I would have, on rare occasions, Curry Laksa from KC Cafe in Courtany Place, it is a Malay restaurant and serves good, fast Malaysian food that I enjoy. I started looking at a few videos on how to make it and it required far too many ingrediants that I'd have to shop for specifically for the dish. I then found the following video that I thought was a better way. I had a chicken breast that I was going to use in a stir fry, in fact I was looking up Char Kuey Tauw stir fry with thick rise ribbons, they also do this at KC cafe.
Char Kuey Tauw
Anyway, I went to Pak'n'Save and ended up getting a Thai can of the Curry Laksa paste, it was a bigger jar but more watery than the one in the video. I also put in a 440 g can of Coconut Cream and added some potatoes as another additive as well as Mung Beans, Spring Onion and parsley for garnish. I had some frozen Naan bread and that was a delicious meal. The quantities made enough for 2 meals so I have enough for another. Great tastes, definitely a different flavour of curry. Both meals were excellent. I left the other in the fridge and had it about 3 days later. Definitely a try again
Sunday 29th Sept
I'm doing this again with the Asam Curry Laksa paste, it is only medium but pretty potent all the same. I'm going to cook it up and let i rest for a day or so, as I bought some other meats and food that I have to finish off as well before this, but I thought I'd leave it to imbue the curry flavours into the chicken and potato. The jar size was smaller, I still used a 400ml can of coconut cream asnd 500ml of chicken stock (2 oxo cubes).
Tofu Puffs
I'm having another crack at Tofu, this time frying them to make puffs for the soup, hopefully the soup will give the puffs some flavour as tofu is pretty bland. I tried in Air Fryer, but that didn't work, so I used oil in a frying pan instead.
I'll report back on it when I have the 2nd Cury Laksa.
Naan
I'd made naan before and bought a great big tub of yoghurt that I ended up throwing away, and I was pretty dissapointed with the naan. I thought i'd frozen some but I haven't found the dough again. So I plan to give it another try and cook all the naan's and freeze them. So I want to try that next. This video looks interesting, so I'll try that one. Compared to the video above my naan was pretty dry and needed a lot of working. The recipe is:
1 teaspoon Yeast
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1/4 cup of lukewarm water-
Mix above together and let sit for 5 minutes
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup yogurt (plain unsweetened ) basically half a pottle
1 tablespoon of oil
1/4 teaspoon Salt (actually I put this in with flour instead)
Mix the flour yogurt and oil, then add the yeast/sugar/water mix. Mix more, then add
1/2 cup flour
and mix all together. Cover with oil & Then rest for 1 hour after hour knock back and then split into 4 pieces Roll out and wet one side with water then use a skillet (non -stick frying pans not enough mass) and cook one side until it bubbles then turn pan over and use element heat and brown. Then butter & garlic.
I did this twice. One with pain flour and once with strong flour. Have yet to test as I froze both lots for next curry. I was quite happy with the results from the cook. A couple of them unstuck and fell on element and burned. Will need to practice the technique.
I had one of each packet as well as one from the shop bought frozen packet. I microwaved them all for the 2nd meal. Both of mine were too thin. They did not have enough content for absorbing the liquid in the curry, that saying, the Laksa is a very watery curry. If it were more pasty then both of them would have been fine to soak up the food. I have moe so I'll try it sometime. Overall not that much difference between either of mine, the shop one wa1 1/2 to 2 times as thick so better at absorbing the fluids.
I have 4 batches of Stout now, so I thought I'd start doing some lighter brews for summer, so I got a couple of cans of Coopers Real Ale. I may move on to lagers later for a light drink for summer, but I thought I'd try the Real Ale first.
Too much frothing on fermentation
One thing I thought might have caused the frothing of the last 3 batches was that I put 2 sachets of yeast into the brews. So over frothing of the air lock. Also , I seemed to get a lot of sediment. Maybe the next time I do a double can I'll test out a single sachet.
So, instead of using just dextrose I went to the Brew House and got some dry brew enhancer ($8.50/Kg x 2) when I went to pick up some PET bottles. I do not seem to have enough bottles, usually I have about half the amount of bottles so need to supplement with some more. I suppose I'm developing a bit of a store of Stouts at the moment. I'm putting about 8 buy of each batch so that I can test them out at a later date.
