Wicked Elf Pale Ale

Wicked Elf Pale Ale is made in the American Style whose main point of distinction is the use of American hops for bittering and flavouring.

This is a nice ale, but nothing really stands out as remarkable. There is a subtle hint of caramel from the malt covered by the bitter pine flavours of the Cascade hops that lingers in the mouth. It pours with a lovely amber colour and a clear bright head.

It's nice, but not something I'll be revisiting anytime soon. For a better example of an American Pale Ale try the Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale.

Mountain Goat Organic Steam Ale

This is an organic Steam Ale - beers characterised by high effervescence and fermenting lager yeasts at higher temperatures than normal (lagers are usually fermented between 5 - 11 degrees).

My opinion is that it's a well made beer - but not one that I can really get into.

It pours with a bright yellow body and a thin head that quickly dissipates. The first smells are of the malt typical of commercial lagers however this is soon replaced by the instantly recognisable Galaxy hop aromas.

The flavour is dominated by the pineapple and passion fruit flavours of Galaxy followed by the malt that rides the high carbonation. I have to say, this is not a beer I'll likely buy again but it is a good example of a Steam ale. The Galaxy hops always make a beer that you feel should be drunk by the sea during a hot Australian Summer however, in my opinion, the Pacific Ale by Stone & Wood is a better example of Galaxy flavoured beer.

Reclaim the yeasts!

When you get down to it, home brewing is not just about making beer in your bathtub or garden shed. It’s about joining a clan of individuals, united by their desire to maintain the thousands year old art of turning water with a bit of grain slush into a potable (and potent) drink. Whether you join the ranks from a desire to save money on commercial beers or with a craftsman push for perfection, it doesn’t matter. You have joined a group who are bonded by the brewers craft and, as it turns out, a common language that appears to have been dreamt up after about 6 too many Scottish Heavy Ales.

What on earth do I mean and what does this have to do with yeast?

The other day was bottling day for my Indian Summer Pale Ale. As many brewers know, much of the quality in flavour comes from the yeast. The higher quality of yeast, the better it ferments out the sugars and the better it tastes. Unfortunately, this comes at a price. My local brews shop sells liquid yeasts at $15 a pop. This can be as much as a third of the cost towards making a beer. To make it a little more profitable, you can actually reclaim the yeast from your last beer to use again.

Now here is where the language of brewing starts to come into its own.

As your brew ferments out, you develop a layer of sludgy material in the bottom of your fermenter called the ‘trub’(see image). This is made up of expired yeast (yeast that has done all of its fermenting work and now has nothing to do), as well as fats and proteins that have settled out of the liquid. It is also referred to as a ‘yeast cake’ (possibly when it is no longer in liquid). No, it’s not like any cake you want to eat, it’s more like the stuff you find in that jar at the back of the fridge that might have had tuna mornay in it about 4 months ago.

My trub (or possibly yeast cake)

At this point, there are a couple of options for reusing the yeast. You can leave it there and pour the next batch of beer straight on top (the act of adding the yeast to beer is called ‘pitching’) or, ‘wash’ your yeast and store it in the fridge to be used again.

Washing yeast sounds about as productive as trying to clean dirt, but this is the terminology brewers use. It basically consists of taking sterilised water and adding it to the yeast cake to get the thick sludge into suspension. Transferring this suspended sludge to a large jar you let the sludge settle a little bit, at which point most of the heavier material will settle to the bottom (this is all the stuff you don’t want in your reclaimed yeast. You can then collect the ‘cleaner’ yeast of the top into sterilised jars and store them in the fridge.

Washed yeast

What do you do with it now? Well, I’ve read a number of different views. Some say you should only keep it for 5 days, others say you can keep it for up to 3 months. I’m going to attempt the later because frankly, I’m not brewing a new batch every few days. When it finally comes time to use it, you create a starter. This is where you add the yeast to warm sterilised water mixed with some sugar that the yeast will use to start multiplying with. If the yeast takes off, you’ve got a usable product for your home brew. If it fails to thrive – bin it.

One day later, I now have trub (that I created from my trub)

So what of rest of the brewing lexicon? We have worts, hops and grist. One indulges in a bit of mashing, sparging and racking. There is the krausen and the trub. We have to pay attention to the gravity, attenuation and our lag phase. Considering the science of brewing is called zymurgy, it’s not surprising that talking to home brewers is like a conversation with a drunk.

Paulaner Heffe-Weissbier

This was a commissioned beer, and my first all-grain brewing attempt. I did many things wrong; I went for cheaper ingredients, forgot to sparge (the horror), diluted the wort afterwards as if it was an extract brew, and finally I am tasting it very early (barely 3 weeks in the bottle). The surprising thing is that I still have an enjoyable thirst-quenching drink, which to me is vindication of all-grain homebrewing; as long as you adhere to good sanitation practices, it's very hard to make an undrinkable beer.


Of course when it comes to homebrew can kits, it's a whole other story (that stuff is just nasty).


This is a classic wheat beer (as the name suggests) modeled after the Paulaner recipe. The total cost for ingredients came out at about 40 AUD, largely as there is only one hop variety used and I chose to go for a dried wheat beer yeast rather than a liquid one.

Method: All-grain

Specialty grains: German dark Munich malt.

Hops: German Hallertau Hersbrucker.

Additional: None.

Yeast: Wheat beer (dried)

Comments: I added finings to clear the beer in the primary fermenter and bottled with carbonation drops after a week and a half.

ABV: 4% (the recipe suggests 5.4%).

