How to make jelly bean beer

Did you know you can use Jelly Beans as the sugar for the secondary fermentation? 

It's an amusing exercise to make Jelly Bean beer. The effect on the beer flavoring is interesting as I found that different coloured jelly beans produce different flavours...

First up I would suggest if you are making a 'fancy' beer where you've paid for a more specialist beer kit and you have a pretty sweet hop combo in mind that you don't try to make jelly bean beer with that particular brew.

This is because the bean will likely over power any hop subtleties you might be going for!

However, if you're doing a run-of-the-mill beer kit then while you are doing your normal bottling routine, you may want to have a crack at making beer with jelly beans.

The jelly bean is a substitute for your normal sugar so acts as the carbonation agent in the 2nd fermentation that occurs during bottle conditioning.

First, a wee caution.

It is very easy to over carbonate with jelly beans!

In my personal experience, you should not put more than three beans in one 750 ml bottle. Any more and you will probably get a classic gusher situation when you open the bottle.

So what are the best colours to use? First up, do not use the black ones if you like green beer that tastes pretty horrid!

In my experience, black jelly beans are usually aniseed-based so are not really a complementary flavour for beer.

That said, it hasn't stopped people from adding aniseed to beer...

Instead, for this home brew enthusiast, oranges, reds and yellows seem to be fairly fun flavours to carbonate with. That flavour is a sweet sugary taste - albeit one that doesn't overwhelm the whole beer itself.

Greens, blues and purples will be OK but the colour of your brew might be a bit off-putting! Maybe if you were making an ale rather than a lager then the colour wouldn't be too bad.

So yes, despite what you may have heard, you can successfully make home brew with jelly beans, just add them when doing your bottling.

Your results, however, may vary!

Did hear about the guy that brewed with Mackintosh lollies?

1 comment bottling beer, fermentation, home brew, jelly beans, sugar

How to pitch yeast correctly into beer wort

How to pitch yeast into homebrew beer

Newbie beer makers may have heard the expression “pitch your yeast” and wondered what the heck it meant.

I myself was horribly concerned that I had missed a trick when making my first brew after learning this phrase.

Had I missed out on a step?

Had I ruined my beer?

Nope, of course not (but there are ways to do that).

‘Pitching yeast’ is just homebrewer lingo for adding yeast to the wort. It's called pitching because you throw it, kinda like a baseball pitcher...

Without yeast, your wort will not turn into beer. The yeast is an active living organism that feeds on the oxygen and sugars in the wort and as a bi-product produces carbon dioxide and the sought-after alcohol.

Yeast is a sensitive cell-based life form and needs the correct conditions in which to thrive and help make really good beer.

That’s why pitching your yeast is more than simply adding it to your beer – it needs to be done at the correct time in the brew so that it can 'activate' properly. And it's not just for beer, it's cider and mead and seltzer too!

What temperature to pitch yeast into the beer wort?

The short version is if you pitch your yeast when your brew is too hot (say you’ve just boiled it), you will kill the yeast with the heat and fermentation will not occur. Which would be a waste of time and money.

This is why the cooling process can be so important.

That said, pitching yeast too cold means the yeast won't start its job.

Your fermenter might have a temperature gauge on the side, else you might need to get your hands on a thermometer.

Ale fermentation temperatures commonly range from 68 to 72 °F (20 to 22 °C) Lager fermentation temperatures will range from 45 to 55 °F (7 to 13 °C).

If you are using a beer kit, the ideal temperature should be written on the can or pouch - trust what the manufacturer brewer says!

I’ve noticed that some brewers can be super sensitive about yeast and the preparation and pitching of it. There are arguments about the best method but the casual homebrewer should not get caught up too much in it.

If you follow some good beer making instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems with the yeast.

A key tip to remember is that if you do ferment outside of the intended yeast range, your beer will have different qualities than you may be expecting - and by this we mean your beer will probably not taste like you intended.

The easiest way to pitch your yeast is by 'dry pitching'

If you are like me, once you have prepared the wort in your  30 litre fermenting drum and it is at the ideal temperature, you are ready to add your dried yeast. The easy way is to simply open up the packet that came from the beer kit, and drop it into your wort. I like to cut the packet open so that the yeast cells and efficiently exit the packet.

I also like to give it a shake to pack the yeast on one side and cut it on that side.

When you do this, you are pitching your yeast 'dry'.

Maybe give it a gentle stir with a clean spoon. Close off your fermenter securely and place your beer in a good spot for a week or two to let the yeast do its job. Put some blankets around it. Maybe use a heat pad, especially during winter months.

If you want to give the yeast the best chance to do their job really well:

Re-hydrate your yeast before you pitch it

A handy method that many earnest brewers follow is to hydrate the dry yeast in water before pitching. The reasoning behind this is that it gives the yeast a good chance to get started properly.

