Current Events > I'm making my own beer!

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's extract out of a can, mixed with 23 litres of water in a plastic vat, but by George I'm making my own beer!



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What brought this on?

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What's are ya gonna name it

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Which ingredients are you using and what type of beer are you brewing?

Also is this your first time brewing?

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Guide posted...

What brought this on?

I was up at my nan and pop's house this Christmas, and their neighbour brought up some homebrewed beer. I've drank some shit homebrew in my time, mostly spirits, but the stuff he gave me was a really good ginger beer mixed with some bourbon. It tasted delicious, and he offered to grab me a regular beer he brewed up after that.

The beer he gave me tasted like one of my favorite beers - Cooper's. But it honest to god tasted better than the Cooper's I buy via longneck. I told him this, and he told me that it was a premix solution from Cooper's that he made.

He then basically extolled the power of homebrewing to me, with the most important part being that for $20 a batch, I could make 20+ longnecks of beer. I can't communicate well enough how delicious this beer was compared to the longnecks sold by that same brand - it was absolutely delicious. And that price point is unbeatable.

Anyway - cut to the next day. I'm back home, and I've told my friends that I plan to get into homebrewing. We end up at my town's Wal-mart-esque store and we come across a homebrewing kit for $65.

I was gonna leave it behind and grab it the next time I got paid - now that I think about it, I would have kept putting it off and putting it off until I didn't care any more. My friends told me that I should get it right then and there. I gave in, and I went home with $100 worth of brewing equipment.

Basically, a great experience with some homebrew beer and some positive peer pressure are why I bought myself a brewing kit.

Butterfiles posted...

What's are ya gonna name it

A part of me wants to incorporate MrMallard into it. Something like Mal's Malt or some shit like that - I need some time to workshop a good name based on MrMallard. But I also have a name lined up based on my real life nickname that I'm planning to name the first batch.

Wii_Shaker posted...

Which ingredients are you using and what type of beer are you brewing?

Also is this your first time brewing?

The ingredients are a Cooper's DIY beer brewing kit, which is just a bunch of gunk from a can mixed with 23 litres of water, and the beer is a Cooper's pale ale. This is indeed my first time brewing - I bought the equipment off the shelf at a local store, and I made up my first batch on a whim.

I'm planning to make a really solid, tasty pale ale. I've had a tasty pale ale in my time - the darker the head, the fruitier and tastier the beer has been. But Cooper's pale ale has a very pale white head like any other beer on a bar's tap, which tends to be lager, and while I enjoy a good Cooper's, it simply doesn't compare to its contemporaries which have darker heads and more varied, robust flavors.

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Day 1: the mixture is incredibly cloudy. The temperature has consistently hovered at around 28 degrees C, which is a miracle considering the Aussie heat. The vat is steamy.

According to my instructions, I would have to start testing my beer's gravity after 6 days of brewing at 21 degrees, or 4 days at 27 degrees. So roughly, add two days for every 6 degrees below 21, or reduce two days for every 6 degrees over 27. Given the proximity to 27 degrees, I'll be testing my vat's gravity in four days. This is Day One, and Day Four will be Tuesday.


The residue on the lid is steam reflecting light from the light of my camera.

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Just buy beer

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ooh this looks fun.

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Irony posted...

Just buy beer

Yeah the idea is fun but honestly i'm not a patient guy.

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I imagine a mallard getting hit by a wooden hammer. something like that idk

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Irony posted...

Just buy beer

I usually buy beer! But A) I've had a homebrew beer from a brand I like that tastes better than the beer I've bought off the shelf, and B) for $20 a can of beer gunk, I can make somewhere in the range of 30 750ml bottles of beer. It's worth giving this a try at least once.

Supernatural posted...

I imagine a mallard getting hit by a wooden hammer. something like that idk

That's a fun idea. I could call it Flat Duck!

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Day 2: the mixture is still very opaque, but I think the color is darkening a tiny bit. Maybe it's starting to clear up. It's been sitting at a consistent 28 degrees C for the last few days, and I'm on track to do my first gravity test on Tuesday.

