My New Juicer:

I've just come back from, amongst other places, a 'Good as New' charity shop with a fruit juicer for only 5 euro! What a bargain. Too late for the apples, of course, but I've just made carrot and ginger and apple and shrivelled tangerine juice with it, and I can't believe how much easier it was than weilding a bit of two-by-four. Well, no, I can believe it, but the 2x4 was easier to clean.

Cider:

Making the cider reminded me of doing the first brew; checking up on it every five minutes, sniffing it, making sure it’s nice and cosy, etc. Recently I’ve been quite confident in my brewing technique, so brewing up has become routine. Now, trying something completely different, it has that sense of the unknown again. Adventure, exploration, that kind of thing.

Also, this week, I’ve opened up the second lot of IPA. It’s to coincide with a curry I made, which coincides with a book I’m reading about I.P.A. and its journey to India. The book’s called Hops and Glory, by a fellow called Pete Brown. It’s a great book, and though it only just creeps into the home brew genre, it will none the less receive a review in the appropriate section soon. Oh, and the I.P.A. was fine, thanks!

So now that the cider is fermenting away in the spare room, under a sleeping bag, a duvet and some sort of blanket, we’ve got the dining room table back. The apples were resting there for a week, as per online advice (well, they didn’t specify a dining room table), and it didn’t take long before bills, books and other day to day household gubbins were piled on top of the apples!

I won’t really know how the cider turns out until spring, but until then I’ve written up my ‘recipe’ (with pictures) in a separate page. It’s not particularly useful until then, as it might turn out not to work, but if I don’t write it now I’ll not remember what I did. Anyway, these nights are drawing in, and I need something to write about!

An Update:

I've opened the Geordie Bitter! After only a couple of weeks it was a fantastic beer. I've used the past tense there, but there is still some left, and I'm trying to leave it alone!

I took a bottle over to Dad in Wales, as he's something of a connoiseur of real ales, and he liked it, I think. Although he said it lacked sparkle, he did manage to drink it all. We were drinking a bottled ale called 'Dandelion Ale' by Badger Organic, and it's much more like the real ale I want to be brewing. I'm going to look into some tasting notes and recipes to see what it takes to produce something more like it - though it will be a lot more complicated than just opening the tin, like I'm used to - and frankly, with our crappy tin opener, that's hard enough!

I recieved a parcel with bungs and bubblers etc in it, so I've been itching to get scrumping for a couple of weeks. Luckily, my need for apples coincided with a wedding over in England we (Girlfriend and I) were going to, so I've brought back a bag-for-life full of apples from Mum's garden. We travelled by car, which was handy, as I doubt the Ryanair baggage restriction would have allowed me to take on that kind of weight!

So I'll be putting a borrowed juicer through it's paces next week, and hopefully end up with a good gallon of cider to comment on come spring. I'll have to be much more patient than I have been so far, but luckily I've got some Triple ready soon. That should take my mind off it.

On Order

Living in a relatively far flung town, in a similarly distant peninsula of Ireland (it’s not the end of the world, but you can see it) as I do, I have to get my home brew mail order. I’ve written that like it’s a bad thing, but I love getting parcels. Most of the home brew is ordered online, and I really have to like a website, find it easy to navigate and with a good FAQ section before I buy. There’s nothing quite like judging a book by its cover. I don’t know what it is about such beautifully constructed websites, but they have cheaper beer too, I’m sure of it. And my brew always comes out better. Well, alright, maybe not.

But I’m on the prowl again. I might try the John Thompson Bitter this time, and will definitely be doing some early Christmas shopping. I’m thinking about Brewferm’s Christmas beer, or Munton’s Winter Warmer. They prefer a long condition, apparently, being of a higher alcohol content and stronger flavour, I presume, so I will need to start soon. I’ve already started on the mince pies, this year.

It’s nearly autumn (it must be - it feels like christmas), and there are loads of apples just lying about the place, so I've been on the phone to mammy, with polite instructions that on her next trip to Wilkinsons she send over some bungs for the two glass demijohns I found in a charity shop, some champagne yeast and campden tablets.

The plan? To make dynamite cider!

N.B. Whilst scouring the internet for a good home brew website I stumbled across the Chichester Real Ale and Jazz Festival. Two of my favourite things! Now... where did I put that Visa...

Seventh Brew: John Bull I.P.A (40 pints, anywhere between 4.5 and 5 %)

This time I had a small audience whilst I was brewing up. Of course, no one offered to stir, boil or wash or anything, but a few 'helpful' bits of advice were ignored along the way. That was the last of the latest order, but I’m already scouring the pages for the next lot.

