The State of Brew

The State of Brew

I can quite understand peoples reluctance to read an entire blog, so i thought i would summarise the adventures so far from 29/12/07 to today 22/04/08.

I would not have made it this far or had so much fun if not for the members of: http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/index.php

So the brews so far in order of brewdate:

1, Turbo Cider Alpha -5.7% sharp, farmhouse like cider that was overprimed.

2, Turbo Cider Omega - 12.3% overstrong and overcarbonated to begin with.

3, Prison Hooch - 4.5% instant screwdriver, acidic and tangy.

4, Fruit Frenzy - 5.1% tangy, mellow, ill defined flavours.

5, Coopers Bitter - 4.7% nice bitter, not too thin, good first kit.

6, Turbo Cider Yeast Battle: Bread Yeast - 5.1% sharp and zesty.

7, Turbo Cider Yeast Battle: Wine Yeast - 5.1% mellow and rounded

8, Turbo Cider Ale Yeast - 5.1% drinkable but with snakebite undertones.

9, Turbo Cider Alpha (Batch 2) - 6% less fizzy than first batch but nice.

10, Turbo Hybrid Cider -5.1% gorgeous, light, fizzy, moreish.

11, Turbo Cider Sugar Battle: Molasses - 8% untried. Ready.

12, Turbo Cider Sugar Battle: Demerara Sugar - 8.1% untried. Ready.

13, Geordie Bitter - 4% untried. Resting.

14, Atomic Lemon Sugar Battle: White Sugar - 8.7% untried. Resting.

15, Atomic Lemon Sugar Battle: Demerara Sugar - 10.7% untried. Resting.

16, Tomato Tang - 10.7 % untried. Laid Down.

17, Mead - 10.9% untried. Laid Down.

18, Mead Cyser - 12.3% untried. Laid Down.

19, Turbo Cider Demerara - 8.6% untried. Resting.

20, Youngs Lager - 3.4% untried. Resting.

21, Edme Irish Stout - brewing.

smiles
adam

Edme Stout

Edme Stout

After bottling Mead, Mead Cyser and Tomato Tang, all of which i wanted to lay down for a while. I considered that i get sad when nothing new is brewing in the house, so 45 minutes after i stopped bottling i started brewing.

This is my first stout and i have delusions of keeping it in the keg until Christmas but thats just not going to happen.

Its the first time that i have used all Light Dextrose Malt Extract (DME) as the fermentable sugars.

Usually i use Beer enhancer which is roughly 50% Sugar and 50% DME so this brew should have even more body, which as a stout is a good thing.

I have high hopes for this kit, fingers crossed.

smiles

adam

Tomato Tang

Tomato Tang

Lets not start with a lie, this brew was hard work at the end, their were frustrations and sanitisation wasn't as good as it normally is with me.

The syphon failed immediately, the stuff was too thick. So plan B after some failed tests was to pass the lot of the brew, bit by bit through one of those metalic (sieve like) covers you can put over a frying pan to stop spitting fat.

This got a lot of the solids out of the brew. Then the strained liquid was put through a coffeelike filter and funnel into a clean demijohn. By this point if the stuff was going to oxidise or pick up bacteria it had already happened. Lesson learnt, if you are attempting this recipe do the straining before the fermenting (and maybe use the by product in a pasta or pizza sauce).

Then i funneled it into bottles and sealed it up. Laying this down for a while.

Came out at about 10.7% i think it would be really nice over ice in the summer. It tastes good, like a thin but strong bloody mary with the piri piri sauce adding a fantastic furnace like finish to the taste.

Another brew, another lesson.

smiles

adam

Mead and Mead Cyser

Mead and Mead Cyser

Both of these drinks had over a month in their demijohn's to clear.

Bottled them carefully and i am hoping to leave them alone for 6 months or more now.

At the time of bottling they did not taste good but i am reassured that time is what they need, that said they did taste very alcoholic.

Mead: 10.9%

Cyser: 12.3%

So they are both strong and hopefully with time they will be delicious.

smiles

adam

Youngs Lager

Youngs Lager

I am not a big lager drinker, once a year i drink lots of lager in a field in Devon with a lot of friends but thats because little bottles of lager are easy to drink and i don't mind it warm

Otherwise i drink lager every now and again but wouldn't go out of my way for one.

