Brewing hints and tips

I tasted and analysed two Lager extract kit beers, brewed with Lizz’s Fizz Lager Beer Kit and here are some comments.

Thank you to Ben and to Sonette for their samples!

Ben’s beer sample (pictured below) had a nice foam and good colour. It had a slight clove flavour, indicating there could have been some wild yeasts that were present besides the brewing yeast that was added.

Sonette’s sample was clean-tasting with no noticeable off-flavours.  The hygiene in brewing must have been very good!  Also a nice foam (when poured) and colour.

Analysis of the samples:

Ben’s

Specific gravity 1.002 , pH 4.2 so very well fermented out.  This means a bit more alcohol!  Estimated alcohol 5%.

Sonette’s

Specific gravity 1.008, pH 4.6.  Estimated alcohol 4.5%

These results were as expected, so good use of the kit to get the desired outcome.  

Specific gravity was measured with a hydrometer.

I recently did a partial mash brew with barley malt and malt extract and here are some pictures from the brew day.  I think the partial mash is a great way to homebrew, where you get the flavour benefits of grain brewing, with (almost) the ease of extract brewing.  

Pot ready for mashing. Brew-bag attached.  Heating water to 72 degrees C for mashing.  I boiled 4 litres of water then added 1 litre cold water to get to 72 degrees.  Once water reached temperature, I added brewing salts and malt. 

View inside pot with mash (malt and water) in the brewing bag.  I gave it a good stir and broke up some lumps of malt flour to make sure it was all mixed.  Then closed up pot and wrapped it in a blanket to keep warm, leaving it for 1 hour.

View inside pot of malt mash after 1 hour. The liquid is clearer and darker indicating the malt starch has converted to sugars in the solution.

Heating a second batch of water to 72 - 78 degrees to “rinse out the grains” to remove some more extract.  You could call it a batch sparge.

I placed the grain bag on a colander on the pot to allow the liquid to drain out. The liquid (wort) is also put into the wort boiling pot.

After the second extraction, the bag is lifted, and this is what remains in the bag - the spent grains.  They are not used further in the brewing process.

The wort extracted from the malt, being heated on a stove.  I added hops and boiled for 60 mins, adding some more hops at 30 and 5 minutes before end of boil.

Wort boil complete.  I added sugar and gave the wort a good stir to dissolve everything. 

Cooled wort in the fermenter bucket.  I had chilled a bottle of water in the fridge overnight and added it to the bucket to further cool the wort to the correct temperature.  (I sanitised the bottle before filling it to make sure it was not going to contaminate the brew)

For this brew I used kveik yeast, so I pitched the yeast at 30 degrees C.   Otherwise I would have cooled it to 15-20 degrees, depending on the yeast and style of beer I was making.

Decided to do a partial mash brew - the benefits of all-grain (which I believe does make a nicer beer), with the ease of using some malt extract as well.  With all-grain you have a lot of wort to cool and without a chiller this is a challenge. So hence use of extract as well, so less wort to cool down and you can add cold water to the brew to cool it.

Thank you to everyone who submitted beer and wine samples from their brewing with Lizz’s Fizz Homebrew Kits  :-) Here are some comments. 

Johan’s Pilsner Beer

This beer was submitted in a neatly labelled glass pint bottle - AHA Dive Scuba Gear Beer (!).   10/10 for Packaging!  When we poured it, it had an excellent foam. The beer tasted clean with no major off-flavours.  There was a slight ‘paper’ and ‘honey’ flavour which is associated with slightly stale beer but this was most likely because we let it mature for a little too long (my bad).  The amber glass bottle is great for keeping the carbonation in and protecting the beer against light damage.  Very drinkable!

Maryke’s Rose Wine

A lovely fruity, champagne-like wine with a definite kick!  The flavour had the dryness typically found in sparkling wine.  Very drinkable as I had to keep my husband away to have some left for measurements!  The SG measured from the bottled wine was 0.092 and pH was 3.6.  Estimated alcohol 13% v/v.

This wine was started on 12 December with red grape juice and the Wine/Cider kit.  She made 17 litres, adding 15 litres of juice at the start and an extra 2 litres of juice after 2 weeks. It was bottled after 3 weeks.  The sample was 4 weeks when I tasted it.  

I find brewing beer in summer when temperatures are 30+ Celsius is a bit tougher than in winter. For a few reasons: keeping the fermenter cool, and keeping the beer free from infection.

1) Ferment temperatures

For a good beer you need to maintain the fermenter at a cool temperature, typically between 15 and 20 degrees C, depending on what kind of beer you are brewing. What happens when the fermentation temperature gets too high? The yeast produces a lot of esters (fruity flavours) and higher alcohols (can cause headaches).

You can ferment ales at a warmer temperature than lagers but still not recommended to go above 25 degrees C.

Therefore you need to cool your ferment bucket. If you don't have a cooling system, place the fermenter in a large container/bath with water. Freeze bottles of water in your freezer, and place bottles in the 'water bath' to cool it. Replace bottles in the morning and evening. The most critical time to maintain a cool temperature is during the first 5 days when the beer is actively fermenting and producing heat.

If you can't cool your fermenter, then use Kveik yeast which thrives at 20 to 40 degrees C, and produces quite a clean-tasting beer. It gives much faster results too!

2) Hygiene

In warm weather, the beer gets infected with wild yeast and bacteria more easily. That can make the beer taste off, usually 'clove flavour' or it gets a sour taste.

You have to be scrupulous with hygiene, making sure to sanitize everything that touches your beer. e.g. fermenter, bottling spigot, spoons, airlock bubbler, racking siphon, bottles, caps, etc. Once you have sanitized something don't touch it.

Use clean water to fill up your fermenter and be careful of ice (for cooling wort) as it can contain microorganisms that spoil beer.

Don't open the ferment vessel unless you really have to. Every time it's opened there is a chance for unwanted bacteria and yeast to get in.

 Brewing beer is fun and rewarding.  A few simple practices can make the difference between a delicious, drinkable beer and an awful beer.  

The aim is to show how to use the Homebrew Beer Kit and give people the opportunity to brew their own beer at the same time.  They will learn about good brewing practices and go home with their very own container of fermenting beer.  It can be intimidating to brew beer for the first time, but by attending this Brewing Workshop it will be much easier and they will get better results out of their brewing endeavours.