 
This is an introduction to brewing a kit
beer this is going to just take you
through the basics of how to make a kit beer of Coopers for example it's just
so that you get the general gist if you
haven't home brewed before get the general
gist of what you need to do and what the
process will be when you first come to
brewery your very first kit beer it
applies to most kit beers although some
may have additions like dry hops or
sugar this particular one we just have
sugar as an addition so we need
one kilogram of sugar and our kit beer
again this is the very basic of what you
need for this one so take the top off and
underneath, right, underneath you've got
your yeast which is enough yeast to make
23 litre batch which is what this will
make the instructions for all the
Coopers are actually on the other side
of the label so if my colleague would
like to just come in so you can see it
will just say peel here okay so there
we go
just use a knife just to peel it off so
these are your instructions and they'll
take you through the process step by
step. All the equipment that you're using
needs to be sterilised or sanitised I've done
this with Brew Safe
sanitiser this is a no rinse sanitiser
so it saves you time it's
fantastic and it's available on our
website Home Brew Online and the first steps
with this one is to mix the basic
ingredients with two litres of hot water
so we have 1 kilogram of brewing sugar
and the malt extract everything I'm
using here, apart from the tin opener, is available on
our website Home Brew Online. I'll pop a
link in the description at the bottom
and then if you click on that from there you
can navigate to starter kits or
equipment whatever you need to start
brewing but there's lots on there to
help beginners just start on the home
brewing journey as it were so just make
sure everything's sanitised before
starting which is crucial just to make
sure that nothing gets contaminated and
you have a good brew at the end.
Pour the malt extract into your 2 litres
of water and as you're doing this
process you're aiming for a temperature
between 18 and 24 degrees which is a
good fermenting temperature you can 
put this tin in some hot water
beforehand for about 10 minutes just to
loosen up the malt extract in there what
you can also do is pop some hot water into the can
and it just loosens up all the rest of
the extract that's in there as you can
see so all that in there add your sugar and it's one kilogram of
sugar then once the sugar is in you've got your two litres of water and if my camera man would like to come in and have a look that's how it looks and then with a
paddle give it a good stir this is
making sure that everything is stirred
into the liquid and that you're
dissolving those sugars into the liquid
and then as you start topping it up to
23 litres it just makes it easier as you're
not having to stir a huge amount of liquid this also
helps to get oxygen into your brew which
will help the yeast have a healthy
ferment. Here we've got the stick on thermometer
which tells you the temperature this is really handy to have and it
comes with all our starter equipment
packs and so as you're topping up the
liquid to the 23 litre mark you can
monitor your temperature because again
you're aiming to pitch your yeast at
between 18 and 24 degrees good
temperature for fermentation so I've
added 2 litres of hot water in here and
now I'm going to add some cold water and
just mix it up as I go along making sure
that I keep the temperature between 18 and
24 at the moment both 20 and 22 degrees is highlighted. So I know that I'm okay.
 If you did go above 27 degrees
you would just have to wait for the wort
to cool down because it
would just be a risk that if you pitch
the yeast at a high temperature it would
kill it so just make sure 18 to 24 is
the ideal range. So with the Cooper's I
thought I'd just mentioned just to
avoid any confusion on the instructions
it does say that you can pitch the yeast
between 21 and 27 however we've just
found that over the years of brewing
myself and everyone else who brews here
that 18 to 24 is a good temperature
range to aim for. It's topped up to 23
litres and the temperature is 22 degrees
which is ideal for the pitching the yeast
before you do that I recommend that you
take a hydrometer reading now that can
be done in a trial jar like I've done
here
or if you thoroughly sanitise or
sterilise the hydrometer it can be put
directly in the brew but you just need
to make sure it's thoroughly clean so
you're not introducing any contaminants
into the brew
now with the hydrometer what it's doing
is measuring the amount of sugar that's
in the liquid so as your brew ferments the hydrometer will start to sit lower
in the liquid so if you're ever
concerned that it isn't fermenting
you can take a hydrometer reading
see how that's changed from your start
reading and if it's gone down you know
it's fermenting so it's always a good
idea to take a start what's called a
gravity reading so if my colleague would
like
come in thank you very much as you can
see there it's at around 1.040 which is a
great starting point for this Cooper's
lager so now I just need to add the
yeast and the yeast you just need to
sprinkle it on top you don't need to stir it in that's fine so again if my colleague would like to come in and then you
can see so just sprinkle it like so on
top there that's it and then if you'd
like to go back thank you very much
have I come back into focus? 'You have' good so
now you just need to pop the lid on
make sure it's sealed and then I haven't
filled it well what I'll do is I'll just
go and fill this with water
okay so just filled the airlock to the nub here with water so this is a smart
airlock it's available on the website
good piece of equipment and what it does
is it allows pop it in there it allows the
co2 out but doesn't let any oxygen in
because at the moment now you've got
oxygen in there which the yeast is going
to use to start a healthy ferment so as
 you are topping it up you can keep
giving it a stir which will make sure
that the sugars are dissolved and also
that you're getting some oxygen in there
as it gets to the top that gets a bit
more difficult but as long as you're stirring
 it you know as you're filling it to
around this point you're going to get
enough oxygen in there for a good
ferment so I'm using this vessel with a
tap just because it makes it easy to
take things like samples for trial
jars and when it comes to bottling which
I'll show you in the next video you can
attach a little bottler to that and it
just makes bottling the brew a lot faster
and easier so now this will ferment for
about seven days it will take that long
to ferment if you're keeping the temperature
between 18 and 24 however if you are
getting down to 18 it will slow down so
it's good to bear in mind that the
cooler the temperature the slower the
ferment is going to be and if you have a
hot temperature at the start say you're
over 24 you will have quite a vigorous
initial phase of fermentation but don't
worry about that that's fine you'll
still have a good brew at the end so the
important thing is
do try the ideal temperature for
fermentation is about 20 degrees but
don't worry if you do fluctuate because as I say
that 18 to 24 is a good temperature
range to aim for. So it will ferment
for about seven days and then once the
activity has slowed down and once that
seven days has been reached you need to
take a hydrometer reading and then a
couple of days later you need to take
you know after your first hydrometer
reading just leave it and a couple
of days later take another hydrometer
reading if they remain the same you know
it's stopped fermenting if they've
changed just leave it to ferment on
until both of those hydrometer readings
are the same so I hope you've enjoyed
watching this video there is going to be
a part two which will show you the
bottling process if you've got any
comments or any questions please just
ask them in the comments below if any of
you have any advice to give to any other
beginner home brewers again just pop it
in the comments at the bottom that'd be
great
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