My first ever attempt at homebrewing.
Using a Mr.Beer kit.
so far it's all going well.
I boiled half the extract in about 5 litres of water.
I used a lot of hops.
About 30g of pride of ringwood (11%AA) pellets at 45m boil,
About 10g of Cascade pellets at 30, then 10m boils.
About 20g of fuggles leaf hops at 30m, then about 20g at 15m, then about 20g at 10m, then about 20g at flame out.
At about 10 to 5 mins to go, I added the rest of the extract from the kit can.
Cooled the wort down in an iced bath.
Used almost frozen mineral water at about 4 litres, shook the bottles vigorously to aerate the water and added it to Mr.Beer.
Then added the cooling wort and stirred a lot ot aerate the wort.
Thne added the powdered S04 British ale yeast.
Fermented for about 8 or 9 days at 20 to 15C (temp dropped slowly over that time to 15C). Dry hopped with about 30g of fuggles leaf hops.
Its been dry hopping now in the primary fermentor (Mr.Beer) for almost 3 days.
Gonna leave it another 2 days or so then bottle.
Had 3 small tastings.
2 with the gravity readings and 1 to taste how the dry hopping was coming along after 2 days.
Lovely aromas.
Very bitter taste at frist which quickly becomes very pleasant. The alcohol is becomeing eveident but it still seems weak bodied.
This was my first time to make beer and I didnt know the IBUs or the expected alcohol for the beer kit. I guessed it would be around 5%.
I have now read that it is perhaps 3.5%.
If I make this next time, I would adjust the hops slightly and ad some DME to beef up the body and alc level. Perhaps try some crystal malts, too.
So far, no infection and the beer tastes good!