With a beerkit and a ciderkit (hybrid) under my belt i thought that i would give a lager a go, that way i have something to drink in a field at the end of July and my lager loving friends can drink this while i keep my supplies of ciders and beers up.

Simple kit to do, nothing fancy about it, used beer enhancer to give it a bit of body, 16 days in the fermener and bottled. Should be about 3.4% when it has rested.

smiles
adam

Turbo Hybrid Cider - Tasting

Turbo Hybrid Cider - Tasting


This is the first cider that i have kegged, the main disadvantage of this is that i cannot chill it as easily as a bottle.

Pouring this creates a dance of particles, rushing around the glass in a spiral before quickly clearing.

It is a very drinkable cider, it tastes a little more commercial than Turbo Cider but using apple juice as the fermentables leaves it with a glorious apple-y aftertaste.

I am trying to be good and letting this one mature a bit but it is moreish. After 5 weeks i'd say i can't believe that this cider isn't available on a commercial basis (but those are dreams for another day).

smiles
adam

Turbo Cider Alpha (Batch 2) - Tasting

Turbo Cider Alpha (Batch 2) - Tasting

They say that you can never go back, even though this has the same basic recipe as the first batch it is a shallow imitation.

Thats not to say that it isn't gorgeous it just doesn't have the fun and flavour of the first.

It could be that i used a different juice brand, that i let it ferment a few days longer but i think its the fact that i overprimed the first batch and this gave the drink flavours and overfizziness that i really liked.

I don't mind this learning curve, at least i get to drink along the way.

smiles
adam

Turbo Cider Ale Yeast - Taste

Turbo Cider Ale Yeast - Taste

Not sure if this one would have been better made straight from Ale Yeast rather than ale yeast slurry (whats left after fermentation).

The drink has a pleasant fizz, is a little bit tangy with an underbite of beer. If you've had a snakebite then you know the odd taste that hovers under the main flavour of this brew.

Still very drinkable.

smiles
adam

Big Bottling

Big Bottling

After the big brew inevitable follows the big bottling.
Bottled, Atomic Lemon White Sugar, Atomic Lemon Demerara Sugar, Geordie Bitter, Turbo Cider Demerara.

Mead, Mead Cyser and Tomato Tang have to ferment a good while longer than these bottled brews.

End Of Keg

End Of Keg

Sunday April 6th. After two weeks of steady drinking my many brews i came to the end of my keg. My first beer has completed its journey.

Can't believe Hallmark don't make a card for this significant occasion.

smiles
adam

Turbo Cider Yeast Battle - Tasting

Turbo Cider Yeast Battle - Tasting

These ciders were underprimed to my taste but it may just be that Champagne (my preffered) yeast makes a cider carbonate more to my taste. There were bubbles but very little fizz.

Bread Yeast -sharp, zesty, drinkable and clear.

Wine Yeast - mellow, rounded, appley, delicious, small bubbles.

smiles

adam

Book

Book

I got given this book "Easymade WINE and COUNTRY DRINKS" by Mrs Gennery Taylor.

Its dirty, mouldy and on the verge of falling to pieces but its my first book on brewing and i have fallen in love with it at first sight.

Mre Gennery loved her wines and has lots or recipes i'll probably never make but she is passionate about her subject and encourages experimentation and thrift. A previous owner has annotated recipes with the dates that they tried them and i think thats fantastic because my fingers itch to doodle and annotate factual texts that i have occasion to read.

I think my reprint is from 1970 and the move towards decimalisation. One man's rubbish is another man's treasure.

smiles

adam (a happy brewer)

Bottles

Bottles

So far in my brewing i have been happy to use 2 litre plastic bottles, for cider, beer and even my experimental brews they are fine, but with drinks like mead on the go that need to be kept for longer periods and have a lot more effort gone into them i thought i had better investigate glass.

There are some flip top bottles at Aldi's (probably gone by now) that would be fantastic but at a reasonable £2 a bottle i just couldn't afford to buy a big load of them. So i resisted.

Enter luck/karma/god of brewing. Wandered into Sainsburys and looked in their alcohol aisle only to find bottles of Erdinger Wheat Beer for 50p a bottle... i asked why and the stockman said there had been a mix up with stock and as Sainsburys didn't carry them as a line they just wanted rid of them.