While I'm between jobs and out of TAFE courses, this brew is giving me something really fun and creative to do. I really enjoy monitoring the vat from day to day, and some time in the next week I should be able to start bottling it. I feel like I'm doing something constructive with my life as the year ends.


Also - I ran the duck-based name by my friends and they helped me come up with a tagline. If I go with a name like Flat Duck or Mal's Malt Brew or something like that, the tagline is going to be:

Quack one open, or duck off!

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Day 3: the beer is definitely getting less cloudy. The mixture is getting darker again, which gives me hope for the next couple of days.

Tomorrow will be my first gravity test. The brew has hovered between 24 and 30 for three days now, sitting comfortably at around 28 for most of it. This will be the first sample of beer taken out of the vat since it started brewing, so I'll be able to get a good smell of it. I'm really excited.

Interesting fact: about a litre of beer has evaporated since I started the brew on Friday. I don't know if that's good, but it's pretty fucking hot here in Australia. For all I know, the temperature has been a lot warmer when I'm not checking it, which has led to more evaporation.


I'll post pictures of the testing process tomorrow, as well as my opinion of the beer's scent. I have high hopes. Even if this batch fails, I'm planning to make a much fruitier pale ale when this is all done. In the event of failure, I won't know if I'm ready to give up brewing until the second batch.

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Day 4: testing day!


The brew is dark and relatively clear, like the day I started. I hoisted it up onto my counter top and grabbed the hydrometer included in the beer kit.

I drew a sample, then discarded it. Then I drew a second sample. This is the one I tested.

The first time I dropped the hydrometer in, it sank to the bottom. I had to add a bit more beer before it would float - not a good sign, but I might have just underfilled the container.

The reading I got was very close to 1000 SG. I don't know if this is good or bad - the mix right out of the vat is meant to be 1038, so to see it get to 1001 or 1002 SG is... worrying? I don't want my first beer to be a failure.

I've been referring to a video published by the folks who make my beer kit, and they mention "de-gassing" the sample if it's too foamy. I think I'm ready to call today a bust - I mishandled the sample, and I got rid of two samples of my beer. I'll be checking the gravity again tomorrow, so I'll apply what I learned today.

For now, I think I'm ready to record Day 4's SG as 1001, with a mark against it for my negligence to de-gas the sample.

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The reading:

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Day 5: I think I'm ready to start bottling?

The brew is clear like when I started, with noticeable and consistent carbonation in the samples I've been taking. Today's hydrometer reading was close to the 1000 gravity line, which means I'm close to final gravity - if I'm not there already.

I'm gonna test it again tomorrow. If the hydrometer is at 1000 again, then it's time to bottle my brew and let it ferment for another two weeks.



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Now this is a topic to follow. I hope your first batch turns out, and since you've started I hope it's a hobby you'll enjoy. Looking forward to updates

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Day 6: bottling!

Checked the hydrometer again, same measurement. It's time to bottle this batch. I had a small sip of the mixture, and it tastes like Cooper's - I'm looking forward to having a cold one in a few weeks.

I went and got 30 plastic bottles - they're branded the same as my brewing kit. I filled up 28 of them.

There's still some beer in the bottom of the vat I need to dispose of. Do I pour it down the sink? There's someone in my house who's really fucking anal about stuff going down the sink if it's not water - so I don't know what to do. I'll talk it over tomorrow, I think the laundry sink will be the way to go.

So, what now? I wait two weeks, and the beers will be good to drink. The longer they sit, the better they'll turn out apparently - so I think I'm gonna save them for Australia Day. After this, I want to make a fruity pale ale - Cricketer's Arms and Yenda makes good pale ales, with darker heads than your standard Cooper's. I'll have to look into that. I can also make apple cider if I want, so that's on the cards.

I have some sodium metabisulphite to clean my vat out. When I dump the waste, I'll get in there and scrub off any residue on the vat, clean the tap and wash this motherfucker out with that solution. I'll keep an eye on my bottles every couple of days to make sure they aren't overpressurized. But aside from that, I'm done!

All in all, this whole process cost me $140. But now, I have all the equipment. If I want to make another 28 22oz bottles of beer, it'll cost me $20 for the extract and nothing else.

I've decided on a name, but it's based on my real name so I won't be posting it.



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