Max Home Brewing

 Kegging Beer 2   Friday 17, October, 2025 I'm really fucking things up at the moment.   The kegs came & I hammered out top using a screwdriver on the lugs. They were not spring held so they came out easily.   The Head came for the keg but the clamp didn't fit.  So the adaptor head I ordered  won't work on the 25l kegs. OOOPS! I also got carried away and got a floating ball on cable for inside the barrel, that is redundant now.  So unless I invest in a different type of keg, say a 50l one then a lot of the bits I currently have are not much use.   Follow up & realization of d coupler Emailed Kegland about the  connector to keg and then looked on TradeMe about kegs and saw I had a d-coupler keg, so wrong dispenser head, so looked up D coupler heads American) - different from S coupler (European) (see vid https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gdXNESzIQMQ) so hopefully ordered the correct tap, then it has plastic ou...

 Kegging Beer 1 Tuesday 23, September, 2025  I've looked at Kegging beer in the past & it just looks expensive and complicated, so stuck with bottling beers.  Revisiting  Kegging beer , need corny keg, would prefer a 25l one but standard is a 19l one. Then need to do CO2 pressure but can do from SodaStream CO2 bottle, and then need outlet tap. At this time possibility of about $200 initial investment.   With Corny Keg Will still need to bottle the last 4l , about 12 bottles, but will save cleaning up 72 bottles at a time and should speed up bottling and carbonation.   Also storage of a couple of kegs should be in smaller space than the 2 containers with all the bottles.  Will need a 2nd set for the 2 batches, as you still need to allow CO2 to get into beer, a few days at least.   Will think about it as expensive month, but maybe for Christmas.  Wednesday 1, October, 2025  I think strategy at this time is to look o...

 Dry Hopping to give flavour to home brew extracts 2 Tuesday 23, September, 2025  I've made 3 batches with hops now, the last one, a Miners Porter (Bock) is currently maturing in bottles . I'd dry hopped it for 3 days prior to bottling.  The first was a Stout and the hops definitely gave it more flavour, but more sediment.  The 2nd, an APA also had more flavour too, and was more drinkable.  Both I needed to chill first otherwise a bit explosive on opening. Also a bit of residue/debris at bottom of bottle, not sure if yeast or the hops, but I need to leave a little bit in bottom of bottle to not get the sludge. A bit of a pain if the bottle froths up on opening as residue is mixed with the froth, so you get warts and all, hence the chilling of the beer.  I've tried to use the filter I got on the line when decanting to new barrel but the filter mesh is too course and pretty mush lets a lot of the residue through. I've been thinking    Beer Filt...

 Liquors I bought 1litre of Russian vodka 37.5% proof from Kilbirnie Offie for 50$ I wouldn't mind making a few nice liquors like Frangelica, Baily's and other nice liquors.   Kahlua   1 l  =55$  16%ABV  Followed the recipe on the vid below with 2:1 of sugar: moka coffee aurora blend, 1 cup Fiji raw sugar, 1/2 cup coffee and 1 cup vodka and about 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla extract.  Put into a wine bottle and tried it, quite nice. Apparently around 19% proof.  I'll chill it and try later.  I wanted to make a small batch so I could stretch the vodka further, so use it for other things.  So made around 500ml. equiv of 27.50$ for kahlua Cost - 250ml of vodka =  12.50$ Cost of Sugar, coffee & vanilla extract= 4$ (say) So total cost = 16.50$ So about 60% of branded stuff, since I haven't drunk it or bought it for ages I don't know if its similar, but tastes nice and easy to make     Overall, first crack a...

 Amaretto   I made some Kalua type coffee liquor and now am going to try Amaretto which is almond type liquor.  I also bought some hazelnuts to try for a Frangelica  liquor  In video:  1 cup water  1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup cane sugar  Bring to boil and cool down  2 cups vodka  2 tablespoons of Almond Extract 2 teaspoons of Vanilla extract  I will halve those amounts so :    1/2 cup water  1/2 cup white sugar 1/4 cup cane sugar  Bring to boil and cool down  1 cups vodka  1 tablespoons of Almond Extract 1 teaspoons of Vanilla extract  I'll need to find a bottle for this to put in  1 cup = .284 l so bigger than a beer bottle.   So overall abou2 2 cups, at a guess.     

Dry Hopping 1 I was getting a bit bored with my home brewing so decided to see if Dry hopping may improve the drink.  I'm still using the Coopers Extract but it’s a bit dull.  I started brewing about 2020 or possibly 2019 so at it for at least 5 years and onto batch 95 t present.   I reviewed my costs and found that I was paying, initially about 1/4 the price for supermarket beer.  48c instead of $2 for 330ml bottle based on Heiniken Lager 24 bottle purchase.  This was from a few years back, maybe round 2021.  Each batch being 23 litres.  I redid my figures last month and  its about $0.70 per bottle compared with $2.33 per can of IPA (on sale) so about 1/3 of cost.  Thinks have got more expensive but it is still value for money to home brew, so I thought I'd try and improve the drink ability of the brews, and also look for better Extracts with more flavours.  I've also started buying IPA's instead of general lagers, so want more fla...