Costs
1/ $13.50 for can of Real Ale , Brewblend $8.50 , carbonizing drops $5- Also 15 PET bottles $16.50 So about $27 + $33 for 2 lots of bottles = $50 23 l is about 70 bottles of .33l Heineken for 24 bottles = $40 (on special), 72 bottle = $120 So costs are good. 2/ For the Stouts its about $13-15 for 6 in the shops, so between $156 to $180 for 72 bottles So for the double cans, with Coopers $13.50 x 2 + Brewblend $8.50 , carbonizing drops $5- Also 15 PET bottles $16.50 is about $64 One of them is 6.55% alc /vol (other is 5.76%)whereas a lot of the shop standard stouts are at 4.2-5% 3/ The 2nd batch was oatmeal and those tins were around $30 each, so that was a bit more expensive so that added up to about $96. alc/Vol 5.76%
On tasting batches 2 (Oatmeal)& 3 (Coopers Stout) I haven't seen a real difference so far, although I'm still drinking them before they are supposed to be drunk. A slight headache from both, maybe due to lots of yeast in the brews.
Setup equipment
On top of the basic measure for measure is equipment. The brewing starter kit was $110 The initial bottle press (that didn't work) was about $25-30 The bottle press that works $70 Bottle Caps $7 for about 150 - these seem to be lasting as I'm onl capping about 20 bottles at a time, the rest are PET Sanitizer- $6 (on 2nd one- first came with kit)
So extra stuff - 110 + 30 + 70 + 7 + 6 = $223 Divided by 5 batches so far = 223/5 =44.60 Divided by 6 batches so far = 223/6 =37.17 Divided by 7 batches so far = 223/7 =31.85
So factoring this into costs 1/ 50 +45= $95 vs $120 2/ 64 + 45 = $109 vs $156-180 3/ 96+45 = $141 vs $156-180
So not that great until the setup equipment costs is distributed across a lot of brews.
Whats standing out?
From processes so far:
Paying for brew blends seem to add extra alcohol to the brew, and hopefully flavour too.
Too much yeast may be causing over frothing and lots of sediment.
I'm testing the cheaper extracts (Coopers) at the moment, they are half the price of the ones in the Brew House and even the extracts alone in the brew house are more expensive that the cooper beer kits. So I'll persevere with those.
I Need to test 2 cans and only one sachet of yeast. It may take longer but less sediment (I think).
All I can do at this point is brew a few batches and keep, then do a tasting of a few of them together. That way I can compare what is the best balance of value/flavour/alcohol content versus cost.
Hard to do on a few batches, I need to collect and brew a few first. So, carry on brewing.
I'm on a 10 day ish cycle at the moment. I'll maintain that at present and try and create a number of batches to try and get an overview of what works.
Later I need to add Hops as extra dimension to the beers
Back to the Real Ale
My next objective is to brew a few lighter beers, I'll try single cans but boost flavour with the Brew Blends. I can't seem to find the Cooper Enhancers anywhere in Wellington for sale.
If the Real Ale is Ok I may want to see if I can get the alc/Vol up to the 5% of all the standard beers, then I can always play with the hops for flavour. I decided I wanted to try 1/ A lighter beer, and 2/ A weaker beer. I've been brewing some stronger ones but want some weaker ones (so I can drink more- for summer).
Brew 5. Real Ale 1
The OG of the Real Ale which was just one can, 1Kg of Ale Brew blend and a further 290g of Dextrose (just to push the alcohol up a little bit) was 1040. So a bit light. I'll try this one out and as I have another can I'll do the same, maybe with a bit more dextrose for the 2nd batch. It is far lighter than the stouts I've been brewing, in fact it looks quite watery. I've noted on some of the posts that they let it sit for a few days to get the beer to clear a bit. Its still a bit cloudy. The OG was about 1.006 so about 4.45% Alc/vol Not quite the 5% I was looking for. It settled at about day 7 so I bottled it early. It was a bit cloudy but hopefully it will settle in the bottles. I see there is another fermenter where you can take the yeast out of the bottom, but they are about$145 so I'll leave that for the moment. It was a bit chill at times so I had to put heater on , sometimes for day and night. It did dip to 16 deg C but then it was back up in 20's. Overall brewing process went well. I'll have to wait for tasting. On getting bottles from Brew House (and enhancer for Lager) I went to Countdown and saw they had some brew kits there. The Coopers web site say use Brew Enhancer # 2 , which they sell for $10. The lager enhancer in Brew House was about $7.20. I'll think about doing a single can stout with coopers and use Brew Enhancer # 2 from there. That is the first place I've found that has the Coopers Brew Enhancers in Wellington. Countdowns cans are about $14.50 where they are about $13.50 in Pak'n'Save so I'll carry on using Pak'n'Save for Cans and other bits.
