Batch Four: The Day After (And Stuff I Want To Buy)

I haven't totally given up hope on the Cerveza (Author's note: such was my mistake). When I checked this morning and there seemed to be a beautiful thick, foamy layer of yeast at the top. I think my yeast starter did the trick, even though I'll have to be a bit more careful about measuring dry malt extract and water amounts this time. I could swear I put 3 metric cups of water to 3/4 cup of DME, but all I got was 400ml... where the hell did it all go? Also, it might be an idea to obtain (or crudely fashion) a stir plate.

One thing that I did yesterday - that I think was a good move - was to do a little 'pre-straining' while I waited for the wort to hit boil. After the mashing was done and I'd added LME and raw sugar (yeah dawg!!), I did a few scoops with a fine sieve to get the last few bits of grain.

Obviously it's something you want to do before you add the hops, otherwise you'll just end up scooping them out. Speaking of hops, I did something else interesting yesterday and time will tell if this bears fruit. When it was time to add the flavouring hops, I didn't just dump them ALL in at the 15 minute mark. I kind of 'staggered' it... some at 15, some at 14, some at 13 and so on. It's a little trick I heard about somewhere on the internet and I thought "Why the hell not?" Mother always said 'Try new things.'

I'm also going to purchase a siphon and - if I can find a big enough one - a bottling bucket. I might as well try the whole 'batch carbonation thing and see how that tickles me. As an aside, it'll be a chance to decant it and remove a little sediment before bottling. But the important things I need (that will have to wait until I've got a bit more money) are the mash tun and some sort of gas cooker. If I could pony up the dough, a wort chiller would be great too.

Until then, I'm stuck with whatever I can boil in a 15L stockpot. Come to think of it, it might be a great chance to try out new recipes on a smaller scale (and on the cheap!). But if I do, I might as well go all-grain, because it's gonna be a pain in the arse to use half a can of malt, then seal it.