Rehydrating yeast in a glass

The theory is that there can be a concentration of sugars in the wort which means it is difficult for the yeast to absorb water into its membranes so that they can begin to activate/metabolize and thus commence the fermentation process.

Based on that, I imagine that if you have made a high gravity wort that's full of sugar and fermentables for the yeast to eat, hydration is a good step to take.

In my experience, I’ve never had the yeast fail with a simple beer kit but if you are keen to cut the potential problem out, feel free to re-hydrate your yeast.

Do this by boiling some water and letting it cool. You can then add your yeast packet (or two!) to the water and let it begin to absorb – you shouldn’t do this too far apart from when it is time to pitch the yeast.

Cover and leave for about 15 minutes and then inspect. It should have begun to smell like you are making bread and 'bubbled' a bit (see the above picture). If so, it’s ready to be pitched.

Once you've added the yeast to the wort, there will likely be some left in the glass - I have a 'waste not want not' kind of view so I add some water to the glass, give it a swirl and add it to the yeast as well.

If there is no churning or foaming or sourdough or bread like smells, it could be your yeast has died from old age or environmental damage such as being left in the sun.

You may need to use a new packet of yeast...

How many packets of yeast should I use?

Generally speaking, brewers will use one packet of yeast however if you a trying to make a very high-alcohol beer where the yeast is expected to do a lot of work, you might want to consider using two packets - this works well when brewing with two kit cans.

You may want to use two packets if your yeast is fairly old as the older it is, the less potency the yeast will have as the yeast cells will have slowly died off over time.

The 'denser' or thicker your wort, the more yeast you will need.

There's also a difference when making an ale or lager. Yeast becomes slow to ferment when it’s cold. Given lager ferments at a much lower temperature than ale, it's reasonable then to use more yeast with the lager to finish the job properly.

Some brewers use the rule of thumb to pitch about twice as much yeast for a lager as for an ale.

Using liquid yeast for brewing

If you intend to use a liquid yeast it should really be pitched to a starter wort before THEN pitching to the main wort in the fermenter. Here's a handy guide to making the starter from one of the true industry legends, John Palmer. 

That said, many liquid yeasts can simply be pitched as normal so check the instructions that come with your unit.

What are some good yeasts to brew with?

If you do not wish to use the yeast that comes with the beer kit you have, you could try what a gabillion brewers use, the American ale yeast, Safale -05. I've used it personally and it goes great guns and is tried and true.

The Safale - 04 is a handy English ale yeast too.

A quick summary of pitching yeast 

• Pitching yeast is simply adding it to the beer wort.
• Add it when your wort is the recommended temperature – check your beer kit’s recommended temperature.
• You can pitch dry yeast straight into the wort.
• Or you can add it to water just prior to pitching.
• Dry yeasts have a longer storage life than liquid yeasts. 
• Liquid yeasts must be stored by refrigeration means.
• The older the yeast, the more of it you will need to use. 
• You can even use baker's yeast to pitch into your beer!

Extra for experts: should you use a ph Meter?

Image credit to Justin Knabb via Creative Commons Licence

1 comment alcohol, home brew, john palmer, pitching yeast, wort, yeast

↠ Do I have to sanitise all my beer brewing equipment?

Yes, you do bloody have to clean, sanitize and sterilize your beer brewing equipment, right down to the bottle caps and stirring spoon

There are plenty of tricks and cheats you can do to product quality tasting beer but the one thing you can't escape from is the proper cleaning, sanitizing and sterilization of your beer gear.

There's a difference between sanitizing and sterilizing

Sanitizing is a technical term that means a certain allowable amount of microbes to survive on the surface of your equipment.

Sterilizing is like sanitizing, but it removes all the microorganisms (the bugs and germs that will ruin your beer).

Think of washing your hands with hot water and soap as sanitization as it kills a few bugs but not all and is an acceptable means of cleaning your hands.

If you want to kill all the bugs on your hand so the skin is sterile with no bugs on it anywhere, then I suggest you boil your hands in water...

For the most part, the typical homebrewers don't need to sterilize, only sanitize. The chemicals commonly used for homebrew brewing are made to sanitize.

Now we've got those definitions clear, there are several methods that you can try to 'sterilize' your gear.

We'll note a couple in detail:

You can drown everything in bleach

A cheap and cost effective way to get your gear free of bugs is to drown your gear in bleach.

But what is bleach?

Bleach is usually a solution of chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide and they act as an oxidizing agent. They are great for all kinds of things such as removing bad smells, making your whites whiter and your brights brighter and for home brewing.

A popular American brand of bleach is Chlorox but there are hundreds of brands of bleach you could use.

As with all these sterilizing methods, you simply soak your equipment in the solution for a good length of time. A quick dip of ten minutes is the bare minimum.

