...well in fact it will be 43 years this coming June that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play but it was about 40 (maybe 41) years ago that I (and my brother) brewed my first, and until now, last batch of beer. Needless to say that attempt could be termed, at best, only partially successful.
That was well before the internet and we did the best we could with the information etc. we had access to at the time (that's my excuse anyhow).
Any way, recently I became interested in making my own soda water and was in K-Mart looking at the soda making machines there and noticed that they had Brigalow Home Brewing Kits on sale at $29 and it prompted me into thinking about having another crack at it (I am retired now and have the time to do it more thoroughly).
Well the first thing to go wrong was that the only kit they had left was incomplete d'oh!. In any case they had all the missing bits on the shelf as separate items so I approached the manager to ask him if he was prepared to add those to the kit, in order to complete, it for the same price. Instead of that he offered the existing partial kit to me for half price ($14.50) and as I thought that that was a reasonable price for the fermenter alone I took it.
I added the essential missing bits (I am now only missing the valve on the end of the bottling tube but I think I don't really need that?).
One of the items missing from the kit that I couldn't obtain was the instruction booklet (there are basic instructions on the side of the tin but they don't give any detail, for instance how hot's hot? what should the SG for this particular brew (Brigalow Lager BTW) be when fermented?
That was about 6 weeks ago and since then I have been watching YouTubes and reading forums, tutorials etc, and last Tuesday thought (ha!) I knew enough to take the plunge.
Using the Cooper's home brew video as a guide I went through the procedure as carefully as I could, taking special care to sanitise everything (with sodium metabisulphite).
The first problem I had was when I tried to attach the spigot to the fermenter barrel I found that on the last turn the spigot was too loose and one more turn caused it to strip (actually, just pop out of) the thread - I probably should have stopped right there and fixed that by packing it with something or other (in fact I did try to pack it with the ring from the original stopper but that packed it out too far), but I was too determined to move on and left it pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle and thought "I'll fix that when I come to the bottling stage", so that's something to look forward to...
The next problem was that although I had followed the procedure exactly, I found that the wort at 23L was about 30C and I thought that that would be too hot to add the yeast. For about a minute I ummed and arred about whether to wait for it to cool or to go ahead (I was pretty sure I had read somewhere that 30C was on the cusp of the "add yeast" range). I then started to worry about flies and air born contaminates etc and decide to pitch it (the yeast that is).
Anyway after a few hours the air lock started to bubble away nicely so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself (always a sign of impending doom).
I closed the lid on the fermenter at 6:00pm last Tuesday and today (Saturday) the bubbling stopped - say 3-1/2 days.
I have a digital thermometer and the original thermometer I used back in '69 (or thereabouts and is still in immaculate condition) attached to the barrel. The digital thermometer has a max/min feature and the old thermometer has an "add yeast" range.
It's been a very hot week for this time of the year in Sydney and according to my min/max feature the temperature of the barrel has varied between a smidge under 24C and a smidge over 27C - my recent reading on this forum seems to indicate this is too high - but other tutorials etc say it's OK, so advice welcomed there. In any case I knew that I should be aiming for cooler so I tried the wet towel trick but that hardly made a scrap of difference (it has also been quite humid here so not much in the way of evaporative cooling would be available).
The early end of fermenting and the dubious temperature control leads me to believe that the ferment has failed. However, the SG indicates 1.008 which, can some one confirm please?, is looking reasonable.
I tasted it and noticed some sourness, now some say that apple cideriness (due to the yeast?) is normal?, I am too inexperienced to know for sure if the sourness is apple cidery or vinegary to be quite honest, but I found that pouring it into a glass an leaving in the fridge for an hour (thus chilling it, and letting the sediment settle) greatly reduced the sourness. It certainly smells like (if somewhat stale) beer.
At the same time I noticed that the bubbling had ceased, I also noticed, for the first time, that there was a light coloured sediment on the bottom of the fermenter as well as on the ridge above the spigot (the latter I am not too pleased with as it seems as though that will increase the sediment going into the bottle). This all seems to have happened overnight.
Sorry for the long rant but thought my experience might be useful or interesting for some.
In summary my questions are:
1) do you think the brew has failed?
2) does anyone have a set of Brigalow Kit instructions they could scan and post here or email to me?
3) any suggestions as to what to do about the spigot?
4) I am a Resch's draught man (don't laugh or scoff - you'll be old one day too) and was wondering if anyone knew of a kit or recipe that approaches the taste of that drop.
5) I like a bitter beer and so picked up some hop tablets that I meant, but forgot, to add to the wort (i) will that increase the bitterness?, (ii) can I add the tablet before bottling?
Just as a postscript, I am aware that I should not expect too much of the Brigalow Lager, but this is a learning exercise and if it is at all drinkable I'll be best pleased.
