Beer Brewing: Draught – January 2005

24 April, 2005

The day pretty much revolved around the beer opening. Friends popped over duing the day for a taste and despite the odds no-one went blind or left because of the beer. The Old Man Campbell Breweries label worked well and added a little touch to the occasion. It was a long wait but we had the premiere opening of the draught beer yesterday. It sounded okay when the bottle was opened, it smelled okay and bloody hell if it didn’t taste okay as well. Not a bad effort for a first go.

30 January, 2005

Put the beer into storage today. All the instructions say find somewhere away from direct light and reasonably cold. It’s in a cupboard in the cold part of the house. Better than that I can not do. I guess we’ll see it again sometime in April for a tasting.

22 January, 2005

Bottled the Draught today. Managed to get 26 bottles out of it, slightly less than expected presumably due to all the testing I did. Will need to replace the rubber seal in the lid next time to get that airlock working properly. Now, I guess it’s a week of waiting for the second fermentation to do its thing and then a longer wait for the beer to become drinkable. I’m thinking another batch might be in order soon, maybe a lager.

21 January, 2005

Bought some bottles today. The final hydrometer test is the same as yesterday so looks like we’re ready to go. Will clean the bottles and get the beer into them tomorrow.

20 January, 2005

Another hydrometer test reveals that the Specific Gravity has dropped a bit more to 1010 so things are looking good. The beer smells okay as well which I’m still taking as a good sign. Will do another hydrometer test tomorrow and see if it’s stablised or still dropping. Need to get some bottles tomorrow so if all goes well I can bottle over the weekend.

17 January, 2005

Was a little unsure if the fermentation process had started as the airlock hasn’t been bubbling. Bit depressing so took a sample for testing with the hydrometer and it came out smelling okay (at least not infected) and it foamed up which I’ll take as a good sign. The hydrometer reading was okay so am assuming the best despite no bubbling airlock. Will give it a few days and test again to see if anything’s changed. This is definitely the experimental/learning batch.

14 January, 2005

Started sterilising the fermenter and relevant gear. As the gear is pretty old and been sitting around for a while I’ll do a few passes of the stuff to make really sure. Started the fermentation process today. So far so good. Hopefully everything was clean enough.

13 January, 2005

Finally made it down to the brewery supply place on Linwood Ave and had a chat to the guy there about what I needed and how to go about getting a decent beer out of it all. Apparently it’s as easy as making coffee…if a little longer to brew. Also had a chat about distilling spirits and had a taste test (as you do) of a bourbon he’d made which was probably the smoothest I have ever tasted. There might be something in this. Armed with a beer kit (that supposedly tastes similar to Speights), steriliser, brewers sugar and carbonate drops (that look way too much like lollies) I headed home to clean the fermenter. The bath was borrowed to get the gunge off all the gear as sitting in a garage does wonders for dirt cultivation. I also managed to kneel on the thermometer effectively snapping it which resulted in a few hours of cursing (it was a good thermometer). Tomorrow I’ll have to go and buy a new one. Also made a quick visit to the Lion Brewing web site for some slightly more indepth instructions.