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Last weekend was bottling day for the full malt chilli lager. Normally when bottling, you add some “priming sugar” to each bottle. This is a small amount of extra food that the residual yeast will consume. Yeast produces two important by-products in fermentation – alcohol and carbon dioxide. The former is the goal during primary …
Now I’ve settled in a little to my new place, I’ve had time to put on a new brew. On the train every day I pass a homebrew shop at Thornleigh, and recently I managed to visit. A homebrew shop is a different experience to buying homebrew kits at the supermarket. There’s all sorts of …
It’s been a cool summer in Sydney this year, and recently we’ve had a few particularly cool days , which I’ve taken to be the first stirrings of Autumn. This prompted me to get a batch of beer ready for Winter – a Cooper’s Dark Ale, with their Brew Enhancer Type 2. I’ve used this …
A lime cordial last night – back to basics. It was based on the generic cordial recipe – 2kg sugar, 1.7L water, 18g citric acid, and 0.3L of juice and pared rinds from 8 limes. This batch had the most intense lime flavour. My working hypothesis is that this is due to the quality of …
Another cordial this weekend, this time using bulk white nectarines from the grocer. They were too hard to be eaten, but made good cordial. I used a nectarine instantiation of my father’s generic cordial recipe. He created this recipe based on Matt’s recipe for orange cordial, but tweaked it after various trials, and made it …
All good things come to an end, and so it is with my Dark Chocolate Ale. My stores are generally getting low – now I’m left with only a couple of bottles of Spicy Ghost and a crate of Chilli Lager. Time for another brew. Next week I’m off to Europe for a couple of …
Someone at work asked me for some bottles of chilli and lime lager to put in their sons’ Christmas stockings, and when I went rummaging around in the cellar, I reaslied that I was down to my last three bottles. With two now gone as Christmas presents, I’m left with one tallie, to drink some …
As well as making the occasional home-brew beer (since the early 90s), I’ve also been making “home-brew” cordials (since the late 90s). Last night I whipped up a quick lemon cordial. Lemons were cheap at Norton St Grocer, and I’d run so low on cordial that I’d had to buy some commercial stuff. My cordials …
My supplies of the chilli-and-lime lager are getting lower now, and it’s also about time to lay something down for Spring. I was hoping to do a wheat beer, but my local supermarkets weren’t stocking those. Instead I’ve just put on a “wheat inspired” draught beer – Cascade’s Spicy Ghost. I added Coopers Brew Enhancer …
Today (4th Dec), I put on a new brew, intended for next Winter. It’s a Cooper’s Dark Ale, with Cooper’s Brew Enhancer Type 2, and most of a block of Lindt 85% dark chocolate melted in. (Jill thought this was a bit of a waste, and that I should have just thrown in some cocoa …