Once again, the beer contained the usual tin and fair trade sugar (fair trade, to ease the conscience of shopping for it at Sainsbos), hot and cold water. I used the shower attachment in the bath to add the cold water, to speed up the process a little and keep the kitchen dry. But, brilliantly, the fast, powerful flow of water we so like to shower under frothed up the beer so much that I couldn’t take an accurate reading on the hydrometer. Taking a reading is hard enough as it is! So the final ABV will be about 4.5 – 5 %, probably, but I’ll not know for sure, just like every other time.

Now, although the bathroom is not the most hygienic place to keep a wort, it was a very brief visit to the bath. Having recently looked in the attic to see about insulating it, to keep us (and the beer) a little warmer this winter, I noticed inside the water storage tank. I’ll never wash any bottles in warm water again! It wasn’t that it was out of the ordinary, it’s just that it was bad. I’d say check your own, if I didn’t know better.

Hot off the Spare Room press; I’d literally just cleared it from its former use as a toy store, when it was taken over for another purpose, so now the beer is fermenting in the ‘master’ bedroom. But I’m going to enjoy waking up to the smell of fresh beer, just like walking into a house that’s baking bread… only nicer!

Sixth Brew*: Geordie Bitter (36 pints, 4.5%)

I’m writing this before bottling the beer, where normally I write afterwards. I think I’m doing this to put off washing the bottles, in the same spirit that gets the housework done or all the socks paired whilst some deadline or other looms. I’m not looking forward to cleaning and rinsing 20 bottles. Maybe I’ll give in and buy a pressure barrel soon. Maybe.

The brew seems to have gone off without a hitch, so far. I’m getting pretty quick at making it all. I stopped measuring out the pints exactly, and went with the marks on the side of the bucket for a guide. I’ve also got the hang of siphoning the beer into bottles. I think the trick is to keep the barrel only slightly higher than the bottles, so that it doesn’t all gush out. Nice and easy does it. Although I’m still not quite sure about sucking the end of the tube to get the beer out… no bacterial side effects yet…

Not much else to report in the way of brewing. Once it’s bottled I’ll be off to the shops for 2 lbs of sugar and another round of bottles to empty.

A Few Days Later...

Well, isn’t washing bottles fun. At least I won’t have to do it again for a week or so. 20 litres bottled, and it looks good and dark. I’ve saved myself ten minutes work in a couple of days time by just putting the bottled beer straight in the cupboard without the four day 'warm' period. Frankly, it’s just pointless because the house is tepid at the best of times, and if the mice like it behind the cupboard, then it must be reasonably warm. It’ll do.

* Getting the hang of it now

Fifth Brew: Brewferm Triple + light candy sugar(15 pints, 7.4%)

And now, we wait. The Brewferm Triple, a beer apparently similar to Leffe Trippel, is settling in for the long haul, spread between 8 one litre bottles, and a 500ml Diet Coke bottle. A modest amount of beer, but I’m not disappointed, I just put on another. It’ll be ready a lot quicker than the 10 or so weeks that the Triple will take.

The Triple was easy enough to make. It was a 9 litre kit, so there was only a fraction of the mess in the kitchen afterwards, though I still had to wear my waterproof boots. As usual, in went the tin, some expensive sugar (called Crystal something), hot and cold water, and then yeast. I made this at about midnight, before I was due to go away on a little marine adventure, so I put it to bed in a blanket and checked up on it at 7 the next morning. When I said goodnight, the brew hardly filled the 25 litre bin. Yet, the following morning, the froth coming off the brew was touching the lid! That’s – does sums – 16 litres of froth! Anyway, after seeing that vigorous yeast activity I went off feeling the brew could probably look after itself for a couple of days.

I bottled it when I got back, ten days later, having first siphoned it off into another bucket. I did this hoping some of the yeast would sink, and there wouldn’t be so much in the bottle, but it didn’t really work. I also tried it because apparently the beer tastes better if left a day or two extra in the bucket. Again, having only tried this on one or two brews, and not in a proper side – by – side test, it’ll be hard to know. But the overspill tasted excellent: very sweet, and darned strong. I was right in thinking it could take care of itself.

I ordered the latest set of tins from www.thehomebrewcompany.ie, which showed up quickly. I wasted no time in brewing, as I want plenty of beer to be ready for my own little Oktoberfest in, uh, October. Watch this space…

Since Then:

So, the triple turned out to be quite strong, in both alcohol and malt flavour. It isn't one for the faint hearted... maybe start out with the single or dubbel first if you're not sure. Definately don't go straight in for the Abbots. The candi sugar was an interesting addition. It will have contributed some not-so-subtle caramelly flavours, which can be quite harsh. Basically, what I'm saying is, it didn't go down well with everybody.