We try and do several hours of soaking if possible.

The trick with bleach is to remember that you need to rinse everything off with clean water after. This is done to ensure that no yucky flavours leftover from the bleach makes it into your batch of beer. 

Use sodium percarbonate as a sanitizing agent

Using sodium percarbonate is our preferred method as it works well, no rinsing is required and it's very easy to order in bulk online.

And it does not smell like chlorine does.

If you've ever tried to buy sodium percarbonate from a specialist beer brewery shop, you'll know that you can get a small bottle or container of it that will cost you a small fortune.

If you can buy it in bulk from an online supplier, you'll do well to nab some as using it will effectively bring down your cost per brew. 

To use sodium percarbonate you simply add it to water. I like to add hot or ever boiling water to the drum so as to get the action of the chemical happening pretty quickly. The boiling water also helps kill off any nasty bugs hiding about as well. 

A home brand with sodium percarbonate.

Here's another trick, this chemical is basically what you might know as Tide or Napisan or any product that's brand name tries to use the word 'oxy' as in oxygen cleaning or oxidization agent.

Chances are you already have some in your home laundry so feel free to use that. I have done so several times with no problems whatsoever.

Non scented house brands are awesome.

Other methods of sanitization and sterilization

• Applying heat - use your oven for a good dry heat.
• Boiling in water with your camping stove or burner
• Use an autoclave or pressure cooker (this seems like a bit of overkill though)
• An ordinary house dishwasher machine can be used for sanitation but remember it's not likely to clean the inside of the bottles as well as you might wish, rather you are using the heat of the dishwasher to kill any microbes. 

The key goal here is to make sure that your equipment is nice and clean and that it has a few microbes on it is possible. You can use whatever means you like to achieve this but you have to do it and you must be consistent.

You cannot take a break from it. If you want a good tasting beer that's not contaminated then you just have to take the plunge. 

If you are looking for a product to CLEAN your brewing equipment then we suggest you consider using PBW:

PBW stands for Powdered Brewery Wash

PBW cleaning product by Five Star is widely used in many commercial breweries but countless homebrewers across the land have cottoned on to how they can use it for cleaning their own brewing equipment.

If you've ever used a 5 gallon stainless steel boil pot you'll know how crusty the remnants on the bottom of the pot can be. A quick round with PBW will sort them out easily. All you have to do when cleaning with hot water, is add just a little bit of PBW, mix it up, and let it sit in the pot. All of that burned-on garbage lifts right off. Ideally, a good burner will not cause this problem!

PBW is also excellent for cleaning the inside of your beer bottles, it can really clean out the beer's sediment. 

The main ingredient is about 30% Sodium Metasilicate. Its chemical formula is Na2SiO3 and it's what kicks grease and beer smegma to the curb. If you want to be brave and buy the main ingredient in bulk, there's plenty of value on offer on Amazon.

Image credit Anna L Martin as per Creative Commons License

Leave a Comment beer brewing, beer kit, home brew, steralisation, tricks and tips

⇒ Steinlager Classic Clone Recipe

Steinlager clone recipe for homebrew beer

There's plenty of evidence around to suggest that Steinlager is one of the greatest beers that has ever been produced.

Despite the trend to craft beer drinking, Steinlager beer is holding it's own in the market.

Kind of...

This is due of course to a strong marketing campaign* by Lion Nathan - it's the official beer of the all conquering All Blacks, the fact it's a New Zealand household name and the fact that it's actually a good beer to drink.

It really is, beer snobs need not contribute their opinion!

If you've found this page, chances are we do not need to sell you on Steinlager being a good drinking beer - and if you want to clone it, here's a Steinlager clone recipe that might just help you get an approximation of what many consider to be one of New Zealand's finest beers.

And just so there's no confusion, we are talking about Steinlager Classic, the original Steinlager beer.

Not this "Pure' version of it they market these days and let's be clear - there's no way we are even going to consider a Steinlager Tokyo.

That is simply marketing a new beer for the sake of marketing a new beer.

It has no soul.

Steinlager Classic, now that is a beer that has tradition, aspiration, balls and of course great taste.

A beer that you can actually have a good crack at making a homebrew clone!

Hops used in Steinlager

The actual recipe for Steinlager is a closely held trade secret, so it's a bit of a guess what goes into it but well-educated taste buds have been able to offer some handy insight.

Steinlager is noted for its key ingredient of the so-called 'green bullet' hops. 

This hops is unique in that it was developed in New Zealand and it delivers a traditional bittering quality and hop flavor, ideal for lager making.

It's popularity has meant it's now a flagship hop within the New Zealand brewing industry.

So your Steinlager clone will at the least need bullet hops!

