mrsbrown | Entries tagged with beer

After cleaning out the barrel until the water ran clear, doushkasmum and I discussed brewing today.

After waking at 7am, painting bits of kitchen, cutting and washing fabric, cleaning the barrel, cutting out MrPeacocks fencing jacket skirt, ironing the skirt, packing for Bash, taking Mr-bassman to his gig, driving home and changing, attending Monthly Bash and all it entails, heading off to Circa Carnivale, picking mr-bassman from his 2nd gig, ad then going to Lentil As Anything for dinner, I went slightly manic and decided that I had time for one more impossible thing before bedtime.

MrPeacock and I went to the supermarket and bought a second Cascade Golden harvest kit.

We made up the two kits with a #76 brew kit from brew craft, (1kg malt and dextrose and cascade hops) and another 1kg of dextrose. We now have 25L of beer, and the brix reading is 18. Thanks to Google, this means the alcohol content is expected to be about 9%.

The hops were soaked in the boiled sugar and water for 10 min(or maybe 20 if I read the internet for too long).

It's a lager.

PS. I thik my laptop has a cold. It ca't type n's

We have bought wooden casks to store and serve our beer and cider at festival.

I've brewed a kit each of beer and cider and they're nearly ready to put into the casks.

Now I need to work out a bit more about cask conditioning. Here is a collection of the pages I've read:

http://www.craftbrewing.org.uk/technical/doc/technical-44.htm

http://www.betwixtbeer.co.uk/docs/cask_beer_opening.htm

http://www.classiccitybrew.com/caskale.html

2-3 days before serving, hammer in a SOFT spile through the middle depression on the large, center bung of the cask. Beer and gas should escape through the soft spile. This is done to check the amount of carbonation and allow excess gas to be vented slowly (so not to dredge up sediment). When the venting slows, wipe off the soft spile. When it takes three seconds or longer for beer to flow back through the spile, this means the cask is probably ready for a hard spile. With ALL spiles, leave the top one-third of the spile showing out of the bung so you will be able to grab the spile with pliers when it’s time to remove it. There is no need to sanitize the spiles.

I think this means that I should use a hard spile for the secondary fermentation, take them to Festival, settle them for a few days in the spot we're going to use them, put in a soft spile to equalise the carbonation, change to the hard spile again, tap and drink!

What do I make a "hard" and "soft" spile out of?

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bardallis/relaxed.pdf

If the beer is too fizzy or pours too foamy, carbonation needs to be bled off. This is where it is easier for a horizontally stillaged firkin: simply fit a “soft spile,” a porous peg typically made of bamboo, tightly into the hole in the shive, and check the beer twice a day until it meets with your approval. Replace the soft spile with a hard, nonporous spile until serving time.

Here's a photo of of a keystone and shive - these are the things the spile and tap go into.

Now I just need to work out What a period tap looks like? I'm inclined to go with something like the spile and shive, rather than a keystone and tap. But if anyone know of some pictures showing beer dispensing, that would be great!

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