Checking the 50cl (500ml) bottles i learnt that the beer inside was bottle conditioned which should mean the good brown glass is safe for my brews to live in.

So i walked out with 16 bottles and told a friend who bought another 12. Took them home and chilled the beer before trying it. Someone up-out-or down there likes me as this wheat beer is light and lovable.

I ended up with a good bit of bottling capacity and lot of nice beer, so brewers and brewers to be... keep those eyes open, good things can happen.

smiles

adam

Prison Hooch - Tasting

Prison Hooch - Tasting

This Prison Hooch had a tangy, acidic taste and i have to say that i really enjoyed it. I don't drink fruit juice (unfermented) that often but i think Sunny Delight used to do a Tangy or With Pulp bottle that this is very reminiscent of, of course the sunny delight bottle was unlikey to have the warming alcoholic kick that this one does.

As an equal opportunities drinker, i tend to give anything a go and this may be the nicest fruity alcohol that i have had including alchopops and cocktails although i'd be the first to admit i haven't investigated this branch of drinking too far or too recently.

smiles

adam

Fruit Frenzy - Taste

Fruit Frenzy - Taste

A good breakfast drink for alcoholics who usually have a vodka and orange.

This drink was pleasantly tangy, slightly carbonated and not thick as i had thought. You don't get the individual fruit tastes as clearly as you would if you just had a cocktail but it has a warmth that belies its humble 5%ish nature.

Mellow, tangy, light fizzy, ideal for summer after a few more experimental batches.

This bottle was a little yeasty as i approached the bottom, but decanting would sort this out and as an early brew with a 4 litre yield i know a few ways to get better results out of the same recipe next time.

smiles

adam

Coopers Bitter - Ready To Drink

Coopers Bitter - Ready To Drink

The Coopers bitter has been in the keg for more than four weeks and its lost the sweetness it had whilst it was conditioning.

That said i think it is a gorgeous bitter and i am really impressed that it manages to keep its head all the way down the glass.

Very drinkable and as my first kit, where i had fears of sanitisation at the kegging stage i am really happy to have this brew in my kitchen, and i will be sad when it is gone, which probably won't be that far away.

Taste wise this is a full but not overpowering pint, its got a variety of tastes, starts bitter and then leaves a nice beer-y aftertaste.

smiles

adam

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (3)

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (3)





This was a long brewday for me and i ended up hungry, thirsty, tired but satisfied. With a cupboard full of homebrew.

For the really observant people out there you may have noticed that the Corridor of Brewing had another kit with water and enhancer, that was a lager kit that i was too tired to do and will be made sometime soon. (it was bought so that i could have tried my hand at beer, cider and lager kits)

Atomic Lemons, Tomato Tang, Mead, Mead Cyser and Turbo Cider were all made with the Champagne yeast slurry from the last batch of Turbo Cider Alpha that you can see bottled in the picture.

64 litres of various brews on the go breaks my previous record of 57.5 litres. If i get something going on Easter Weekend i can push this even higher. Or maybe i'll just have a little rest.

The marathon update draws to a close here with you all up to date with my brews which have all been fermenting for almost a week.

smiles
adam

Turbo Cider Demerara

Turbo Cider Demerara

Tired but impressed by the amount of brewing i had already done i decided to make another Turbo Cider and after tasting the demerara Turbo cider from the Turbo Cider Battle Of The Sugars i thought i would do a larger run of this.

So with 14 litres of juice and 1kg of Demerara sugar dissolved in warm juice i threw it in a fermentor and added some champagne yeast.

This one might work out at about 9% but i am hoping that it tastes good.

smiles

adam

Mead Cyser

Mead Cyser

Mead can be made with a lot of different variations, as i love cider and was considering doing some form of honey cider, Mead Cyser seemed like a good idea. Its basically an apple mead.


1500 gram Honey
2 Litres Apple Juice
2 Litres Water
Citric Acid
Yeast Nutrient

Yeast

Pretty similar to making the mead, i boiled the water, dissolved
the honey and then cooled it with apple juice before putting
it in the demijohn with the yeast, nutrient and citric acid.