Brew 6. Lager Friday 13th Sept (sounds ominous!)
I thought I'd break from the Real Ale and do a straight lager. I went to Brew House and got some lager brewing enhancer. I also added in, with the one can of Coopers Lager, 300g of dextrose, just to get alcohol content up. So OG was 1.042 at start. Friday 20th FG at 1.008 Saturday 21st FG at 1.007 So this is about 4.58 alc/vol Final check on Tuesday 24/9 OG at 1005 Which brings it up to 4.87 so around the ballpark for a general lager.
I went to Brew House to get some PET bottles and talked about issue of frothing over, his suggestion was more yeast OK. I'll try a double extract with only one yeast another time.
Anyway, on chatting, I talked about lager being a bit turbid and he suggested putting some Beer Finings in. As this is a lager I thought it would be worth doing.
So I bought a couple of sachets (each 1.90$), although you can get a litre of clear fluid to do the job and that is 13.50$ and you use 100ml per time, so get 10 uses out of a bottle, so that works out at 1.35/time. I'll try out first on the light beers and see how that goes. The thing is, I now have to wait a couple of days for the beer finings do their work. I can't bottle until Monday.I'll set aside some time to do that. I bottled on tuesday 24/9 and it was still a bit cloudy. The sediment was definitely more settled. I was impressed.
After a week I looked at the La ger and it is pretty clear, so the finings seemed to do the job. I also looked at the Real Ale that had no finiings and that was pretty clouded after the first week but after 2nd seems to be settling down
I'm holding the bottles in my hand and camera so a bit wobbly, but both are quite clear.
After brewing the first batch I was keen to give it another crack. The first batch went from 1.040 to 1.012, so doing the maths it is about 3.66% alc by vol, which is a bit light, and the stuff from the hydrometer test was a bit watery. S when I went to the Brew House I said I wanted something with a bit more alcohol and thickness. So I got 2 cans of the Black Rock Oatmeal Stout and one bag of 1kg of Dextrose. When I did the OG it was 1.060 and it needs to work itself down to 1.014 so hopefully there will be a beer of about 6% alc/vol. That sounds more interesting, also, because its got 2 tins worth it shouldn't be as watery. It is going to take 10 days to ferment. They suggest 4 weeks for 2ndary fermentation, hopefully I'll still be working my way through the first batch. Cost, 2 tins of Black Rock Oatmeal Stout@29.90 and 1kg of Dextrose (3.50) and carbonation tablets (around 60) for $6.10. All up $69.40. So steralised all the equipment and also collecting lots of bottles. Hopefully I'll have over 60 by the time its brewed. I've started to get into the habit of rinsing the bottles out after drinking them so easier to steralise on bottling day.
Day 8 fermenting - Sunday 4th August
Initially it was bubbling away like mad, also the temperature was about 24 deg C to begin with, it then started to settle down a bit to 20 deg C and not so active about day 5. It dropped down to about 17 deg C so I had to raise the temperature a bit more with the oil heater about day 6 as there has been a bit of cold snap. Its back up around 18-20 deg C. Tomorrow or Tuesday I'll check the FG to see where it is at.
Day 10/11 fermenting- 6th/7th August
Checking for density it is 1.016 day 10, just a bit higher than the target of 1.014. Day 11 the same at 1.016, so ready for bottling tomorrow. I'm going to be using glass bottles for this so a slow process, over 60 bottles. Electricity bill in and it is 11$ higher than normal. This is because I've been running the heater in the hot press so that brew temperature stays within range of 18-24 deg C. A bit of a cold snap at the moment. Also part of it was hot water for Zoe & Karl as invoice is from Thursday to Wednesday so 4 days they were here. It should drop back as there may not be many more brewing days for this batch. So based on the calculation this one should be about 5.7% alcohol/vol. I'm looking forward to a taste of it.