How to make a good clone of Steinlager beer

So there are two ways to make a Steinlager clone. One way is rough as guts, and the other is your more refined home brewing process...

Making a good Steinlager clone using a beer kit:

You will need the following ingredients:

• A can of lager beer malt
• Green Bullet hops
• Beer enhancer
• You could use the yeast that comes with your kit or try a Budvar Lager yeast.

Prepare according to the usual method of making beer with kits and dammit, Jim - make sure you sanitise your gear!

Cold storage of your lager will be very handy - leave it in the shed?

Extra for experts: If you are trying to make a Steinlager Pure clone (hey, it's your life), note that Pure uses Pacific Jade hops, Nelson Sauvin hops and possibly some green bullet too.

Steinlager clone recipe for more seasoned brewers

If you're into boiling your wort and getting the timings of the hop additions just perfect, here's some a Steinlager clone recipe that seems pretty handy.

It comes from a bloke called Timmy:

• 4.00 kg Pilsner, Malt Craft Export (Joe White) (3.2 EBC) Grain
• 0.25 kg Carahell (Weyermann) (25.6 EBC) Grain
• 0.15 kg Carafoam (Weyermann) (3.9 EBC) Grain
• 0.15 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (3.5 EBC) Grain
• 60 min 20.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (60 min) Hops
• 10 min 15.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (10 min) Hops
• 10 min 25.00 gm Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops
• 10 min 0.50 items Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
• 1 min 25.00 gm Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (1 min) Hops
• 1 packet Budvar Lager (Wyeast Labs #2000) Yeast-Lager

You'll have an estimated 1.056 original gravity and final gravity of 1.014 and approx 30 IBU.

There are other Steinlager clone recipes around but they are more or less the same as this one.

One or two seem to suggest that the beer contains Hallertau Hops but others have countered that was an older version of the beer.

Indeed, given the green bullet hops wasn't first produced until 1972 and that Steinlager has been around since the late 1950's, the beer drunk since at least 1972 has a different hops than what the originally beer started with - which is probably no biggie as it was in 1977 when Steinlager was crowned the world's best beer.

It also won the Les Amis du Vin Award (a beer competition of renown) again in '78 and '80 so it's the green bullet hops that helped win the world over.

This article has a sweet history of the beer as it became popular around the world.

* How about that poster eh? Classic sexist advertising from the 1980s.

Check out this Panhead supercharger clone recipe.

3 comments budvar, clone recipe, green bullet, home brew, steinlager

>> What are the best beer kits to use for brewing?

There is a great range of beer kits to use for home brewing

The best thing about beer kit selection is that it all depends on what kind of beer you want to make. 

So the choice is up to you.

No one wants to screw up their beer, they just want a great tasting beer that they can share with their mates.

Or drink it all themselves while watching the Footy. 

But you gotta make that choice.

So.

Are you after a hearty ale or a light lager? 

Maybe ever something more fancy like a 'saison' which seems to be all the rage at the moment?

There are many kinds of beer kits from all kinds of sellers. They are all intended to be used to make great tasting beer so let’s review a selection of the best beer kits and see if we can find the best one for you.

Things to consider first when buying a beer kit

What kind of beer do you want to brew?

Beer kits are made to cover just about every beer style that there is. 

If you are a beginner brewer we would recommend that you go for a more darker beer like an ale or stout (we love nut brown ales with some fuggle hops ourselves). 

This is because it's more likely you will get a better tasting beer, especially as most first time brewers will not be patient enough to wait for their lagers to properly age!! 

Speaking of lager...

Is the kit reasonably fresh?

If it’s been sitting under the kitchen sink for three years the ingredients may not be in an optimum state and the condition of the yeast will certainly be questionable.

You want your beer kit to be in the best state so as they say, fresh is best. When making your purchase feel free to inquire with the seller or check the batch data.

If it’s old, show the kit the door.

If you are buying from a popular beer specialty store or online site, chances are you will be buying a product of an appropriate age and there should be no reason for you to wonder.

One handy trick brewers often do is discard the yeast pack that comes with the beer kit and instead they add their own fresh yeast they have sourced elsewhere, the Safale yeast is a popular choice with homebrewers.

Many brewers believe that the yeast in beer kits are not as good as specialty yeasts. We say each to their own, and if you can afford it, go for it.

Lager beer kits

Lagers can be a challenge to make as they need lower temperatures during fermentation to achieve the desired result.

Since lagers  are generally light in body it is very easy to tell a lager that has been fermented at too warm a temperature as they may taste too fruity or spicy due to too much ester production.

So what are some good beer kits to use to make a lager?

Getting the malt ready

The very first lager I ever made was a Black Rock Lager with beer enhancer and Dr. Rudi Hops. I have no idea who Doctor Rudi is but he sure helped make a good beer! 

