One for the technically minded

Ok, so most won't know or care about this one, but I needed to put it here so I can link to the image.

In case you do care, it's a sample port I added to the line from the mash tun to the boil kettle so I can take readings with the refractometer (which essentially tells you the density of the wort i.e. sugar in the wort makes it more dense, and it's sugar you need so you can ferment it into alcohol - see, simple isn't it????)

And this is just another close up of the gear

How to brew beer (in this case an American Pale Ale – Bungo style)

Step One – select your ingredients.
For 40 L of our American Pale Ale we used:
8 kg Ale malt
460 g Caramalt
250 g Dark Munich
(I was also supposed to use 30 g of Chocolate Wheat but you can only use what you can find in the local HBS – or in this case, one in the Blue Mountains, don’t ask)
60 g of Cascade hops
100 g of Williamete.

For the observant ones, you’ll notice the grains in the photo are not the ones I used for the Pale Ale – sometimes you just can’t get that organised.

Step two

Add grains to mash tun.

Step Three

Add water to grains (mash in). Raise temperature to 67 degrees and recirculate on the Brew Magic for an hour.

Step Four

Raise temp to 80 degrees for mash out – hold for 15 minutes. Heat sparge water in hot liquor tank (HLT) to 80 degrees.

Step Five

Realise that the regulator you are using is not big enough to supply enough gas (the one supplied from the US has a different fitting) and run to and from the kitchen several times with hot water heated in the electric kettle!

Step Six

Sparge by opening the tap into the boil kettle, and pumping sparge water from the HLT to the top of the mash.

Step Seven

Stop sparging when you reckon it’s the right time. Given my lack of knowledge at this stage I was just happy that the stuff coming out of the mash tun looked like beer!!!!!!!

Step Eight

Take a step back and think you’re tops ‘cause it seems to have worked.

Step Nine

Light fire under boil kettle and try to get to a rolling boil.

Step Ten

Realise regulator is still piss weak (see Step Five above) and that it is never going to get to 100 degrees. Turn everything off. Detach regulator, jump in car and drive to gas fitters’/plumbers’ suppliers in town looking for new regulator. 45 minutes later, return home, attach new regulator and realise you had no idea what you were asking for at the plumbers shop ‘cause the new one is the same.

Put lid on boil kettle. Become amazed as it actually starts to boil.

Step Eleven
Boil for 60 minutes adding the Cascade hops at the start of the boil, half the Williamete with 15 minutes to go, and the other half at the end of the boil. Smell those American hops - mmmmmmm.

Step Twelve

Attach cold water hose to plate chiller, other end in a down pipe so that waste water goes back into rain water tank (clever huh??) and open tap from boil kettle. Collect the cooled, sweet wort (look it up) in the fermenter.

Step Thirteen

Add yeast.

Step Fourteen

Wait for seven days until fermentation is complete.

By this time, it was getting dark – which is kind of disturbing ‘cause the sun is going down rather late at this time of year. And somewhere between step 9 and 12 Jessica got home to provide helpful suggestions on clean up, I think, cause after 12 hours of this, and several beers along the way, I needed all the help I could get.

Step Fifteen

Get rid of spent grains

So, there you go. Our first brew on the new machine. Lord knows how it’ll turn out – but I don’t really care at the moment. It was heaps of fun.

Bungo Brewery Up and Running (sort of)

Well, after 5 months of waiting (2 months in the factory – plus another due to the American summer vacations – 1 month on the ship to Melbourne, 2 weeks on the docks) Jess and I finally were able to drive to Melbourne to pick up our brand new Sabco Brew Magic brewery (more a pico brewery than a micro brewery).


After unpacking and with great assistance from Jess given my slight over excitement, we managed to get it assembled the right way up – and here it is.

That’s the hot liquor tank on the right, the mash tun in the middle and the boil kettle on the left (for those who care). The coolest bit (and most expensive) is on the far right, and is the temp controller – a notoriously difficult (although not impossible) variable to deal with in home brewing.

Another picture with us and Jess’s brother Hamish –my soon to be brother in law. Hamish is sitting behind our stainless steel fermenter.

So we are underway – first brew will be an American Pale Ale. No doubt this will appear in the second blog.