Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Brewing

Shannon and I finally made good on our jabbering and brewed a batch of beer. You could easily argue that we took the easy/lame route. We bought a kit. We had gone round and round trying to piece together the equipment, and we finally just slapped down the hundred bucks and got it all in a box.


There are pluses and minuses to this. On the one hand, it got us going. On the other hand, it came with a starter mix for Lion Draught, which is something like Clydesdale Urine. However, if we can successfully produce something that tastes like cheap beer, we'll know we got the process right enough to try something a little more advanced, which is the ultimate goal.

We've gone through what seems like a successful primary fermentation, as the specific gravity changed roughly as expected and the taste changed significantly. It's bottled now, and I hope we're having progress with secondary fermentation. Time will tell.

We should have done this in Melbourne, but I'm glad we bit the bullet. Hopefully the next batch will be rewarding. All I'm expecting from this batch is an understanding of the process and a cheap buzz. Anyone want a beer? Twenty three litres of very average beer is a lot.






1 comment:

Dairygal said...

If you happen to need any help my old roommate from Cali is a brewmaster who makes his own beer as well as working for a major company. Though to me all beer is urine, I hear that his was quite tasty. When are you coming to the states?