10 November -- Bottling the 2IPA -- The Hopstical Course.

We've been very excited about this beer ever since we moved the car into the shed to drag the mash out of the pot. You might remember our exploits with making the wort for this beer. Loads of grain, loads of hops, loads of effort. And loads of expectations.

This is gonna be the beer that makes it for us. 

This is our moment. 

This is it, this time we know it's the real thing.

This is the beer we christened "The Hopstical Course" (we're still not sure how to spell that).

So onto the details.

We started the day by opening another 70/- and it's still a major disappointment. What's even more frustrating is that the flavours have really come out, but there is no carbonation at all. What a shame! But, life's too short to worry about such things. Grab a moment, learn from your mistakes, and look at the positives. We drank it anyways!

We also moved the Oatmeal Stout out of the priming fridge and into our homes! Yay! This means that I can drink a few of these over the summer. But I'd really like to try and save them for the winter. Mulesy, one of these is yours as thanks for the paddle.

What you don't know is that with this Double IPA, we dry-hopped it. Yep, we are now tea-baggers!! I grabbed one of Monica's stockings when she wasn't looking. We filled the stocking with all of the left-over hops we had in the freezer, dumped that sock into the fermented brew, and hoped for the best. One week later, we were ready to bottle. That day was today. 

We keep thinking whether we should start to move into kegging the beer. The argument for it is that it would cut down on the time we spend bottling. Today, we started at 1pm and were finished by 5:30pm. That's a bit of time. 

But for me, that's the whole point. To spend some time doing this. To have a few hours to not just bottle beers, but to slow things down and get into a rhythm that allows for contemplation, appreciation and reflection. Today proved to be such a day. Today Michael and I talked about everything. We discussed the merits of an honest job, the possibilities of travelling across America, the evolution of disco into house music, the need for true political leadership, the beauty of a well-rounded woman, the yearning for an explanation, the excitement of having a young family, the shock of losing a loved one, the truth that can be found in a single moment, when all else seems lost, and everything makes little sense, and all you have is your fears, and your nightmares, and maybe, just maybe, a little light at the end of all the darkness.

Life is short. 

Friends are special. 

Beer is for sharing. 

This will always be a special beer. Come and have one with us when the brew is ready. 

We use "Beersmith" to help us with all our calculations. It's a piece of software that tells us exactly what to do. 

Hey, what's that folder on your desktop labelled "Pr0n"??

This is the printout that "Beersmith" gives us. Can you read it? It's got everything to make the perfect brew. 

Michael has been busy. He made this little frame to hold the pot

We used to use a 70s TV trolley held down by sandbags. Yeah, we used to have a boiling pot with 60 litres of water held together with chewing gum and string. So safe!!

Here's the Oatmeal Stout split three ways,

Count the bottles and guess which pile Chris took.

So, onto the measuring the gravity.

This is an important step.

We want to know this to work out how much sugar to add.

Screw it up and everything goes 70 shilling on us.

We were right on target (according to 'beer smith', and he should know, he's a computer)

Did I tell you about the dry-hopping. That's where you put a whole lot of hops into the beer after it has fermented. We used everything we could find in the freezer. There's a bit there. 

We needed some music to help us along today. This helped.

And here's a glass of the 2IPA to drink as we bottle it. Yep, it's not carbonated and it's 20 degrees. It was delicious. 

Then, we need to work out how much liquid we have to work with, before we add the sugar. What do you think? 40 litres was my guess. There's a big cake at the bottom to take into consideration.

The next step is to move it out of the fermenting keg, into a nice, clean, sterilised keg. This takes some time.

It's a slow process.

And not much fun.

Give us a smile, Chris 

I can't, serious business!

At this point, we are smelling some great aromas. Lots of whiskey smells, but a great deal of hops. 

Good shot, eh?

Last time we didn't stir in the sugar. That meant flat beer. This time we stirred it. And Michael got to lick the spoon.

I don't know what this is.

Okay, I know what this is.

It's the sock full of hops

It swelled up a fair bit.

And here's the 2IPA ready to bottle

Hi Lucy!

It took a while to bottle. And we didn't want to lose a single drop. Here's Michael getting the last stubbie.

Plenty of beer there.

So much IPA

And into the priming fridge until December 12.

Come and join us then for a beer.

-- A weekend of home-brew --

Things have been looking dire of late. I was quite depressed this week as it looked like we had royally fucked up the 70/-. The first three bottles opened were like Mount Vesuvius, erupting all over the ceiling and the bench tops. Way too much sugar, way too much carbonation.

What had we done wrong? One theory was that a failure to stir the sugar syrup into the second keg had resulted in a lack of priming sugar evenly spread throughout all bottles. Two explosions in the priming fridge was enough evidence for this theory to be validated.

But then as we started to open more bottles and they started to look like Lime-Spiders, our paddle-maker Michael Mules suggested that maybe we didn't let the fermentation finish properly. Maybe the beer was continuing to ferment in the bottles and was creating a Tour-De-France Champagne explosion waiting to happen.

But ... but ... but ...

We had measured the gravity ...
We had measured the priming sugar ...
We had all the levels correct ...

And then ...

I opened four bottles of 70/- this weekend and all of them were flat. No bubbles, no head, nothing.
These bottles had not seen any priming sugar at all.