I’ve used plenty of Black Rock Kits and they are just the best for basic home brewing and produce very drinkable beers. 

You could think of these kits as being your 'standard' kit - nothing to fancy but you can be confident they will help you produce good beer.

You’ll also find that Cooper’s DIY Lager is well worth a crack – we do recommend you add some hops of course! We did a great brew of a Cooper's larger with the combination of both Moteuka and Saaz hops. 

Cooper’s kits have been reviewed by drinkers as being “a great beer to start with for new brewers and veterans alike. The flavor is very smooth, has a creamy head and ends with a slight bitterness.”

Another popular choice in the American home brewers market is the Munton’s Premium Lager Kit, which has a 5 star review on Amazon

What are the popular ale kits? Is IPA the way to go?

Some of the tastiest beverages around are ales. There’s something about them that just makes you feel good when drinking them (other than the obvious alcohol effect!).

They are hearty to drink, and pair well with many food dishes.

A well-crafted ale can explore all kinds of taste sensations and they are certainly a great session beer where you can just get on them.

Also, the best ale kits are pretty forgiving to brewing mistakes and they are also able to be brewed at warmer temperatures than those pesky and pernickety lagers ;).

So what are the best ale kits?

We are going to focus on the IPA, the good old Indian Pale Ale.

A style of apparently that was apparently invented by the British during their efforts to colonize India, the IPA is a hoppy style beer from the pale ale family.

There are three kinds of IPA’s American-style, English-style, and Double or Imperial. All have good things going for them, especially Mr Beer’s Diablo IPA.

It is a very popular beer kit. It has been described as being “a very nice dark ale with subtle hints of winter spices, and takes kindly to many different yeasts.”

Get your thrills from your pils (kits)

Let’s have a think about Pilsner beer kits.

Hand tip - use a hydrometer to check the gravity

The pilsner style is arguably the most successful beer style in the world with some counts suggesting that 9 out of 20 beers comes from the pils family or a style derived from it.

Take that with a grain of malt, but there’s no doubt as to the popularity of a good pils (if you ever get the chance, try the Three Boys Pils, it’s one of our personal favourites).

The pilsner has a long history coming out of Germany. The modern pilsner has a very light, clear colour from pale to golden yellow. It will usually have distinct hop aroma and flavour.

Pilsner beers have become nearly synonymous with the four so called 'noble hops'. These are varieties of hop called Terrnanger, Spalt, Hallertauer and Saaz.

So what are the best pilsner beer kits? 

Here's a handy selection of the popular sellers on Amazon:

Stout beers are... strong!

You may always want to try a stout.

Stouts are not for the shy beer drinker, they are a full on ‘meal’ in a glass. A dark beer, they are often 7 or 8 percent ABV and have been around as a beer style since the late 1600s.

The stout, like most beer families, comes in a variety of styles. Milk stouts, Irish, Porters and oatmeal are popular versions.

The most well-known Irish stout is the Guinness Draft, the mostly drunk beer around the world on Saint Patrick's day!

There’s even a method of brewing stout that uses oysters but we recommend the home brewer stay away from adding some of Bluff’s finest export to their brews!

Stouts will often use East Kent Goldings hops but the classic Fuggle hop is used, as are several others.

So what are the best stouts to homebrew from a kit?

Here's a handy selection of popular options from Amazon.



So there you go, there are plenty of quality beer kits to choose from. What to choose depends on what kind of beer you want and how much you want to spend!

We would recommend you go with popular beer kits when you are starting out.

This way you can have some confidence that many brewers have been there before and voted with their wallets as to the quality and taste of the kits.

Always bear in mind that having a good kit is not a guarantee of success – attention to good brewing technique and adhering to the mantra of sanitizing your equipment are also fundamental to the chances of brewing a tasty beverage! A good choice of hops will go a long way too - our Riwaka hops experiment was a great success.

Leave a Comment ale beer kits, beer brewing, beer kit, home brew

Two instructions on the beer kit can you can safely ignore

Rules are meant to be broken and so are the beer making instructions that you will find on a beer kit.

Think of an ordinary cake recipe.

If you follow its instructions to the letter, you'd likely get an OK tasting cake.

But a cake making expert will see that same cake recipe and see room for improvement and change things up and make a great tasting cake.

And it's the same with the instructions that come with an extract beer kit. If you make your beer following the can's instructions, you will simply make beer.

When a beer making expert sees those same instructions, they see opportunity to basically ignore those instructions and apply some tried and true beer making methods instead!

Let's have a look some of the things that standard set of instructions might say something like.

Bottle when the specific gravity is the same after two readings

If you are a first time brewer, you could be forgiven if you were wondering what specific gravity means. It's the reading taken with a hydrometer that demonstrates that alcohol is displacing water. If you have two readings the same a day a part, no more displacement is occurring and thus, fermentation is finished.

