Hello... testing... is this thing on?

Right, I'm back, though only for a bit. I've run out of ingredients again, so.

I've been brewing at home under the assumption that, having done about 20 successful brews, the 21st, 2nd and third would all go swimmingly. I rushed through the last couple, all proud of myself, only to discover, upon opening a much-anticipated Irish Red Ale that I had some sort of yeast infection. It's not something you want to find you've got, but to find one in your beer is just awful.

When your uncle catches you smoking, and thinks that the best lesson would be to make you smoke a full packet, or worse, a cigar*, then the best lesson learnt in the homebrew situation is to pour away over 5 gallons of booze. It makes you very careful.

So, now I'm drinking either nettle ale (with a lager yeast, so I suppose it's nettle lager), some dodgy Irish Red Ale (the infection seemed to have 'cleared up', and after more than a month in the bottle the DMS cabbagy smell is much diminished), and in about 4 days a fantastic golden ale. How do I know it's fantastic if it's not ready for another four days? Well, I can never really wait. It's good.

Actually, I'm being quite calm and philosophical about the down-the-pan thing. After all, I didn't know what a bad batch of beer was. It's all about learning. I definitely didn't cry.

That's it for now, nettle ale recipe coming up soon.

* of course that never happened to me, but I heard tell of ones to whom it did. I was never caught.

The New Style- Irish Black Ale

Let me be the first to unveil a new beer style, the Irish Black Ale. No, it’s not a stout, and for some reason it’s not Irish Red Ale either. I used the same, small, amount of chocolate and roasted malt as the last red ale, but for some reason, it’s just come out black. It might clear up after fermentation…

I think I qualify as a small brewery now. After St. Patrick’s day I brewed another golden ale, which has been kegged. Unfortunately the plastic barrel’s CO2 valve leaks the wrong way, so I’ve had to replace it with a nut and bolt. Now the beer’s nicely conditioned, but if I’ve put too much sugar in the keg, it’ll explode. Better drink it quick.

After the golden ale, I brewed up another; a 2 gallon batch of strong ale. The reason being, I wanted to see if you could recycle hops. I calculated that the amount of hops I’d have after the golden ale would make a second beer very bitter, so I made it very strong. I mean, if you assume that in a one-hour boil you use 30% of the alpha acids, that leaves 70% acids… well, it doesn’t seem to work like that. My green credentials remain intact, but my brewing credentials, less so. The old ale is basically stewed malt extract. No bitterness whatsoever.

Then a quick Irish red. No, Irish black, sorry. Most of the wort was boiled with some Northdown, while a very little extra was boiled with a lot of Magnum hops. This extra has been added to the strong ale mentioned above to put some bitterness back in. It’s still fermenting away, which is nice to see, in two demijohns. Hopefully the finished product will be more balanced.

How great to have manipulated my way through all these difficulties- the underbittered beer, the broken keg, brewing two beers in one afternoon- only to be thwarted by a distinct lack of yeast! I was so sure I had one more sachet left. Lots of bakers yeast, but no brewers yeast. Fortunately I did keep some back in a bottle. I intended using it for another beer, but needs must. Anyway, lessons learnt.

By the way, Nestea and Lucozade bottles make perfect starter bottles, as the opening is the same size as those handy rubber bungs. I wouldn’t need to know this if I’d kept track of how much yeast I’d used.

Irish Stout

Happy St. Guin Patrick's Day!

It’s St. Patrick’s Day again. I wouldn’t normally spend three weeks preparing for a party, but it’d be a poor show if I hadn’t made enough beer to satisfy at least four Irishfolk. I’m not pandering to a stereotype here, by the way, just going by the last two years. The Tiger Beer will remain a secret, hidden from drunken, lecherous eyes; Kindleweisse is practically undrinkable, thanks to it tasting of cloves and nothing else. But a Golden Ale* will be available to reward paradees (people who do the parade).

But, because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, it’s only right I should brew a stout... even if only to thin out the feckin’ Guinness. I’ve only made two gallons for reasons better, but not entirely, known to myself. It’s a sweet stout, with crystal and chocolate malt in place of flaked and roasted barley (no it’s not a porter). From the bottling leftovers, it’s very, very nice. But it only has 6 days to condition. Will it be long enough? Not satisfied that secondary fermentation is going to be sufficient (bottling gravity was 1015, OG was only 1042!) I put them in the bed with the electric blanket on. It didn’t work. I’m still tiling the fireplace**; so with no proper heat for a couple of days, it may be very sweet, very flat stout! Never mind. I’ve no doubt it’ll go down well after a mile long parade.

Having homebrew on St. Paddy’s day is a flimsy tradition for me, seeing how I forgot last year, but it’s nice to have a house full of people and homebrew at the same time. They’re usually mutually exclusive. I’ve made pretty labels, bottled them in glass, and there’s at least some sort of beer to please everyone, and some Carlsberg to disappoint. So with any luck I’ll have a captive audience to test out my recipes. I'm placing listening devices down the back of the sofa so I can hear what people really think. Let's face it, noone's going to tell me bad things when I'm giving away free beer!

