Brewing "House Elfish"

We were inspired in the summer when Laura and Aaron took us to Brew It Up - a bar which has its own brewery which is used for the beers sold behind the bar and hired out to individuals who want to brew their own. So there are lots of beers on tap which the brewery have brewed themselves and then in the fermenters are beers that people have come in themselves to brew!

The first friend to take advantage of Brew It Up at the Grand Malt was Dave last year who bought a cider kit along. Now we are onto our first Brew It Up beer for Rob. Rob wasn't able to join us for the brewing, so we documented the afternoon with photos. The beer was a dark ale and we've named it House Elfish because of his love of Dobby the house elf in Harry Potter.

Getting Ready

Heating a pan of water with the brew can in it. This heats the wort which means it is runnier when you try and pour it out of the can!

Sugar (and a bit of honey as we didn't have enough sugar!) ready to add to the canned wort and give the yeast a tasty meal!

Water getting cool (something not required if you brew in the UK as "room temp" is about 10C lower!)

All the essentials have been sterilized ready for use.

Chucking it all in a bucket a.k.a. brewing! Part I

Yummy, runny, sticky wort!

Sugar and honey are already in the brew bucket, so we add the wort and some boiling water.....

...and give it a good stir!

Chucking it all in a bucket a.k.a. brewing! Part II

Brew bucket moved from the kitchen into the brew room and our cooling unit (aka a box with lots of cardboard, foam, polystyrene, bubble wrap, etc. to trap cool air from the ice packs we put in!). Adding the cold water.

Stir and add. Stir and add.

Checking the temperature. We need to cool the liquid from boiling to 20-25C. We add mainly water from the fridge, but don't want to cool it too much or the yeast won't wake up. Too hot though and the yeast will be killed. This is bang on.

Checking that we're up to 23L

 Chucking it all in a bucket a.k.a. brewing! Part III

A quick hydrometer reading (after moving all the bubbles out of the way - this thing is taking off!). Knowing the original gravity means we can work out the percentage alcohol content and helps us see when the brew has finished fermenting.

All looks good, so it's time to pitch the yeast.

Yeast pitched.

A final stir to get the yeast in there.

Air lock in place (with a shot of vodka to keep things clean) and we're set!

Kit brews say they take 7 days, but ours always seem to take a little longer. We spend the week checking it three times a day (before school, home from school and before bed). We check the temperature using a digital thermometer stuck to the side of the brew bucket. Most times when we check it we change the ice pack and either add one or two ice packs to keep the temperature between 20-25C (no mean feat when the average temperature at this time of year is 30+

8 days on and we're ready to bottle. Rob has been working hard to get enough bottles ready for the brew and we have washed and rinsed them. To serilize we bake them in the oven with a foil cap on each to keep any final nasties out. When we bottle we add about 18 teaspoons of sugar for "priming" which means you get the final fizz when you open and pour the beer.