What is the ideal temperature to brew my beer at?
With beer brewing, the rule of thumb is the cooler and more consistent you can keep your fermentation the better! When yeast is forced to work at higher temperatures, it …
Beer Making Info
Important Information On Maturing Your Beer!
Maturing your Home brew: Short answer: Most literature state 2-6 months as an optimum time for beer to age to get the full effect of the hop flavour, as after 6 months the …
How long should I ferment?
In beer making all time is relative to temperature. The warmer the brew, the faster the ferment the more quickly it will spoil once fermentation has finished, that is prior …
Brewing In Summer – How To Beat The Heat!
Short Answer: The simplest and most efficient way to ferment at a selected and constant temperature is to use a refrigerator to ferment in. Simply purchasing and using a ‘Fridge …
Beer Quotes
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go …
Kegging Your Beer!
KEGS: The kegs used in most systems are post-mix kegs, made of stainless steel with a hatch cover for ease of cleaning and filling. They include gas in and beer …
The Bubbling Won’t Stop?
Slow air-lock bubbling can continue for an extended period of time in the perfectly sealed fermenter. Ascertain the correct time at which to bottle by either using your hydrometer or …
My Beer Tap is leaking will I have to buy a new one?
No – seal kits for beer taps and pluto guns are available on our website, or from most homebrew shops and are easy to fit. A Kit normaly includes O-rings, …
My Beer Tap is leaking will I have to buy a new one? Read More
My Beer Is Flat In The Bottle?
A: The priming sugar has been missed or incorrectly measured. It is quite easy to miss putting sugar in a bottle during the bottling process. B: The cap has not …
Will It Hurt The Beer to Take it Out of the Fridge?
No, it should not be a problem. Due to the fact that as long as the keg is sealed and full of CO2, bacteria wont be able to grow, so your beer …
Will It Hurt The Beer to Take it Out of the Fridge? Read More
Should I Age My Kegs In The Fridge?
Once the keg has been gassed and the oxygen purged from the keg it can be stored out of the fridge. We do this ourselves as we often have to …
I Keep Getting A Yeast Taste In My Beer?
This is a problem frequently experienced and has three main causes: 1/ Poor hygiene is the most common cause so ensure you sterilize everything with a quality sterilizer. We recommend …
How Long After I Keg My Beer Can I Drink It?
Once the beer is put into the keg it needs to be gassed with C02 (which usually takes 36-48hrs), then the beer needs a couple of days to absorb that gas. …
My Beer In My Keg Is Flat And Has No Gas, Why?
Flat beer in a keg is usually due to the keg being under gassed or the keg having a gas leak. Before you gas the keg a second time you …
How Do I Take A Hydrometer Reading?
While a beer hydrometer can be used to monitor the progression of fermentation, a lot of home brewers have difficulty getting an accurate reading. Below is an easy to follow guide on how to …
My Beer Is A Bit Watery And Tastes A Bit Like Cider! Why?
Usually this stems from using white or raw sugars in your wort. Sugar (or sucrose) contains fructose. Fructose is a complex sugar and hard for your yeast to break down, often in this process of breaking …
My Beer Is A Bit Watery And Tastes A Bit Like Cider! Why? Read More
How Should I Store Beer ?
In general, beer should be stored in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight. After secondary fermentation is completed, placing your beer in the fridge will greatly increase the aging …
What Is BOCK Beer?
Bock is a style of lager beer which originated in Germany. It was traditionally brewed in the fall, at the end of the growing season, when barley and hops were …
What Are LAGERS?
Lagers are brewed with “bottom-fermenting” yeasts at much colder temperatures, 12-16C over long periods of time 3-4 weeks. Often after this time brewers will then drop the temperature dramatically (2-4degrees) …
What Are ALES?
Ales are brewed with “top-fermenting” yeasts at closer to room temperature than Lagers, generally 17-24C (although generic ale yeast can handle up to 30C). Usually ferment ales for 2-3 weeks …
What is Beer?
Beer is an alcoholic beverage made from malted grains, hops, yeast, and water. The grain is usually barley or wheat, but sometimes corn and rice are used as well. Fruit, …
How Is Specific Gravity Related To Beer?
Specific gravity is a measure of the density of a liquid. Distilled water has a specific gravity of 1.000 at 15C and is used as a baseline. The specific gravity …
What Is DRAUGHT Beer?
Technically speaking, draught beer is beer served from the cask in which it has been conditioned. It has been applied, loosely, to any beer served from a large container. More …
Does Using A Dry Enzyne Make Diabetic Beer?
