I was so inspired by Jay and his home brewed beer experience that I decided to try it myself. I purchased the Cooper’s Home Brewing kit on line and received it a while ago. I haven’t used it yet because the temperatures have been too cold (it has to be between 70-80° Fahrenheit to maintain fermentation).
However, I decided that today was the day. The instructions are really very easy, sanitize everything in bleach and water for at least 1/2 hour. Dump the malt extract, brewing sugar and 2 liters of boiling water in the fermenter and mix. Add 21 liters of water, make sure the temperature is between 21-28° Celsius (70-80 F), add brewing yeast, seal it up. In 4-7 days, when the specific gravity reaches its optimum level, bottle it. It really is pretty easy and the most important part is the sanitization.
The Cooper’s Micro Brew kit comes with everything needed to make one batch of beer:
- 25 liter plastic fermenter (~6.5 gallons)
- air lock for fermenter
- large plastic brewer’s spoon
- specific gravity meter
- 1 can of malt extract
- 1 packet of brewer’s yeast
- 1 kg brewers sugar (~2.2 pounds)
- plastic bottles and caps
There are also several on line resources to answer questions. The two best ones that I have found are:
and
Right now the yeast are eating up the sugar and converting it to ethyl alcohol and creating carbon dioxide as a by product. The temperature gauge on the side of the fermenter reads 26° Celsius, perfect. I will post my beer bottling experience next weekend.
What I like about the Cooper’s kit, if I decide I don’t want to used the coopers malt extract kits anymore, I still have a perfectly good fermenter with an air lock and a specific gravity meter. There is a really good microbrew supply house near by called Hennessy Home Brew. I could see myself making a trip up there one day, you know, just to see what they have.
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Oh yeah. Lookin good…I already made three batches and they all came out pretty good. I tried one of my latest “Irish Stout” and it reminded me of the regular Stout a whole lot. I think I need to let it sit in the bottles for a while longer. As time goes on, I really do taste a difference in the beer. It tastes fuller and richer, the longer it stays in the bottle (not refrigerator).
You may send me over the edge and force me to try making my own beer as well. I’ve heard so many people talk about it that I’m dying to give it a try. Just doesn’t seem like enough time in the day to get everything done. I’ll be waiting anxiously to hear the results!
Jay, it is really going now. I already have my next batch and bottles on hand, as soon as I bottle this one, i’ll brew up a batch of bitter, which is really my favorite in the summer time.
Todd, I know what you mean about time, but so far I think I have about 2 hours into it. Once I bottle this batch, I’ll let you know about total time. IMHO, if the beer comes out good, then it is well worth the time.
I had the same kit for a while. It was great.
My main suggestion would be to greatly increase the time to wait before drinking from what they recommend.
I think that they say you can drink the beer after it’s been in the bottles for only 3-weeks. I tried that and was very unimpressed. Make me regret spending my time doing it.
I waited another two weeks and it was better, then another two weeks after that made it taste very good. My father in law gave it a 9 out of 10.
I don’t think that there are any preservatives in the beer, so mine started to taste funny after about 3-months in the bottles. By that time I didn’t have much left, so it wasn’t a big deal, but from about week 8 – 13 was the best drinking time. Your own experience could differ though depending on the brewing temperature.
Also, if you use filtered water it makes a big difference, just like coffee.
Good luck with it. It’s a lot of fun to brew your own beer and then enjoy the fruits of you labour.
Hi Bill,
That 9 out of 10 is encouraging. Jay gave me most of his first batch and I noticed that they did get better with time. I think I drank the last one when it was just about 3 months old. I will be bottling next weekend and then I plan to put the bottles in the basement for a month. The basement is the perfect temperature right now, about 66 F, dark and quite.
For the next batch, perhaps I will buy a water filter and see if it makes a difference.