Continues from part 2

So here we are the next morning bright and early to transfer the cooled wort to the fermenter. Personal preference I am using a strainer to catch/filter any unnecessary hotbreak material  left over from the boil when I pour the malty/hoppy goodness into the fermenter. I have in the past not used a strainer at all and the brew turned out fine also–just made cleaning out the fermenter just a little bit harder ; ) .

So with the wort transferred to the fermenter time to add some water…..(note: it’s good to take a hydrometer reading  and write it down after adding the water—to work out how much alcohol will be in the final beer)

After adding enough water to fill fermenter up  at just under 20 litres I give the brew a mighty stir with my coopers brew spoon to aerate and make sure the water  mixes well with the cooled wort.  Once that has settled abit  it’s time to add the yeast!

This time round I’m using Muntons Premium  Gold yeast to see how that goes. I have previously used Safale US-05 and had fantastic results-so I’d recommend that if you’re keen on brewing this wonderful beer.

You can also use liquid yeasts such as Wyeast…here’s a pic of an swollen smack pack of Wyeast ringwood ale which is great for English style pale ales and the like. Liquid yeast is usually twice the price than dry yeast strains though.

Any ways back to our brew -the dry yeast is sprinkled over the brew– fermenter cover and air lock goes on and the yeast is  left to fall in and eat those malty sugars to create esters , some Co2 and produce our friend alcohol.  Magic……

After 5-7 Days of primary fermentation I rack/transfer  the brew over to another fermenter (secondary) using a clean plastic tubed hose to help clear the brew and improve drinkability in when it’s finally in my glass!

Another method I use like many other homebrewers here in Australia is instead of using a cover and airlock for my fermenter I use plastic cling wrap and a rubber O ring to seal and it makes it easier to see whats going on with ya brew!

After another week of secondary fermentation you can either bottle the brew using carbonation drops or dextrose to carbonate and age the brew ready for drinking.  I’m lucky enough to have a keg system so I’m going to keg this hopefully tasty brew and let it carbonate with some good ‘ol food grade CO2!

In the keg it goes and I’ll connect it up to my gas let it slowly carbonate in my draft system fridge for about 7 to ten days….Cant wait to drink it!  As you can see I have another brew on the go as well — an English style pale ale brewed with east kent golding hops. It’s always good to get ahead with your brews and have a few fermenting so you don’t run out of beer!

About twelve days later the brew is nicely carbed up and  is ready to drink. There are methods of speeding up this process but I find the set and wait method works out the best.

Home brewing this way is a bit of a mission but ya look at that PROPER pint it was worth every step and time it took to create this PROPER homebrew.

**Mini review: Cola tinge in colour and a creamy head on the pour and not overly carbonated at all due to the slow carbonation…. Nutty choc going down taste with a nice bitter finish from all those Czech Saaz hops I used, body is a little thin which complements drinkabilty and is very refreshing. Roasted coffee beans on the aroma.

For a food match I would recommend BBQ Chinese style Char Siew Pork. The Smokiness and sweetness of the pork would complement the nutty and roasty aspects of the beer and combat some of that bitterness at the same time.  Mmmmm… : )

PROPERBEERMATE

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Back again with with Part 2! Continues from Part One

Time to wake up the brew after 60 mins mashing time in the beer-bed .

I now unwrap the pot and bring her back out side and pop the lid.

Mmmmm…….Nice intense malty aroma just what we want! You can actually give this stuff a taste just to get an idea how the level of maltyness in the final beer will be . Very sweet stuff aye….. brewers actually call it “sweet water”.

I pick up the heavy bag and let the rest of the sweet water pour into the pot which is great for my biceps!  The bag can get real heavy with all that grain and liquid so what I do is when my arms get tried from holding it up I place it into another big pot to drip out .  Another way of doing this is to get an “A” frame ladder and tie the brew bag to the top of the ladder over the brew pot and let it drip out that way.

Time to put the big brewpot full of sweet malty goodness on to the burner to start the boiling process. Once the brew has come to a good rolling boil I add whatever liquid is remaining in the smaller pot as well. Some people like to sparge some hot water over the remaining grains to get more malty goodness out and add that to the brew too. Personal preference I don’t do this as I am quite happy with my past results without doing this : ) .

Time to get the hops ready!

Woo-hoo- Hops! One of my favorite things in the world! These are Czech Saaz hop pellets which are basic compressed and extruded hop flowers which are great for home brewing.  I have added a bit more hops than the recipe calls for as I had some left over Saaz from a previous brew day and I ‘coz love my hoppy character in beer. This single hop addition will change the sweet water’s flavour and aroma from sweet and malty to something a a bit more bitter and aromatic that resembles beer in its purest form.

So once the brew has come to a good rolling boil I add my first and only hop addition for this simple recipe @60mins. The count down from 60mins starts now. Some other recipes such as big IPA’s  can have 15 hop additions throughout the boil at different intervals. Usually the first addition at is for bittering and towards the end for the boil eg @10-15mins the hop addition is for taste and finally @zero mins the addition would be for aroma either in the brew pot or as a dry hop in the fermenter.

Now at of the boil ten mins to go I add my whirlfloc tablet to assist in clearing the brew and stir the brew to make sure it dissolves properly. Once the count down has finished I turn off the burner (flameout) and put the lid back on the brew. I use the Aussie no-chill method  to get the brew down to a suitable temp for pitching the yeast… As it is Autumn here in Australia at the moment and the temp is around 10-18 degrees C at night here I let the brew cool on my cold garage floor making sure the lid is on securely and not letting any nasties in. If you are in a warmer  climate I suggest putting the pot into an ice bath or I have even heard of some brewers using their swimming pool as a solution! The best way is actually  with extra equipment such as a wort chiller or plate chiller which i’ll be asking Santa for later this year!

