11-04-2005, 05:49 AM
I have been brewing beer the usual way - with a primary fermenter and then racking into a secondary fermenter - total brewing time, about 3 weeks to 4 weeks on the average. I have attempted beer brewing with EZ Caps with limited success, here's the recipe for EZ Ale: Liquid Malt Extract - available in your local brew store or health food store under sweeteners. Its actually liquid barley extract, concentrated into a thick syrup. Use 500gm. Rice Maltose - usually available in oriental supermarkets or health food store. This is also a thick swee syrup made from brown rice. Use 300gm. Honey - any regular honey will do, use 300gm. Hops - available in pellets, plugs or whole hop flowers, personally I use whole flowers, just personal preference, any of the above choice is workable. There are many choices of hops available from your local brew store, in this recipe Cascade is fine. Use total 20gm. (10gm during boil for bittering, 10gm in last 15 minutes of boil for hop flavoring) Yeast - I used yeast harvested from a commercial bottle of ale. You may also get it from your local brew store, a packet of dry yeast is enough. Before you start the brewing, rehydrate your yeast, follow instructions here: http://www.geocities.com/lesjudith/HomeB...ps.htmland go to Yeast Re-Hydration, use a table spoon of the liquid barley extract to proof the yeast. Bottling equipment: EZ Caps (6 will do), 6 large sanitized PET bottles (used 2 litre soda PET bottles is good). The boil: In a large pot, boil 3 litres of clean water. (I filtered mine to remove all traces of chlorine, personal preference)When water starts to boil, add 10 gm of hop into the boil. Boil for 20 minutes, remove from heat.Add all above ingredients, except the last 10 gm of hops.Stir to dissolve the ingredients.Bring to boil again for another 15 minutes and then add the remaining 10gm of hops for another 15 minutes. Then remove from heat.Allow to cool to between 18*C to 20*C, do this as quickly as possible. I usually use a larger shallow pan filled with ice cold water and place the pot of wort (yes, that's what it's called before it is fermented and becomes beer) into the shallow pan, this chills the wort quickly, several changes of cold water may be required before you reach desired temperature.Alternatively, you may pre-chill 4 litres of water to very cold temperature and add it into the hot wort to rapidly bring down the temperature.Make sure you have a thermometer handy to check that it is within the 18*C ~ 20*C range, then pitch in the re-hydrated yeast, which should be now be churning and bubbling.Stir vigorously to encourage oxygenation (yeast loves this).Use a pre-sanitized funnel and bottle the yeast enriched wort, fill until about 80% of the bottle, seal it with EZ Cap. (Fill only 80% to allow wort to ferment and form krausen, a gooey foamy layer formed). Fill all bottles as before. Next store in a dark area, a box will be nice, as light is enemy of yeast., will give your beer off-flavor! Allow to ferment for a week. Chill and enjoy. To make your beerORGINAL POSTER: patrick