Stein Brew (with Melbourne Brewers)

 Each year Melbourne Brewers, homebrew club, spend a weekend camping at Big River, and do a "bush" brew - Stein Brew.

Last weekend, Saturday 17th March, 2012, eight families spent the night at Stockmans Reward, on Big River, completing the bush brew. Two brews were done on Saturday afternoon/night.
Brew One was a Linton recipe, a Strong Scotch Ale
Brew Two, was designed by Andy, with a triple decoction, Dopplebock

The process (from the perspective of a first time Stein Brew attendee)
The first job was to get a raging fire going to heat the dozen blue stone rocks, to white hot.

 At the same time, the wood fired heater was lit, to heat the hot liquor tank to the required temperature.

The milled malt was added to an Esky, and hot water added until the required mash temperature was reached. The lid was put an for a 60 minute mash. Great time for a few beers around the fire.

When the mash was finished (60 minutes), and mashout (15 minutes) completed, the wort was transferred to a new vessel for fly sparging. Creative "bush design" was used for this process.

When all the wort had been extracted from the Lauter Tun, the brew was added to the brew kettle and heated until boiling.

Bittering hops were added (these were the only hops in the brew)

After 30 minutes, the white hot "Stones" were removed from the fire (one each 5 minutes) and gently lowered into the brew.

After an hour of "super boiling" the wort with white hot rocks (to add caramel, smokey flavours to the brew), the brew was removed from the heat, and cooled in the river.

Once cooled to 20 degrees (40 minutes in Big River), the beer was transferred to the fermenter, and yeast added.

Brew two then started and repeated the process. This time a triple decoction mash was performed (in a Dutch "camp" oven.

The rest of the process was the same (well nearly, but you would have had to be there to find out about the differences in process!!!).

Now to wait until the club dinner in July to taste.

What a great weekend. Good weather, great company, fun brewing, creative solutions to bus brew problems.
Can't wait until next year!!

We even caught a few trout flyfishing on Sunday morning.

Perfect