Mexican Cerveza Brew Day!

1219 days ago

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...

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.

Ceres Grape Juice

1220 days ago

Not everyone have heard of the Ceres brand. This is because they are manufacturers of fresh juice and it is surprisingly that a lot of Singaporeans do not even know what...

Not everyone have heard of the Ceres brand. This is because they are manufacturers of fresh juice and it is surprisingly that a lot of Singaporeans do not even know what the brand they are drinking, especially when we are talking about packaged fresh juice. I don’t know why is it so, but simply we just go to the local supermarket and pick one without even looking at it. Luckily, all the China made brands have been removed from our stores. This will surely help boost the confidence of Singaporeans when it comes to the consumers purchasing stuff.

Anyway, this is actually from South Africa and they have a various of different types of juice. I am trying out their Grape Juice. You can find it easily at all major supermarkets in Singapore like Shop N Save, NTUC, Giant and even Sheng Siong. However the price range from S$1.80 to S$2.15, so it is better for you to do some market research at your nearby store. Oh, by the way, I often see discounts for certain type of juice at certain periods at these supermarkets. You can save quite a bit if you purchase in bulk with discount.

Yes, 100% pure grape juice. The packaging itself doesn’t look tempting but I guess the most important is how it taste right?

This is from the Muscat grape family. However, it is important to note that the Muscat grape is usually not used for making grape juice but are commonly made into dessert wines. We normally get Concord grape juice which is supposed to be sweeter and juicier. And this is intriguing that we can find Muscat grape juice in Singapore as I am rather keen to make use of this Muscat grape to make some dessert wine. I know, I know, you think that making wine is going to the orchard and stomping on a few grapes to get the juice and the must and so on. But the truth is that you can easily make wine from juice. I have tried making a cider direct from these kind of packaged apple juice! It works the same as the sugars and the flavours of the wine does come mainly from the juice.

This is a glass of the Ceres Grape Juice. The colour look like what we normally get from other drinks. Light reddish tint. The photo above was shot in the evening, so the colour may look a bit off but I will tell you, your kids will like this grape juice. Anyway, the taste is quite nice. I had expected it to be a bit sourish since this has no added sugar or any additives but luckily it wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t as sweet as what we would commonly find at our local stores these days, which is a good thing. I don’t like drinking stuff that is too sweet nowadays. Overall, the Ceres grape juice is a delicious and healthy drink. It should be served cold but undiluted. Not too sweet, very nice for a breakfast drink or even for an evening wind-down drink. In fact, I would say that it is good for all occasions. I drank mine (1litre pack) in just 2 seatings.

Beer Brewing Ingredients Have Arrived!

1221 days ago

Yes, it is going to be yet another beer brewing day for me tomorrow. My beer brewing ingredients have arrived! I believe that tomorrow I will be doing the Mexican Cerveza. ...

Yes, it is going to be yet another beer brewing day for me tomorrow. My beer brewing ingredients have arrived! I believe that tomorrow I will be doing the Mexican Cerveza.  Now I have never tried making this style of beer before but apparently there isn’t much to it. Just the same as the Australian Pale Ale I have done before. Basically you get the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza ingredient kit and then add the Beer Enhancer 2 (which consists of dextrose, malt and malto-dextrin) to it. And you will get the refreshing beer which all Mexicans love. From the movies, I had thought that Mexians are always drinking Tequilla or something, guess I was wrong. I think I will be adding a little Cascade hops to the brew while I am at it. My friends don’t like a beer which is too bitter so I will need to ensure that the brew will not turn out to be like too hoppy and bitter and the information from Cooper’s website is that this is one of the less bitter brews out there. So with just a little more hops, hopefully this will turn out to be a crowd pleaser as well.

Anyhow, I have taken some pictures of the stuff that came in today. The iBrew guy came and delivered the stuff in the morning. I was jumping about like a little bunny when it came. Na, I am not that excitable but I am glad that it arrived on time. If not, I will be unable to brew till 2 weeks later. Next weekend, I will be too busy to do any sort of brewing as my nephew would have to come first.

That’s the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza Beer Ingredient Kit. Looks very good in golden yellow. Makes me feel happy inside. Don’t you feel happy inside when you see golden yellow stuff?

1.7Kg of Beer goo, ready to be made into 23 litres of fine delicious beer for the whole family. Well, not exactly for the whole family but perhaps for just the adults.  By the way, this is the International Series from Cooper’s. They have Australian Pale Ale, European Lager and Candian Blonde in this series. I am planning to try them all.

