Brew No.9 – Extra Dry Lager

RATING: 4/5 Stars

 

Planning
I broke my foot last weekend (don’t ask), and figured that I’m going to be drinking a hell of alot more beer than usual. Scary thought. The last lager no8. will be coming out of the fermenter in a couple of days so thought it best to start planning now. I like a dry beer like TED or Hahn Super Dry, so have bought a Wal’s Dry Lager kit from the Country Brewer (www.countrybrewer.com.au) This kit comes along with hop pellets in the mix (not shitty extracts) and a true lager yeast, which I think is a bargain for about $17. Based on what is currently hanging around the brew shed (seeing as I can’t bloody drive for 6 weeks!!!) I will follow this recipe:

• Wal’s Dry Lager kit
• 500g Coopers Enhancer No.1
• 500g LDME
• Supplied dry enzyme
• Supplied lager yeast

We’ll see how it goes…..

3 August 2008 – Followed the above recipe by boiling the LDME and Coopers Enhancer for about 5 minutes before adding the can contents for another few minutes. The big difference with this kit is the real hop pellets inside the can and floating around in the boil, so didn’t bother with adding any extra.

Added to fermenter at about 23 degrees, adding the included enzyme just before the dry yeast

24 August 2008 – Left this one for 3 weeks as it was a slow one. Bottled at an FG of about 1.008 in PET bottles using carb drops

7 September 2008 – It was fathers day today and one of those special days when you can start drinking at whatever time you want and nobody can give you sh!t about it This was a great opportunity to crack open the new dry lager and see how it was going (about 12pm by the way). WOW! I have to say after only 2 weeks this was a fantastic brew. I’m sure the home brew purists would think it tastes like megaswill, but this was so close to a Hahn Super Dry after only 2 weeks. I drank 8 of these during the afternoon and the alcohol content of about 5% really shone through This one ain’t gonna last long!

Brew No.8 – Traditional Australian Lager

RATING: 3/5 Stars

I wanted to brew another lager and thought this time we would go with a full extract brew. A little more time involved but also more flexibility in the ingredients. I have mentioned before my preference for POR hops and I got to use plenty in this recipe

• 1.5kg can of light malt extract
• 1.5kg LDME
• 250g Dextrose
• 22g POR hops (in boil)
• 14g POR just before flameout
• Saflager s23 yeast

13 July 2008 – I don’t have a very big brewpot so boiled around 3L of water with 500g liquid extract and the boiling hops for 30 minutes. added all the other fermentables and hops for another 5 minutes then strained into the fermenter. Added cold filtered water (haven’t done this before) up to 23 Litres dropped in the dry yeast at approx 20 degrees and it kicked off well. OG of approx 1.045

17 July 2008 – ferment is still going really well. As with the last lager there is a rather unpleasant fart smell coming from the garage due to the production of hydrogen sulphide but thats fairly normal for a lager Temp has been fairly constant at between 13 – 16 degrees

27 July 2008 – Bottled today at a FG of 1.012, as usual in the PET bottles and Coopers carb drops. Smells fantastic and can’t wait to taste in a few weeks.

1 September 2008 - This beer has been drinking pretty well now for a few weeks. The biggest issue I have is it has not cleared, so I am looking into ways to improve this in future brews. Anyways, we had the kids birthday party this weekend and my mates proceeded to drink about 24 schooners of this one and the feedback was pretty good!

Brew No.7 – ESB Aussie Draught

RATING: 3/5 Stars

Due to the cold weather I figured it was time to start brewing lagers. I have heard nothing but good things about the ESB 3kg kits so when I was ordering some ingredients from Grain and Grape (www.grainandgrape.com.au) in Melbourne I threw one of these in as well. Figured this would be a good beer for Nichole to drink and my (soft) mates who don’t like the ales.

As you can see from the recipe below there isn’t much to add as the 3kg kit already has the fermentables added and are apparently hopped pretty well. I just altered the yeast to a lager yeast as they supply a safale with this one…

• ESB Australian Draught 3kg kit
• Saflager s23 yeast

Made up to 22 litres and fermented for about 12 days with FG of about 1.008. Bottled into PET using carb drops on 10 July 2008.

Tasting Notes
19 July 2008 – Couldn’t resist having a little taste, and was very surprised that it was actually pretty good after only 9 days in the bottle. I’m confident that this brew will turn out well.

