The Coopers English Bitter I just brewed is the third and final beer that I brought back to Taiwan from my trip to Singapore. I have been steadily working my way through my IPA supply and I'm sad to see that I only have five bottles left. But, I have shared this one a lot more than my other beers in part because I've had more occasions to do so, and also because I'm proudest of this one; it's the clearest, cleanest beer, tastiest beer I've brewed yet.

Not that I'm bragging. (I am).

Anyway, I was doing some math the other day and it occurred to me that I didn't have to wait until my IPA was entirely gone to brew my next batch of beer. In the past I've had to wait because I only had enough gear to bottle and drink one brew at a time. But over the last few months I've been steadily collecting Grolsch swingtop bottles and I've got about 35 of them now. Score! Cheers to Uzo in downtown Taichung for setting aside a whole bunch and donating them to my brewing adventures.

The recipe:

1.7kg can Coopers English Bitter
500g Coopers Light Dry Malt
1 tsp Wyeast nutrient blend

For the EB I made a fresh batch of sanitizer because I'm super paranoid about sanitation and put on some of my favorite tunes and got everything ready to go. While my ME can heated I couldn't help but grin when remembering the frenzied-smie-panic I'd felt while I brewed my very first batch of beer. I'd come pretty far since then. Three successful beers and four wines under my belt with plans to try out some mead/melomel in the near future.

This is a pretty common story with home brewers, I think. Things start out simple enough, but then the gear accumulates, experience becomes confidence, ideas for new projects keep coming, research turns into knowledge...

Good stuff.

Once I had my water heated I mixed it with my ME can, tasting the EB syrup before dumping it all in and then rinsing out the can. It's important to rinse your ME can and add this is as the liquid malt syrupI made a silly face, didn't I? is very concentrated and every bit you can get into your brew will help. The tasting of the ME syrup is one of my favorite parts of the brewing process. Tasting the very origins of my future beer has become part of the ritual for me and the sticky bitterness of this can was simply delicious.

This time, when adding my dry malt I did it a little bit at a time while stirring like a motherfucker. As I wrote in my IPA post, DME clumps up a lot once it makes contact with the water. Stirring vigorously while adding it gradually keeps the bigger clumps from forming and gets the smaller ones to dissolve more quickly. It also helps to add a touch more boiling water at this point to get it all dissolved.

Before I started brewing I put my 5 gallon water bottle in a big tub of ice water to chill for a couple hours. The last few beers I had brewed came out successfully, but I was still pitching in the mid to high 20's C, and I wanted to bring that initial temperature lower for the EB if I could.

Once I got the fermenter into the closet I got the water out of the tub. The water around the bottle was damn cold and I was optimistic that I'd have a nice pitching temp for my yeast. These bottles normally fit right onto my water dispenser and have a little plug on top to facilitate that. You'll see why I mention this now. Trust me.

I sanitized the top of the bottle with some star-san spray and then punched the little plug down into the bottle. After 15 seconds of watching the water trickle out a little at a time I put the bottle back down. At that rate I'd have the bottle emptied some time around Christmas, if I could hold it up that long.

No fun.

So, I peeled off the rest of the seal to get the entire neck opened up. Again I hefted the bottle and emptied it in less than a minute. Much more expedient.

Except that right as I tipped the bottle to get the last of the water out I saw the plug plunge over the lip and plop right into my wort.

"Fuck!" I said.

The now empty water bottle forgotten, I grabbed my spoon and tried to stir and scoop the plug out of the foamy wort. No dice.

"Fuck!" I said, again.

I ran into the kitchen and sawed the bottom off of a water bottle with my utility razor and sanitized it. Then I was back at the closet scooping and pouring the wort in search of that goddamn plug. Nothing.

I had to get it out of the wort for the obvious reasons I wouldn't want a rogue piece of plastic floating around in my fermenter.

I tugged my shirt over my head and grabbed my spray bottle of star-san and hosed down my left arm. This time I meant business.

Even though the thermometer of the side of my fermenter showed 26 C, it felt a lot cooler than that with my arm submerged nearly to the shoulder. After nearly two minutes of fishing around I had almost given up hope. But then something brushed my wrist and I froze, spiraling my hand up from the bottom before finally closing my fist around that little plastic bastard.

"Yes!" I said. "YES! YES! HAHA!" I cheered, and then skipped into the bathroom to rinse my arm off.

In retrospect I didn't really need to be all that concerned as I had sanitized the plug before knocking it inside the bottle, which should have been a clean environment anyway. Can't be too careful though, I suppose. Maybe I'll call this my Yardarm Bitter.

Har har.

Now shirtless, but happy, I stirred the wort a bit more to even out the temperature and then pulled a slug of wort for a gravity reading. This time I was looking at a 1.024 original gravity, which seems right considering I only added 500g of adjuncts. If the beer ferments out to around 1.000 I should have about 3% ABV, which is a bit lower than the other beers but that just means I'll have to drink more of this one at a go.

Nice.

It was about a 12 hour wait before I saw any foaming or yeasty activity and I was a little worried that I'd damaged my brew with my arm fishing. But, wort is tougher than I give it credit for and it got good and busy for a full three days with some serious foam and krausen production. Luckily the weather here had also cooled a bit and I am still keeping a frozen water bottle nestled next to the fermenter at all times, keeping my fermenting temp at or below 24 C, which right about where I want it.

I've got another week to go before I hit the three week mark and then bottle. Keep your peepers peeled for an update and first taste of my 4th brew in a few weeks time. If you're nice to me and you live in Taichung maybe I'll let you come have some.

Maybe.

Beer Stats:

Primary: 3 weeks (planned)

Pitch temp: 26 C

Primer: Carbonation drops

OG: 1.024

FG: TBD

ABV: Estimated at 3.15%