The complete joy of homebrewing

Writen by Charlie Papazian. Known to many as the homebrewers bible it has sold more then one million copies over 25 reprintings and 3 editions. After an introduction the book is split into three parts: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Each section has adequate information. There is, in the beginners section, a step-by-step guide. If your totally new to beer there is a style guide too. In intermediate and advanced there are recipes, various methods, ingredient details, helpful charts, and even a bit of yeast science.

Some of my first beers were from the intermediate recipes. They deal with kits, extracts, small amounts of malt, adjuncts and hops. I did a Cushlomachree stout (page 208) from a coopers stout kit and it turned out to be, up to then, the best I made.

The advanced section deals with all grain brewing. Water adjusting, culturing yeast, grinding grain, mash tuns, lauter-tuns and different mashing methods. If it goes over your head dont worry Mr Papazian writes: Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew!

As a reference, I cannot stress how useful this book is. When I'm looking to buy ingredients or following a recipe, I can always check the hop chart, style guideline or look up an adjunct. Just last year I wanted to try using pears from our garden tree. I looked up fruits and found instruction on how to pasteurize fruit (page 89-90). If your starting to be a serious homebrewer there are three and a half pages on growing hops in appendix 7 (page 353).

If your new to brewing or looking for an excellent reference I recommended it.

Brewed a Bitter

...using John Bull best bitter kit. Added some light malt, roasted barley, small amount of northern brewer hops and a can of extract that's been laying around. O.G 1.080. With my favourite dried yeast, Nottingham ale yeast, for obvious reasons. Wrapped up the fermenter in newspaper and placed it in the warmest part of the house just in case the cold causes a stuck fermentation.

Update on beer and hop matters

The hops are okay and I think they have survived the post. The challenger lost a vine but has new growth on another (look below). The golding vines died but theres a tiny new growth so it will pick up.


Iv also been brewing. Last week I brewed a Pilsener lager. I got to experiment with rice and I think its going to very strong. Yesterday I brewed another, a dark gingered ale using nottingham yeast. Will see how gingered it is when its finished fermenting.

Brewed a English ale

Using a john bull english ale kit. Hacked with barley, oats, crystal and marris otter. Hops include a load of willamette with tiny bit of saaz (different for english ale) for dry hopping. Came up to 1062.

Bottled a Lowenbrau

Made a clone Lowenbrau Light Blonde Special from 'Brewing beers, Like those you buy' By Dave Line. Its actually the first true lager I have made. Basic recipe with lager malt, crystal malt, Hallertau and saaz hops.


The hopped extract.

Will leave the bottles for a few week. Should be around 5%. A little lower than I wanted.

My Pale Wheat Beer

A mellow malt wheat taste with caramel hints. Fuggle hop aroma. Refreshing when chilled. Would be good in the summer.

Brewed A Wheat Beer

Brewed a 3 gallon all grain. A wheat beer for family (me, myself and I) at Christmas. 1kg of maris otter, 1kg wheat malt, some carahell malt (German lager malt), bit of rice and barley. Fuggle hops.
The original gravity was 1080 (10.7%) with the finished gravity around 1020 (2.6%) so it should be around 8% strength.
Ill upload a picture when its done bottle conditioning.

Brewing yet another stout

I got another stout kit, this time one I have used before. The edme dry stout kit. I used the same ingredients as my last brew expect no chocolate malt. Less oats more roasted malt. Lots of hops. Fuggle, willamette and cascade for finishing.
I used a sieve to keep everything in to steep. Makes things more easy. Less messing around to.
Will upload pictures sometime.

My beer is a success

The stout is really good. Its only 4 days old and it tastes great. Its kinda like a Mackeson meets a Murphys. Dead smooth, chocolaty, sweet and nutty. I'm surprised how good it is only 4 days old. I put some in bottles too. I not to sure how good they will be since the rest is in a keg. Ill get a chance to compare them. If there any good I have like 6 500ml a few small ones.



So ill see how it goes. 2 weeks it should be great. Ill be making a lighter beer next.

Brewing a big style stout

Today I spent just about all day in the kitchen trying to brew a huge stout. It started with a john bull stout kit with some barley for a nice head, oats to make it smooth, crystal malt for added body, fuggle, cascade, willamette hops. Was a very big brew. I think I should have added less oats and more crystal malt but we will see when its finished. When I finally got all the wort in and the must done, the colour was opaque black. I didn't use an Irish yeast like normal I went for the Scottish yeast since it worked well with my barley wine.
The must O.G was 1.025, seems a bit light?

Richards Barley Wine

a.k.a Barley wine #2

It maybe a bit young but last night I had a try. And today I had a craving for it. The keg is full of gas. When I get pour some into a glass its got a 3cm head on it. The Picture doesn't do it justice but you cant buy this stuff in the shops! The only way to taste real strong barley wine is to make it yourself. Yeah you can buy some small seasonal barley wines and then there's gold label. But it's not the same to me. This stuff is so strong you only need a little glass and you can feel the effects. Unfortunately like an ass I didn't take a o.g reading but I used a basic calculator on the web estimated it at 8% but dam it tastes stronger. The aroma is a sweet smell with a little toffee/honey hint. The taste is sweet with a little tiny sour kick, its very warming. No way I'm giving this recipe out :) The best thing I ever brewed. Will be making some more at some point for the winter. Maybe experiment a bit.

