Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Added Hops!

2008-12-31-1800: 23C. SG=1012;
Added 2oz. Cascade Hops (5.4 AA) to the fermenter!
Boiled muslin bag (not hops), added hops & tied bag and place in wort. Resealed, took reading.
Now we wait.

On Deck!

Upcoming recipe: Cascading Coopers Pale Ale

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Getting There!

2008-12-30-2100: 23 C. SG=1015
Cascade Hops (pellets) arrived today. 6oz. (6 vacuum sealed packages).

Monday, December 29, 2008

All but stopped bubbling

2008-12-29-2000: 22.5C. SG=1024
Notes: Takes about 4oz./100ml to do this but bubbling has decreased drammatically and I wanted to know! :-) Gotta learn somehow, eh? (*burp* :-) (heater was down to 70 and it's rather nipply in here). Watch too many samples (negative pressure).
I think I will try a 'Primary Dry Hopping'. Leaning towards 3oz. tossed in a muslum bag for the last week (after bubbling stops).

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Still bubbling!

2008-12-28-1720: 25C. SG=1030.

Possible name for my version of Cooper's Australian Pale Ale = Getting Down Under Thunder Ale
(it was thundering and lightning all yesterday and last night!)
Think it's too cliche?

Dec. 27, 1008 - Bubbling like a brewdog

The Primary Fermentation is coming along wonderfully. The one piece airlock has been happily bubbling for a day or so. A nice kraeusen has formed. My advice (to myself) is to be patient! SG has been logged to be dropping as it should. So now I wait. No sense in wasting beer taking daily readings (other than as a 'control') so not much more to write about at this time!

December 26, 2008

Armed with my new Coopers Beer Kit I proceeded to prepare an extract batch:
Equipment:
  1. Coopers Beer Kit
  2. Substituted Australian Pale Ale Kit (batch date=20080317, Best before=20100309)

The info I got from HomeBrewTalk.com in THIS thread made me decide to lengthen fermenting times (primary as well as bottling).

As the thread shows, I had questions and got EXCELLENT responses! I heartily recommend this forum for anyone interested in brewing! Not condescending or elitist at all!

Ok, back to the brew!

Note: All hour formats will from now on be in 24 hour (military) time and date stamps will be in a

YEAR-MO-DY-HOUR format.

2008-12-26-1930: Sanitized w/Coopers Sanitizer

Set-up in Kitchen in the corner of the counter that sees no use, heated the extract, brew enhancer 2 (sugars) and added cool water to get to my target temp.

2008-12-26-2000: It ended up higher than I wanted (27.25C) as target pitching temp. is 21C-27C but I pitched anyways.

2034: 26.75C

2008-12-26-2200: 26.5C. Took hydrometer reading = 1046 (note to self: above the number is lower!)

2008-12-27-1000: 25C. SG=1034.

2008-12-27-2000: 25C. SG=1030.

2008-12-28-1000: 24C.

Ok, I confess, I am waaay to excited and overzealous with my new hobby! I ordered another Beer Kit from Coopers so I will have 2 fermenters going! Wheeeee! I've been reading and reading and decided to not (yet) delve into boiling/grain but it's something I will work towards eventually. Being able to make my OWN recipes will be wonderful!

Disclaimer: I realise some will look at my entry into the hobby as a partial endeavor and that Stupours Brewery is making (pretty much) set recipes at this time (manufactured by Coopers Brewery) but I look at it that each batch is unique to itself (despite even using same ingredients). The most important part is the pleasure of drinking good beer with the knowledge that I made it myself, isn't it? :-)

Mid-Life Crisis?

Well folks, I just turned 50 this month and since it happened to be the month that has Christmas in it and my wonderful wife didn't know what to get me so I gave her my idea to try brewing beer! I researched a while and decided to start with a kit. One of the best reviewed kits I found comes from Australia (Coopers Brewery) and they (fairly recently?) have a U.S. distributor in WA. (http://makebeer.net/). This blog is a place to log my learning-curve and reflect so I can improve my hobby (and my beer)! :-)