Devilspeak Brewery

From Southyeasters

[edit] 2007 The Start

[edit] The First Brew

August 2007

The wife bought a kit for Christmas. It took a while for the brewer to get his act going (18 months in fact). The kit was in the kitchen cupboard for all that time!

The first brew was made from a Coopers Ale kit. To this 1.5 kg of NFP malt was added. Boiled in the largest pot to be found in the house. Cooled as per instructions. On re-hydrating the yeast nothing happened. Rushed off to A White to get some more. This batch at least did something and it was added to the wort which went into a plastic fermentation bucket. After 3 days of nothing happening, some Boston Yeast was added. Activity! The brew was in the fermentation bucket for 3 weeks. Bottled with extra sugar and tasted after 3 weeks. Result: Very dark red in colour. Taste is sweet, but not too bitter. Not very fizzy. We were very surprised that it was actually drinkable.

[edit] Ale-Oween 2007

October 2007

The brew was taken to the South Yeasters Ale-Oween Festival held in October 2007. It was presented under the name of Limbo If you drink too much you either end up doing the limbo or somewhere in oblivion. As the label says, there is some alcohol. We don't have a hydrometer yet.

[edit] A small house

If you have a small house it takes a bit of innovation to brew especially if you're also renovating.

The next brew was a stout kit. Fermentation of this brew was considerably better than the first attempt. The kitchen walls can confirm that the yeast was very active. Luckily the wife likes stout.

Making stout:

December 2007

Boiling the wort

Hot break or just foam?

Crushing some black patent malt

The black malt was steeped in the wort in a special malt bag - made of some netting found in the house. The picture actually shows the grain bag after the fact. There is still a lot of colour coming out of the grain.