Now then, on with the rest of the preparations to people-proof the house. Nail everything down, hide the ornaments, light candles and bake bread. Oh yeah, and finish that fireplace!

* The post below mentions the Golden Ale, and I think it also says something like “at least make a passable pale ale”. Well, it’s a very good Pale Ale, but not a particularly good example of a Golden. Back to the drawing board with that recipe, I think. I’m not short of recipes for Pales.

** Last year’s promise was to get the stove in by St. Parick’s Day. This year’s promise is to tile around it.

What to do with a spare 8 hours.

A Sunday evening alone, the perfect opportunity for things I’m not allowed to do when Ms Homebrew’s in: listen to jazz, and brew beer. Ms Homebrew doesn’t mind me watching the rugby, even when it’s on at the same time as an Eastenders omnibus, but jazz? She’s no time for it. “It’s messy sounding”. And homebrewing’s just plain messy. I’m wearing slippers now, while I brew. Once upon a time my homebrew outfit included waders.

I’ve been a bit busy with non-homebrew related stuff, so I’ll condense the last two brews into a single paragraph, seeing as nothing particularly exciting happened. 5 gallons of tiger beer made, from Dave Line’s recipe, to which I was largely faithful; and Kindleweisse, a whatever’s-left-in-the-cupboard wheat beer. The first has been lagered in the shed (in the plastic bucket, at about 9 degrees, so not really lagering, I know), the second, Kindleweisse, an American Wheat beer, has been soaking up the heat from the stove, occasionally exciting the cat. It did take a little while to start fermenting, but once I’d put it where the cat usually sits, it sprung to life. Cats do know the warmest spots.

I’m making a batch of Golden Ale. I’m not really sure what makes Golden Ale. Everything else I’ve brewed has either been pretty dyed in the wool as a style, or written about enough for me to reproduce it with some confidence. Even Kindleweisse, which was only made because apparently in some countries you can ferment a wheat beer with a top fermenting (ale) yeast, and was the result of a read through Daniel’s book.

Even on the Internet there’s not much about ‘Golden Ale’. As far as I understand it’s a relatively new term, coined in 1994, which is enough time for the Internet to have an opinion on it. Nevertheless, I did find the following: It’s a golden sort of colour, between 3 and five percent alcohol, little in the way of a malt profile, but plenty from the hops, which should produce a crisp, dry beer, with a feeling of bitterness, and a powerful hop aroma.


To that end, I’ve used 7lbs 8oz pale malt, 4oz each of wheat malt and barley flakes, 1.5oz Fuggles (hops) and 1/3 oz of Styrian Goldings (also hops) to give an IBU of about 30 (which may or may not be typical of the style). I’ve mashed low and long to remove any trace of flavour from the beer, but I’ll put it back with late additions of whatever Styrian Goldings I have left, and plenty of Cascade. I’ve also used some Burton water salt treatment to help with the hoppiness. I was toying with the idea of using acid malt, to lift up the pH, which I gather the Pilsner producing countries do to create a crisp flavour, but I chickened out of that in favour of something that would, if all else failed, make a passable pale ale. I also tried this: put in your copper hops before the wort comes to the boil and the wort won’t kick and spill over the place – it works.

Ah, and now I’ve distracted myself with writing, and I can’t remember if the boil started at ten to ten, or ten past! D’oh.

New Year's Resolutions

This year I’m going to continue to observe my ‘No Carlsberg’ resolution from a few years back (it’s harder than it sounds), and to it I’ll add ‘Spend more time in the kitchen’. That means brewing!

So, did you get a homebrew kit for Christmas, and have found this blog after Googling some home brewed beer related words? Then isn’t Google clever, sending you here. The following is some advice to those new to the hobby, or as is often the case, those returning after years spent having a family.

Brewing your own beer from a tin, box or bag is really easy, and very rewarding.

Your basic kit is:
Your tin kit (plus 1kg / 2lbs of sugar)
A 5 gallon bucket, plus lid
Bottles
A 5ft-ish tube to siphon your beer
Sterilising stuff
Anything else is needlessly fancy: hydrometer, thermometer and so on. People have been brewing without these for thousands of years.

If you’ve been given just a tin your kit won’t be as instant as all that, but as most homebrew starter kits come with everything you need, you can get cracking right away. If you do need anything from the above list, you’ll not go far wrong with your local farmers co-op. Start there. And while you’re in the co-op, get yourself some wood, put up some shelves, as you’ll soon need more space than you know. This ‘hobby’ is addictive.

Now I have no intention of reproducing the instructions given with your can, as I’ve yet to brew from a tin that had insufficient instructions within. However, I’ve some additional info here, which may help understand the instructions.

