Hamsterbrau is back!

This February, my sister-in-law kindly gave me The Beer Machine - a brewing kit to make delicious foamy beer in the comfort of your home.

I made two batches with this machine and although I didn't get the science quite right, the first match was utterly delicious (if a bit cloudy.)

The major problem I ran into was getting the brew cold enough for the all important 'chill filtering' which turns your cloudy beer into delicious, amber nectar.

In the run up to Christmas, it's time to try again. Tina gave me my Christmas present early so we'd (in theory) have delicious beer to share come Christmas morning (the breakfast of champions.)

So Operation Hamsterbrau was back in the running.


Why Hamsterbrau, you might ask.

Well, for almost three years, atop the corner cupboard in our living room was a mighty monstrosity know as Hamstopolis. This was home to our loving hamster Poppit.

Her passing away coincided with the arrival of the Beer Machine and since it looked quite similar to Poppit's plastic home, I thought it was a fitting tribute to name the beer after her.

And I'm a sucker for tradition...

So last night, I set up the brewery again and got to work (Tina pointed out that the fermenting beer, which is very much alive, is a pet in itself, so I should stop bitching about getting a puppy.)

The Beer Machine is an awesome bit of kit. Although it's scoffed at by more traditional home brewers, it produces delicious results in about ten days and the beer itself is a lot closer to the lagers and pale ales louts like me like to quaff.

I like it transparent, I like it cold and I like it fizzy. Hops heated in a bathtub and fermented in a barrel tend to be that lukewarm, bitter glub that has earned us Brits such a bad beer reputation from around the world.

The first step is to totally sanitise and assemble the Beer Machine itself. This isn't as easy as it looks. In order to assemble the two halves of the 'keg,' it's necessary to fit a rubber seal that is pretty inflexible unless you soak it in boiling hot water first.

Once the keg's assembled, you need to rinse it out with bleach and water (not washing up liquid) and then run water through the entire assembly until it's sterile and ready for action.

Surprisingly, the manufacturers of The Beer Machine recommend brewing with chlorinated tap water, rather than spring. This is because the chlorine ensures the water is sterile before the brewing begins.

I might try with spring water with my second batch, but for the first brew of Golden American Lager, I followed the instructions to the letter.

You add the 'beer mix' to about three gallons of water and then top it off with yeast. Finally, you seal the entire unit and leave it at room temperature (about 70 degrees) for three to five days for the initial fermentation to begin.

There's a little gauge on the top of The Beer Machine which shows you how the pressure is in the keg. As the fermentation takes place, the yeast generates CO2 (the stuff that makes beer fizzy) and you can see the gauge slowly climb.

After a quick taste test (sweet beer indicates the process isn't quite complete) the whole operation needs to be moved to the refrigerator, where the 'cold fermentation' will chill filter your beer and turn it from cloudy gunk into crystal clear, amber nectar.

This is what I got wrong in England - British fridges are simply not big enough. Fortunately our American monstrosity is large enough to contain the beer machine and the rest of our weekly shopping.

If it's not cold enough, the beer's still drinkable. It's just not that beautiful, clear amber colour that we lager louts like to quaff.

In any event, the process was begun last night and Poppitstein Hamsterbrau is undergoing it's initial fermentation. On Sunday night, she'll be moved to the fridge and then, give or take a few days, the delicious brew will be ready for Christmas.

If chilled and properly pressurized, the beer itself lasts a whopping three months... In theory. It's very doubtful it'll last that long with me anywhere near.

Stand by for further news.

The Beer Machine: Brewing your own beer...

A short while ago, D-Mo the production guru gave me Brewzer - a small brewing kit to produce home-brewed beer.

It took 20 days and the final product was pretty damn good - a standard English bitter served room temperature, with no carbonation.

Unfortunately, that batch got ruined when Tina decided to do a bit of furniture moving and poured the contents of the brewery (which my brother said looked like a bong) into bottles. Sediment and all. Like real ale, the slightest disturbance makes the beer cloudy and basically ruins it. We ended with four litres of cloudy gunk.

But the brewing bug had bit me - and recently Natalie, my sister in law, gave us the most amazing gift: The Beer Machine.

The Beer Machine takes home brewing to an entirely new level. A sealed unit, it allows you to brew top-notch quality beer, carbonated and malty just like the top quality American micro brews. And make no mistake - Germany had better be on the lookout for the outstanding micro brews coming out of the USA. Their national brew might be Budweiser (or, as the European Union has demanded it be called, Bud) but they make some fantastic beers.

The Beer Machine looks like a Rotostack, to be honest, so it was a fitting tribute to Hamster than her little house was replaced with a similar looking bit of kit. Included in the Beer Machine kit Natalie had sent us was a back of Red Canadian Lager beer mix and yeast, which we decided would be called Hamsterbrau when it was ready.

It's very simple to do.

First off, you have to assemble the machine. It's tougher than it looks, because you have to make sure all the rubber seals and gaskets are airtight, by filling it up with water and then carbonating it.

Afterwards, the machine is bleached and rinsed and the beer mix is sloshed in. Finally, the yeast is added and the whole thing is sealed up.

For the next five to seven days, the beer machine lived in our living room. Inside the plastic casing, the yeast got to work fermenting my malty hops and creating our beer.

This is where it starts to get a bit difficult.

Because once the beer has fermented, it needs to be chilled. This caused a few mistakes on my part - not least of which was not having a fridge big enough for the Beer Machine!

After five days, I moved the machine out to the back yard, which was cold enough to be a fridge (in theory.) I left the Hamsterbrau for the end of the official cycle and five days later, sampled it.

Bleugh. The beer was horrible. Worse than that, it was cloudy and smelt rank.

I was heartbroken, because I figured I'd done something wrong and ruined the entire batch. But after doing lots of research, I discovered that my mistake had been chilling the beer before the fermentation cycle was entirely finished. That's why the beer tasted sickly sweet.

I popped Hamsterbrau back inside for another 48 hours and something miraculous happened. The sickly sweet beer turned into a robust, hoppy nectar.

It was still totally cloudy, but it tasted great. So I popped it outside again to chill and hopefully clear. But it didn't.

Nope, the beer wasn't cold enough, so despite it being delicious, Hamsterbrau needed to chill to hopefully develop that crystal clarity that makes less rodenty beers so appealing.

The problem was, we didn't have a fridge big enough.

Sarcastically, I said to Tina: "Listen, we have to take EVERYTHING out of our fridge so I can put the beer in it to chill."

And without batting an eyelid, she said: "Sure."

So that confirmed two things. Firstly, that Tina is the coolest and most understanding wife a Brewmiester like me could have. And, secondly, that half of the shit in your fridge you don't really need. We discovered Mozzarella that looked more like Gorgonzola.

And this is what the fridge looks like now: