This is a bit of a story about the journey of Bec and Frosty’s brewing – from a minor interest to sending beverages to friends around the nation.
It all started in 2020, when Melbourne was at the height of it’s COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown. We’d been in doors for weeks, and whilst Bec had some hobbies to keep her sane, Frosty needed some project to work on. Seeing a friend on Facebook post about a project cider they were making in a glass bottle, after a little googling, Frosty spent about $300 on brewing equipment and ingredients from a local store in Melbourne.
We relied on friends from all over to save glassware for us – shout outs to City of Ballarat, whose terrible glass recycling policy made it easier for people to give us their bottles than to recycle them through the council.
Following a successful first batch of beer, followed up by a second batch of beer and trying a new cider which was very popular at a friend’s New Years event, Bec and Frosty set about trying to break even on costs – aiming to make more booze, and ultimately spend less than it would cost to buy slabs off the shelf.
How are the drinks made?
We make up the recipes, and buy the ingredients to suit. As a rule, we decide the type of drink (beer, cider, mead, wine) and pick a yeast to suit. The yeasts change a lot to do with the smell and aftertaste of a drink.
If the drink is hopped, we’ll get hops to suit the tone of the drink – Galaxy hops or Mosiac hops for a “fresh” tasting drink is Frosty’s preference.
Otherwise it’s Dextrose (white refined sugar), sugars from malts (Maltodextrin, Maltrose, Molasses), other sugars (Lactose, sugars from fruits or fruit juice, sugars from honey), and flavors
Once we’ve decided on the recipe and acquired the ingredients, we cook! First, everything has to be sanitized and sterilised. Then typically, we boil anything that needs boiling (like the hops, and grains) then cool it to 80 degrees with cold water and steep it – whilst it’s at this temperature we add anything else we didn’t want to boil, but want to add for flavor (spices, fruits, etc) to pasteurize it. This forms the basic “mash”. We put this in one of the fermentation drums, and add all the rest of the sugar additives (dextrose, lactose, maltose, maltodextrin, each one adds a different kind of flavor and changes the end result a bit) and mix it well. Then we top up with water until we get a “gravity” reading that’s desirable – the gravity reading will let us confirm how alcoholic the brew will become.
Once everything is right in the drum, I put a temperature sensor in it, seal it up with an airlock valve, and attach a heating belt that turns on when the temperature sensor drops below a set mark – the mark is specific to the yeast (some yeasts require colder or warmer temperatures). Depending on the yeast, we might change the temperature set point throughout the fermentation.
Fermentation takes 10-20 days, depending on what needs fermenting, the yeast, ambient temperature, and a few other things. Sometimes during the fermentation we might add some things (such as extra unboiled hops, for beer) which we want to have a stronger flavor profile in the finished drink.
When we think the fermentation is about done, we take another “gravity” reading and taste the mixture – it generally tastes pretty close to what it will taste like at this point, and we can adjust something if it needs it. For after-sweetened drinks, like the cider and ginger ale, this is when we add the Stevia.
In two days we take another “gravity” reading, and if it’s the same as the last one, it means fermentation has stopped, and we’re ready to bottle. Otherwise, we give it another week, and test it again.
On bottling day, we steralise all the bottles, and attach a bottling valve to the spigot on the fermenter, and Bec fills the bottles and I cap them with my grandfather’s bottle capper. We typically get 65-70 bottles from a brew.
As of August 2021, we’d bottled our 500th bottle, which would have been $1250.00 if we’d just been buying slabs – but to date have spent closer to $600 on equipment and ingredients.
If you’ve bothered to read this, I hope it means it’s because you’ve tried one of these drinks we’ve made, and I hope it’s brought you as much joy to drink as it has brought us to make 🙂