Brewing Log – 12 May 09 – The first step

Okay, I’ve gotten my brewing kit on 11 May 09. Ever so wanted to start brewing the same day but as mentioned, I had to freeze my Coleman Brite Ice and RTFM first.

Anyway, now that my Brite Ice is frozen and I’ve RTFM as well as view the instruction DVD, I’m ready to go… or am I?

First off, I needed to sanitize the fermenter and any parts that will touch the beer. This is to minimize contamination. This done by pouring boiling water into the fermenter as well as the parts. Well for the parts I just drowned them in hot water.

Sanitizing the fermenter. Poured hot water into it. Don't mind the messy sink.

Sanitizing the parts.

After sanitizing the parts, we open up the beer concentrate. And there we will find the brewing yeast.

The beer concentrate. Can see me through the reflection.

Yeast that comes with the beer kit. This is what ferments the concentrate.

Following the instructions, I have to leave the beer concentrate in hot water for a few minutes. This is done to soften the concentrate a bit so it’s a bit easier to pour out. So that I did.

"Softening" the beer concentrate

While waiting for the concentrate to soften, I then start to attach the tap to the fermenter. The tap will be used during the bottling process, so we don’t have to scoop the beer into the bottles. Will illustrate that when the time comes for me to bottle my beer.

Tap attachment of the fermenter

Okay, few minutes later back to the beer concentrate. I’d assumed it be soften now so I proceed to open up the can.

Opening the can. Hands modeled by my lovely wife.

Then, as the instructional DVD suggests… “give the beer concentrate a taste..”. Taste pretty much like…. concentrated… malt like thingy.

My sis taking a swipe at the concentrate

Now that the taste test is over, I take a quick look at the manual. To find that the next step requires me to open up the brewing sugar.

RTFM

Brewing Sugar

With the brewing sugar it’s time to do some mixing. Pour in the beer concentrate into the fermenter followed by the brewing sugar. Then add in 2 litres of hot water and stir.

Pour concentrate into fermenter

Pour brewing sugar into fermenter

Pour in 2 litres of hot water and stir

After stirring for few minutes and I no longer see any sugar lumps, cool water is added into the fermenter till the 23 litre mark. I just use filtered water for this purpose. After all the water is in, I give it a quick stir.

Pour in cool water till 23 litre mark

At this point, I stick on the “stick on” thermometer. This thermometer is used to measure the temperature of the mixture. Supposedly for this brew, the temperature for the mixture should be between 21-27 degrees celcius for optimum fermentation.

Stick on the "stick on" thermometer.. duh

At this point, I looked at the temperature reading… and to my horror.. it’s 32 degrees. No good. From what the instruction says, the temperature should be below 27 degrees before I can put in the yeast and seal the fermenter for the fermenting process. I needed to bring down the temperature of the mixture.

I put the fermenter in the chiller box and put in all the ice packs hoping to crash cool it slightly. But NO… after 30 minutes, the temperature ain’t going down. So guess what happened next….

The fermenter in my room!!!

I moved the chiller box right into my bedroom and turned on the air conditioning! haha. Wasn’t my suggestion, it was the Mrs. It was quite hot in the living room so she suggested bringing into the room during the fermentation process. Being in the aircon room did help but only slightly. After 2 hours the temperature hit 29 degrees. I got fed up and heck care, I just pitch the yeast.

Put in the yeast

After the yeast is in, I seal the fermenter and attach the airlock.

Attach the air lock

Mission accomplished. Well, hopefully it will start to ferment considering I didn’t follow the instructions to the dot and put in the yeast before the right temperature is achieved. But heck, I needed to sleep already.

You’ll know in my next blog post whether it worked or not. haha.