Well, I have finally opened up a bottle of the Skinny Man’s Brew which I had done previously. It was an all-extract brew and my first attempt without kits. And the result was as expected - a light beer. First of all, I would like to say that this beer is nothing impressive. Not much head, a little too sweet and the alcohol content is too low for it to be anything but a light beer. It had accidentally dumped 26 litres of water into a 23 litre batch. And already, the wort was too watery because I had only 2kg of Light Malt Extract and 500g of Syrup Rice Maltose. But the taste seems okay for me. As I said nothing too impressive, but still drinkable as a session beer if you are not too fussy.

So below are some of the photos I have taken.

Yes, looks a bit dark for a light beer, isn’t it. Not too sure whether it is the hops or because I boiled the light malt extract for 50 minutes. Or because I didn’t stir the wort enough and it caramelized. And there is not much head which is disappointing. I had expected a least a little head but it was not to be. My friend told me that it is because the beer was too watery and the malto-dextrin was readily dissolved into the beer and didn’t do it’s job. The carbonation was weak as well. Everyone hates a flat beer.

A closeup view of the beer. If you look carefully, you can actually see that the beer is more amber than golden. And no bubbles to speak of. Sad.

A view from the top. Some bubbles there, yes but still there isn’t much carbonation and the beer taste kind of flat. But at least the yeast stuck to the bottom of the beer and the beer is very clear with no sediment to speak of. This could be due to the fact that I had this brew in the primary fermenter for 3 weeks.

Anyway, I think this is a good experiment for me. I learned a lot from this brew and I hope that I will be able to apply them in my next brews - things like late malt extract addition method and so on. But I should be sticking to kits for the time being. Need something to boost my confidence first before I attempt another all-extract brew. I hope the Blue Mountain Lager Kit will be good. I am very keen to have a taste.