Firstly, don’t let the instructions scare you. Whilst I too can’t stress enough the importance of cleanliness in brewing, it’s not something you need to stress about. The instructions are likely to give you nightmares about making 5 gallons of malt vinegar. This simply isn’t going to happen. If the bucket is dirty, wash it up. A clean bucket should then be sterilised with any old household sterilising stuff (Milton, VWP, a weak bleach solution), and rinsed until there’s no trace of your cleaner or steriliser. Now it’s ready to use. There’s no need for lab coveralls and industrial steam cleaners. It’s homebrew.

Now go back to the instructions. The next thing it’s probably going to harp on about is how quickly your wort is likely to become infected. Your wort is the watery malt extract stuff you’ve now got 5 gallons of, which hasn’t yet been fermented. If you leave the bucket unattended for a day or two then yes, you might have a sour tasting, very weakly alcoholic, undrinkable beer, but if you pitch (chuck in) your yeast into the wort as directed, you’ll have no problems. Put the lid on, put it somewhere not too warm, not too cold, and leave it for 12 hours. After twelve hours, or a day, or whenever you’ve got time, open the lid a little and take a peek. There should be a lovely, fluffy cloud-like layer going on, with lots of brown bitter-tasting bits sticking to it, and the smell can be anything between a loaf in the oven to rotten eggs. This is normal. Normal. Replace the lid having not sneezed into the bucket or dipped in anything unsavoury, relax, and continue to follow the instructions.

Finally, exercise patience. So it says leave your beer in bottles for 3 weeks? Leave it 6 and you’ll be amazed at what you’ve created. Don’t forget to tell everyone about it now; you’ll never make it through 5 gallons on your own.

'Tis the season...

Needing an extra empty pop bottle is a weak excuse for drinking homebrew before lunch. In the end I didn’t actually need the extra bottle, but the lengths I’d go to to secure one are as yet unplumbed.

The reason I needed another bottle is I’ve finally gotten around to bottling some cider. It’s been under fermentation lock for about as long as I can remember. Now it’s split between three 1 litre bottles, primed and awaiting spring. I’ve only a few more bottles of the Mmmild to give away, and then that’s the homebrewing done for another year (though there are still bags of empties and a keg needs washing!). If Santa gets me some ‘AAA’ batteries for Christmas I’ll be making some more booze in January (thermometer and beard-trimming-machine both take ‘triple A’s, so no mashing or shaving has been done for some time).

I’ll be looking forward to making some more lagers while the weather’s cold, which will be the perfect refreshing drink for our guaranteed hot Irish summer, and while I’m home over the festive season I hope to make a homebrew demo video. This will be a short, introductory video aimed at people who got their first homebrew kit for Christmas, and want to get cracking right away!

So, to end 2011, I’m happy to look back on a progressive year of brewing, from a tin in March, extract in May, and making the leap into almost completely all grain by July! The beers have been getting better and better, I’m making less and less mess, and I’m getting a whole batch of all-grain done in less that 12 hours! And that’s all true except for the less mess bit.

So, I hope you’ll check back for the video in January, but until then, Merry Christmas, and a happy new year. And remember: Homebrew isn’t just for Christmas, it’s a way of life.

Brew 20: Looking like a Mmmild winter, 5 gal of Dark Mild, 3.5 – 4%

I’m making more beer, because I don’t think the 5 gallons of Hobgoblin is quite enough. Another 5 of mild ought to see me through to New Year. The mild, as it happens, purely by coincidence, is just a low alcohol version of the hobgoblin recipe. Honestly, the recipe is all from my head. I had 4.5lbs of light DME left over in a bag, going solid, and I thought a mild would mature in time for Christmas, y’know, so I could give the odd bottle out, if I can bear to let go. It was only afterwards, looking over the recipe, that I realised it was close in proportions, just about 2/3s of the gravity. Just as well the Hobgoblin tastes great, then.
Uh, yes… I did open up a bottle after barely two weeks.

So, to conclude the post, here is my mild recipe, called ‘Mmmild’, even though there’s no way of knowing if it’ll taste that good for a number of weeks. I’m really just assuming that it’ll be great because it’s made of beer.
4.5lbs Light DME
12oz crystal 55L
2.3oz. chocolate malt
1oz maltodextrine/carapils
All the above, plus a pinch of salt, prepared in the usual extract/grain way.
Then, 0.3oz Magnum, 0.85oz Fuggles, and 0.4 Styrian Goldings all at 60 mins.
Followed by Irish moss and some more hops for flavour and aroma. Fermented with Safale US-04 (English Ale)

I’ll rack it into a secondary, so that if I do manage to part with some bottles as some sort of gift, there won’t be a ridiculous amount of yeast at the bottom. I know it’s harmless, you know it’s harmless, but it does look odd. Fortunately, if some yeast does end up in the glass, the chocolate malt will have darkened the beer sufficiently to cover any of that cloudiness up. There could even be a bit of chill haze, if that’s the way it turns out. So long as it tastes nice, eh? Seeing as the Hobgoblin clone I’m currently drinking tastes so fantastic, I imagine a ‘lite’ version will go down equally well.

By the way, it tastes like Rum and Dandelion and Burdock, and I love it! But what if nobody else does? Maybe I shouldn’t give any away after all.