Well, if you guys have been reading this blog, you will know that I had previously done a batch of beer a few weeks back. However, I was unsuccessful because of my own stupidity - I forgot to rinse off the sanitizing solutions from my beer bottles before I bottled the beer, so I had to throw away all the beer, which would taste very funky indeed if drank. Anyway, I redid another batch again. Had to fork out S$50 over for the beer ingredients which included the beer concentrate (or beer kit which includes malt extracts, malts and hops among other stuff), Cooper’s brewing enhancer 2 (that’s a mix of light malt extract, dextrose and malto-dextrin), yeast, additional hops and carbonation drops (to carbonate the beer). Anyway, it’s pretty cheap if you consider the cost of buying commercial beer from the stores in Singapore. I guess the cheapest you can get is like S$2.50 per 330ml can? This batch of S$50 is for 23 litres of beer. That’s pretty cheap right? If you buy the cheapest 23 litres of beer commercially, it’s going to cost you at least S$200.

A lot of people asked me why I brew beer. I think the main reason is because it teaches me patience. Although the work of making the wort takes like an hour, you need to wait for a few weeks or even months to see the fruits of your labour. Yes, mainly it involves waiting. So I guess it can really teach me some patience at least whenever you need to “wait”.

Okay, I have also taken some photos of the brewing process.

I purchased the Australian Pale Ale beer kit, Cooper’s Brew Enhancer 2 and Notthingham yeast. I hope to create a very golden looking and clear beer from the pale ale beer kit since a lot of my friends don’t like dark coloured beers. Perhaps they are too used to tiger beers. Of course, that’s a lager, but I won’t be attempting lagers anytime soon. The Cooper’s Brew Enhancer 2 is a mix of light malt extract, dextrose and malto-dextrin. This is a good mix as it adds more of a body to the beer, plus the malt-dextrin will give the beer a good head (foamy). It also gives more of a malty flavour to the beer. Everyone hates a watery beer, don’t they?

That’s the Notthingham Ale Dry Yeast and my thumb. I think my thumb looks good. Anyways, this yeast is supposed to be a good quality yeast which can attenuate very well. It simply means that it can convert sugars in the wort (unfermented beer) very well which provides some good body in the beer. This creates a very dry beer. And it is supposed to be able to create some very clear beer which is what I am looking for.

The carbonation drops. This is added when you do the bottling to give your beer the fizzle. Just 2 drops per 740ml bottle. Don’t need to measure the priming sugar. Can really save a lot of time and work. That’s why I purchased this. I am not so keen on work plus it can also be very messy.

This photo shows you how to open the Australian Pale Ale Beer kit. Not really that exciting. There is also a rubber band which I use to shoot at little birds.

The beer kit or beer concentrate actually comes with a pack of Cooper’s ale yeast but I am not going to use it. Yeast is very important when brewing beer because yeast is the “thing” that creates the alcohol and taste for your beer. So I got myself the Notthingham yeast instead. The instruction basically tells you to add the brewing sugars and the beer kit concentrate into the fermenter with boiling water and mix well. However, I am going to do a short boil instead.

That’s the fermenter and cover. I am using washing detergent to wash the fermenter first. Then rinse off the detergent (very important so that no detergent remains and spoil your wort or react with your sanitizing solution). After rinsing off the detergent, I use the Straight ‘A’ sanitizing solution and let the fermenter rest with the sanitizing solution for about 15 minutes. Then rinse off the sanitizing solution.

Yes, this one is from my previous post. These are the Cascade hops as well as the Straight ‘A’ sanitizer. I will be adding a little Cascade hops into my wort for about 5 minutes for the aroma. Hops are usually used to add bitterness and flavourings to the beer. Since the fermented wort will always be sweet because of the sugars, you need to add the bittering hops to counter the sweetness. Of course, the bittering hops had already been added in the beer kit, so this additional is for aroma only.

Washing the airlock, spigot (tap), sediment reducer(hard to see), little bottler (nope, not using this yet) and grommet (it comes with the airlock and is sort of like a rubber stopper). Yes, these too will be sanitized. Everything that comes into contact with the wort needs to be sanitized. Being clean is everything when you brew beer. And to ensure that it stays sanitized, avoid touching the sanitized equipment.