Right?

No.

While the yeast may have stopped making alcohol, the yeast is still doing it's job.

It is cleaning up what we will call the 'left overs'. Here's the instructions your beer kit does not give you.

Let your beer 'chill out' in the drum a bit longer.

While the bubbles may have stopped coming out the airlock, some pretty handy chemical reactions are still occurring and they will help make your beer taste even better.

Bottling too early (such as immediately post having two consecutive identical specific gravity readings) deprives your beer of this vital part of the secret to making good beer.

Don't drink your beer after a week, no matter what the instructions say

And here's the second reason to ignore your beer kit's instructions. They often suggest you can drink your beer after a week!

What?

Have you ever actually done this?

I have and I can tell you that a beer that has been conditioned for only a week is the roughest beer to drink around.

What happens when you bottle beer is that a secondary fermentation takes place.

This is when the beer is carbonated for the second time, the difference being, the carbon dioxide is trapped inside the beer bottle. 

While that is happening, the yeast is once again cleaning up the beer for you. Let the beer sit for a minimum of three weeks so that it is at its best for drinking.

So there are two reasons to ignore the beer kit's instructions and they basically come down to time. There is no need to rush your beer making experience. Let the beer sit for a week after fermentation has obviously finished and then let your beer condition even longer than what the instructions suggest. 

You can of course always choose to ignore the advice in my step by step guide to brewing beer!

Leave a Comment advice about beer brewing, beer kit, beer kits, home brew

↠ Tips on how to properly brew a good lager

How to easily make a great lager home brew

You might have heard that it's hard to home brew a good lager.

You might have heard beer kit lagers can be unforgiving beers to make and any mistakes will ruin the beer.

It's almost ironic that the world's most popular beer style is apparently too hard to make.

But, is this really the case?

What if I told you it was easy to make a great tasting kit lager brew?

Would you believe me?

The proof is in the tasting of course. Let me show you the secrets and tips of making a delicious lager from a beer kit.

I've made some great lagers and I look back fondly on the batch I called 'J' and just how good it came out. I was basically trying to make a Steinlager clone and it was truly superb.

If this backyard brewer can easily make a great lasting lager, you can too.

Are you ready for the secret of easily making a good lager?

Stop reading all the online nonsense and JUST BREW IT.

That's all you have to do. It's that easy a tip.

JUST BREW IT.

But just in case you think I'm pulling your leg, here's some tricks and tips for brewing lagers (and hard seltzer brews too).

Don't rush in like a school boy

The key to making a good lager is patience.

Even if you think fermentation is complete, let your lager beer rest a few more days longer in the fermenter.

It's a chemical process after all. 

It's very common for lagers to exhibit sulfur-like characters during fermentation (hence part of the rationale for people saying lagers are hard to brew).

Leaving your beer to sit for a bit longer will allow such characteristics to fade and largely disappear - which leaves you with a great tasting and smelling lager.

In the cold, cold night

In conjunction with time, lagers need the cold to condition and mature.

It's a lesson the Nordic people discovered long ago - they put their beer in cold caves over the winter and found they came out well ... lagered!

Indeed, the word lager actually means storeroom or warehouse so you can see how the cave thing / naming of the style happened.

Ideally, once you have bottled your lager, leave it in a warmish place to carbonate for a few days. If it's TOO cold at this stage, you won't get bubbles in your beer!

Once carbonation takes place, feel free to put your beer bottles in the garden shed for a few weeks where it's nice an cold.

For this reason, it's often considered good timing to make your lager near the end of autumn or the start of winter.

Keeping your lager cold will result in the production of fewer esters and fusel alcohols, giving your beer a better taste balance.

Expert brewers often refrigerate their lager.

Consider using well known lager yeasts 

It's a trait of lager that certain yeasts tend to suit being lagered. Your larger kit will come with a standard yeast - if you're feeling adventurous, you might want to order the Lager Yeast WL833 - it's a popular yeast for lager brewing.

Match your hops to well known lager hops

Saaz hops, in particular, are associated with the brewing of lagers as well as the classic German hop, Hallertauer . We've discovered New Zealand derived Green Bullet hop is also very handy.

Read more on good hop matches to beer.

You need to be  super vigilant with your sanitization

Ales are more forgiving than lagers, it's true.

The taste of an ale can overpower some of the niggles of brewing like unwanted smells.

So, to avoid these happen to your lager beer, the best cure is prevention.

That means being meticulously clean during the brew and ensuring your equipment is sanitized.

The tip here? Sanitize, sanitize and sanitize.

Remember what the word lager means! 

It means basically to store.

So once you have bottled your beer, leave it to store for as long as you can.

Maybe even over the whole of winter, in a cold place.

