Nelsons Revenge.

I could wait no more.  It had been almost two weeks (1 week and 4 days to be exact, but who's counting?) since I had bottled up the latest addition to my brewing repertoire - "Nelsons Revenge".  As you may know, my last attempt at brewing ended up with the creation of a rather effervescent, but impotent brew with little flavour or alcohol content.  I had it already set in my mind, that if this particular tipple also failed to deliver then I would hang up my fermenter and racking cane for good.

I removed the hallowed object from our outside pantry, in a manner not unlike Harrison Ford stowing some archaeological treasure into a leather knapsack - the anticipation of the golden contents too much to contemplate.  The beads of sweat gathered on my brow as I carefully pried open the green cap that protected the nectar inside from the external elements.  In all honesty I was expecting to be writing about my second "epic fail" today.

With much gusto I slugged down the first dramatic draught of ale and found to my glee and amazement a perky hoppy-ness erupting on my tongue cohabiting with the reassuring sense of something alcoholic going down the back of my throat.  It was a malty brew, with an intense bitterness that I was hoping for, coupled with a neat 5.0% ABV confirmed by my hydrometer.

It is only 11am in the morning, so I will resist the temptation to pop another bottle at this hour.  Tonight though, in celebration of the start of the Euro 2012 football championship I will sit back and revel in the delight that I am drinking a delicious ale, that was my brewed by my fair hand.

Racking and bottling.

My "Nelsons Revenge" finally stopped bubbling yesterday afternoon after 5 dutiful days in the outside toilet.  The fermenter had an encouraging "mat" of yeast at the bottom and when I unplugged the airlock I got a wonderful whiff of fresh beer, carbon dioxide and depleted yeast.  It was ready for bottling!

Racking the beer out of a fermenter can be a long and arduous process.  Bottles needs to be rinsed, cleaned and then disinfected, as does the racking cane itself, the bottle tops and anything else than comes into contact with the hallowed liquid.  This took me an hour in itself.

Since the weather was so nice I set my little brewing factory out in the garden.  My 4 year old could not resist helping, so he got the job of spooning in half a teaspoon of caster sugar.  This is added to encourage a second fermentation in the bottle, which catalyzes a little extra fizz.

Beer Factory

It took us a further hour or so to fill and cap 40 bottles of amber nectar.  This is a monotonous procedure and rather akin to wrapping up Christmas presents - i.e it's boring, but you can't wait to get at what is inside.

My last batch of beer was very disappointing - it had little flavour or bitterness and to my rather expert opinion it was hugely lacking in the booze department.  I really hope these problems do not exhibit themselves in this particular brew as I think I am ready to down tools if it happens again.  You cannot imagine the despair of waiting 3 weeks to discover your beer has as much flavour as a 39p bottle of Tesco shandy.

A right bevvy of beauties

I now must wait for around 2 weeks for the beer to clear a bit, and for the secondary fermentation to halt.  That's good news though as I'm trying to stop drinking Monday - Thursday.  Too many summers of too much beer and too little exercise have conspired to expand my considerable girth.  It is time to sort out my gut.

On the brew...

Two blogs in one day I hear you cry?  Yes, indeed, a double-whammy.  The inspiration for this second dose was motivated by the necessity to inform you of a new arrival in our house!  That's right, we have a new baby.  Well, I do anyway.  It's called Nelson's Revenge and hopefully it will aspire to the dizzying heights of 5.0% ABV.

I broke out the brewing products, cleaned my barrels and pipes and prepared the outhouse for 6 days of sincere, unadulterated fermentation.

Actually, in truth, I wasn't expecting anything to happen.  This kit had been lingering in the store cupboard for about 18 months, but I can attest to the yeasts activity.  I took a little movie:

I now need to stay patient and try to keep my extremely curious kids from breaking into the outside toilet and drinking my homebrew.  The latter will be more difficult to maintain.

I shall keep you updated as to how this brewing voyage transpires over the next 2 to 3 weeks.