yeast has been added and is used to calculate the alchoholic strength of the beer at the end. I wonder if taking the reading just after the yeast has been added matters too much? Surely it's not going to affect it so quickly? I have read that the time between creating the wort and adding the yeast is the time when it is susceptible to infection so that's why I got the yeast in there so quickly. Ah well. Too late now.
I take the reading by filling up the hydrometer's holding tube thingy with wort from the fermenter's tap and gently drop in the hydrometer itself. Taking the reading is more difficult than I thought it would be because the hydrometer keeps spinning around slowly just as I'm about to read the level. I manage it and it reads 1052. I switch off the lights, close the garage door and hope that it all works after all the effort.
So that's it! My first homebrew started courtesy of that nice Mr Cooper. And to quote him 146 years after he started his business:
Well. Sort of.
The ambient temperature of the garage is about 16 degrees celsius so it's too cold to brew this particular beer without a little help. I bought an electric "brew belt" for about £17 when I bought the starter kit so I'm hoping that this will suffice in maintaining the required temperature for fermentation.
I've sanitized the equipment and the can of concentrated malt extract has been warming in the sink. This extract, having had about 80% of its water removed back at Mr Cooper's house in Oz, is a very thick treacle-like substance. Warming the can in water helps the extract pour.
Now it's time to add it all to the fermenter and brew some beer!
The warmed extract goes in first which is like pouring Golden Syrup from a tin. I add a bit of hot water to the tin and swirl it around so I can get most of the residual extract out. I add the bag of brewing sugar (1KG) along with 2 litres of boiling water and stir it like crazy until it's all mixed together. I now fill the fermenter up with cold water up to the 23 litre mark. Apparently it's important to aerate the mix when filling up at this stage as the oxygen helps the yeast in its early days of fermentation. Luckily my cold water tap expells in every direction other than straight down so aeration is no problem.
I have now created WORT! (pronounced WURT and not spelt WART). If you are doing this yourselves and have ended up with a WART then I suggest you have somehow strayed off-subject and into something else, perhaps, a little unsavoury. Keep them to yourselves please.
Ambient temperature in the garage is 15.2 degrees. I check the temperature on the stuck-on thermometer and it says 21 degrees. This is bang-on the bottom of the recommended 21-27 range where the supplied yeast works best at (although it says that the yeast can work its magic between 18 and 32). I plug in the electric Brew Belt, wrap it around the fermenter and tighten it a little. Hopefully this will get the temperature up a little to my preferred 24 degrees and maintain it at that level day and night.
Now to add the yeast. I open the yeast sachet and sprinkle its contents over the top of my wort and immediately screw on the lid tight. I previously assembled the bubbler airlock and grommet into the hole in the top of the lid.
Note: When I was inspecting the contents of the starter kit just after I bought it I did notice that the grommet was split and, not wanting to risk spoiled beer because of something so small, I searched for a replacement. After hunting high and low, well during my lunch-hour anyway, I managed to purchase a similar sized replacement from a car auto-factors. I had to buy a packet of them so at least I have some spares. I guess that it's silly things like this that can hold-up or spoil the production of a good beer.
OH CRAP! I forgot to take the Original Gravity reading before I added the yeast! The Original Gravity (OG) is the density of the brew before the yeast has been added and is used to calculate the alchoholic strength of the beer at the end. I wonder if taking the reading just after the yeast has been added matters too much? Surely it's not going to affect it so quickly? I have read that the time between creating the wort and adding the yeast is the time when it is susceptible to infection so that's why I got the yeast in there so quickly. Ah well. Too late now.
I take the reading by filling up the hydrometer's holding tube thingy with wort from the fermenter's tap and gently drop in the hydrometer itself. Taking the reading is more difficult than I thought it would be because the hydrometer keeps spinning around slowly just as I'm about to read the level. I manage it and it reads 1052. I switch off the lights, close the garage door and hope that it all works after all the effort.
So that's it! My first homebrew started courtesy of that nice Mr Cooper. And to quote him 146 years after he started his business:
'We are now engaged in the Brewery business....'
Well. Sort of.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
The Coopers Micro-Brew Kit
Here's a quick post on the kit I bought yesterday.
The Coopers 30lt Micro-Brew Kit's blurb states "Everything needed (except a can-opener) to brew beer is available in a box that fits easily into the kitchen cupboard."
So far so good as I the only piece of homebrewing equipment I have is that can-opener.
Opening the well-packed box I realise that this package really does include everything (except the can-opener).
OK. Probably none. Fine.
The Coopers 30lt Micro-Brew Kit's blurb states "Everything needed (except a can-opener) to brew beer is available in a box that fits easily into the kitchen cupboard."
So far so good as I the only piece of homebrewing equipment I have is that can-opener.
Opening the well-packed box I realise that this package really does include everything (except the can-opener).