Cheers,
Gary
That was well before the internet and we did the best we could with the information etc. we had access to at the time (that's my excuse anyhow).
Any way, recently I became interested in making my own soda water and was in K-Mart looking at the soda making machines there and noticed that they had Brigalow Home Brewing Kits on sale at $29 and it prompted me into thinking about having another crack at it (I am retired now and have the time to do it more thoroughly).
Well the first thing to go wrong was that the only kit they had left was incomplete d'oh!. In any case they had all the missing bits on the shelf as separate items so I approached the manager to ask him if he was prepared to add those to the kit, in order to complete, it for the same price. Instead of that he offered the existing partial kit to me for half price ($14.50) and as I thought that that was a reasonable price for the fermenter alone I took it.
I added the essential missing bits (I am now only missing the valve on the end of the bottling tube but I think I don't really need that?).
One of the items missing from the kit that I couldn't obtain was the instruction booklet (there are basic instructions on the side of the tin but they don't give any detail, for instance how hot's hot? what should the SG for this particular brew (Brigalow Lager BTW) be when fermented?
That was about 6 weeks ago and since then I have been watching YouTubes and reading forums, tutorials etc, and last Tuesday thought (ha!) I knew enough to take the plunge.
Using the Cooper's home brew video as a guide I went through the procedure as carefully as I could, taking special care to sanitise everything (with sodium metabisulphite).
The first problem I had was when I tried to attach the spigot to the fermenter barrel I found that on the last turn the spigot was too loose and one more turn caused it to strip (actually, just pop out of) the thread - I probably should have stopped right there and fixed that by packing it with something or other (in fact I did try to pack it with the ring from the original stopper but that packed it out too far), but I was too determined to move on and left it pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle and thought "I'll fix that when I come to the bottling stage", so that's something to look forward to...
The next problem was that although I had followed the procedure exactly, I found that the wort at 23L was about 30C and I thought that that would be too hot to add the yeast. For about a minute I ummed and arred about whether to wait for it to cool or to go ahead (I was pretty sure I had read somewhere that 30C was on the cusp of the "add yeast" range). I then started to worry about flies and air born contaminates etc and decide to pitch it (the yeast that is).
Anyway after a few hours the air lock started to bubble away nicely so I was feeling pretty pleased with myself (always a sign of impending doom).
I closed the lid on the fermenter at 6:00pm last Tuesday and today (Saturday) the bubbling stopped - say 3-1/2 days.
I have a digital thermometer and the original thermometer I used back in '69 (or thereabouts and is still in immaculate condition) attached to the barrel. The digital thermometer has a max/min feature and the old thermometer has an "add yeast" range.
It's been a very hot week for this time of the year in Sydney and according to my min/max feature the temperature of the barrel has varied between a smidge under 24C and a smidge over 27C - my recent reading on this forum seems to indicate this is too high - but other tutorials etc say it's OK, so advice welcomed there. In any case I knew that I should be aiming for cooler so I tried the wet towel trick but that hardly made a scrap of difference (it has also been quite humid here so not much in the way of evaporative cooling would be available).
The early end of fermenting and the dubious temperature control leads me to believe that the ferment has failed. However, the SG indicates 1.008 which, can some one confirm please?, is looking reasonable.
I tasted it and noticed some sourness, now some say that apple cideriness (due to the yeast?) is normal?, I am too inexperienced to know for sure if the sourness is apple cidery or vinegary to be quite honest, but I found that pouring it into a glass an leaving in the fridge for an hour (thus chilling it, and letting the sediment settle) greatly reduced the sourness. It certainly smells like (if somewhat stale) beer.
At the same time I noticed that the bubbling had ceased, I also noticed, for the first time, that there was a light coloured sediment on the bottom of the fermenter as well as on the ridge above the spigot (the latter I am not too pleased with as it seems as though that will increase the sediment going into the bottle). This all seems to have happened overnight.
Sorry for the long rant but thought my experience might be useful or interesting for some.
In summary my questions are:
1) do you think the brew has failed?
2) does anyone have a set of Brigalow Kit instructions they could scan and post here or email to me?
3) any suggestions as to what to do about the spigot?
4) I am a Resch's draught man (don't laugh or scoff - you'll be old one day too) and was wondering if anyone knew of a kit or recipe that approaches the taste of that drop.
5) I like a bitter beer and so picked up some hop tablets that I meant, but forgot, to add to the wort (i) will that increase the bitterness?, (ii) can I add the tablet before bottling?
Just as a postscript, I am aware that I should not expect too much of the Brigalow Lager, but this is a learning exercise and if it is at all drinkable I'll be best pleased.
Cheers,
Gary