Yes, today is Mexican Cerveza Brew Day! After about 2 months without brewing any beer, I am all worked up about brewing some nice refreshing beer. Ad from what I read about the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza, it is going to be one very refreshing drink.  Looking at how dusty and warm Mexico is, I am sure that this beer is meant for Singaporeans in Singapore’s weather. The recipe is simple. Just the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza Beer Ingredient kit (1.7kg), 1kg of Brew Enhancer 2 (which is 30% dry malt extract and 70% dextrose) with some additional Cascade hops. Oh, I will be using Nottingham ale yeast as usual. Hopefully the yeast won’t change the flavour of the brew too much. I know that this Cerveza is supposed to be a lager but as you probably know, I can’t lager in Singapore’s weather.

Anyway, this will be just a partial boil, so it will be about 8 litres of concentrated wort when I am done. To make up 23 litres, I will be adding a mix of mineral water and tap water. Yes, it is next to impossible for people who live in small HDB flats to have a full setup for making full boils as the equipment needed is huge (something to hold 23 litres of wort would require about 30 litre brewing pot!)  and the flame source would also have to be big. So, I guess we are all stuck with making partial boils. Even without full boil, partial boils do make a decent beer. My friends like it, so do I. That is probably more important than anything else.

Okay, I think I will start with photos I have taken during the brewing process.

That’s the ingredients needed for making beer. On the left, you have the Mexican Cerveza Beer ingredient kit, next will be the Yeast nutrients, the bottom will be the Nottingham yeast pack while the last two are the Brew Enhancer 2 and the Cascade hops in a tea bag. I am using about 10g of Cascade hops. This will just be a aroma/flavour addition, not to add any bitterness to the beer.

A closeup of the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza Beer kit. It is looking good! I just bought it out from the fridge so it looks a bit wet. They are just condensation.

The due date of the kit. Still got about 8 months to go so it should be pretty good for brewing.

That’s me rehydrating the yeast.  Bascially you dump the yeast in a sanitized container with cooled boiled water. This is to ensure that the yeast will get enough water to rebuild their cells when the time comes for them to reproduce and make alcohol for us to enjoy. Another reason is to wake up the yeast and not to shock them too much as we will soon need to put them into a sugar rich environment.Yes, those are my feet. Sexy or not?

Oh by the way, we should be using lager yeast instead if ale yeast in order to emulate the correct “Mexican beer” flavour but as you guys know, in Singapore it is difficult to lager as the weather is just not suitable for lagers. So, I choose Nottingham yeast in order to get that clean profile.

Boiling water. Although Cooper’s instructions are just to add boiling water and the kit ingredients to the fermenter, I always think that it is a good idea to do a partial boil. This is to kill any bacteria in the water/yeast/malt plus it allows us to add any additional hops we want. However, if you are not adding any hops to the wort, I think doing it the Cooper’s way should be okay.

I have added the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza kit into the boiling water.

Once it starts boiling again, I have added the Brew Enhancer 2 and hops into the wort.  Don’t you just love cascade hops? Oh, the yeast nutrients was also added at this time. The nutrients will ensure that the yeast be healthy enough when it starts producing the fine taste alcohol we are all craving for.

Now, I dump the entire contents of the brew pot to the fermenter and then top up with mineral water and tap water.  Oh, by the water, I made a big mistake. I forgot to close the spigot tap on the fermenter when I poured in the wort. So the concentrated wort leaked out and about 10% was lost. What a big waste. Anyway, it was a lesson learned. Always check the spigot tap before pouring in precious wort to the fermenter. If not, a lot of your hardwork will be lost and you will be left with a weaker beer. I am sure that we don’t do homebrew just to drink plain water eh?

Please check up with me in a few weeks time and I will tell you guys the result of this brew.Let’s all keep our fingers cross that it will turn out fine.