Bottling Your Brew - Bottle Time

Here are the steps I take and a basic description of why.

Decanting from brew drum to priming drum

Bottling Your Brew - Decision Time

Last week we put down a batch of beer. Time to bottle? There are a few simple decisions you should have already made by now.  In this post, we quickly cover some pro's and con's...

Home Brew Beer - Putting Down Your Brew

Now that you've got the kit, you'll want to make some beer!

You'll need some consumables.  I'll list the stuff I use for a popular recipe I use.

1 x tin of Coopers brand Pale Ale malt extract

1kg of sugars - Homebrewers Warehouse 'Goodies Pack' (or Coopers 1kg Brew enhancer Nr. 2)

1 x 450g jar of no name honey

1 x jar of sterilizer (you'll get several cleans out of 1 jar)

2L of ice cubes

I buy all this stuff from Homebrewers Warehouse, they give out free replacement yeast that works better for tropics, their prices are cheaper than the supermarket, and they are just nice guys.

Putting down a brew only takes a few minutes once you're organised and know what you are doing.

Home Brew Beer - The Kit

I brew my own beer.  The basic principle is a two stage process. First stage is unpressurised fermentation to produce alcohol, the second stage is pressurised fermentation to produce bubbles.  The yeast culture consumes sugars in both stages to produce the desired result.  The sugars you use will influence flavour and mouth feel.

I'm putting down a brew today, this is just the first stage (producing alcohol).  This post will cover setting up your kit.  A second post today will cover putting down your first batch.  I will cover bottling (producing bubbles) in about a week.

Some people will say you need a $80 brew kit, Hydrometer, etc.  These things add cost, and aren't really necessary. Here's the kit I put together...

My kit