They are telling you that the beer is light in style, comes with a fresh clean taste and ideally served ice cold with a wedge of lime or lemon. Whatever. Just drink it when it is done. All beers should be drank ice cold anyway. And in Singapore (or Mexico), drinking beer ice cold is the only way to go about it.

It comes with some crappy yeast which I am not going to use. I am using my trusted Nottingham yeast to emulate that clean neutral taste which this Cerveza is supposed to be all about. This yeast pack is going to be stored in my fridge as spare yeast.

Bought another kit – it is the Cooper’s Wheat Beer. No, I am not going to make yet another Hoegaarden clone. But it will be a simple recipe Wheat Beer. Just the kit and yet another Beer Enhancer 2 and we will then see what’s the result. I forgot to purchase a Wheat beer yeast so that could be a problem. A wheat beer yeast should bring out the flavour of a real wheat beer more than an ale or a lager yeast would. Well, we will see what to do when the time comes for me to brew.

Champagne of the beer world? Really? That would be great. And they claim that Wheat beers are a great summer refresher and low in bitterness! Those are exactly what I need. Singapore is warm and Singaporeans can’t take stuff which are bitter so I am very certain Wheat beers is the thing they need.

Ya ya ya ya. Anyway, looking at the information on the beer can, this Wheat beer is part of the Cooper’s Brewmaster Selection and is part of the range of Indian Pale Ale, Irish Stout and Pilsener(which I had done once).  This series, the Indian Pale Ale and the Irish Stout is a big no no for me. My friends won’t like hoppy beers and the Irish Stout will cause them to faint on sight.

That’s the yeast provided by the kit. If I am not wrong, this is supposed to be the Cooper’s premium yeast (check out the difference between the packages of this yeast and the previous yeast. The one with the bearded old guy is the yeast which is supposed to be premium).  I am again at odds whether to use this yeast. First of all, I don’t trust the yeast provided in the cans. And secondly, I have no idea what exactly is the strain of yeast in this pack. Is this really for Wheat beer? Or is it just ale yeast. If it is so, then I would rather use my favourite Nottingham yeast. Ahhh….decisions decisions.

That’s the new iBrew Enhancer 2 which is a mix of 30% light malt extract and 70% dextrose. Hmmm….seems that there is no longer any Cooper’s Brew Enhancer 2 anymore. And no more Malto-Dextrin? Boohooo, I want a strong head in my beer!

Yeast nutrients for the yeast. Just like vitamins we take every morning, a little yeast nutrients is great for the little yeasties which help produce the alcohol we all crave. My previous batch is about to finish so I need to replenish my supply of Yeast nutrients.

Straight ‘A’ Cleanser. Not really a sanitzer but more like a cleanser. The main purpose of this for me is to clean the bottles of gunk and stuff which nobody would like to have in their beer bottles. Or perhaps I should just get a bottle brush instead. But my lazy half tells me that just adding some Straight ‘A’ and water works well too. Well waste energy when you can spend that energy opened up bottles and drinking more beer or wine?

Well, this is the end of the photos I have. Tomorrow, I will be taking photos of the Mexican Cerveza brew day. Let’s hope that tomorrow will be a fine day for brewing beer.

2nd Taste Test For Edwort’s Apfelwein

1222 days ago

Okay, those Edwort’s Apfelwein have been sitting in my cupboard for about a month now, getting all carbonated and maturing as we speak. However, I took one out and had a...

Okay, those Edwort’s Apfelwein have been sitting in my cupboard for about a month now, getting all carbonated and maturing as we speak. However, I took one out and had a little taste test yet again. I am sure that after maturing for a month, the flavour should have changed quite significantly compared to the first time I took a taste test. And I wasn’t disappointed. The taste of the Apfelwein was definitely better than before.

I was told one of the most important thing about hard ciders is to ensure that there is good carbonation. This will really bring out the apple flavours in the cider. They were right. With bubbles you can really taste the “appley” flavour coming out of the cider. Previously when I tried a sample, it wasn’t fully carbonated thus the cider had a less profound apple flavour but now, it was just great. Only problem is that the sourish aftertaste still remains. Perhaps it is the apple juice I had used for this cider. If the original apple juice is sour, then I am pretty sure there will still be some residual sour taste in the end. Too bad. I hadn’t tried drinking all of the apple juice I used so I have no idea whether some of the juice had been sour. Anyway, those are all without any sugar added, so some sourish flavour should be expected from natural apple juice. If you have been drinking apple juice which tasted very sweet, then most likely they have either artifical sugar added or pear juice added. I have seen some Japaneseapple juice which tasted rather sweet and they do add pear juice into the mix.

