The Cat's Studio

Equipment used:

drum, lid, o-ring, grommet, tap, airlock, scraper, plastic jug, plastic bucket, saucepan, knife or scissors, tongs, can opener, PE plastic hose.

Ingredients used:

beer concentrate with yeast sachet, sugar (0.5-1.5kg), Iodophor, 4 litres boiling and 20 litres cold water from the tap.

Sterilising the equipment

Dilute 2ml Iodophor with approximately a litre of cold water in a jug and pour the solution into the fermenter, add airlock, scraper and screw the lid on tight. Rinse the jug briefly with cold water. Make sure the tap of the fermenter is closed. Hold your thumb over the grommet for the airlock, lift the whole ferfermentermenter up and shake it thoroughly making sure the solution has covered all of the inside including lid and seal. Repeat to shake it two or three more times within the next ten minutes.

Grab a can of beer concentrate of your choice, remove the lid, yeast sachet, instruction booklet and strip off the paper wrapper if it has one. Submerge in hot or boiling water for the time the other equipment is being sterilized.

In the meantime bring about four litres of cold tap water to the boil. Do not use water from the hot water service as they usually do have a built in sacrificial anode which releases chemicals not good for your health. Avoid drinking or using it for food preparation and cooking where it will remain in the food or as a part of the meal, e.g. spaghetti water.

Open the fermenter, remove and rinse the airlock and scraper with cold water and store in the jug used to mix the bleach solution to keep it sterilised.
Discard the Iodophor solution and drain the fermenter. Rinse with cold water if you must.

Brewing the wort

Add the sugar to the fermenter and pour 3 1/2 litres of the boiling water over it keeping 1/2 a litre for rinsing the concentrate can. Swirl around until dissolved. Tilt the fermenter toward the tap to fill the inside of it preventing air being trapped. Return to upright position when bubbles stop rising from the tap.

Take can of beer concentrate out of hot water and open. In case of Cascade concentrate you are lucky because they have a ring-pull top. Pour contents into fermenter and scrape can out as much as possible. Pour remainder of hot water into can and dissolve the rest of concentrate stirring with the scraper. Add to the fermenter.
Stir contents of fermenter until thick concentrate is pretty much dissolved. Fill fermenter up to the required mark with cold water from the tap using the plastic hose or the saucepan.
Stir and check temperature. The "digital" thermometers on the outside of the fermenter can be way out. You should not add the yeast if the temperature is above 32 Celsius. It can kill the yeast. Low temperature only slows the brewing process temporarily but does not destroy the yeast. As soon as the temperature comes back to normal range the yeast will continue doing its thing.

Open yeast sachet and sprinkle yeast on top of wort. Some brands recommend stirring the yeast in others don't.
Instead of sprinkling the yeast over the top you can rehydrate the yeast in a liter of tepid water for 10 minutes and then pour it into the fermenter. If you are going to do that you must not fill the fermenter up to the mark with cold water. Top it up after you added the rehydrated yeast.
Screw on lid tightly and fit airlock into grommet. Fill with cold water to about a third.

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