A local homebrew shop opened, so I felt the only decent thing was to buy a kit to support them.  So, a Mangrove Jack wheat beer, +1kg dextrose + some Morgan’s Hallertau hops.  O.G. 1.042-ish.

Wow – more than a year between homebrews, again. I’ve almost depleted my stores, which gives you some idea of how much I’ve been drinking and socialising over the past couple of years (not much of either). I find old homebrew basically gets better with age, but maybe I’m pushing it with some of the 2 year-old beer. Anyway, again (but not by design) I’m doing a Cooper’s Heritage Lager, but this time with a Cooper’s Light Malt tin as the adjunct. O.G. is around 1.042.

Almost a whole year since my last brew (which has worked out great, BTW).  Inspired by a colleague’s homebrew at Friday afternoon drinks, I’ve dragged a kit off the shelf to start another brew.  This time it’s a Cooper’s Heritage Lager, with 600g Dextrose and 400g Maltodextrin.  Nothing fancy.  O.G. is somewhere around 1.042 to 1.044.

Something to do with all the mandarins from our tree – a Hoegaarden-inspired mandarin-and-coriander wheat beer.  Cooper’s wheat beer kit, light dry malt, peels from 6 mandarins, and 2.5 tblsp coriander seed.  (All a guess – let’s see how it turns out.)  O.G. is 1.040.

After a busy year, I’ve finally had a holiday.  Mostly at home, but we also went to the spectacular Jenolan Caves for a couple of days.  Before I head back to work again, I’ve time to start another beer.  It’s been more than six months since my last batch (which worked out OK, but has a vicious head).  Stocks are running low.
Today it’s another Coopers’ kit – the Traditional Draught (although I will bottle it, not put it in a cask!) supplemented by 1.5kg of the Coopers Light Malt.  O.G. is 1.040.
 

Just over four weeks ago, I started brewing a Coopers Wheat Beer kit, with Safbrew WB-06 Wheat Brewing Yeast, and a kilo of dried wheat malt, all from the Asquith homebew shop a little way up the road.  Two weeks in the primary, racked for two more weeks for bottling.  It’s been a little chilly recently, so fermentation was slow.  The ingredients all up cost almost twice as much as normal – will it taste twice as good?  Time will tell, but so far it smells like fresh bread, which is a good sign!

The day after Christmas is Bottling Day!  Laying down the Dark Ale for Autumn and Winter.  I had racked it 4-5 days beforehand.  Final gravity was 1.01, so it will be just under 5.5% ABV.

It’s been a madly busy year, with barely enough time to drink beer, let alone make any.  But on the weekend I managed to find an hour to put on a new batch.  Hopefully when the Christmas holidays come around in a couple of week I’ll find time to bottle it!
I’ve gone with a Cooper’s Dark Ale again – an old favorite, and nice in the winter when it will be ready.  I added cooper’s Brew Enhancer Type 2, and the original gravity was 1.038.

I said I’d report back on an experiment I started last November.  For the Chilli Lager I made with a 3kg malt kit, I primed half the batch in the normal way, and didn’t prime the remaining bottles.  The theory is that when using a full malt kit, after primary fermentation and bottling, there should be enough residual dextrins left to be slowly enzymatically converted into simple sugars and then be digested by the remaining yeast.  I’ve had a request to report on the outcome of the experiment.  So here is a status report.
A month ago I would have said that the unprimed bottles were basically flat.  My problem is that I don’t how long I should wait for these enzymes to act!  I had basically given up on the unprimed bottles, but last night I tried another sample, and there was some definite fizz going on.  It wasn’t nearly as active as the primed batch, but it certainly had more sparkle than some English beers I’ve had.  So, I’ll wait and see.   In the past I’ve had home brew improve over the course of a year in the bottle.  Perhaps that improvement was due to a similar process.
Nonetheless, my plan for future batches is to keep adding priming sugar before bottling.

A new brew on the last weekend of my short summer holidays – trying a Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza, with their Brew Enhancer Type 1. OG surprisingly high at 1.054! Sweet, light wort.