23 July 2008 – I am getting desperate now, as my Pale Ales are now all gone! Cracked another one & noticed that this beer is quite dark. Reckon this needs another couple of weeks to be great, but going to struggle as this is all I have now, unless I front up to the bottle shop and buy a tailored brew.

26 July 2008 – After buying a six pack off Coopers Sparkling from the bottle shop and necking them in no time, I chucked one of these in the freezer hoping for a miracle. Nuh, still way too green and going to have to more patient.

10 August 2008 – Had a number of these while watching the mighty Parramatta Eels finally notch up a win against the Roosters. Tasting quite nice now after a little conditioning. I reckon with some simple dry hopping with POR Hops this would be quite a drop. Going to give 3 stars

Brew No.6 – Coopers Sparkling Ale

RATING: 3.5/5 Stars

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This is one my favourite commercial beers so I was quite keen to get into this one. I have used one of the Coopers premium kits that I sourced from Dave’s Home Brew (www.daveshomebrew.com.au) in North Sydney. I have been told that the best way to make this beer (and the pale ale) is to culture a yeast from a couple of the coopers bottles. Unfortunately I didn’t have time but will certainly do this next time. This is probably my last ale for a few months as its getting too cold and perfect lager brewing weather Recipe as follows:

• Coopers Sparkling Ale Can
• 1.5kg Thomas Coopers Light Malt Extract
• 500g LDME
• 300g coopers brew enhancer 1
• Safale yeast

As mentioned it was getting cold, so took a good couple of weeks to ferment with plenty of warming from the heat lamp. Bottled on 28 June 2008 into PET bottles with carb drops.

22 July 2008 – Noticed that the PET bottles are not showing much carbonation, probably because of the cold weather. Felt sorry for them and bought them up to the house where it’s a bit warmer I did find one that seemed a little more conditioned than the rest and opened her up. WOW…the alcohol in this little baby is full on, looks like this one is going to have to sit in the bottle for quite a while.

10 August 2008 - Had another cheeky long neck, and this one is really starting to soften up and tasting great

1 September 2008 - Wow, this is a pretty good beer. BIG malty taste, which next time I would balance out with a little more hops. Had some mates over on the weekend and they loved it. One mate who loves Coopers reckons it tastes pretty damn close! I still think that in another month this will get even better.

The Bunnings Garden Sprayer Party Keg

I have been spending a little time browsing the home brew site www.aussiehomebrewer.com.au (great site by the way) and came across the idea of the cheap party keg. Essentially these things are made from a cheap garden sprayer from bunnings and can be put together for around $50. In this section of the blog I will keeping you updated on the progress of my party keg. pic below too show you what it looks like…

Brew No.5 – Coopers Pale Ale

RATING: 3/5 STARS

I have brewed a couple of Pale Ale’s before and I loved them. Even though this was another kit I wanted to try something a little different and brewed the following:

• Coopers Pale Ale Can
• 500g LDME
• 500g raw sugar
• 14g Goldings hops (Tea bag dropped in at Ferment)
• Safale yeast

Fermented at around 10 days then bottled in PET with carb drops on 14 June 2008.

Tasting Notes
I have made this recipe once before with POR hops which I believe made the pale ale brilliant. This was confirmed when I tasted this beer at around 3 weeks in the bottle. Not nearly enough hops for my taste, which makes sense as the POR has an AA rating of 9 and the golding only 5. Again I found this one a bit “green” at 5 weeks, but I also think this was due to the cold weather and longer secondary ferment in the bottle.

I am drinking this brew again now as I type and it has improved dramatically at 4-5 weeks, and believe in a couple more weeks it will be pretty good. AS mentioned a little more hop aroma would have been good, and will def. use POR again next time

Brew No.4 – The Coopers Canadian Blonde

RATING: 2/5 STARS

I originally brewed this beer for Nichole (my wife) because she is sick of drinking the pale ale I have either brewed of brought home from the bottle-o. I put this one together late may with a simple recipe as follows:

• 1 can Coopers canadian blonde
• Brew Enhancer 2
• Safale yeast (US05 I think)

This was fermented for around 2 weeks before bottling on 1 June 2008 in PET bottles with coopers carb drops.

Tasting notes
at 2 weeks, this brew tasted bloody horrible. That awful green homebrew taste. In fact this lasted for almost 6 weeks as I tried one every week or so to see how it was going.

Today (17 July 2008) it is only just starting to come good, but in my opinion it will never be great, and won’t do this one again. btw, my missus hates it!!