Dry Enzyme’s will help make a low carb beer, as it is designed to turn carbohydrates into fermentable sugars & let your yeast ferment them then into alcohol. You will …
Why Is My Beer Hazy?
All home brews with the help of ‘finings’ should clear reasonably well in the fermenter before bottling/kegging, then should settle out in the bottle/keg to be crystal clear. If your beer refuses …
What Are ICE Beers?
The making of “ice” beers, in general, involves lowering the temperature of the finished product until the water in it begins to freeze and then filtering out the ice crystals …
Froth/Foam Is Coming Through The Air-Lock, Should I Be Worried?
This is a common problem in hot summer conditions! Absolutely no harm befalls the brew; it will generally only happen in the first stages of fermentation and can be prevented …
Froth/Foam Is Coming Through The Air-Lock, Should I Be Worried? Read More
My Brew Temperature Dropped To 10 Degrees, Will This Hurt My Beer?
Yeast does not like dramatic changes in temperature but unlike brewing too hot, low temperatures do not create problems as far as taste or clarity. When the temperature drops below …
My Brew Temperature Dropped To 10 Degrees, Will This Hurt My Beer? Read More
My Bottled Beer is Overgassed?
Certain bottles or even whole batches of your beer may at times become over gassed, while not necessarily exploding. This can be caused by bottling to early, as the beer …
There Is Sediment In My Beer?
As commercial beer contains no sediment in the bottles, some home brewers become obsessed with achieving the same with their brews. It is impossible unless you keg it. There is …
Exploding Bottles?
This condition can only be caused by excess sugars in the bottles after capping, and this could have been created in two ways. 1/ You may have bottled too early, when there …
Poor Head On Your Beer?
If a beer refuses to form and then hold a good head, it can be either the beer is under gassed (more prominent in a keg situation) or insufficiently matured. Beer that has had …
My keg is over Gassed what should I do?
Sometimes when you first pour a beer you get to much head and it appears the keg is over gassed. This is because the tap which is outside the fridge …
My beer tastes great but I would like it to be clearer!
Finings is the generic name given to clearing agents used in beer or winemaking. The principle behind all forms of finings is to act as a flocculent, which causes impurities …
My beer tastes great but I would like it to be clearer! Read More
Which sugar should I use for the bottles?
We recommend using carbonation drops, they are a pre measured tablet able to be dropped into both stubbie and tallie bottles. Easy to use and no risk of over-carbonating! If …
Why isn’t the Air-lock bubbling?
This is the most common problem of all, never trust the airlock as this often means little as to weather your brew is fermenting properly. Usually the brewer assumes the …
How long does Beer keep?
To quote Michael Jackson: “If you see a beer, do it a favour, and drink it. Beer was not meant to age.” Generally, that is true. However, some beers that …
Something tastes a bit “off”. What have I done wrong?
Any off flavours in a finished beer is the result of contamination or excessive heat during fermentation. This could be caused by the water you’ve used in the brew, poor …
Something tastes a bit “off”. What have I done wrong? Read More
How Do I Calculate My Beers Alcohol Content Using A Hydrometer?
Don’t worry, understanding hydrometer readings has been confusing people for years. Here is a simple explanation on how to check the alcohol content of your beer. First you need to …
How Do I Calculate My Beers Alcohol Content Using A Hydrometer? Read More
Olive Oil Addition to Yeast as an Alternative to Wort Aeration!
The initial research was apparently carried out at KUL in Belgium, but it was a paper by Grady Hull of the New Belgium Brewing Co. that really brought the concept …
Olive Oil Addition to Yeast as an Alternative to Wort Aeration! Read More
An in depth look at hydrometers and how they work!
At some early stage, for most brewers, a hydrometer becomes part of their brewing equipment. To most it’s a matter of “drop it in and read” but having encountered some …
An in depth look at hydrometers and how they work! Read More
Some Interesting Methods for Using Hops!
Using Hops Hops were originally used in beer as a preservative. These days, the bitterness they impart to balance the sweetness of the malt is an integral part of a …
Beer Faults – A Guide to The Tastes and Smells of Bad Beer!
At some point in our brewing careers we are all going to make a bad batch. It’s a fact of life and is something we can’t change. For most of …
Beer Faults – A Guide to The Tastes and Smells of Bad Beer! Read More
Bulk Priming Beer Bottles!
After years in the Home brew game it finally happened, my first batch of bottle bombs……it wasn’t that I bottled to early either, I waited 2 weeks in this case, …