I'm not sure if i should have used all apple juice, rather than apple
and water, but like the mead, if this one works out i would love to try it again with appropriate tweaks.


Honey is a sticky product to work with but hopefully in September
or maybe by Christmas i will have a drinkable mead and know what to do for next year.


smiles
adam

Mead

Mead

Mead is a name that has been given to a wide variety of drinks from wines, to ales but it is basically the name of one of the oldest alcoholic drinks and it is derived from honey and water.

If you haven't tried mead, take the opportunity if it arises, imagine a warming but not cloying honey wine thats 10%+ and you will have tried the sort of drink that i am hoping to produce.

Honey 1500 grams
Water 4 Litres

Citric Acid
Yeast Nutrient
Champagne Yeast

I heated 2 litres of water and mixed all the honey into it, stirred
until it had dissolved. Added the other two litres of water to cool it
poured into a demi john and added yeast, yeast nutrient and citric acid.

This is an experiment to see if i can make a mead, its a drink that needs to be matured for a much longer period than any other that i have attempted.


Most mead makers recommend a minimum of 6 months and this involves rereacking several times to remove the dead yeast.

I have used cheap honey but if this works i would look into doing another with better honey, apparently the better the honey, the better the mead.

smiles
adam

Tomato Tang

Tomato Tang

I'd heard people discuss the idea of instant "Bloody Mary" by fermenting
tomato juice. But i hadn't talked to anyone who had done it. Being a
curious sort of person i decided to have a go.

The intrinsic sugar in tomato juice isn't that great so i decided to make the
following recipe:

4 litres Tomato Juice
1 kg White Sugar
Piri Piri Sauce

Yeast

The additional sugar should get this brew jumping and the piri piri
sauce should give it a decent non-alcohol related kick.


Heated up two litres of juice and dissolved sugar in them, the piri piri
was already in with the sugar, then added more juice to help with the cooling process.

The main problem with this recipe was that the thickness of the tomato
juice made it difficult to get an accurate hydrometer reading.
I think it was around 1.080 which makes sense with the added sugar

Some people have expressed fear and or disgust at this concoction.

Too be fair the curdling brains look of the yeast riding atop the bulk of the
brew could turn a weaker stomach.

I don't have high hopes, but i do have hope for my Tomato Tang.

A nice bloody mary like smell is wafting up through the airlock.

Its also exciting because this brew, the mead and the mead cyser are all my first use of demijohns and airlocks. Where as the mead and cyser are

likely to be in theirs for a month at least, this one will be mine to play with again soon in a couple of weeks.

Also watching the airlock activity is kind of hypnotically addictive, there must be a screensaver out there of this somewhere.

smiles
adam

Atomic Lemon

Atomic Lemon

Seeing similar recipe to this on http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/ i fancied having a go.

250 ml Lemon Juice

250ml Lime Juice

4 litres of Water

1kg Sugar

Sweetener

Yeast

Not one to do things by halves, i decided to do a white sugar and a

demerara version aswell.

Boil 2 litres of water, dissolve sugar and sweeteners in it, add juices, stir in and add the rest of the water to help cool the liquid.

Then put in fermentor with some yeast.

Hoping that this will end up something like an 8% traditional lemonade.

Its another inexpensive brew to have a bash at.

The sugar will convert to alcohol and the sweetener should keep the final acidic product drinkable.

Learnt with this brew that even i only put 4.5 litres of liquid in ,the kilo of sugar had to go somewhere when it was dissolved and i ended up with more than my 5 litre fermentor (water bottle) could cope with.

smiles

adam

Geordie Bitter

Geordie Bitter

The Coopers bitter i made was lovely, after resting for 4 weeks

it is a delicious, satisfying bitter, a couple of pints of it make me smile.

So i am making another bitter, this time a Geordie which comes in at under £5 a kit. I added Geordie Beer Enhancer and 250 grams Demerara.

I used bottled water to give me some empty bottles to put other brews in, my last beer was from tap water and that was just fine. Using the bottles rather than keeping an eye on the fermentor did lead me to make this brew up above 25 litres.

Don't think this will adversley effect it too much, my bitter might just be a little thinner and lower in alcohol than planned.

smiles

adam

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (2)

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (2)

After bottling, kegging and cleaning out everything i looked to the "Corridor of Brew".

