Michael E. GeneraliBrewing beer- do it for australia
January 23rd 2008 00:46
Now here is something all aussies should do around australia day, not for any patriotic purposes, quite simply the price of beer is such that you would have to be pretty well off to spend a whole day playing two up at the bbq with a cold beer constantly in reach. The honourable Kevin Rudd has said this week that everybody needs to tighten their belts to prepare for the economic flow on from the looming American recession, and what better way to curb expenditure, then brewing your own beer.
A friend of mine has lent me a kit, which is lucky as they do cost around 90 bucks ( almost three cases of beer!) that part of the set up does put you in the red for about 2 full brews ( as long as you do pretty standard ones)
The cost to me was:
The wort (you know the cans of stuff you see at the super market) I bought a Coopers Australian pale ale for $9.50
The enhancer, usually the can you buy will make a suggestion as to which one to use, i used coopers brew enhancer 2, cost $5.30
Carbonation drops 100 for $2.50 ( you need around sixty for a brew)
crown seals 100 for $1.73 ( you will use 40 to sixty depending on the size bottle you use)
Unscented bleach $1.28
sterilising solution $2.98
The bleach and sterilising solution will easily do 4 or so brews.
now the instructions on the kit i used are pretty all inclusive but something s that i found not very clear were as follows.
The kit specifies to add fermentable sugars when you are melting down the wort with hot water ( 2lts boiling or 4 lts hot tap water) this stage is quite important, no sugar no ferment no alcohol, fermentable sugars can include any type of sugar you have in the cupboard ( i plan to muck around with those later) but the information i recieved after much ringing around and discussion was that Dextrose is the sugar of choice ( another coopers product) you can use any sugar but sucrose ( as in most of the stuff we have in our cupboards) gives a cider taste not necessarily desirable in beer. As i said before i used a 1kg enhancer which has the dextrose you need and some extra malt and stuff.
also when it comes to the the sterilising they are not too specific ( probably don't want to be sued) after rincing and draining the bottles i followed the advice of my Father in law and sister and just used the home brand sterilising solution that you can get in the baby section at the super market. Make up the solution to the instructions in a bucket then part fill each bottle giving it a swill then drain thoroughly. i will let you know weather this is an effective method when a open the first bottle. i had a mixture of bottles some crown tops some twist tops and some screw top pet bottles. as i was using the hammer sealing tool it did take a while and the crown tops did seem to seal better then the twist ones, but after seeing my father inlaw do brew after brew in mostly twist tops i see no practicle difference between the two. i Had a lot of fun doing the kit and i involved the family which kept everyone entertained for an hour or two. in the end i got the equivilent of 3 cases of beer from the one kit, cooper pale ale retails at 53 bucks a case so for $23.29 i made $159 bucks worth of beer. any way i will have the first tasting on the 2nd of febuary i will let you know what its worth is then. have a good one, Dave
A friend of mine has lent me a kit, which is lucky as they do cost around 90 bucks ( almost three cases of beer!) that part of the set up does put you in the red for about 2 full brews ( as long as you do pretty standard ones)
coopers Aussie pale ale
The cost to me was:
The wort (you know the cans of stuff you see at the super market) I bought a Coopers Australian pale ale for $9.50
The enhancer, usually the can you buy will make a suggestion as to which one to use, i used coopers brew enhancer 2, cost $5.30
Carbonation drops 100 for $2.50 ( you need around sixty for a brew)
crown seals 100 for $1.73 ( you will use 40 to sixty depending on the size bottle you use)
Unscented bleach $1.28
sterilising solution $2.98
The bleach and sterilising solution will easily do 4 or so brews.
brew enhancer
The kit specifies to add fermentable sugars when you are melting down the wort with hot water ( 2lts boiling or 4 lts hot tap water) this stage is quite important, no sugar no ferment no alcohol, fermentable sugars can include any type of sugar you have in the cupboard ( i plan to muck around with those later) but the information i recieved after much ringing around and discussion was that Dextrose is the sugar of choice ( another coopers product) you can use any sugar but sucrose ( as in most of the stuff we have in our cupboards) gives a cider taste not necessarily desirable in beer. As i said before i used a 1kg enhancer which has the dextrose you need and some extra malt and stuff.
also when it comes to the the sterilising they are not too specific ( probably don't want to be sued) after rincing and draining the bottles i followed the advice of my Father in law and sister and just used the home brand sterilising solution that you can get in the baby section at the super market. Make up the solution to the instructions in a bucket then part fill each bottle giving it a swill then drain thoroughly. i will let you know weather this is an effective method when a open the first bottle. i had a mixture of bottles some crown tops some twist tops and some screw top pet bottles. as i was using the hammer sealing tool it did take a while and the crown tops did seem to seal better then the twist ones, but after seeing my father inlaw do brew after brew in mostly twist tops i see no practicle difference between the two. i Had a lot of fun doing the kit and i involved the family which kept everyone entertained for an hour or two. in the end i got the equivilent of 3 cases of beer from the one kit, cooper pale ale retails at 53 bucks a case so for $23.29 i made $159 bucks worth of beer. any way i will have the first tasting on the 2nd of febuary i will let you know what its worth is then. have a good one, Dave
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by David John Burke
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Thanks for the comments.
The whole process seemed quite risky before i had a chance to put some brews down with my father in law.
as long as you take simple precautions and add all the ingredients in the right order and maintain an even temperature ( mine went as high as 29 and down to 24) there is a reasonable margin for error and i have drank many more hits then misses.... touch wood. cheers, dave.
Comment by AmyHuang
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Comment by David John Burke
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the most likely cause of your beer turning vinegarish is that there was some wild yeast ( you know the ones with mohawks and tattoos and stuff...) that some how got in. Vinnegar is produced in a very similar way to beer in that it uses a king of yeast and feeds off sugar so its maybe a problem with the air lock or there could have been a tiny blob of yeast hiding in the equipment some where.
At one of my workplaces I remember we found a yest mother that had escaped from the brewery, it looked a bit like a grey mutant octopus and was about 150cm long. the brewery insisted on coming to pick it up but they have these things that just bob around making yeast, gross huh.
if you ever see a feint milky looking streak in a viegar bottle this is actualy a very small vinegar mother (it produces the yeast that makes vinegar) you should of course remove it as too much live yeast in the body is never a good thing. Cheers for the comment, Dave