My heating pad has finally arrived. Big plastic square with "Copper Tun" across the front of it and a power lead coming out the side. Not much too look at but apparently this thing will let me brew beer in the cold that is Wellington winter. It is now even more important as I have sacrificed some of my work bench in the garage to set myself up a proper brewing space, rather than taking up room in our laundry. It isn't actually a good example of cleanliness is godliness with cobwebs and dust and other dirt around the place but there is something that just feels right about brewing beer in a space that has a concrete floor. You can see my new bottle capper on the bench too. Lets see how reusing beer bottles from my various drinking adventures works.
A rainy ANZAC day is the perfect opportunity to finally put on another brew. Hasn't been much of a brewing blog so far has it? Won't tell you all about the cleaning again. That was basically the same as last time. Don't need a million photos of soap suds.
Instead of malt mixture in a can, this time it came in a pouch. Apparently the pouch seals in the flavours and keeps it fresher longer. Not sure that really makes a difference to me. You have to rest the pouch in hot water for 15 mins to loosen up th mixture inside so after that I tipped the gooey mess into the barrel. It was a dark brown with streaks of light brown through it. Not sure what that was all about but hopefully it makes for a tasty pale ale. All filled up and yeast added and time for it to work its magic again. The heating pad is not supposed to be used in the first 24 hours so hopefully it will keep itself warm in the meantime.
The brew was a cool 21º at the moment. That is pretty borderline in terms of temperature. Lucky I got that heating pad. Last thing to do was the hydrometer test. Readings 117, 56 and 5.5%. Still no idea what that is all about...
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