At a minimum three weeks but it could be worth leaving your lager alone for a couple of months.

Summary - how to easily brew a lager:

• Leave your brew to ferment a little longer than you would and ale
• Select a tried and true lager yeast
• Match with appropriate hops
• Watch your temperatures, especially post bottling for carbonation and conditioning.

So these have been a few basic tips that will help you easily make a fine tasting lager beer.

Forget the hysteria that it's hard to make a lager and JUST DO IT!

Leave a Comment green bullet, hallertauer, home brew, hops, lager, saaz

Review of Te Aro's Obligatory fresh wort pack

My beer making success with Te Aro Brewing Co's 'Obligatory' fresh wort pack

I was lucky enough to catch up with Nathan from Te Aro Brewing Company (we used to be workmates at a fairly well known internet company some years back) and to meet the brewery's founder Karl Kayes.

The brewery has a front-of-shop known as Brewtopia, wherein they shared with me a taste of some of their wares.

Nathan offered me a sample of their Oligatory pale ale beer. A fine tasting beer, I offered my compliments. He then blew my mind by offering me one of Te Aro Brewing Company's 'Obligatory' fresh wort packs to try out and review.

Such is my sophistication when it comes to beer making, I'd never heard of a fresh wort pack before but soon enough I was lugging around 20 litres of ready made Obligatory wort back home.

On arrival my wife looked at me with some suspicion.

What had  I brought home in this mysterious black container.

Petrol? Insecticide?

No darling, beer!

So, I grabbed the fermenter and gave it a clean and then sanitized with some sodium percarbonate.

I was extra particular about this process and I rinsed it all out with boiling water. There was no way I was going to let this special treat from Te Aro get ruined by poor preparation! This took me about 10 minutes.

Before I started this cleaning process I actually got the yeast going by adding it to a glass of warm water. The yeast was the popular home brewer's choice of Safale US-05.

So, now it came time to prepare the beer.

I emptied the 20 litres of wort into the fermenter, making sure it splashed around quite a lot to ensure the wort got some oxygen into it (this helps with fermentation).

It was a nice light brown colour and not as thick as I imagined it would be (probably as I'm so used to making brews with beer kits).

And then less than a minute later, I was ready to pitch the yeast.

It was almost too easy.

I put the lid on the fermenter and added the airlock.

I did not add any hops at this stage. Not my normal approach, but I intended to follow Nathan's instructions as best I could so I added the hops at day 5.

So straight away I was able to see the benefit of using a pre-made wort - you save a lot of time, there's no need to go and buy a beer enhancer or DME and it's a lot less messy than dealing with a beer kit.

Indeed, there's no mess with a wort pack!

You can actually recycle the wort pack container by taking it back to Brewtopia on a brewing day for a new wort and a wee discount as you are using your own storage device!

Nathan recommended that the brew is stored in a dark place with an average temperature of between 14 to 22 degrees centigrade and that 16 - 20 is best. I'll be frank, I have no idea what the temperature was but I left it in my warm kitchen for 48 hours.

I then transferred it to my man shed outside and covered it with a whole pile of old sheets and towels.

Classic move eh?

At this point I noted that no bubbles were coming out of the airlock, nor did I observe any scum or residue lining the inside of the fermenter, early days though and the lack of bubbles after two days does not mean I have a brewing disaster on my hands!

At day 5 I added the hops - a combination of some delicious smelling Nelson Sauvin, NZ Cascade and Motueka. On opening the fermenter's lid I was now able to see a great layer of bubbles and scum so clearly something good had been occurring.

So now it was a waiting game to let the brew do its thing.

Bottling day

I prepared the Obligatory on the 27th of September and bottled two weekends later on the 9th of October. This was a couple of days shy of the time recommended by Nathan but whatever, close enough!

Bottling was a straightforward exercise and I was very diligent with sanitizing the bottles.

Now it's an even longer wait!

So while I wait, let's talk about the ingredients of the beer and whether fresh wort packs are worth it.

Wort pack ingredients

Malt: Gladfields American Ale Malt, Gladfields Pale Crystal, Gladfields Toffee Malt,
Hops: Nelson Sauvin, NZ Cascade and Motueka

I gotta tell ya, that combination of hops was one of the most delicious smells. I kept them in the fridge until it was time to add them and everytime I opened the fridge, I got the most delightful whiff of them.

Pricing and whether a fresh wort pack is wort(h) it

So what's the cost? Let's be clear, this is not a cheap product. It's a quality product so expect a quality price of $70 for the wort.

This also includes the Safale yeast and the hops which should make your wallet feel a bit better.

There is no need for an enhancer because Te Aro Brewery has made the wort such as they would make their Obligatory to sell to their keen punters and the local Wellington bars which want quality craft beers to serve their fickle* patrons.