So the brew (wort) is going to take another rest overnight to cool next to it’s final home my PROPERBEER kegarator fridge!

Part three will be up in a couple of days!

PROPERBEERMATE

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Hey Guys I’m going to show you how I brew my beer at home here in Australia. Today I’m doing an all grain brew using the Brew In A Bag method (BIAB)  I’ll be brewing a Czech Dark Ale Version of one of my all time favie beers Budvar Dark!

Here’s my Grain bill and Ingredients which is a recipe from my local Home Brew Shop- Marks Home Brew here in beaut Newcastle Australia .

Grains:
Cracked extra fine (0.9mm) for BIAB
Premium Pilsener  3.230 Kg
Munich Dark 0.586 Kg
Cara Munich T2  0.586 Kg
Wheat Chocolate (yummy!) 0.220 kg

Hops:
Saaz Czech (T90) 79g @60mins boil time

Yeast:
Safale US-05 ALE Yeast (I’m using Muntons Prenium Gold this time round though)

Here’s my cleaned and sanitised Equipment + Grains

From Left :

1. Thermometer -decent scientific one.
2. Hydrometer  to calculate abv and gravity
3. Whirlfloc tablet- finning/to clear the brew at end of boil
4. Saaz Hop Pellets-Yay- Hops!
5. Grain bill-Malty goodness!
6. Burner- Mine’s an Italian spiral type

More Equipment:

-My good ‘ol faithful brew bag that holds 5 kgs of grain no worries! Cleaned and ready for action!

My Brew pot that I picked up In Thailand last year- 36 litre capacity and does the job. Filled up with just over 20 litres of good ‘ol H2O.

Here’s some Spare Pots from previous brewing adventures along with a strainer and my mash paddle which is also great for stir frys too!

I prop the burner up onto my old barbie (BBQ) for safety reasons pop the pot filled with water on top  and connect the gas up to the burner and let her rip! Aiming for 50 degrees Celsius strike water temp I grab the thermometer and monitor the temp.

Woo-hoo! After about 10 mins the water temp nears 50C strike temp- time to get the bag and grains ready!

So after the temp hits just over 50c I turn off the gas and take the pot down off the burner (with oven gloves on- as I don’t like getting burnt) . Now the bag goes in the pot followed by the grainy goodness being poured in nice ‘an slow.

Now the grain is given a good stir making sure I get all the lumpy bits mashed and all the grains are wet. Oohh it smells good! Once thats done I pull the tie on the bag to seal it up and pop the top on the brew pot.

Now I’ll put the brew to bed for 60mins to let it mash— have a beer and read some beerbeer.org and properbeermate!

What I use to wrap the pot up to maintain the mash temp is a towel and some old clean bed covers -does the trick!

In Part two the which will be posted  next week we’ll start the boil and add the magic that is HOPS!!

Cheers till then!

PROPERBEERMATE

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Had my first visit to wineyard during the last holiday to Australia. We done some research on wineries nearby, this seems to be the most “tourist-friendly” and it’s obviously custom made for me! Why? It’s established by Moet & Chandon from France!!! How I loveeeeeeeeee champagne and Moet & Chandon…

I sincerely hope you have the whole olympic-size pool filled with it… drown me in your bubbly please…

There’s the welcome “home” sign. Domaine Chandon Australia is one of the 4 wineyard by M&C outside of France. They have some of the growing region in Australia covered for sourcing of grapes used in their blend, but apparently Yarra Valley wineyard is the visitor’s center.

They do have guided tour on selected timing, but it’s still around 1 hour to go before the next tour start and the wine tasting bar is packed with visitors. What the hack, gave an 1 to 1 exclusive plant tour to wife about wine making process, I’m home, remember?

A place to convey the harvested grapes, but still 3 more months before harvesting season.

I was able to tell wife that this is a grapes pressing machine for extracting juice purpose, and it’s confirmed by the visitor interactive panel available at where we were standing. She was deeply impressed! told you I’m home…

To be frank, seeing and interacting with the real thing versus understanding the process from books and all sorts of info available is very different and indeed mind-blowing!

A trick to share if you are planning to visit, there are some visitor interactive panel scattering around, they are information about which stage of wine making you’re at. Use it to help you understand because I do recommend going against crowd flow, because by the time guided tour had started, you at least stand a fighting chance to have a place in the wine tasting bar.

wine tasting to be continue in part 2

drink less, but drink better

ahhup

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This little beer caught me by surprise at last years Warners at the bay beer festival. I have since then been eagerly awaiting  for the bottled version to hit my local  bottle shop and well just the other week it had!

On the pour the beer presents itself with a fantastic amber glow followed by an awesome foamy head which is not overly carbonated at all. Big fresh citrusy aroma on the nose with some hoppy pine thrown in too! These wonderful smells reminded me of  a  a good IPA poured off the tap at a PROPER craft brew pub.

The marvelous aroma follows though going down with good hoppy bitterness that  lingers coupled with smooth mouth-feel thanks to the malts used in this brew. Great finish too leaves me reaching for the glass again for another hypnotizing hop hit!

Doesn’t have a heavy resin mouth-feel at all like as some other American styled  IPAs out there, which ultimately adds to it’s character and overall drinkability. At 5.5%ABV  this brew is a great sessionable ale too if you can handle/love your hops!

If are a hop lover or just curious why people like me go crazy over hops- and you see it out there at your local- grab a four pack/pint you wont be disappointed.

Some good ‘ol aged tasty cheddar cheese and crackers or tapas style garlic prawns would be my food match recommendation with this tasty brew.

PROPERBEERMATE

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