First Contact - first tasting of the #brew after 4 days bottling. Look at the pic with 2001space odyssey music playing in your kind :) #food

via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/KFwkicIiFb/

Ok, so this time had finally come - and yes, i have been a touch impatient (only waiting 4 days - i mean what was i thinking ;) ). I stepped into the understairs cupboard and plucked out a lucky contender for the first sampling of the mighty brew. Felt like something out of Toy Story with the mighty claw coming to whisk away one lucky bottle.

Headed into the garden (yes, i actually managed to go outside as the 40 days and nights of rain had finally left us). And cracked the virgin cap and poured out the liquidy amber goodness.

I will stop being emphatic now - it had a nice fizz, good aroma, still a touch cloudy, slight bitter aftertaste but not unpleasant by any means (but i guess that's why its called ale/bitter). First impressions were rather good. Easily quaffable without feeling you are forcing down sprouts. Which was my last memory of homebrew.

Here's a vid of the first tastings

Will wait another week and a half before the next taster session.

Homebrew Label Design

As mentioned in an earlier post - one of the things that is great is the fact that you can design your own labels for any of your brews / foods etc. Its a surprisingly dark brew, and so have opted for a slightly dark-side name of '666 Brew - Dark Summer Ale'. I still have no idea what it is actually going to taste like.

Set myself a twenty minute challenge yesterday and came up with these two alternatives. Have decided to go for the simpler design in blue ... contrasted nicely against the red crown caps.

See what you think. Comments welcome.

design A

design B

Design A - in blue and applied to bottles

Alcoholic Ginger Beer: Day 1 - The Brew Up

My appetite has been whetted recently by a renewed interest in homebrewing. Ok, not the coolest of home-pursuits but wholly rewarding. Not only do you get to concoct your own beverage and present to the unsuspecting friends/co-workers etc but you also get to design the label! Then i realised you can actually make alcoholic ginger beer (not the plant-inspired version i did as a kid) ... and with a potential 9.5% .... oh my god ....

Anyhow, i digress. I stumbled across 2 recipes online that looked easy peasy.

1. Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's Ginger Beer Recipe
Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's Ginger Beer Recipe

2. Dave's Ginger Beer

At first instance, Hugh's looked easiest but digging a little deeper, and looking for a challenge (and larger quanitites) i went with Dave's Ginger Beer.

The ingredients as follows:

5 gallons water
1-1 1/2 lbs. ginger root, coarsley chopped (PLUS extra 1/2 lb ginger root and 60g dried ginger)
17 cups sugar (i'm assuming american sizes here)
4 lemons, sliced
3/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 packet champagne yeast (i substituted this for Wine Yeast Compound and followed instructions)

Off we trotted to Tesco and got everything (it was a wet sunday, otherwise the cornershop fruitstore would have been first port of call). Yes, even the yeast. It seems that Culverhouse Cross has a section for homebrew stuff.

Keeping it simple for the first attempt - i've pretty much left the recipe unchanged other than adding about an extra half pound of ginger and also emptying a whole spice bottle of the dry stuff (just for an extra kick).

Process was pretty simple for getting going, a few tricky bits that weren't covered in the original recipe so i have modified and this is the process i'm going to do:

Process

1. Fill largest pan with boiling water (leaving inch and half from top)
2. Add ginger & cream of tartar
3. Squeeze lemons and then drop in squeezed bits too
4. Add sugar (i managed 9 1/2 cups) and allow to simmer for 30mins (i removed pips)
5. Add remaining sugar to sterilised fermenting bin (7 1/2 cups)
6. Carefully pour ginger mix through coarse strainer and then squish pulp with back of ladel
7. Top up with cold water to the 5 gallon mark and leave to lukewarm temperature
8. Taste (at this point, i wasn't happy so boiled up more ginger root and dried ginger and added back in to mix)
9. Add yeast as per pack (i used wine yeast compund - which meant a heaped teaspoon per gallon straight into the fermenting bin)
10. Check gravity (reading said it could be possible 9.5% alcohol - but we going to stop before completely fermented)
11. Cover and allow to ferment for 7 days (16 - 20 degrees)
12. Check gravity intermittently
13. Siphon into 2litre pop bottles (sterilised) - this will be done through a coffee filter for extra clarity
14. Add teaspoon of zest and finely grated ginger to each bottle
15. Cap and store upright for one week (15 - 17.5 degrees)
16. Release pressure daily
17. Then store under 15 degrees

A few photos:

Grating

The key ingredients

Lemons / ginger / cream of tartar / water / sugar

Fermentation bin after 2 hours

20 degrees

Will be updating once ready for bottling!