Its then that the real fun began with:

Geordie Bitter

Atomic Lemon

Tomato Tang

Mead

Mead Cyser

Turbo Cider Demerara

smiles

adam

Rudimentary Tool

Rudimentary Tool

The 5 litre water bottles are excellent to do little and experimental brews in.

After the Turbo Cider Sugar Battle was over i had two bottles

that the normal hot water and shaking could not clean.

(don't worry they also get sanitised properly before use, but i don't like to leave them dirty)

The necks are too small to get more than a finger in and i could

not reach the stuck on sugar and yeast to rub it off.

No problem... i cut a piece of sponge and tried that but had no success, it was to soft and undirectable. Feeling that i might lose my valuable 89p each bottles

i took time out of my busy brewday and had an idea.

I constructed a rudimentary tool out of a long strip of sponge and a

pencil. The pencil allowed me to direct the soft sponge to the affected areas. With a little patience i managed to clean the bottles, finding the cut corners of the sponge the best part to clean with.

Simple objects combined to an effective use, if i was delusional i would produce these clever little tools and try to make a fortune.

"New spongecils - ideal for tricky homebrew cleaning, combine soft surface with rigid control arm and integral recording device"

smiles

adam

Turbo Cider - Sugar Battle - Bottling

Turbo Cider - Sugar Battle - Bottling

Bottled the Turbo Cider Sugar Battle Brews.

Got about 5 litres out of each.

Both are floating around the 8% mark.

The Demerara has a bigger kick but both taste strong and sweet.

The 5 litre water bottles that i brewed these two in were both encrusted

with sugar and yeast that hot water and shaking failed to remove.

(see rudimentary tool post)

smiles

adam

Turbo Hybrid Cider - Kegging

Turbo Hybrid Cider - Kegging

Sanitised the King Keg and had to cut some tubing to fit to inner tap, cut to a length that should hang over the highest sediment and let me draw the cider out once it is pressurised.

(if this fails i will just have to order a proper float off the

internet)

Added a litre of apple juice as priming sugars to the keg,

syphoned the Turbo Hybrid Cider into keg.

A quick taste tells me that it is apple-y, mellow and pleasant

but at the moment it tastes a lot closer to commercial ciders

than turbo cider. Not saying thats bad, but it is a difference.

This stuff should work out at just over 5% an i am looking forward to

drinking it.

Have stuck it in the warm cupboard for a week and will then pull it out into the cold.

smiles

adam

Turbo Cider Alpha (Batch 2) - Bottling

Turbo Cider Alpha (Batch 2) - Bottling

Added a litre of Apple Juice to the fermentor and stirred

in gently. This will act as the priming sugars.

Syphoned into bottles and managed to get 23 and a half litres.

Kept the champagne yeast slurry for the many other brews later on.

Have high hopes for this batch, if it has the flavour of the first without the overabundance of bubbles and yeastiness i am in for a big treat.

smiles

adam

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby

On the 16/03/08 my Birthday Brews were ready to be bottled and kegged.

And i was ready to brew up a lot more.

6 hours leading to tiredness, hunger and thirst for a drink that wasn't soft.

smiles
adam

Birthday Brewing (2)

Birthday Brewing (2)

56 litres of various ciders on the go really cheered up the end of my birthday.

The only annoying point is neither of my local authorities (live

in one, work in another) recycle tetrapacks, so my bin is going

to be a little too full of juice cartons.

smiles

adam

Turbo Cider - Sugar Battle

Turbo Cider - Sugar Battle

Having tried different yeasts, i thought i would try some

different sugars to create slightly stronger Turbo Cider.

Working backwards from the overpowering 12-13%

of Turbo Cider Omega i proportionately reduced the amount

of sugars to 250 grams to 5 litres of juice.

This should work out at around 8% (i hope).

The sugars that i chose to use were Demerara and

Molasses.

Using 2 litres of juice i heated the sugar and juice to dissolve

the sugar before using the other 2 and a half litres

to cool the mixture before adding any yeast.

Chose to use wine yeast as it was a lot bitier and than the bread

yeast in the previous battle.

The demerara smelt nicer, both had starting gravities of

1.060 which means potentially they could both reach the 8% mark.

smiles

adam