This is my brew pot, basically it’s just a stainless steel pot which can hold about 8 litres of water. What I do is boil the water and after the water is boiled, I take the pot off the flame and add in my beer concentrate and brewing sugar. Alas, I have forgotten to take the photos of these steps of adding the beer concentrate and brewing sugar. Must be really getting old.

I opened the pack of dry yeast and add the contents into a sanitized plastic jar of boiled water. The water is cooled and just slightly warm. The purpose of rehydrating the yeast is to ensure that the yeast cells can get enough water for a healthy brew. If you pitch the dry yeast into the wort directly without rehydrating, the yeast may not be able to get enough water fast enough for it to be healthy. It is also done to ensure that there will be less “shock” to the yeast.

In this photo, you can see that I have taken off the green paper covering the beer concentrate. The reason is that when you open the beer concentrate, your can opener may “cut” the paper and the bits and pieces may fall off into your wort. I don’t like to drink paper beer. The water in the small pot has been heated and I have placed the can of beer concentrate into the water. This is to soften the beer concentrate and it makes the syrup much easier to pour out.

Okay guys, I have forgotten to take photos of what I did next. After taking the brew pot off the heat, I added the can of beer concentrate, brewing sugar and hops into the boiling water and do another 5 minute boil. In my previous attempt, I did a full 45 minutes boil which was a big mistake. If you are using a beer kit concentrate, the concentrate has already been boiled for you, there is no need to do another boil. If you boil the beer concentrate for too long, it will turn darker and the beer may turn way too bitter. I wanted a light coloured beer. After which I took off the hops from the pot and placed the brew pot into a ice cold sink bath. This is to cool down the wort fast.

Didn’t buy ice from 7-Eleven, so had to use some of the stuff which I had in hand and I froze them. Of course, these are free. You can see a small amount of foam in the wort, I believe that this is the malto-dextrin which is very difficult to dissolve. Anyway, you may be thinking why do I need to crash cool the wort? Well, the main reason is that you don’t want any infection to occur since the wort now is very vulnerable to infections. So if you cold the wort fast, there is less of a chance of an infection. It also helps to create a “cold break” which reduces the chance of the chill haze which makes the final beer cloudy if chilled. And yes, I am using my nephew’s wash tub to cool my wort.

In the mean time while the wort is being crashed cooled, I added cool water to my fermenter. Then I aerate the water by vigorously shaking the fermenter with the cover on for about 10 minutes. Make sure that the water is cool, not warm if doing aeration as warm or hot water will tend to oxidate instead of aerate. The reason for aeration is to add oxygen into the water for the yeast. Like us, yeast needs oxygen to thrive and reproduce. A healthy fermentation of the wort will produce good tasting beer and good tasting beer is what we want.

Once I have cooled my wort to the desired temperature, it’s now time to add the wort to the fermenter.

This is the airlock. After a few hours or so, you will start to see bubbles gushing out of the airlock. This is a good thing. It means that the yeast is working. You may need to top up the airlock with water though. But it’s kind of thrilling to look at your airlock bubbling away. Feels that you have accomplished something.

There, placed my fermenter into the cooler box and added an ice pack to maintain a cool temperature of 21-24 °C. May need to add more ice packs to compensate for the warm weather in Singapore. The problem of brewing beer in Singapore is always the heat. The coolest temperature in your house will most probably be around 28 °C (unless you have air-conditioning) and this is not a good temperature for your wort to ferment. It may create some off-flavours in your beer. That’s why I use a cooler box for my fermenter.

Covered and everything is done. Now it’s time to wait till the fermentation is finished and we can then bottle the beer. Probably it will take about 4-7 days to finish fermenting, but I think I will let it ferment for 7 days to ensure a complete fermentation. Wish me good luck! Hope nothing bad happens to this batch! I cannot take two failures in a row.

Mistakes I made:

1. Forgot to add yeast nutrients into my wort.

Other than that, I think everything looks fine.

There are 2 stores in Singapore selling beer ingredients and beer kits. If you are interested in beer brewing, I would suggest you to take a look at iBrew and Homebrew. I am using the Cooper’s Microbrew Beer Kit from iBrew. Of course, this does not mean that the Morgan’s Beer Kit from Homebrew is not good. It just means that I am using Cooper’s Microbrew Beer Kit.