Free Freight

Before starting please keep in mind the 3 basic requisites for making the perfect beer:

a. Ingredients: Always use good quality products, including the best quality water available.

b. Cleaning and sterilisation: Always clean, sterilise and rinse every piece of equipment that comes into contact with the wort. Don’t cut corners and don’t use the dishwasher!

c. Temperature: Initial and secondary fermentation temperatures are absolutely critical.

Step 1 - Preparation of Equipment

It is very important to sanitise every piece of equipment that comes into contact with the brew.

While sterile equipment is virtually impossible to achieve in the home situation it pays to maximise cleanliness. This is the best way to minimise the chances of “infections” which may cause “off” tastes in your beer.

Pour 250mm of hot water into your fermenter and dissolve 3 to 4 teaspoons of steriliser in this water. Place the airlock, grommet, spoon, can opener, hydrometer and immersion heater (if you have one), etc in the solution and soak them.

Use the bottlebrush to “swill” steriliser around the inside of the fermenter and lid. It is a good idea to leave everything soak together in the steriliser for a while.

Once sterilised it is very important to rinse all equipment off with hot water, particularly chlorine based sterilisers. Rinse everything twice and make sure you cannot smell any steriliser.

Step 2 - Making the Brew or Wort

Remove the sachet of yeast and booklet from the top of the beer kit and put aside. Place the can in a saucepan full of hot water for about 10 minutes to soften the contents.

While the can is heating, boil the kettle and fill out the brewing record. When the kettle has boiled pour the kilogram of fermentable sugars into your clean fermenter.

Open the can and pour into the fermenter. Half fill the can with boiling water from the kettle and using your spoon/paddle to scrape it out and pour this with the rest of the water from the kettle into the fermenter. Don’t worry, it won’t melt the plastic. Give it a good stir until all the ingredients have dissolved.

Top up the fermenter to the 20 Litre mark with cold water. Stir thoroughly using your spoon/paddle and check temperature is within 21-27°C.

Top up fermenter and stir again to the 23 Litre mark with cold/hot (even ice) to achieve 21-27°C. (*See Note 1 below).

Using your hydrometer, take a gravity reading and record it. (*See Note 2 below).

Pitch the yeast, screw the lid on, install the heater (if available) and fit the grommet and airlock (after having put a small amount of water into it). Leave the fermenter in a warm place, ideally 23°C.

Step 3 - Fermentation

Fermentation can take up to 48 hours to visibly commence and will usually take from 7-10 days to complete. You should notice bubbling through the airlock although fermenters have been known to leak.

Don’t panic, the C02 generated by the fermentation process will keep the nasties out. You can check that fermentation is proceeding by either testing the specific gravity or by looking for a dark brown “crust” forming above the fluid line inside the fermenter.

To check that fermentation has finished, don’t rely on airlock activity. Use your hydrometer to take specific gravity readings a day apart.

 If the reading is the same two days running then fermentation has finished and you will be able to calculate the alcohol content. (*See Note 3 below). Once the Final Gravity reading is stable, allow 48 hours for it to clear thoroughly before proceeding to the next step.

Step 4 - Bottling

Cleaning:

Clean and sterilise your bottles, sugar scoop, crown seals, funnel and Little Bottler.

The cleaning and sterilisation of your bottles etc, is as important as that of your brewing gear. When you get your bottles you must make sure that there are no nasty growing things in them. This may require soaking the bottles overnight with a solution of the bottlewash and steriliser provided with the homebrew kit and much scrubbing with your bottlebrush.

Don’t forget to remove all the labels and glue residue from the bottles as this is an ideal breeding ground for bacteria.

After cleaning and sterilising it is also important to make sure that you rinse the bottles well with hot water to remove all traces of the sterilising solution. Rinse everything twice and make sure you cannot smell any steriliser.

It is good practise to sterilise and rinse out your bottles just before bottling to minimise dust and other things from contaminating your bottles before filling.

Equally, as soon as a bottle is emptied, rinse it out and soak it overnight to make it easier to clean and sterilise next time you bottle.

A 23 Litre brew will require 30 x 750ml bottles or 60 x 375ml stubbies.

Priming:

There are two different ways in which you can prime your bottles by either adding sugar or carbonation drops. Use one method only.

With sugar, put a teaspoon into each (750 ml) bottle or 1/2 teaspoon per (375 ml) stubbie. This can be done by using a funnel and teaspoon or a purpose made sugar scoop.

With carbonation drops, put 2 drops into each (750 ml) bottle or 1 drop per (375 ml) stubbie.

This small amount of sugar will activate a secondary fermentation. In this, the yeast still in the beer will re-activate and generate some more alcohol and C02. The C02 cannot escape the sealed bottles and hence will carbonate the beer.

Filling the bottles:

Push the “Little Bottler” into the tap and turn the tap on. Push each bottle up over the bottler until the valve hits the bottom of the bottle and releases the beer. When the bottle is full and about to overflow lower the bottle to shut of the valve.

Be careful not to pull off the valve when you remove the bottle from the bottler. Each bottle should be filled to about one inch from the top.

Capping:

Push the crown seals onto the bottles with a bench capper until you feel the crown seal crimp and seal. Once the bottles are capped, gently shake each bottle (turning each bottle upside down twice should suffice).

With a permanent marking pen, write on the cap the batch number and type of beer made using L = Lager, B = Bitter, D = Draught, P = Pilsner. For example; if your first batch was a Lager then write 1L on the cap.

Storage

Store the bottles out of direct sunlight and in a warm place (about 20°C) for at least 7 days. After this you can move the bottles to a cooler place for at least another 14 days.

The beer does mature with aging so if you can manage to hold off drinking it for at least 3 months then it will taste even better.

Homebrew beer can last much longer in the bottle than commercial beers so it is very worthwhile building up stocks so you don’t have to drink “green beer”.

Always store beer in the dark. Light spoils beer very quickly giving it a “ropey” taste. Amber bottles provide enough protection but if you are using clear or green bottles, they must be kept in a closed carton or a dark storage area.

Step 5 -  Serving

For a clear beer it is recommended that the beer is decanted from the bottle to a jug and from there to glasses.

Pouring the beer direct from the bottle to the glass will upset the sediment in the bottle and result in later glasses poured from the bottle to be cloudy.

While this may not look as good as a perfectly clear beer the sediment is quite harmless and is in fact rich in vitamin B. The presence of the yeast (sediment) is actually one of the reasons why homebrewers don’t suffer from hangovers the way those who drink commercial beer do.

Enjoy!