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Drinking my first homebrew beer
Filed Under (Beer Brewing) by Christopher on 19-02-2009
After four weeks of fermenting and slightly more than a week of aging in the bottles, I’ve finally opened my first bottle of homebrew beer.
Palett Taste: 7/10
The taste was definitely better than than the usual Tiger, Carlsberg, Tsingdao, etc. It’s also more bitter. Carbonation was good. Have bubbles coming up consistently like what we see in commercial beers.
After Taste: 3/10
After taste was not very good. The beer taste remained, but there was the wierd after taste that comes with young red wine. I am guessing that with age, the after taste should improve.
Initial Head: 5/10
It’s probably similar to Carlsbergs, but nowhere near the head we see in Erdingers though. Rated 5 because this is my first homebrew and I want to use this beer to benchmark future homebrews.
Head Retention: 5/10
The head disappeared within 10 minutes (okay I wasn’t timing). I want to use this to benchmark future homebrews as well.
Clarity: 7/10
Could easily be an 8 but I want to keep some ratings for future homebrews (rate too high later must rate above 10…). It’s clear like a lager, considering that I did not do any filtering. What’s more, the bottle that I opened was from the bottom of the fermenter.
Chris Rating: 6/10
Though the beer is definitely drinkable, I’m leaving more ratings for future homebrews, benchmarking with this beer.
Hi Chris,
My Dad used to brew beer 40 gallons at a a time in a plastic dustbin… He always bottled it off in glass. Maybe the after taste you are getting is from the PET bottle?
ibrew.com.sg (no relation, no commission) has glass bottles and crown caps, though you could probably re-use any glass beer bottle if you cleaned it thoroughly and just buy the crown caps and the capper tool. They also sell seals for Grolsh bottles - that would be the neatest solution.
Also look in the restaurant and kitchen shops - they have lever cap and screw cap glass bottles.
Pip pip
Hi Marcus,
40 gallon’s quite a lot! In Singapore, the government has limited the amount of beer you can brew to 23 litres per month, and another 23 litres of other forms of alcohol.
It’s hard to tell if it is the PET bottle that’s affecting the taste. Guess the next bottle should tell. I’m pretty sure the taste should improve with age.
I’ve also bottled the beer in a few glass bottles for longer storage and the rest in 6-litres Tap-A-Draft bottles. WIll comment if the difference in taste is due to the PET bottles after my first glass bottle of beer.