So alc/vol is 5.76% which is OK, I was hoping it would be at 6%.
Bottling- Crisis This was a bit of disaster. There may be a couple of dud bottles where I forgot to put in the carbonation tablets. Also the bottle cap double lever press did not work very well. I was putting quite a lot of pressure on it and the cap was still on skewed. I thought I'd tested it, but obviously hadn't. I had 60 odd bottles of beer open and not capped. Oops! So I did a mad dash down to the brew house and ended up buying a single lever press bottle top press for $69. That worked great and they glass bottles were capped in next to no time. So the idea of saving on the bottles (about $16.50 for 15 PET bottles, so $33 for 30 required for the 23l) was not the saving that I thought I'd get. Anyway I prefer out of bottles rather than plastic but need to collect lots of bottles. I need about 70 333ml bottles for one batch. So I need to keep my eye out for them. I'm also getting into the habit of rinsing the bottles straight after use so they are easier to sterilize.
So this one says 4 weeks until ready. I'll do an update when they are ready for tasting.
Tasting.
The directions recommend 4 weeks for 2nd fermentation. I did notice that there was a lot of settlement in the bottles. The front one is the bottom of the barrel so you'd expect a bit. I tried a bottle after 2 weeks and had a wicked headache the next day. Obviously too much stuff still floating in the beer and not settled out yet. This one I'll definitely leave for the 4 week period. 15th Sept 2019 A bit of a aching head in middle of night from this one, so only one bottle at a time so far. Maybe it needs to settle more. Similar to the double can Coopers Stout, I can't taste too much difference, but I get a bit of a headache from this. One normal .33l bottle OK but any more and headache. Its not as strong as the Coopers Double Stout but maybe too much residue from yeast. I wouldn't spend the extra for it again. I may leave these to sit for a while and see if they improve with age.
Brews 3 . Coopers Stout x 2 malt extract tins, with dextrose 1Kg- alk/Vol =5.76%
I thought that brew 2 Oatmeal stout extract tins were rather expensive. I noticed that Pak'n'Save sells Coopers Home Brew cans and sanitizer and carbonating pills so I've been keeping an eye out for some Stout cans as the first time I saw the area there was only one can of stout.
Last week they restocked, and the Coopers cans are about $14 compared to $24 for the extract. So a couple of cans of this and dextrose should do Ok. I started the fermentation process on the day I bottled the Oatmeal (4 weeks before I can try), that was Thursday 8th August. I inspected it on Sunday and the air trap was clear of water and covered in froth at the top, also the top of the fermenter. A bit of spatter on the duvet wrapped around it too. It was a bit too active. I cleaned the air trap and put it back, hopefully no damage done and the brew will be fine. The OG was 1.058 and the bits of docs that I can see online suggest it should get down to about FG 1.014. I'll leave it for about 10 days , like the oatmeal stout as its also a double can brew. So if the Coopers stout is tasty that is what I'll aim to use.
I don't think I'm making headway on the financial side of the brewing yet. I've had to get extra kit (the bottle press). I thought I'd save by using empty beer bottles but the extra money on the press has offset that to date. Also the heating of the cupboard to keep the temp above 18 Deg C, that's an added cost component I hadn't foreseen. Hopefully I'll get a brew that I can make and enjoy so that I can maintain the process for budget reasons. The first brew I'm drinking now, as its not that strong I'm drinking a lot more of it, so that's not working, although alcohol content is low. I need to collect a lot more bottles, and I do prefer beer from a bottle (rather than a PET bottle). Its a bit like coffee from a wax paper cup, what extra flavours are you getting from the vessel? I'll re-use whatever I have, bottle or PET and carry on, I need to justify the bottle cap press. So not as economically viable as I'd thought to begin with, and I've got to get a few brews made and aged in the bottles so that I've got a few different types to try. That is going to be my next objective, to get a few successful brews that I enjoy.
