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Pastimes : Brewing, beers and the good old days -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clappy who wrote (69)	1/17/2002 2:50:06 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 123

Hi CG, Nothing worse then investing in a beer brewing experience and have it go wrong. Also, make sure you do not pay too many $$'s just because you have a hobby. We brew beer here to save money more then anything else. Everything should be free or under $10. The "boiler" is a big investment, you can use a large saucepan instead, even an aluminium one at a push. -g- There are two main causes for brews to go wrong (a) Sterilising chemicals not rinsed out adequately. (b) Bacteria infection. Also see (2) below though. Looking at your site, this looks like a good recipe beertown.org Take special note that there are two basic types of Malt. (1) Standard Malt containing converted sugars. You can just boil this and throw the hops in. (2) Diastatic malt. This is common so look on the can carefully. If it has EDME DMS stamped on the can it is Diastatic Malt. The brew has to be heated to 66 deg C (must keep below 70 deg C) for 30 minutes for enzymes in malt to convert starch into sugars. It is then boiled and the hops added. The recipe above uses Diastatic malt, and uses Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. Next note (also very important) Boil your brew outside or in the garage. The smell of hops and wort boiling for 1.5 to 2 hrs will easily fill a 20 story building and is a powerful smell that some may object too. If using the side burner on your BBQ, test it with a pan filled with cold water first. You may need to support the burner. You will be dealing with 2 to 3 gals of boiling liquids so think in advance how you are going to do everything, take care not to scald yourself. Make up your yeast "starter" at least one day in advance. Covered with some cling film it will stay clean. Unless your water supply is of high quality, buy 5 gals of bottled water to make the actual brew. Kitchen cleanliness rather the hospital cleanliness is all that's required. Dump any bottles that are not spotlessly clean. Do not use abrasives to clean equipment, just a soft cloth. Scratched plastic and metal collect bacteria. Add the yeast at about 70 deg F after the wort has been boiled and cooled down. If using a 5 gal plastic bucket in a cool environment for the main fermentation, consider using a heating rod. This will keep the temperature perfect. Additional lagging may be advisable in colder conditions. With a typical top fermenting brew at the optimum temperature, you can easily get 3 inches of yeast head and the main fermentation will be over in less then 5 days. Two weeks later and you can be drinking it! The normal brewing batch size here is 5 UK gallons. Here is a list of recipes I use. Very good brewing book for beginners and advanced brewers. amazon.com. 5 gals is 40 std beer bottles which is a lot of cleaning if you remember to rinse each bottle 5 times to get rid of the soap or sterilisation solution. Better to buy a 2.5 or 3 gallon cask and 15 to 20 bottles. The bottles condition faster, hopefully you don't finish those before moving onto the cask. Casks take longer to condition but cask conditioned ale tastes much better (to me anyway). Even Busweiser tastes better out of a keg! Best of luck!