The Great Brewing Experiment

Finishing up the year of work in 2004 I found myself in discussion about beer brewing with my workmates. I had put forward the idea that chilli beer might actually be quite good. Not knowing what is entailed to bring such an idea to fruition, thus begins the Great Brewing Experiment.

Browsing through the supermarket the other day I came across several varieties of Coopers do-it-yourself ingredients... and a full brewing kit for $80. I have never before brewed beer, although my father had done it a few times (thought to what degree of success I do not know - I vaguely recall exploding bottles). The old beer brewing gear is probably still in the cellar. I held off on the tempting impulse buy to suss out the state of any equipment still stored at home, and to do some research on what actually is required and how much I should expect to pay for it.

day one

Some half-hearted research led me to believe that $80 was probably ok to fork out for a kit such as this. So it has been purchased and, with the help of my friend Rob, put into operation. Helpfully coming with an instructional video, it was pretty simple to set up and get things going. All in all with the video watching, cleaning of equipment and the creation of the first batch of wort (stuff that ferments to become beer) I suppose it took about an hour to get started.

day two

As expected, the wort has begun bubbling at the airlock (see video - DivX codec required).

The big tub must be kept airtight to stop outside air getting in and infecting the beer. The airlock exists to let air out of the tub as the internal gas pressure builds, without letting any new air in. We can expect another five days of this before we can move on to bottling.

day four

Here is the entire setup in all its glory. The temperature is steady all day at around 23 or 24 degrees celcius, which is optimum for the yeast to do its thing.

There is a faint beer smell in the room because of the release of gasses from the wort. The rate of emission slowed over the past day. I do not know if this is desirable or not so early in the brewing phase. On day seven the wort will be bottled and at that stage it should have settled for at least the day before.

I have been looking forward to the end of this first batch as a trial run before experimenting with chillis, niche beers, and other brews such as lemonade or (alcoholic) ginger beer.

day seven

The bottling step was simple enough, and took about fifteen minutes for two novices to do together. The "beerometer" indicated that the wort (or is it now beer?) was ready for bottling.

Two of the bottles were primed with hot chilli peppers, as the first experimental beers of this project. Two small chillis for each bottle were cut in half lengthwise and inserted, seeds and all, before adding the beer.

A long tube with a pressure valve is inserted into each bottle. When it hits the bottom the valve opens, allowing beer to flow through. To stop adding beer once the level reaches the top of a bottle, the bottle is lowered so that there is no contact with the valve.

Next, carbonation drops (made of glucose and sugar) are added to make the beer fizzy. The caps, in this case plastic screw tops, seal the beer into the bottle and after a quick shake the bottles are prepared to be left somewhere with a consistant temperature for the next two weeks.

At this stage the bottles of beer have been left in the spare bathroom where the temperature is fairly cool throughout the day, and out of any direct sunlight. For a two week period they will remain here until they are ready to start being sampled. The beer matures gradually and reaches its optimum after about three months. So begins the wait...

day eleven

With only a couple of days to go things are looking on track (to this utterly unqualified novice). The sediment has settled in all of the bottles, forming a layer about a millimetre high in the bottom of each. The chillis are floating at the top of the two bottles they were added to.

Having read some beer recipes since starting this initial brewing project I've had other ideas about creating a chilli beer. A better option may be to get a larger quantity of chillis, cut them up thorougly and simmer in a couple of litres of water for half an hour prior to putting it in the wort. Adding another at bottling time to finish it off might do the trick! This idea is based on a recipe for brewing ginger beer that I read somewhere.

day thirteen

Only one sleep to go before beer-day. A bottle each of regular and extra spicy are in the fridge ready to be taken into work in the morning. By fortuitous timing beer-day coincides with my birthday and a good excuse to down a glass or two at work.

beer day

Success! The plain beer tastes like a run of the mill cheap brand beer. It is ok but certainly not great. Hopefully as it ages it will improve. The chilli beer, on the other hand, is fantastic! The beer is hot enough that if you like chillis then you will enjoy it rather than finding it too spicy. To a non chilli lover it may be a bit rough (as a willing guinea pig.. workmate.. found out).

Thus concludes the Great Brewing Experiment. Certainly there will be many batches of chilli and ginger beer to come over the next months.