Just a quick update on my Australian Pale Ales. Well, yes both of them. My first brew which was bottled last Saturday seems to be completely carbonated already. Well, in Singapore temperature it is not surprising that the beers were quickly carbonated. But I think there are some little amount of sugars left in the beers because I see that the yeast in the bottles are still floating around. Normally once all the sugars in the beer has been consumed by the yeast, the yeast will all fluoccate at the bottom. And you will get a very nice clear beer, especially with the Nottingham yeast I am using. That’s the main reason why I am using the Nottingham yeast. It never fails to create a crystal clear beer in the end, definitely something my friends would greatly appreciate.And before I even open a bottle for a sample, I think I will let it age for about a month first. It is always good to let your beer mature for some time before drinking as the taste will mellow (just like wine) over time.

For what I have currently in my fermentator, it is yet another Australian Pale Ale. This was done last week but on the Sunday. Well, I only have one fermentator and I had to finish fermenting one batch first (and bottling it) before I could proceed to the next one. So it was back to back beer stuff the entire weekend.It was pretty tiring and considering how old I have (I am 30 over years old), it’s quite a accomplishment. Anyways, the wort in my fermentator seems to be coming on just fine as well. The airlock was bubbling very vigorously for the past 5 days and now it has now slowed down to a few bubbles per minute. And being an airlock sniffer, I did spend some time sniffing away at the airlock. It smelled great. In fact, for all the beers, they did smelled great.

The reason why the airlock bubbling is so vigorous could be due to the additional of Yeast nutrients in the wort. I have added about 3 teaspoon of yeast nutrients to the wort as I was afraid that the 1kg of dextrose will affect the yeast. Unlike malt, dextrose doesn’t contain nutrients for the yeast, so I added the yeast nutrients to prevent any stalling.  Plus the Nottingham yeast I am using was from the second batch, so it was not from a fresh yeast pack. I had taken the yeast slurry from the previous Australian Pale Ale brew and dumped it on my current brew. I don’t think I got any infection and judging from the active fermentation and nice alcoholic smells from the airlock, I think I should be safe. I wonder how the extra alcohol from the dextrose will affect the overall taste profile of the Cooper’s Australian Pale Ale kit. Will it be too harsh? And will the extra 500g of malt extract make the beer too sweet, considering that the APA is already not a very bitter beer? I will keep my fingers cross and hope for the best as these two batches were done for my friends as they have fallen in love with the Cooper’s APA.

And for my next batch, it will most likely be the Edwort’s Apfelwein. I am pretty sure the girls will love this one.