Thursday, January 29, 2015

Trying the Coopers Stout

Having read that it is reasonable to start tasting how a beer is doing after as little as 4 days, I decided after 5 days to have a taste of the Stout.

First impressions were ok, but then I was hit by subtle tones of the soapy salty taste I recognised from the brewing process. I very quickly found I couldnt drink any more of it, so poured half a bottle away, and will give it a little longer in case these flavours disappear, but I am not hopeful.

I'm not really sure what caused the problem. I have certainly turned down the temperature in the brewing room a little, but after that Im just not sure. Hopefully the next beer will be ok, having started it in the belief that the Stout had come out ok.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Woodfordes Wherry

Time for my second brew to go on. The Woodfordes Wherry is actually a brew I have been meaning to do for years. It came up regularly when I first started as a good brew to start with, so I almost did it as one of my first brews. However, I never quite got round to it. However, it was on offer just before Christmas, and kindly Chrissie bought me it. 



There was nothing exciting to report in the setup. 2 cans warmed in the sink, a bunch more boiling water, mostly filled it up with cold, and then an extra half a kettle to keep the temperature low to mid 20s, and top up to 23 litres.

Time to wait. I've ordered more bottles, but am busy next weekend, so will have to see when I can find time to bottle this one. Thursday seems a little soon.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Bottling the Coopers Stout

I found a few hours and got down to washing the bottles, using the new squirting bottle cleaner Chrissie got me for Christmas, and my trusty bottle tree. It all seemed to work very well, plus  the bottles from amazon seemed to be well cleaned already.

To estimate the alcohol percentage I used (OG-FG)*0.129. This gives 1040-1006 = 34 * 0.129 = 4.4%.

Darren kindly offered to help, so with clean bottles and equipment I proceed to fill the bottles, and Darren put on the caps. We raced though it, with a few of the usual overflowed bottles on occasion when I wasn't paying attention.

All done. I will give them a few days in the house where its nice and warm before moving them somewhere cooler.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Last measurement of coopers Stout

I took a final measurement, though to be honest I figured that at 1006 2 days ago, it would surely be finished now.

I took another picture.


It looks very similar to before, so Im sure its done.

Bottling time as soon as I have a couple of hours.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Second gravity reading

Took a second reading a day later. I also took a pic to make it easier to compare. The top of the bubbles clearly are at 1004 so I guess we are St about 1006.



This reading is definite while yesterday's I wasn't certain of so I will see tomorrow.

I noticed some worrying white areas on the top of the beer and decided to taste a few drops from the hydrometer. It didn't taste good. It's hard to tell with such a small amount but it seemed very salty. I fear for it. Will try some properly before bottling.


Monday, January 19, 2015

First Gravity reading on Coopers Stout

Its been 4 nights since kicking off the Coopers Stout. My new bottles and bottle caps have arrived and Im just waiting on the bottle capper which is on its way, so I wanted to see if the beer was getting near to bottling time. I ran the hydrometer under boiling water from the kettle and dropped it in the beer. It dropped to the point i couldnt quite see the black section - so between 1010 and 1008, I forgot to take a picture. Im not that surprised, as the room has been very warm for the most part so I expected it to go quickly. I will take anotehr reading tonight and another the next night. Im busy Wednesday night but could thenbottle it on Thursday if its stable.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Starting again

So its been many years since my last home brew, as this blog shows. The motivation to finally get back into it is for my wedding. Its all about people bring their own made things and favourite things, so it seems only fitting that I should bring some home brew myself. therefore I'm back at it.

The long break does bring with it some challenges. First of all I have forgotten everything I learnt, so thats no ideal. I've been back to googling things and following the exact instructions. Secondly all my gear hasnt been touched in years. I toyed with just buying a new starter kit with new bucket, stirrer, tubing etc, but given the urgency of needing several brews inside a few months I wanted to get started straight away.
 
 I chose a Coopers Stout from the packs I got for Christmas to start with. The good part of this is its the cheapest so if I ruin it, its not quite as painful. The bad news is its a one can kit and I'd never done one of those before. I also don't have quick access to anything but white granulated sugar, so opted to add the full 1kg of white sugar as instructed, rather than brewing sugar, MLE or any of the other things google talks about.

 I had bought some fresh sanitiser, and set to work on swishing round freshly booiled water and then some cold and then sanitising power, and then filled it up to allow the whole bucket to soak along with the hydrometer, brush, stirrer and thermometer. I think there is a high probability that this brew fails due to something getting in the beer somewhere, what with the old gear and the faffing as I haven't done it in ages. We shall see. When I finally started I poured the 1kg of granulated sugar into the bucket, and poured a kettle of boiling water. I then reboiled the kettle so that I could pour some over the tin and stirrer and then opened the tin and poured that in. Even after filling the tin with boiling water to get more out it was obvious that lots was left in the tin still. After another boiling water I opted to fill the rest of the bucket by constantly refilling the tin with cold water. This worked with the tin being mostly clean on the inside in the end. Before getting to the fill level on the bucket I took a temperature reading and found it was 21 and still falling slightly. Its very cold outside at the moment so the tap water would have been very cold. Given I was only filling with cold water and needed to add another few litres yet I boiled the kettle again, twice, and along with some more cold water while waiting I tested again at 23 and when finished it was 24. It took longer than I would like but it was done.

There was a pretty big head from alll the splashing and stirring but I seem to recall from the back of my memory that you were supposed to get as much air in as possible at this stage. Next I took a gravity reading, which was really tough given the huge head, but after some faffing I think it was pretty close to being bang on 140. I then nearly made a dreadful error - I put the lid on and started packing up... only to then see the yeast (if I hadn't brought it in half way through the job I might have forgotten completely). I sprinkled this in, and gave it a heck of a stir ot try to get it all mixed in. There didnt seem to be any floating on top so i figured I was finally done.

Now I will try to leave it alone for a few days, but keep an eye on the room temperature at least - its been fairly cold recently so I'm now wondering if I should be keeping the heating on a lot of the time.