Bottling
I've had issues doing the bottling in the laundry room as the bench is standard height and you are bending down to view the level of the fill in the bottles. Also there is not that much room in there for the process. So I moved it to the dining area and used a chair on the table and the process went so much more smoothly. The bottle fill was nearer eye level so easier to judge when to stop, so less waste. I also put the carbonation drops in all the bottles first, so I ended up with a more efficient process. I didn't have that many glass bottles so bought another 15 PET bottles for this batch, I only needed about half of them. I had 10 glass bottles so used the bottle press, which is nice to use.
So now they are bottled I'll have to wait for 2nd fermentation before drinking them. The FG of this was 1.014 so its alcohol content should be about 5.76%.
Brew 4 -Coopers Stout x 2 tins with Dark Ale Brew Blend- 20/8/2019- Alk/Vol =6.55%
This is same as before but putting a bit more body in with Dark Ale brew blend from Brew House. I picked it up when I went to get extra PET bottles. I had everything ready for when I did the bottling so could just steralise everything and set up for the next batch. It was not as frothy a mix as the previous batch, maybe the Brew Blend has less sugars. The OG was 1.060 which was slightly higher than Brew 3 (1.058). Hopefully it will not blow the seal. I've put the duvet around the tank and as the first days are more active than the later days I wont heat the cupboard but monitor the temperature. Its started at 24 deg C. I'll leave that to ferment for about 10 days then check. I'll most probably need some more bottles as although I've bought some Stella's I'm working my way through the first batch of Brew that I've made, about 8 bottles to go then back onto the lager. Actually, I should hold a few of the original batch back to do a taste test on some of the other brews.
The OG of this was 1010, so that is a 6.55% brew, so quite strong.
The new bottling process went well and minimal spillage.
Next batch?
I feel I've made enough Stout for the time being, so maybe make some lighter beers. There is a Coopers Real Ale and Dark Ale so maybe I need to try doing some of those as well. It would be good to have a variety of beers to try. So I should prepare to purchase something next time I head to the shops. I'll stick with the Coopers for the time being. I'm not sure whether to do a double extract or add an enhancer. I've bought a couple of Coopers Real Ale cans and dextrose, but I think I'll try only 500g of dextrose for this. Brew 4 went mad, like brew 3 and frothed out of the air lock, a couple of times. So I think its a bit too active. Not sure if that's too much yeast or too much sugars. Will try with a reduced sugar level initially(see comment above).
Too Much Yeast
In the last 3 batches I use 2 cans of extract and I used 2 sachets of yeast. I think that sped up the reaction causing it to overflow on all the first fermentations on the first couple of days. I'll have to check up on that next time I do a double can. Maybe test out only one sachet of yeast.
Wine making
This looks interesting too, I watched a couple of videos on that and the process is similar to the Beer kitset process. I'd like to give it a try sometime. The basic kit is about $129-$140 and the concentrate pack is about $120 ish. This will do about 30 bottles. You also need a corker and maybe a sealer too. Also the bottles, but I could collect those. About 4 weeks from start to bottling. It works out about $8.50 per bottle (starter Kit & concentrate kit) and 2 bottles a week would work out about 3 1/2 months worth of wine. This is one vid that shows a process, seems reasonably straight forward.s:
Tasting
Brew 2, only about a week for the 2nd fermentation, but as I've hidden away the first brew (mild strength) I thought I'd like to try it. I've been wondering about the coopers flavour, and I like it. A bit of sediment in the bottle, I'm drinking this one first so I can have a couple of lagers after, so hopefully the sediment wont be too hard on my head. Nice taste, flavoursome, more body than the first brew, so a thumbs up for this one so far. May not be the same view tomorrow morning.
15th Sept 2019 - Tasting Brew 3. This one has a bit of strength to it. You do not notice the alc content but it is a thick and rich flavour. I like it. I've been mainly drinking these over the OatBear Stout as that gives me a bit of a head. Although this one is mainly in 750ml bottles so I tend to drink more of this and get mellow, then i drink some of the Oat one , so its sneaking below the radar and I'm drinking too much at times. The 4th brew is ready, so I'll have to try some of that one now and see how that is doing. I like the flavour of the Coopers Stout. I will have to try to make a milder one with only one can to have for summer. Its good that I've got some strong ones now, but its time I got a few more milder ones for summer.