And the bitterness I felt in the end from my previous brew is now gone! Hooray. I had thought that this bitterness would not fade but surprisingly it did. Perhaps the carbonation helped masked the bitterness. The end result is that the Apfelwein was extremely refreshing and I like it much better now. Hopefully it will get even better with more aging. However, I think it is now ready for mass drinking with my friends. Good times ahead!

Ginger Beer

1223 days ago

I am pretty sure by now that you guys are tired of me making claims about making this drink or this beer or that beer but in the end, I never...

I am pretty sure by now that you guys are tired of me making claims about making this drink or this beer or that beer but in the end, I never did. Well, that’s a poor habit of mine.  I am certain that some of you guys are also guilty of doing it as well. Well, for me I am doing it all the time. Can’t really help myself. I have this feeling that I need to do something like making this or that beer, but when the time comes for me to actually doing it, I don’t have the time or don’t have the energy to do it. I guess this is life. Really, it can’t be helped.

But this time, I am doing it for sure. Why you might ask. Well, first of all, I have already ordered the stuff needed to make the Ginger beer. I got this “kit” online from ebay and they will ship the Ginger beer ingredient kit to me. It cost about US$5.95 plus about another US$5 for shipping. Not that expensive, considering that in the local store sells their Ginger Beer kit for S$30. And secondly, it is very easy to do. Just mix the kit ingredients in hot water, then fill up with cold water. After which you add the yeast and mix them thoroughly. The next step is to bottle the Ginger beer. To get carbonation, you will need to add sugar. The process is merely adding sugar to the bottles and topping up with the ginger beer. Just wait a few weeks and you will get some nice delicious ginger beer. Of course, this is non-alcoholic which means that kids can enjoy it as well.There is no need to go and hunt for ginger and cut them and so on. Easy. Life should be easy and so does making Ginger beer.

The reason why I chose to make Ginger beer is because it is actually very healthy. In Singapore, you can see a lot of people drinking ginger tea which is supposed to stimulate digestion, boosts circulation and help supports the liver. If you have flu or a cold, a ginger tea will definitely help. So I guess if you drink Ginger beer, it should have the same effect. I am not that keen to go out and dig for ginger so this should be the next best thing.

Anyway, I was browsing the ebay store which sells the ingredients and I found that they do sell many types of home made soda drinks like root beer, spruce beer, birch beer and so on. Kind of interesting since I have never tasted many of these soft drinks before. I doubt you can find Spruce beer or birchh beer in Singapore anywhere. From what I read, the spruce beer tastes like Cola and the birch beer taste like root beer. Hmmm….

Introducing Defraggler

1225 days ago

I am betting that you guys have never heard before of this fine piece of software. It is a software which helps to defrag your HDD. We all know the importance...

I am betting that you guys have never heard before of this fine piece of software. It is a software which helps to defrag your HDD. We all know the importance of regularly defraging your HDD as you install software or even just by browsing the Internet, files get fragmentated. When you browse the Internet, temporary files are  being downloaded to your cache folder. It also helps you to speed up surfing speeds because some of the files are already on your HDD. So as files are being written to your HDD, they are writen in such a way where the write speeds are fastest. However, this does not mean that read or access speeds will be optimal. In fact, most of the time, the read speeds from your HDD will not be optimal at all. Thus when you access the files on your HDD, it will be slow. So you will need some software which can help you to “defrag” your HDD to help speed up the access speeds to your files.

We know that Microsoft has it’s own HDD de-fragmentation software. It is brilliantly called Microsoft Disk Defragmenter and it based on Diskeeper’s own defrag software. However, it is rather limited in it’s capabilities. I have tried a few other good defragment software and most of them are good in one way or another. Of course, I still hadn’t found a defragment software which has all the features which I need. But I have found one which has a few features which are worth mentioning. The software is called Defraggler and is developed by the same group that created CCleaner (Crap Cleaner, lol).

Unlike most defragmentation software, this is a file defrag. Which means that it is able to defrag just a file instead of the entire HDD. So if you know which files you often access, you can defrag just those files instead of the entire HDD, this alone can save you several hours. Especially now with huge HDD, most of which are 300GB or above, this can really be a time saver. Imagine Vista alone which can take up several Gigabytes of HDD space, this would definitely be great. Performance wise, it is okay. I don’t think it is one of the fastest defragmenter out there, but well, it more than makes up for it by being able to defrag a certain file alone.

Oh, by the way this is a freeware. So you can use it, even if you are using it on coporate computer. Cool. Too bad it isn’t open source. And it is very small in size plus it is portable. So you can bring it anywhere and use it without installation. Defraggler supports all OSes since Windows 2000. So if you are using WinXP or MS Vista, no worries, it will work.

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