Tasting Time

So not much activity on here for the last couple of weeks. That is because the instructions say you are supposed to leave your brew alone for two weeks for it to ferment. It suggest that even after two weeks has passed your brew will get better the longer you leave it. My friend Andy tells me two years is too long. Unless you like old flat beer... (This is not my friend but he does share the same name.) Having said that you make beer, you want to drink it so I decided to put one bottle in the fridge and have a celebratory beer for my wife's birthday. A good day in the fridge and it was plenty cold. Sitting in the sun and playing some Settlers of Catan seemed like the perfect time to enjoy my beer.

I twisted the cap on the bottle and it hissed just like a proper beer. Those carbonation capsules seem to have done their job. I poured the beer into my glass and it came out beer coloured with a nice head on top it. It was even clear like a beer should be. No sign of home brew sediment in this one. One last test. How did it taste? I put it to my lips, took a mouthful in waiting for that home brew bite, but it never came. It was smooth and fresh and sort of pale aley in its taste. It was supposed to be a Munich Lager so not quite lagery in its taste, but pretty darn good nonetheless. My wife even agreed.

The bottle was enough for two glasses, so after enjoying the first one I went back for seconds. I think the first pour must have mixed things up a bit, because this time it was a bit cloudier and had a slight home brew smell about it. Still tasted good though, and that's what it's all about. Science.

Just Great

As I previously mentioned, I needed to get a new hydrometer and some more cleaning stuff. I happened to be in the Hutt to get a few jobs done so thought I would visit Brewers World - Great Expectations in Fairfield. They have shelves full of all sorts of things you need to brew our own beer, as well as make other things like wine and cheese. However, the shelves were less than full, with only a few items on each. A chat with the guy  behind the counter made it clear that they had had a massive run on stock after Christmas and couldn't get the shop restocked again to meet the demand. He seemed pretty down on it, but I couldn't help but remind him that it was good news to be that busy. He begrudgingly agreed. 

Armed with cleaner and a hydrometer  I stopped at Countdown on the way home and picked up some sanitiser. Good to know that the supermarket has a fair amount of supplies for keeping the home brew going. Some water, a sachet of cleaner, some shaking, some scrubbing and some wiping and the barrel was all clean again. No more brown residue. Pulling my tap apart I also found what looked like the valve for my bottle filler (and probably the reason the pour was so slow too. Now I just need to work out how to put it together so it works next time I bottle.

In the meantime it is a simple matter of waiting before any of the bottled beer can be drunk. Patience is a virtue.

Bottleneck

Another hydromoter reading and no change from last time so things were  looking pretty good for getting my brew out of the barrel and into bottles. Unfortunately the loose cap on the testing jar let me down again. It wasn't beer thar went everywhere this time though, it was the hydrometer as its glass frame smashed all over the floor. Looks like I need to find somewhere that sells hydrometers...

With that cleaned up I got out my thirty plastic bottles. Not exactly classy but apparently you can't just use any old bottles because they need to be able to cope with the pressure. (I won't ever forget the big cider bomb war of the early 2000s...) Science.

To make sure not to get infected by that dirty bacteria it was time for some cleaning again. Last sachet of cleaning powder from the kit (best be grabbing some more of that) and half filled the laundry sink with cold water and then swished the powder around just like I do with the Napi-San. Although this time it was rubber gloves on to save my soft office hands. I chucked a couple of bottles in the sink and then vigorously went to town on them with the bottle brush. Only one sink in the laundry so had to use the sink and draining space in the kitchen for rinsing. My timing may not have been best as there was jam bubbling away on the stove only centimetres away. It was a self sufficient house today.

Once clean the bottles also had to be sterilised so it was time to clear out the sink of soapy water and fill it with 5l of water to which the steriliser sachet was added and swished around. It was a careful case of removing the bottles from the pyramid without toppling the rest everywhere and then swishing them around in the sanitiser water. The bench in the kitchen was being used to jar jam so the washing machine lid needed to double as a bottle stand for my sanitary bottles. Lids and bottling attachment floated around during all of this too so they should have been pretty well sanitised by the end of it all (as would my t-shirt have been from all the water it had been splashed with too.)

All that cleaning finally finished it was time to finally get some beer in the bottles. Two carbonation capsules in each bottle (I assume they make my beer fizzy). Fortunately they didn't start fizzing straight away. The bottling attachment is a long tube which attaches to the tap. I think it is supposed to have a valve on the bottom so you can just switch on the tap but it only fills when the tube touches the bottom of the bottle. My tube has no valve so I was switching the tap on and off to fill my bottles. Fortunately with the tube on the bottles sat nicely on the floor and I could start filling one as I put the lid on another. Efficient.

The beer wasn't exactly gushing out so I patiently watched each bottle fill up as the level inside the barrel went gradually down. It got a bit worrying towards the end of my 30 bottles as there must have been some sediment stuck in the tap and the dribble became a drip. A bit of swishing the barrel got things moving again. Hope those bottles don't end up half full of grit. Might have to see if someone else wants to try those ones...

Thirty bottles full and it was time to clean out the dregs from the barrel. A bit of a struggle to get the lid off but some wrestling and leverage got me there. It was all pretty rough in there. Some brown liquid swishing around. I'm not convinced the finings did anything. It sure wasn't too clear. Once I tipped the remaining liquid and sediment into the sink it was not too dissimilar too the way beer looks after coming back up again. Smelt similar too. I was pleased to be leaving that stuff behind. Proper cleaning was going to have to wait though. No more cleaning sachets left so a rinse would have to do for one day.

Job well done. Time for a beer. Know where I can get some?

So Fine

With the testing worked out yesterday and the reading being within the range of what it should have been it was time to do another test today to see if it was time to bottle. All went according to plan, fill the container, carry it to the kitchen, bottom falls out of the container spilling beer all over the floor...oops. Maybe not quite the plan I had in mind. Clean it up before the wife sees and then try again. This time the reading was the same as yesterday 1.011. So, according to my instructions that means it is time to  bottle.

But WAIT. The beer is all cloudy and looks kinda gross. Shouldn't it be clearer? What can I do about that? Luckily the kit came with a solution too. Beer Finings. Mix it up with half a cup of warm water and then pour it in the top of the beer barrel. Looks pretty good in there and hardly smells, even with the lid off. So another two days before bottling but getting ever closer to something I can drink. Have to settle for all those tasty craft beers until then. Life ain't too bad.

A decimal point

As I said I really needed to have a good look at the hydrometer and work out what I was actually measuring. As it turns out I had missed a great big 1.000 at the top. So when I was saying I was measuring 112 I was actually measuring 1.012. Phew, that was what I was aiming for. Today's measurement is 1.011. Looking pretty good and on track to bottle soon.