Karl got some Paua and he has a different method of eating them to Sam's Paua fritters. His are sliced.
For prep, he cuts the muscle off the middle of the paua, slicing straight, and then divides the rest in half. He then boils for about 40 seconds, the 3 pieces, so need enough water so that there is not an immediate cool down when the pieces are thrown into boiling water. After that he heats up frying pan with sweet chili sauce (The Trident brand has a nice bite to it) and olive oil and garlic. Then he puts the 3 pieces of paua in and turns them over regularly until the white side is caramelized, about half way through he takes out the muscle bit and sets aside. Throw in a bit more olive oil (otherwise chili sauce dries and goes black). When done he takes out the other 2 sides and slices them into about 2mm thick slices. Then on a plate and dig in.
I also wanted to have some squid as well, I'd bought some frozen tubes, so looked on Mr YouTube and found this video: I did the slicing of the tubes and cut them into pieces and threw them in the boiling water for about 30 seconds (they were very thin tubes) and then plunged them into cold water. I cooked them up with the garlic, chili sauce and olive oil with the Paua near the end of the Paua cooking time. I had a light salad with the seafood and it went very well.
I worked in Germany a long time ago and there was a small Italian restaurant close to the Pension where I stayed. As a entree for the table there was usually a small basket of pizza dough buns, freshly baked in the Pizza Oven, and some garlic butter (with salt and sauce so it looked pinkish). It was delicious and I usually ordered more and struggled to eat my mains.
Anyway, I was watching a couple of snack videos and they were showing little pizza dough balls with sauce, mozzarella cheese and salami wrapped inside the dough and then baked. I had to give that a try. See the video below about 13:40 minutes into the vid.
I also tried just dough balls with olive oil over. Both in the air fryer for about 8-10 minutes on 200 deg C. Both very tasty and simple snacks. I think I'll have to make some garlic butter to spread on the buns.
I tried the straight dough balls, actually forgot some in the air fryer, they were a bit tough the next day.
The filled ones leaked the mozzarella so I used a tin to put them in so the bubbling cheese did not go all over the air fryer. Good but I'd like to get them so the cheese doesn't leak out.
Also the Mozzarella cheese is a bit tasteless so needs to be mixed with some cheddar or something to add some flavour.
A quick and easy snack but the dough didn't puff up as light and fluffy as the ones I recalled at the Italian restaurant, so they must have used a different mix, more like a bun dough, they were far softer and fluffier.
Would I do them again? I think so, they are easy enough so I can experiment with different fillings.
I was looking on Mr Tube and saw some vids on brewing. I'd always thought I'd like a crack at doing it. I had a tenant in the flat below and he made his own beer, pretty rugged stuff and he'd got an old fridge with a tap in it. Not a bad tenant, no trouble from him. I think his beer was quite high on the alcohol content.
The purchase
Anyway, I saw that there was a local shop in Newtown that sells starter kits for beer making, so I thought I'd give it a try its a Mangrove Jacks kit for $110. I wanted to start with a stout and the chap in the shop kindly switch it over from the beer type that came with the starter kit. A different brand. On switching over I got a Muntons Irish Style Dublin Stout.
The chap had recommended an Oatmeal stout but I thought I'd try a taste that I know. So went for the Irish Stout. If its not too much of a disaster then I can always try other ones. There was a big bag and a tin. The bag goes in first apparently. I'd parked at Countdown supermarket opposite so I didn't have far to carry the stuff, and whilst there had a concern about the water, so ended up buying 26 l of still water ($16). The concern seems to be about the chlorine affecting the taste. Also the chap in the shop, when I said I'd most probably cock it up didn't disagree but said there was usually something drinkable at the end. So , cost to date is $126. And after preparing it it will take 5-10 days for fermentation. After that it needs 3-4 weeks for the carbonation drops (I think sugar) will need to react with the beer so 3-4 weeks after that. I'll be thirsty by the time they are ready. I'll leave it until tomorrow to set it all up.
