| 1. | Clean everything that will come in contact with your beer. Household bleach is shit hot for this. I use White King (contains 42g/L sodium hyperchlorite) not the cheap No-Name crap. | |
| (a) | Put a good slurp of bleach into your carboy and fill it up with water. | |
| (b) | Put your hoses, grain bags, jugs, spoons, thermometer, hydrometer, etc. in and soak the lot for a few hours. Overnight is even better. The bleach will remove all stains and odours. | |
| (c) | Triple rinse thoroughly using the household hot water. Rubber gloves are handy for this. | |
| (d) | Soaking your bottles in a plastic garbage bin with a good dose of bleach for 3 or 4 days will remove labels and they will come out sparkling. Again triple rinse thoroughly using the household hot water. Do this while your brew is fermenting. A 75 litre bin will take 32 x 750ml bottles. If your not going to use your bottles straight away after "bleaching", drain them dry and seal the tops over with a bit for aluminium cooking foil for later use. They will just need a hot triple rinse. | |
| 2. | Boil the jug. You will need lots of boiled water later. As you use the water top up the jug and boil it again. This also handy for a cuppa. | |
| 3. | If your using a dry yeast it will have to be rehydrated. So make a yeast starter now. | |
| Put half a cup of malt into a pot and add 500ml of boiling water from the kettle. Boil for 15mins. Cool the pot in a sink of cold water and bring the temp down to about 25°C. Pour the wort into a sanitised jug, add the yeast and cover with Glad Wrap. Put it in a warm place and don't play with it. | ||
| For liquid yeasts click here. | ||
| 4. | If your using malt extract put the containers in a sink of hot water. Makes it easier to get the stuff out. You can use the hot jug water to rinse the stubborn stuff out providing you do not exceed 7.6 litres of total water. | |
| 5. | Follow the recipe, the method and these procedures! I've cocked up a brew or two before by not doing this. | |
| 6. | Add the ingredients as per recipe. | |
| 7. | Bring to a rolling boil and hold. Stir occassionally. Keep the lid on the pot. | |
| 8. | Place the carboy it in the laundry sink. You can put about 10 litres of cold tap water in it now. | |
| 9. | Fit the filter bag to mouth of the carboy and pour in the boiled wort. | |
| 10. | Top up to the 23 litre mark with cold tap water. This could give you up to 30 x 750ml bottles depending on the amount of sediment. Keep a stubby handly in case it falls short. | |
| (a) | Fill the sink with cold tap water to cool the wort. You might have to change the water once. If you've got a freezer make a bit of ice in advance. Good idea for summer time brewing. | |
| (b) | Occasionally gently stir the wort to assist the cooling process. | |
| 11. | When temperature has dropped to about 25°C or lower: | |
| (a) | Record the temperature and Original Specific Gravity (OG). Calculate the corrected OG. | |
| (b) | Add the yeast (this should be working like mad by now). | |
| (c) | Give it a good stir, as oxygen needs to be added to the wort. This is very important as oxygen is essential for the first phase of the yeast's life cycle. Stuck fermentations can arise if this is not done. | |
| 12. | Fit an airlock and top up with a weak sodium metabisulphate solution and wait. Have a beer, too. | |
| 13. | When you reckon the ferment is complete record the temperature and Final Specific Gravity (FG) of your beer. If you're unsure, because your hydrometer readings are too high, give it a good rouse. That usually arcs it up again. Calculate the corrected FG. | |
| 14. | Bottle Priming (also see Siphoning). Check out kegging. Its easy as. | |
| Preferred Method Boil 360gms of DME in 500ml of water for 15 minutes with the lid on. When boiling is complete pour into the second carboy and cover with CO2. Siphon beer from first carboy into second leaving the mud behind. Gently stir then siphon into bottles. | ||
| Alternative Method 1 rounded teaspoon of dextrose into each 750ml bottle and siphon. | ||
| 15. | Siphoning. | |
| Don't suck on your siphon hose unless you gargle with over proof grappa first. Partly fill the tube with hot tap water. Drop one end in to the brew and point the other end at a bucket on the floor. Thsi will start up the siphon germ free! | ||