Brew 00301 - East India Pale Ale

Prepared using TWO cans of Black Rock East India Pale Ale mix

2 sachets of Yeast
750g of plain white sugar
Artesian water

15g Hallertau hop bag steeped in
50g Cascade hop pellets

Once again I forgot to take the SG before adding the yeast!

Brew 00203

Bottled into 750ml plastic bottles usuing only a single carbonation drop per bottle.  This is because we don't really want the Porter to be quite as fizzy as an IPA or Pilsner.

Brew 00104

Left the finings in the barrel for two days (well, technically only one and a half)

Bottled the brew into 750ml plastic bottles bought from Great Expectations.

Brew 00202

SG Reading taken - approx 1011 - I must say I do find the numbers on the side of the hydrometer tricky to read sometimes.  I wonder if there is a 'old persons' version with bigger numbers.

Anyway, it all smells gorgeous.  Almost want to just leave it sitting in the kitchen with the top off the fermenter just to let the aroma waft about a bit.  However, I resist the temptation and limit myself to just adding the finings and closing it up again.

Should be ready to bottle in a couple of days!

Brew 00103

Despite having failed to take a reading at the start, the specific gravity of the Wort can still give an indication of whether or not a brew is done fermenting and is ready for bottling.

SG reading taken - approx 1007 - this is right in the zone to suggest it is ready for bottling.
Finings added - now just giving it a couple of days for them to do their thing and then it's bottling time

Brew 00201 - Porter

So, the time has come for our second brew.  The recently dry-hopped Pilsener is obviously still in the fermenter doing its thing, but we have acquired a second fermenter and so do not need to wait for the bottling of the Pilsener before starting another one.  A friend recently discovered our new hobby and confessed that he had a fermenter sitting unused in his garage that we could borrow.  Thanks for that Andrew!  Guess we owe you some samples of the produce :)

Anyway, this time around we are doing a Porter.  Another kit purchased from Great Expectations although a different brand this time.  Given that the darker beers (especially Porter) with their stronger, smokier flavours are more at Lynne's end of the taste-bud spectrum than mine, I did't have any expectations that this one will make it through the brew process unaltered. And right from the start, we replaced the normal sugar with a dark cane sugar.

Cascade Chocolate Mahogoney Porter Kit
Cascade Porter Malt
Petone Aquifer water
1kg Billington's Natural Dark Muscovado Unrefined Cane Sugar

Temperature 23 degrees
Starting SG = 1040

Brew 00102

One week on from original brew date.  The brew has been bubbling away energetically all week but it seems that fermentation has died down to almost nothing now.  We've been moving the fermenter about to keep it in warm spots (such as the lounge, for afternoon sun).  I'm thinking we will need to find a better way than this.  A quick browse on Trademe shows that fermenter heating pads can be had for a very reasonable price, so we may have to explore that option before long.

Here we have our first ever deviation from simply following the instructions that came with the kit.  Lynne has been talking this week with one of her workmates about the subject of dry-hopping.  Dry-hopping is when extra hops, usually of a different but complementary variety to those used in the original brew are added to the Wort after the primary ferment is completed.  This can be done in several ways, putting the hops into bags (kind of like teabags) or just sprinkling them straight into the fermenter.  The point of this is to enhance or add complexity to the flavour of the final product.  This will extend the process a bit as the wort will need to be left an extra week (or maybe even two) in the fermenter before bottling, to allow the extra hops to infuse the mixture.

Being as how she is a foodie Lynne decided that extra complexity of flavour sounded like a thing she wanted so she did a bit of online research and compiled a list of hops that would compliment a Pilsener if added to the mix.  Then we paid a quick visit to our local brew shop and purchased a packet of one of the items on the list.  The available hops with a bit thin of choice as they had had a bit of a run on them over the long weekend.  Clearly dry-hopping is more popular and common than I had supposed.

Dry Hopped with 50g pf Kohatu Hop pellets - simply opened the barrel and sprinkled the hops on top.

Brew 00101 - Pilsener

So this then is the first step in our grand new adventure of home brewing.  We have bought ourselves a brewing starter kit from our local home brew shop

Black Rock Pilsener Kit 
Black Rock Pilsener malt
Petone Aquifer Water (23L)

1kg brewing sugar

All done exactly as per the instructions - no trying to get clever on the first run :)
Only one small problem - I forgot to take the Specific Gravity at the start, so we won't be able to figure out the Alcohol Volume when it is finished.  Not really a biggie though I guess.

Fermantation started very promptly - under way by midday the next day.

I must say, this process brought back some very fond memories for me.  The kitchen was awash in the lovely smell of hopped malt.  Unfortunately the kitchen floor ended up a bit awash in water.  I have a broken arm at the moment, wrapped up in a plaster cast and I found it a bit difficult to control the 20L container of water when it came time to pour it into the fermenter.  A lesson learned for next time perhaps.  

Dogroom Brewing

So, Lynne and I have decided to try our hand at home brewing.

I used to make a bit of homebrew back in the 90s but kind of drifted away from it for a variety of reasons.  But it has always been there, quietly in the back of my mind, that one day I might like to take it up again.  Although my original fermenter has long gone, I kept most of the other paraphenalia, the smaller pieces mostly, that were easy to tuck away in storage.

Additionally, several of Lynne's workmates have recently taken up the ancient and honourable art of brewing and this has sparked an interest in her to give it a try.  Of course given that Lynne and most of her workmates are both creative and competitive, this could lead us down some interesting paths in the brewing world.  Historically, my brewing process has been pretty much limited to buying and using the available kit beers exactly as per instructions with no additions to ingrediants or deviations from process.  Somehow I doubt that this will be the case this time around.

Regardless of this small misgiving, I expect this could readily turn into a fine shared hobby for us, with a very pleasant byproduct - beer!