Making 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs Kit – Part 2

Step 5 - The Wait 

To be honest, this was the bit I was dreading more than any other. Waiting is boring. Whenever I have to wait for anything, I feel every second of my life slipping irretrievably away. I sense my chromosomal telomeres getting shorter and shorter. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

Four to six days until fermentation stops. I could get run over by a bus in that time. Funny how rogue buses play such an important role in not only reflections on one’s mortality but also corporate risk management modelling.

So, after putting the vessel into the garage I wait.

A couple of hours later, I go to check on it.

Hmmm... we’ve had some sort of a problem. The lid has been blasted off the airlock and I can smell pub carpet. I clean it up and put everything back.

Over the next 48 hours, this happens several times – on one occasion, propelling the lid of the airlock a good six feet away. Alas, I didn’t see it happen.

Eventually, I get things under control so that the airlock is bubbling away gently without spurting foam out.

Here comes the science bit. And by “science” I mean “what I think happened”.

What I think was happening was that my wort was too hot – meaning that it was fermenting very quickly, belching out big gouts of CO2. These were generating foam on the top of the wort. Instead of the gas escaping the airlock fairly smoothly, foam was building up under pressure until – BLEEERRRRP! – it overwhelmed the friction holding the top part of the airlock on and burst out.

The reason you need an airlock is to let the CO2 - a by-product of fermentation - out without letting air – a vector for microbes, flies, cat hair etc – in. If bad shit like that gets in, it can spoil your beer.

Anyway, by the end of waiting day 2, order had been restored.

A Short Digression While We Wait

What is Woodforde’s Wherry, you may well ask?

It is beer from Norfolk – whence my brother and sister-in-law come, which is why I am making it (it was they who got me the kit). I have drunk it before, but I can’t really remember what it was like.

Woodforde’s chief brewer says it is:

Fresh and zesty with crisp floral flavours. A background of sweet malt and a hoppy 'grapefruit' bitter finish characterises this champion bitter.

Their website says:

Light but full of flavour and with a delicious citrus aftertaste. Great with Norfolk Ham and Turkey or on its own.

To that, I say “hmmm...we’ll see.”

I should also add Woodforde’s home town of Woodbastick to my list of amusing English place names.

Making 40 Pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs Kit – Part 1

I like beer. The worst thing about beer is having to pay for it. Therefore, home brew.

In a change to the usual schedule, I will be taking you through the process of making the eponymous 40 pints of Woodforde’s Wherry with a Youngs home brew kit, step by step.

You see, I am trying to make the internet a better place after all.

See here for the story of how this kit came into my sweaty little hands.

Here are the things we’ll be using today.

Step 1 – Sterilisation

This is something I know all about.

So you have to fill the 5 gallon container with hot water and a couple of teaspoons of the steriliser per gallon. 

 I put 10 teaspoons in. It foams up like a bubble bath and smells like swimming pool.

I did this in the bath, knowing that 5 gallons of hot water is quite heavy.

You leave it for 20 minutes. I put the lid and the airlock pieces in as well. I should really have put the spoon in, I realised an hour later...


 Step 2 – Meanwhile downstairs...

The beer mixture (or whatever it’s called) is in two big cans. You are supposed to stand these in hot water for 5 minutes.

At the same time, I boiled up the requisite 3.5 litres of water on the hob.

While this was going on, I went to the garage to fetch Roger Jr’s micro scooter in. Why? Aha.


I went back upstairs, rinsed the primary fermentation vessel (for that is what it is called) out – finding that the lid had bent a little bit in the hot water. It still went on just fine, so I didn’t worry about it.

Step 3 – The Wort

That’s a beer word, ladies and gentlemen. It means the foul stinking liquid that turns into beer

So I opens the tins. I mean, I open the tins. I am not Popeye.

I opens the tins – discovering that despite having every kitchen implement imaginable, we do not have a decent tin opener. I am forced to prise the lids off with a knife. Just a bit.

This is what beer cordial looks like.

I pours it...I pour it into the vessel. You know what I did then? I put the vessel onto the micro-scooter! That is the sort of foresight that lead our ancestors to make fire. I have justified my human status.

I knew full well that attempting to carry a bucket with 5 gallons of wort in it out to the garage – the only place Elvira will allow me to conduct chemistry experiments – would result in considerable sloppage unless I used the power of wheels.

.

So, in goes the 3.5 litres of boiling water, followed by another...erm...20 odd litres of cold water, as prescribed by the highly comprehensive instructions provided.

I stir it until foul sludge stops coming up on the spoon.

My toe is also visible

Now for the magic ingredient. Yeast.

In goes the yeast. Stir it in.

On goes the lid.

A little bit of water in the airlock, so that I can see bubbles of CO2 coming out as it ferments.

I feel obliged to point out that nowhere in the instructions provided is it explained what the hell you are supposed to do with the airlock. I had to look it up on the internet.

Airlock

Step 4 – In Transit

The scooter is a piece of genius. Out we go to the garage – the new fortress of solitude.

Up it goes onto a shelf and I wraps a coat around it to keep it warm. It needs to stay at around 18 to 20 degrees Celsius for 4 to 6 days.

Then I go in and do the washing up, like a good boy.

Conclusion

Well, it took me less than a hour and it all seems to be working – the brew had started to bubble when checked. My assessment:

• One side of instructions for something that you will almost certainly ruin if you don’t do it very carefully is not good enough Youngs.
• I forgot to sterilise the spoon.
• I used too much steriliser on the bucket and now I don’t have enough left to do the pressure barrel when it comes to part 2. I’ll have to go and buy some extra.

Overall: easy, although it may yet all prove to be a complete balls-up.

Now We Are Three

It is three years on Tuesday since I started writing this blog.

Looking back, I see that I used to write a lot more serious social and political stuff - “a lot more serious” by own standards, I mean. I honestly don’t have opinions on many of the sorts of news events I used to comment on. It’s not that I don’t care... well, actually it is.

I feel like “the world” one sees through the mediation of the media (that’s what it does – hence the name) as opposed to what I see through my own eyes is too nauseating to think very hard about.

Another riot? Another massacre? More corruption? Impending doom? Meh.

What good is another opinion, echoing something someone has already said? What could I add to any debate?

Knowledge isn’t power – knowing just makes you realise how powerless you are.

Where’s the point of satire when reality is already beyond parody or is just so awful that to make a joke of it would be sickening?

And so I have written more and more about my life and my own perspective, throwing in a regular bit of bathos to make it amusing. Every time.

What am I doing this for? For the same 40 or so of you – for which I am very grateful, I might add – to carry on reading it week after week?

In the words of Emo Philips (who my wife hates, but who I think is a genius):

Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

Makes you proud to be British

Hot on the heels of the “racist vans” telling illegal immigrants to go home, our government has today deployed troops of paramilitaries at transport hubs across the country to round up anyone non-white.

The SS-wannabes in question are the UK Border Agency, not – please take note – the police.

And they do not have the authority to do what they are doing by law. 

You should read this, which cites, chapter and verse, what the powers of immigration officers are and makes it very clear that racial profiling just anybody they don’t like the look of on the streets ain’t one of them.

Yes, illegal immigrants should not be in the country, and yes, action to deter illegal immigration is necessary. But this is state terrorism, unsanctioned by law.

A lot of people think this sort of shit is ok because they don’t like illegal immigrants. It’s not – and I remind you of the words of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

The photo came from here.