My Bitter is done

Well my bitter is done. Its aged enough. I don't think it will get any better with age so here's to drinking it :D This is the first beer iv ever put gas in to. Gives it a smooth head that goes well with the beer. Its a smooth drink that is pretty sweet bitter with a fruity taste. Without gas it tastes like rite flanker but more bitter less fruit.



This just shows you how easy it is to make a good ale. I made this one the 25th of march and I blogged about making it. It didn't cost me to much to make because I was using left over hops from other beers like my barley wine. With some malt, a few hops, a cheap extract kit and dried yeast I am impressed that it tastes good enough to be in a brew pub. I followed no recipe (though I did write down what I did when making it), just used common sense and kept it simple.

Finally the bitter stopped fermenting

Took 10 days to finally stop fermenting. Not sure why it took so long maybe it was because of the high gravity and dry yeast used. A heater belt was used as well, which makes me think even more why it would take so long. I think a litre has evaporated out of the brew bin. The beer looks okay though. Slightly red pale bitter. Ill give it a few days before I have a quick small taste. Then another week on top of that. Should be okay after 2 weeks of ageing.
Using carbonation drops (coopers) for priming sugar hoping there will be at least some carbonation. Every other beer I brew is a little flat to my disappointment. Maybe I will invest in a gas system.

Richards Brewing again: Bitter

Randomly decided to brew something. For just something to do. Brewing a pale/bitter ale. Based on a extract kit from Wilkos. £10 brew buddy bitter which I think is made by youngs but I could be wrong.
I have added a few things to it, making a partial mash. Cascade hops, maris otter malt, medium spray malt and some oats.

Maris otter malt...

The extract mix...

Oats and Cascade Hops

Everything in (I think)...

I am using a dry yeast instead of the normal wyeast. I have only brewed 2 beers with dry yeast and they were my first ones, they weren't bad for money.

Once its in the keg it wont be long till its drinkable. Unlike the barley wine which is still a little to hoppy. Needs to mellow out a few weeks.

Kegging Barley Wine

Transferred the barley wine into the keg today. Never seen so much sediment at the bottom of the fermenter bin. Must be about 1-1.5 inches thick. I'm not going to take a picture of it (lucky you) but its like thick mud. 3 Gallons does not look a lot in a 5 gallon keg but it should be worth it. Smells strong. Take your eyes out.
...Now to wait for it to age

Hmm what to brew next? Maybe an IPA or wheat beer, something easy to drink. I might need a new keg. I have one with a beer already in but if I cleaned it out (like a nuclear technician with bleach) it might be okay for the job.

Brewing: Barley Wine number 2

My 2nd try at barley wine. My first brew was a not so strong barley wine which turned out more like a bitter IPA. Anyway this time I used a youngs barley wine 24 pint kit and added

• Maris otter malt
• A little bit of chocolate malt (I like a dark brew)
  
• 2x Medium spray malt
• cascade hops (boiling)
• Willamette hop (finishing)
• 1 Scottish ale yeast
• Oh and I forgot I added 100g of honey
  

All heated to slightly boil for an hour.

Hoping to make it strong one. I never make a brew over 3%. So this time I'm using a brew heater belt! This better turn out a good one, if not ill age it.

My first brew with hops

Today I made some beer. Funny sentence.

I'm using a coppers stout kit with some added hops and malt. Following "joy of home brewing" by Charlie Papazian cushlomachree stout recipe.

On the right you can see the amazingly complex Australian instructions on which end to open.
This is the malt extract kit I used as a base.

The main Hop I used is the Cascade for boiling then the Willamette to finish. The malt I used is a crushed roasted barley (seen below with cascade hops)

Cooking Richard style:

It all should be done in 21 days. 5 days till I put it all into a keg.
Well tomorrow I have to go to a beer festival. What a shame (over sarcastic).

Tags: beer, cushlomachree, brewing

Rainy day...

I decided to do a rather more personal post compared to most posts on here. Its been raining for a while now and the only thing on tv is snooker.

A few things to tell is that I'm really enjoying using firefox 2. Lots of features I like but I love the spell checker and improved search bar/box. The innovation simply makes IE7 look like its from stone age. Its good to see Firefox 3 and 4 are in the works. If you want to install Firefox 2 on ubuntu now then you should try out this script. I had no problems.

My beer ingredients arrived.

I should be making some beer tomorrow. I'm planning on making some stout that's like the Murphy's Irish stout for Christmas. It will be something to do.

Tags: firefox2, ubuntu, beer

Beer brewing: Irish Stout

Beer beer beer... started my 2nd batch using a malt extract kit.

Comes in a can like most things do. Once it’s warmed up for 5 mins in hot water to loosen it and then opened it smells like walking past Mansfield brewery (RIP). It a very sticky black treacle.


Using malt extract from Wilkinson instead of brewing sugar. Should have a better taste with this. It better be stronger too.


You have to put the malt extract and the sugars together. Pour 6.5 litres of hot water and stir well. Then put 19 litres of cold water in to fill it up (working with a 5 gallon tub)

Look Ma' Guinness!

Should be done in around 6 days to be keged and stored for 2 weeks.

Tags: beer, Guinness, beer making, dnh500, stout

My Beer is brewed!

2 weeks till my barley wine is ready for drinking!