Brewing Beer - the first brew - part 1

Brewing Beer - Ahhh - a subject close to my heart...

I've started brewing beer again for the first time in about 7 or 8 years. I suppose I haven't brewed anything (apart from cider) for such a long time for two fundamental reasons. Firstly I've been abroad a lot and secondly the house isn't really ideal for brewing beer. The house has got a lot of land and a double storey garage, but there is only one tiny little shed at the back of the house and the garage as at the end of a 50 metre drive and has no electricity, or water...

I have been exploring getting electricity to the garage and using the upper storey of the garage as a brewery. What I thought would be a "piece of cake" has turned out to be expensive and complex as the government has stuck its nose into this aspect of life along with almost every other and it is virtually impossible to DIY 'lecy now. Everything has to be inspected and have a "Part P" certificate issued. I've had a couple of local electricians to look and quote - it should be “a doddle” - 50 metres of armoured cable, a few plugs and lights, but the only quote so far is for £2,100!!!

So, frustrated, I decided to cut to the chase and get brewing. I decided this time to do the whole thing properly and start with malted grain rather than various forms of malt extract. I thought I would start off with something simple like a standard English Bitter.

There is an excellent little brew shop about 10 miles from home and I have been reading extensively about brewing for two months now, so I knew exactly what I wanted; a new boiler, a mash tun (an Eskimi with a tap and some copper piping to you) a new brewing container and some grain, hops and yeast, a few chemicals and off we go!

The man in the shop was very helpful (as ever) and I soon had what I needed to make my own version of Fuller’s London Pride… Except the man didn’t sell one of the ingredients “Invert Sugar” and anyway I didn’t want use sugar (I do know how to “invert” sugar and it doesn’t involve turning the pack upside down) so I bought some malt to cover that bit. But when I got home I discovered that the man in the shop hadn’t sold me the Target Hops the recipe needed. So I decided to go “off trail” and play things by ear – or rather nose and make things up as I went along. I substituted Target hops with Northdown hops which were already playing another role in the brew, replaced the 650 grams Invert Sugar with 500 grams of malt, and to compensate increased the amount of grain from a total weight of 3.5kg to 4kg.

Things went swimmingly at first despite doing the brew half in the kitchen and half in the freezing cold back garden – but without getting too technical, the “sparging” was a nightmare it took about 6 hours to get the required quantity of hot water through the grains, and as a result despite starting the brewing at about 10:30am I didn’t finish until 9:30pm when I finally added the yeast to the brew, switched on the heater and tucked the brew into the tiny shed surrounded by cushions from our garden furniture.

That was on Tuesday. I’ve just “dropped” the beer (filtered it) and it is looking, smelling and tasting (if you ignore the yeast and sweetness) good… Mind you “Pride of Dockenfield” is going to be a “skull splitter”. The OG was meant to be 1042 but turned out to be 1050 which means the beer will be about 5.5% alcohol! Actually that is good practice for me as the next brew I make will be a Belgian Trappist style ale, if all goes to plan…

I’ll keep you posted and some of you (un)lucky folk may get some bottles of the "Pride of Dockenfield" thrust upon you.