This was making me even more sad.
So I opened some Oatmeal Stout ... and as I did, one of these bottles exploded in my hands.

And then the next one was flat. And so was the next one.

There was a pattern developing, and it wasn't pretty.

So off I trudged to Carwyn Cellars to purchase a Saturday afternoon six-pack of IPAs. I spoke with Ben, a bit of a home-brew enthusiast, and explained the situation. He put us straight. We weren't stirring the beer enough before bottling. His word was enough for me.

So what to do? Open all the bottles and tip them down the sink? I had three more Oatmeal Stouts left. These were the last three home-brew beers I had.

Fuck it, I'll put them in the fridge.

The first one -- flat
The second one -- way too flat.

And then, a rainbow appeared through the dark clouds.

The final one. The last Home-brew beer in my house. I poured it, while downstairs in the cellar, contemplating the new Liberal Government.

And it was perfect! A deep, rich colour. A head about 2cm deep, that carried all the way down the glass. Delicious, deep, dark flavours.

There is hope.

Saturday 24 August -- A Big IPA Kinda Day

Today was the day to make another IPA. Not just any IPA, a bloody big IPA! An Imperial IPA!

It was a bit of a tricky day at times, but mostly it was very successful. Every problem is not really a problem. It's an obstacle to overcome. So, because of the day we had, we thought we might call this beer "The Hopstacle Course". Or "The Hopstical Course" because the word looks like Hospital and there was a very good chance that one of us could have ended up there today. Maybe "The Hopsticle Course". 

I dunno!

So, the first step always is to work out who makes the trek over to Grain and Grape in Yarraville on the Saturday morning. I think it took the three of us all week to negotiate that, but Chris offered to do it because he is the best bloody bloke in the world and has magnificent hair.

Getting there, it was soon discovered that we had placed the order incorrectly. A decimal point is very important, but thankfully, the blokes at Grain and Grape were happy to correct our mistake and mill the right amount of grain for us.

Here's what we ordered:

• 24.35 KG of Pale Malt
• 2.05 KG of Chocolate Wheat Malt

That's a heap of grain. The more malt we have, the more sugar will be produced, there more alcohol we will have. That's probably wrong, but hey, we ain't no scientists. We just want a big beer. This one should be 7.7% alcohol content. Fun times ahead.

Our other mission was to increase the hoppiness of our beer. As much as we enjoyed IPA A and IPA B, we found that there wasn't a lot of hop to it. This time, we went bananas with our hop purchases. 

Here are the hops we ordered:

• 80g of Warrior
• 80g of Chinook
• 120g of Simcoe
• 160g of Columbus
• 120g of Centennial

A lot of that was used during the boil, but we've held some back to try some dry-hopping for the first time. 

So, the other problems we hit today were:

• We couldn't find the silicone tube to move the boiling wort to the cubes. Michael had to drive back to Grain and Grape to buy another one. Poor bloke was gone for almost an hour and a half.
• As we started to tip the grain in, it became apparent we had almost bought too much. It just fit into the pot, but only just.
• Then, we had to try to lift the mash out. Check out how we eventually solved that problem.
• Some of the 70/- bottles had exploded in the priming fridge. This makes us sad.

But mainly we had a successful day, and finished with a couple of tasty pints at The Raccoon Club.

Arriving at Grain and Grape at 9am. Time to buy a sausage and try two beers they had on sampling.

A whole lotta hops on the counter there. I'm waiting for them to mill our grain.

Three bags of grain are pretty heavy, so I need a shopping trolley.

Always good to have a few beers to drink for the drive back to Reservoir .

Disaster!! Two bottles of the 70/- have exploded. Why?

Maybe the bottles were old and weak. Actually, what is more likely is that our attempt at adding more sugar to get more carbonation has had dire results.

We cleaned it up. The lids are still on the broken bottle necks

We got the water to about 77 degrees. We need to keep it at 68 degrees during the mash.

Malt in. Look how full the pot is!

Hi Lucy

Lid on, and doona on. We dragged those two immersion heaters out once we got the temperature back to 68 degrees. The mash kept steady at 68 degrees for 90 minutes.

Lid off after 90 minutes

Ben is rigging up the new pulley system. Hope it works.

That bag looks pretty full. Will that tiny rope hold it?

On guard!

I don't even know what this is?

We tied it off.

And started to lift but it was too heavy.

So we moved the car in ...

 ... to try to tie the rope to the car

Dukes of Hazard style.

Hold it steady.

But it still wouldn't work.

I can't see how this is going to work at all ...

unless ...

... we hook up another line to the car ...

with a double line

and get in the car

and grab a beer

and back the car out slowly

Success!!

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO HERE

It's out!!

Tie another line to keep it steady and safe and let it drip for a while.

Let's go and have some lunch.

Ben cooked us Black Angus Eye fillet. These steaks were huge.

So was this beer

Back in the shed to weigh out all the hops

And label them to make sure they all go in at the right times.

Oh and Lucy made us some brownies. We love Lucy!

We got the boil going.

and gave it a stir with Mulesy's paddle

Finally, we filled 3 cubes. Well, almost three.

Hooray for beer! The next plan is to get the fermenter on and to think about dry-hopping this brew. We want hops and we want them to be big and bold and beautiful. We'll let you all know how we go with that. When it's ready, you all should totally come over for a beer.