Take 2 Teaspoons of Cement

After Jake’s birthday we stumbled into Dave’s Homebrew shop in Nth Sydney for supplies as we have plenty of empty bottles to fill. Our collective hangover did not help the large selection but Dave was understanding and helped us make sure we used the right lager yeast that works better at lower temperatures.

Loaded up with raw materials, we decided our next brew should be an Asahi type dry Japanese beer. This mix came from Brewcraft and had more ingredients than the previous brews we have done:

• can of Beermakers Lager extract
• Gemdex #10 (dextrose mix)
• 500g Japanese Blonde malt jar
• 12g Saaz & 12g Hallertau hop pellets (in a ‘teabag’)
• Saflager Yeast S-23

We followed the instructions precisely - dissolving the can and Gemdex in 2L hot water, letting the hops sit in 300mL boiled water for 15min (the teabags fell apart when we strained so a bit of hops got in the brew). Filled to 22L and the temperature was 25C to start. We added the yeast and dry enzyme and left it downstairs in the cool basement, with a blanket around it.

Today Mark took the blanket off as the temperature was still over 21C and apparently this “Saflager yeast produces its best flavours under 18 degrees”.

Initial SG was 1046. We took a little sip of the brew from the SG reading yard glass we use, and… oh my it was sweet as. I’m hoping this could be our best one yet.

Since it’s a lower temperature, we will let this ferment for 1.5-2weeks instead of the usual one week to make sure primary fermentation finishes.

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