home brewed ale

home is chris' at fraser crescent in wantirna south. on my last trip to australia in july, when i visited chris, i noticed that he had many empty bottles and bottle caps. i asked del if chris was into collecting bottle caps. she told me that those were part of the equipment for his home-brewing hobby.

when i went with ivy to ballarat for her internship interview, i came across this shop selling cans of malt needed for home-brewing. i decided to get a can for chris.

this visit, i got to taste the beer - actually, it's ale - that chris brewed. the method that chris used to make his beer/ale is known as kit and kilo brewing. the hopped liquid malt extract, when reconstituted with water, produces wort.

to brew beer at home, you need a fermenter. you need to monitor the temperature as fermentation activity will stop if the temperature drops too low. you also need to use a hydrometer to check if the wort is fully fermented before bottling.

from the 1.8kg can of malt, chris was able to get 60 bottles of beer.