If you compare that to a using a beer kit, fresh yeast, extra hops and an enhancer, you're looking at approximately $40 a brew (that is if you use a lower range beer kit). So that $30 odd dollar difference is buying you a beer quality well above what may be achieved with a standard beer kit.

It's also buying you time.

It took only a few minutes to get the fermenter clean and the yeast pitched into the wort. And that was the longest part of the whole brewing exercise.

So if you are time sensitive, a fresh wort pack is the way to go.

Let's be clear, I'm not knocking beer kits, I think they are great!

The verdict. How did the Obligatory taste?

I'm not a patient man, I could hardly wait a week, let alone three to try the Obligatory.

So, I tried one a week after bottling.

I gotta tell you, I had some high expectations around this brew and I was not disappointed.

This was a most excellent tasting beer, even only after a week of conditioning. It possessed a bold, hoppy taste.

It felt oakey in some way, which sounds pretentious but it's not.

It has an excellent mouthfeel with some good body.

It's a very easy drinking beer and I look forward to enjoying it further with the first BBQ of the summer season.

I firmly recommend this to any beer maker who is looking for a quick way to make genuine quality home brew beer.

Update - after a two week conditioning period I had another crack and the flavours were even more amazing. This is probably the best tasting beer I have ever brewed. 

I'm sold Jimmy, where can I buy the wort kit?

Brewtopia sell their wort online, so grab yourself one today - you can always visit and have a yarn with the brewing team.

You can also sign up to Te Aro's Wort Pack email list so you'll be in the know when batches are ready.

*fickle, yes I said that. Beer drinkers can be the worst snobs. 

Leave a Comment ale beer kits, beer kit review, brew and review, fresh wort pack, home brew, pale ale, wort

How to brew a good Nut Brown Ale

What is a nut brown ale and is it good to homebrew with?

Coming from the 'brown ale' family of beers, the nut brown ale is a great beer for the keen home brewer to have a crack at making.

Do you believe me?

You can answer that question soon but first a short history of the nut brown ale.

The Brown Ale style originally gained popularity in the down and dirty pubs of England, where beer guzzlers expressed a need for beer that was both flavorful and complex, but at the same time mild enough to be a session beer.

Words like Newcastle ale, English Style ale, 'All English' are bandied about when it comes to the brown ale. It's drank in many a London pub.

The style has a long history and if you see a reference to 'Northern ale', this is what historically is meant by a nut brown ale.

In reality, the style of nut brown ale may just have been a unique marketing movement promoted by the burgeoning beer companies in the first half of the 20th century.

At its most basic, a nut brown ale is a way to describe a variant of the standard brown ale.

Does a nut brown ale actually have nuts added to it?

A key thing to point out is that a nut brown ale recipe doesn't contain nuts! The reference to nuts is for the beer's colour, not necessarily it's taste. You could also describe the colour of the ale as a deep copper. There's nothing wrong with using nutty as a taste description if that's the case!

So what are the taste characteristics of the nut brown ale?

The taste of nut brown ale is obviously subjective. Some say it would have an 'obvious earthy' character. It may have faint traces of some flavor like molasses or possibly something like maple stripped of sugar.

You could almost say the ale has a mild bread like taste with that classic ale bite in the back of the mouth.

If brewed well, the taste offers a malty sweetness, with the slight presence of caramel. If properly balanced with a medium to low level of hops (as it's traditional for ales for be low in hops), the nut brown ale is a deserved beer to drink on a hot day. 

Is a nut brown ale a good for for homebrewing? What do I need to make a good one?

So if the above romantic descriptions of the beer, tempt you, we strongly suggest you try your hand at brewing one. I did, here's my review of the kit I used.

What hops can be used in a nut brown ale?

Traditional English ales are lightly hopped as the preference is for a low bitterness levels. Hence classic English hops choices such as Goldings, Fuggles, and sometimes Tettnanger could be made.

American brown ales have evolved differently and feature a higher level of bitterness and thus Cascade and Williamette hops are common.

So if you are going for the more traditional English nut brown ale style, you may want to favour the English hops.

They key thing to beer in mind is that your brew recipe should be light on hops so to not over bitter your beer.

So don't throw in the whole hops packet.

What's a good nut brown ale recipe? Here's some ideas of what you could use

There are many ways to make your own version of a nut brown ale. Here's two brief versions that you could go for if you were putting together your own recipe.

Version One:

Malts - lager,crystal,black malt
Hops - Green Bullet, Pacific Gem

Version Two:

Malts - brown, chocolate malt, caramel
Hops - Willamette both bittering and aroma

The call to action!

If you are going to brew a nut brown ale, we suggest you get a beer kit by way of Northern Brewer, a popular American supplier of beer product and equipment. 

They've a pretty good reputation!

3 comments home brew, nut brown ale