Ahhh….it’s Sunday and it’s the day to make the Pilsener Beer I have been yaking about like a silly dog all week. For those who don’t know, I will be using the Cooper’s Pilsener Kit as my main base and add some other ingredients. As I said before, I hope that this will be a light coloured beer, but this will come with a slightly more kick than my previous brews. I think the alcohol content will be around 5% as I have dumped a little more malt into the brew.

The best thing about making your own beer is that you can try out different recipes and even make up your own. I have not used what Coopers has recommended but instead used a different type of malt and add a little more Saaz hops for flavouring. The recipe is as follows:

1. Cooper’s Brewmaster Selection Pilsener Kit
2. 1.35kg Pilsen Light Dry Malt Extract
3. 500g Cooper’s Light Dry Malt Extract
4. 15g Saaz Hops (10 minutes boil)
5. 5g Saaz Hops (after flameout)
6. Nottingham Ale Yeast

I will also be using a tablespoon of Yeast nutrients and some Irish Moss to make a clearer beer. I really hope that the 15g of Saaz will add even more spicy flavouring to this brew which my friends and me will enjoy. Although I am normally not a hop head, let’s pray that the Saaz hops will add a great aroma and flavour to this beer.

Anyways, here are the photos:

All the important ingredients for the Pilsener brew. The Cooper’s Pilsener Beer Ingredient Kit, Briess Pilsen Light Dry Malt Extract, the Cooper’s light dry malt extract, the two tea bags of Saaz hops, the yeast nutrients and the Irish Moss. Yes, I have sew the tea bags myself. Not pretty, but it definitely works.

As you can see, the water I have used is about 3 litres. The reason is that I will be adding only the light malt extract to the boil first. I guess this is like the “late malt extract addition” method to ensure that the wort will not be too dark. You can also see the hop bags in the wort. And the colour of the wort is now slightly greenish. It is green due to the amount of Saaz hops I added to the boiling wort. This is a good thing, it means that the hop flavours are being “absorbed” into the wort. Yes, it doesn’t look too good, but not to worry since when I add the rest of the Pilsen Light Malt Extract, the colour for the wort will be more brownish than greenish. I am sure nobody wants to drink a green coloured beer!

Oh don’t worry, the knife on the side is used for cutting meat like beef.

Yes, I am right. Just that it is too foamy to see. This photo shows what it looks like after I have added the Pilsen Light Malt Extract and the Cooper’s Pilsener Kit goo and restarting the boil. Although there is actually no need to boil again at this point, I would like to make sure everything is sterilized and there are not “baddies” in the malt extract. You can never be too careful about infection. They are nasty!

Well, this is the empty fermenter I am using. It is empty now because I had not poured in the wort - duh! And I have used Iodophor to sanitize all the equipment. In our local medical shops, they sell those Iodine for cleaning cuts and what surprised me was that the Iodophor had almost no smell at all. Not sure what additional stuff they do into Iodophor but I had worried that the Iodine smell will destroy my beer. I was wrong.

Wow, simply amazing, there is now wort in the fermenter. But no, seriously, I have poured in the wort to the fermenter. One thing about pouring hot wort into the fermenter, you do have to be careful. You don’t want to “oxidated” the wort with too much splashing. Now all we have to do is to top up the fermenter to 23 litres with cold water. Oh another thing, I found that this wort smelled much better than the Australian Pale Ale wort which I have done in February. Perhaps it is due to the different malt extract used?

Well, we have Ice Mountain mineral water! It was on offer at Giant last week. About S$0.85 for two 1.5 litres bottle, so I got two. I have also used two more bottles of 600ml sizes. Surprisingly, it is not enough to cool down the fermenter wort to pitching temperature. Thus, I was really screwed big time. Had to pitch the yeast at a later time. Next time, I think I will get more ice cold water.

Here, I am rehydrating the yeast. It is always a good idea to rehydrate your dry yeast before pitching. I normally do it about 30 minutes before pitching. But because I had wrongly estimated the temperature, this was left longer than recommended but I doubt that there will be any ill effects.

So, with no choice whatsoever, I have to use the ice packs to cool down the fermenter. This took about a few hours to go down to 27 °C and only then did I pitch the yeast. And yes, I forgot to aerate the wort before pitching the yeast. This could be a problem since this is a pretty high gravity brew. But “what to do, it has already happened“. Perhaps the addition of yeast nutrients will help it somewhat.

Anyways, let’s see how this goes. I am quite sure that it would work out okay in the end, since the best and the only sane advice from beer brewing forums is to relax and have a homebrew for almost any situation possible. I like it.