Yield: 19 litres

Tasting notes: I'm drinking this early so the flavours will mature in the next two to three weeks when it is primed for tasting. There is no hop aroma as the Hallertau is only used for bittering so what you get is the lovely wheat malt smell right out of the bottle. It pours with a lovely light straw colour and a white head made of large bubbles that quickly dissipates (they will refine a little more as it ages and as the carbonation improves in the bottle, so will head retention). The flavour is of a wheat beer that has decided it wants to see what life is like as a lager. You expect a little bit more body but it isn't there, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. My home brewing error has created a beer that will be perfect for the event it has been brewed for (an all day poker tournament with a German food theme). I like this beer. It's a hot day and this had turned out to be a very refreshing drop. Definitely a beer I will brew again, if only to see what it tastes like when you make it properly.

What I learnt: 

1. Sparging is an important step that should not be left out of all-grain brewing.

2. Read the bloody instructions you fool!

Indian Summer Pale Ale - Brewing notes

Today I started an all-grain brew with an Indian Pale Ale. One thing I hadn't realised when I bought my slightly bigger brew pot (24 litres) is how much liquid one loses when boiling for an hour. In hindsight I could have done with a 30 litre pot in order to get the 18.9 litres recommended by the recipe by the end of the boil. We live and learn I guess. One day I'll cave and buy a 30 litre but until then I'll resign myself to the fact I'll be making smaller brews (or adding some DME to increase the gravity and topping up with water once it's in the fermenter). I have yet to work out if this changes any of the characteristics of the beer but I'll be sure to let you know if it does.

Pale Malt is the grain of choice to add body, and Crystal malt for flavour. This IPA uses a number of hops to give it a long finish and citrusy body. On show are Williamette, Cascade and Northern Brewer (instead of Chinook).

Unlike my first attempt at all grain - I calculated the mash and sparge water correctly and collected about 22-23 litres for the brewpot. I lost almost 7 litres over the hour of boil.

Flavouring hops and Irish Moss
waiting to go in during the last 15 minutes

The boil

Cooling the wort with my home made
chiller

London Ale Yeast

Gravity: 1.048 (Target 1.052-1.054). Final gravity 1.004 (doesn't seem right! target is 1.014)

Yield: 16.5 litres (target 18.9 litres)

Sparge method: US batch sparging

Notes: The lower gravity may be due to inefficiency in my mash and sparge. The recipe assumes 70% efficiency however, I do not have the patience for continuous sparging so I will stick with batch sparging. By my incredibly dodgy calculations, I estimate that I am at 65% efficiency.

Japanese Lager - Ashahi Dry clone

I'm very fond of Japanese beers (at least the ones they export. The Japanese do some strange things with beer on occasion, such as All Clear - a zero alcohol beer made by Suntory. It may be zero alcohol, but it is also zero taste.) and so when I found this recipe in Clone Brews I jumped at the chance to make it. Whilst the end result does not really match the commercially made Asahi, I am very happy with the results.

Method: Extract 

Specialty grains: German light crystal malt.

Hops: Czech Saaz.

Additional: Rice Syrup extract.

Yeast: Pilsen lager (liquid)

Comments: I added finings to clear the beer in the primary fermenter and bottled with carbonation drops after a week and a half.

ABV: Not recorded (the recipe suggests 4.1%).

Yield: 19 litres

Tasting notes: This was ready to drink after 4 weeks and is a very refreshing brew. It has a bit more body than the commercial version and the flavouring hops are more present on the tongue. The dryness from the Rice syrup is there and it finishes clean so it tastes similar and feels like an Asahi however, when drinking you can't help but feel there is more beer there; fruitier and more complex. I am very happy with this one. The only problem will be keeping it all for myself. In fact, scratch that. It's a terrible beer - worst I have ever made. It made me violently ill. Twice.

What I learnt: I managed to get the wort down to temperature quite quickly by adding ice instead of water when making up the wort to 18.9 litres in the primary fermenter. One thing I didn't manage which may have changed the flavour was to keep the fermenter under 15 degrees during fermentation (it was just too warm. I even tried leaving it out on the balcony overnight in the chill air but could not get the temp down - and I have no space for a second fridge in our one bedroom apartment) so the yeast had done it's work in under a week. I'll probably think twice before brewing another lager (which require brewing temperatures between 6-11 degrees), particularly now as Summer has finally arrived.

Belgian Ale - Duvel clone

The first recipe I tried from Clone Brews was an ambitious Belgian Ale. I managed to knock up a mini mash tun from a 10 litre esky and some steel braid and then set off to buy the specialty grains. For a first attempt I think it went smashingly well.
As with all recipes that I take from this book. I shall only be listing what ingredients I used. It is up to you to hunt down the original recipe (let no one accuse me of not respecting another man's copyright!)

Method: Extract 

Specialty grains: Belgian aromatic malt, German light crystal malt.

Hops: Styrian Goldings (bittering), Czech Saaz.

Additional: Belgian clear candi sugar.

Yeast: Belgian Ale yeast (liquid)

Comments: I added finings to clear the beer in the primary fermenter and bottled with carbonation drops after a week and a half.

ABV: 7.8% (compared to 8.5% from the recipe).

Yield: 19 litres

Tasting notes: This hits you like a velvet glove filled with a brick. Strong and fruity. The alcohol sits there behind the flavours ready to give you a black eye as soon as you drop your guard (which is after 2 pints). As you can see from the picture, it developed a great white frothy head made up of fine bubbles and the beer was clear with an excellent colour and has a short finish (which I learnt  is a characteristic of malty or sweeter beers (low hops) ). Compared to a commercial bottle of Duvel, this recipe is very close. 

What I learnt:

I ended up putting a little to much liquid into the wort when trying to cool the liquid enough to pitch my yeast. and I think this affected the final ABV however; I'm not too fussed as this tastes fantastic.