Yes, it’s here. The iBrew guy came and delivered this set of goodies yesterday and I managed to take a few shots of it. Well, this morning I was busy bottling my Hoegaarden clone and since it was my first time using glass, I realized that using glass and using PET, there will be some difference during the bottling process. One thing, glass is heavy and if you bottle 30 over glass bottles, make sure your sitting position is comfortable or you will get some very sore hands and back. And for the first time, my fingers are not sore after bottling because unlike PET, there are no screw caps for you to screw. You merely use a twin-level capper and it’s actually very easy to cap. Put the crown cap on the bottle, place the capper onto the crown cap and then press down on the handle and it is tightened already. No fuss and no screwing at all. You can take a look at the painful looking twin-level capper I had bought below.

Okay, now back to the topic. I often get distracted easily nowadays. Perhaps I am really getting old and my incoherent mind keeps on wondering off.

Yes, the Australian Pale Ale ingredients. I am going to use all these stuff to make some delicious beer. These are for 2 sets of Australian Pale Ale, so you will see indentical two sets of ingredients. What you need is actually the Cooper’s Australian Pale Ale goo (that’s the main part of your brew and this is the one that gives you the majority of the flavour of the brew), 1kg of Dextrose (to give you more a kick) and another 500g of dry malt extract( to give you some body and alcohol as well). But since we are using malt extract here and it will still leave some residual sweetness after fermentation, we have to add some bitterness and flavouring to the brew. So, there is the Cascade hops but I will use about 10g for each brew. You would remember that I said I will be adding some steeping grains to the brew? Well, my supplier recommended me something which will affect the colour of the beer, so in the interest of having friends come and enjoy the beer, I gave up on steeping grains and decided on basic.

Hoot! That’s the Cooper’s Australian Pale Ale beer ingredient kit and it comes in a can. Very very nice indeed. Can’t wait to brew this. It should consist of malt extract, speciality grains and hops all mixed up in syrup form. And I like the green colour label. Too bad, there was a price increase of 2 bucks per can starting from 1st July. Looks like the prices of everything is increasing in Singapore, even home brewing. The inflation never ends!

The top of the can. Open it (by lifting up the tab and tearing it) and I think we will find the yeast and brew instructions.

What do you know, I am correct. That’s the Cooper’s brewing yeast and brewing instructions. I will not be using this yeast but I will be using Nottingham yeast (not shown). I have the Nottingham yeast slurry from my previous brew, so I will be adding that to the brew instead.

Wow, that’s a very fresh can of beer ingredients. Due date is 19/03/2010! So, it should be able 3-4 months old only. Yes, this brew has the potential to be one of the best tasting ones I have ever done! I like.

Our nice litte Cascade hops. Not too sure how long will I boil it and not too sure how much bitterness I would want in this brew.Last time when I did the Australian Pale Ale, I used Cooper’s Beer Enhancer 2 which consist of 500g dextrose, 250g Malt Extract and 250g Malto-dextrin. Now, I will be using much much more dextrose and malt extract and I wonder how will it affect the overall sweetness and the taste.

Another look at the Cascade Hop Pallets bottle supplied by iBrew. It is supposed to gove a pleasant, flowery, spicy and citrus-like aroma and bittering and you need to store it cold. I put mine in the freezer.

Yes, that’s 500g of Cooper’s Light Malt Extract in powder form. It sort of looks darker than what I had expected.

1kg of Dextrose. Note that this will completely ferment out, so it will definitely add more alcohol to the beer. My mates have been complaining that the previous brew was too weak, so I am sure that adding 1kg of dextrose will surely knock a few of them out. But if I add only the dextrose, the beer will turn up too watery. So the addition of the malt extract is necessary to add some body and a little more sweetness to the beer. As I mentioned before, I will counter-act the sweetness with the hops.

Well, that’s all I have folks. Once I do the brew, I will post a few pictures of the actual brewing process as well.