The preparation videos
I thought this video was useful for setting up from the UK: There is also this double one, video'd in Petone, not the most thrillingly paced but goes through the process:
The process
Wednesday 17th July, 2019. I did the sterilization as they suggested. I used a cloth to wipe out the inner side of the fermenter and put that in its own bag so no cross contamination. Initially I put in 2 teaspoons of the sterilizer then on reading instructions again saw it was 2 tablespoons so adjusted to suit. Put some in a sprayer to spray hands and other stuff. Used bottled water to fill up. Put the sugars in first (as the man in the shop said) to stop clumping , then the tin and used kettle to get the stuff around the tin edges. With 3 1/2 l of boiling water and bottled water for the rest, the temperature is 22 degrees, so I need to cool it down a bit before I can put in the Yeast, so I'm waiting on that.
It seems to be sitting on 22 deg C so I put it in the bath (I'm worried the sink may fall out of frame in laundry) sitting in cold water up to about the 7l mark. So will watch until it gets to below 20 deg C to put in the yeast. I will also need to test the specific gravity as well. This came out at 40 or 140 or 1040 - (still figuring out markings on the hydrometer.
So the start reading is 1040 which is the OG, and 5% alcohol/vol. I had to do a lookup on this. So it seems you have the start alcohol and you get the end alcohol and you subtract one from the other to get final alcohol content. So, in a blog I read (here) and it suggests final should be about 1.008 FG, so that alcohol content there should be 1% so difference of alcohol content should be 4%, which is about right for a normal stout (Guinness 4.2%). So all made , yeast added, in the cupboard and I'll have to wait 5 to 6 days. So that will stink out the house with guests coming Sunday. I'll need to take it out to test the alcohol content on Monday 22nd and again on Tuesday 23rd to test FG and see if its stabilized. Other calc is : (OG-FG) x 131 = ABV (alcohol content) ,w here OG = 1.040 , so if FG 1.008 then sum will be .032x 131 = 4.192%
Day 1. Wed 17th July
I put the fermenter in my "hot press" (Airing cupboard). I 'd put a temperature logger in there before for a few hours and the results were that the temp was just above 15 deg C (note- datalogger battery died and there was only one reading)
When I put the fermenter in the cupboard it was at 20 deg C. As the temp was steady at 15 deg C in the cupboard I decided to wrap the tank in a duvet. I checked the temperature the next day in the AM and it was at 18 deg C. I'll keep an eye on it and if it drops then I'll have to put a bit more heat in the space somehow. There is a bit of a brewing smell as the cupboard is in the middle of the house, I may have to get a hose and run it into the attic space. Top of airlock is 25mm internal so I think it might be hose pipe size.
Day 2/3/4 of ferment
I was a bit concerned with temperature. The thermometer had dropped to 18/16 (so 17 deg C) so I thought I'd better raise the temp in the cupboard on day 3. I put in an electric oil heater on to try and even the temperature. I thought I'd had it on low but on checking day 4 the temperature was at 20 deg C. So I wound down the heater to a lower setting. I'll keep an eye on it. I'll also check the temp logger. It seems to be bubbling away quite merrily so that is good. My car was stolen Thursday night so will need to plan how to get the hose. As its off gassing into linen cupboard I may need to get the vent running soon or very beer smelling linen.
Day 5 first measure
Monday 22 July I took the fermenter out and poured some beer out for the hygrometer. The reading was 1.016. It needs to be around 1.008 and when getting it out it was still bubbling through air trap, so I don't think its finished fermenting. Back in the cupboard and let it brew some more.
DAY 6/7 CONSISTENT MEASURE AT 1.012
On day 8 I decided to bottle as it was not going to go down to 1.008 too fast. Zoe & Karl were around so Zoe helped do the bottling, she was definitely better than I was. So now have 30 bottles with 2 carbonator pellets in each of the pert bottles . I am storing them in their original box and I need to leave them in a warm place for 5 days. We turned the bottles upside down so that the pellets would dissolve. Next, 5 days in warm place and then put in cool place and can drink after 14 days. 2 weeks to go before the tasting.
Day 5 of storing
I tried a bottle on day 5. It did not have much of a head and was quite sweet, but pleasant enough, although not much of a bite to it. I'm glad I've tried but will wait for a while longer so hopefully it will get a bit more oomph. Am supposed to put in a cool place but as temperature has dropped I'll keep it in the dining area for now.