Photo borrowed from the Coopers website. But think of the free advertising Mr Cooper!
Here's the box contents list:
- A 30ltr plastic fermenter, lid and rubber 'O' ring with tap, washer and sediment reducer
- Bubbler airlock & rubber grommet (I've always wanted my own grommet)
- Little bottler, bottling valve & tube
- Bag of Brewing Sugar
- Bag of Carbonation Drops
- An adhesive digital thermometer
- An instructional DVD
- A hydrometer
- 30 740ml plastic bottles (PET) & caps
- A plastic spoon
- A 1.7kg can of Coopers Lager Home Brew
- No can-opener
I pop the DVD into the DVD player (usually the best place for them) and watch Bruce and Sheila demonstrate how easy it all is. I must admit that it does all seems pretty straight-forward. It better be, Bruce, 'cos I know where you live. (Australia I'm guessing.)
I'm not going into any more detail about the kit now as I've just found a better site here done by Coopers themselves that does it better than I could anyway. That's quite enough of me advertising the Coopers gear. You owe me big time for this Mr Cooper!
So, all I have to do now is find a space somewhere around the house and get it all going. It's quite exciting really. Yes, I know, I do need to get out more.
My final thought is "how many people have bought this, followed all the instructions and preparations to then realise that they actually didn't have that very necessary, and by now quite infamous, can-opener?"OK. Probably none. Fine.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Day One
So here it is. My first proper blog and it's on a subject I've only just recently ventured into and know next-to-nothing about. What could possibly go wrong? The intention is to publish my exploits into the world of homebrewing (beer to start with) and to document each brew as I go. It's a subject I've been interested in for ages (beer, pubs, breweries - what's not to like?) so why not try and brew my own?
So to find out more information I'm off to the local library in the rain. Nah, of course not. Like most people these days my source of all knowledge is the sofa and the internet. So here goes Google...
Right. Er... Mashing, lautering, sparging, fermentation, conditioning, wort, malt extract, yeast, enzymes, dextrins...... Blimey! Where do I start? Maybe they do those homebrew starter kits they used to do years ago. That's gotta be the way to go, surely. More Googling...
Oh yes, here they are, but there's loads of 'em! What to choose? Articles on the 'net have warned me off the beer-in-a-bag jobs and I'm hardly going to learn anything about the brewing processes with them but, as it turns out, I don't see any of these for sale anyway. What I do know is that as I'm starting from scratch it would make sense if I got a kit which came with the basic tools and containers.
OK. I think I've narrowed it down a little. There's two I fancy my chances with:
So to find out more information I'm off to the local library in the rain. Nah, of course not. Like most people these days my source of all knowledge is the sofa and the internet. So here goes Google...
Right. Er... Mashing, lautering, sparging, fermentation, conditioning, wort, malt extract, yeast, enzymes, dextrins...... Blimey! Where do I start? Maybe they do those homebrew starter kits they used to do years ago. That's gotta be the way to go, surely. More Googling...
Oh yes, here they are, but there's loads of 'em! What to choose? Articles on the 'net have warned me off the beer-in-a-bag jobs and I'm hardly going to learn anything about the brewing processes with them but, as it turns out, I don't see any of these for sale anyway. What I do know is that as I'm starting from scratch it would make sense if I got a kit which came with the basic tools and containers.
OK. I think I've narrowed it down a little. There's two I fancy my chances with:
- Coopers Micro-Brew Kit
- Muntons Micro Brewery System
They're the same price (£59.99) but the Coopers (an Australian company) is a lager kit and the Muntons (a British company) includes Woodforde's Wherry, a branded Norfolk Best Bitter. So, Aussie lager or Brit bitter? Being someone who's not afraid to drink most beers (hell, I've worked in Belgium!) I don't really have a preference.
As luck would have it one of my local homebrew shops, Geoff's Wine & Beer Making, has both of these two starter kits in the window display which tells me that I'm on the right track. Surely Geoff wouldn't sell them if they were crap? Into the shop then for a nose around.
It turns out that the main difference between the 2 starter kits is that the Coopers kit includes a fermenter to brew the beer in before transfering it into the 30 supplied plastic bottles for secondary fermentation and conditioning whereas the Muntons Micro Brewery System uses a pressure barrel to do the lot it from start to finish.
I leave the shop 20 minutes later with a rather large red box in my arms. I went for Coopers kit in the end as it contained everything I needed to do my first brew. To be fair, the other kit contained everything that I would need too but I felt the Coopers was a bit nearer the "traditional" brewing method as it also comes with a "bubbler" airlock and a hydrometer for measuring the specific gravity during the fermentation period.
Another reason is that the Mrs drinks lager and not bitter so I've justified the cost of my new hobby already by saying her that she'll be able to benefit from the results although I get the feeling that she's not looking forward to my homebrewed amber nectar as much as I am!
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