Great Northern Original Style

Great Northern Original Copy

This is a really simple home brew to try and copy the Great Northern Original which is a real easy beer to drink and one of the best I recon in a hot Queensland summer. This recipe though does not come in at the 4.2% alcohol content as per the original, it is a lot stronger, so don’t have a couple and think you can drive.

Of course this is home brewing so make sure you have sanitised everything. I have not mentioned this in the steps below as this is a given – every little thing that comes in contact with the brew needs to be sanitised.

Ingredients

• 1 kit Morgan’s Australian Lager beer kit
• 1 kg Dry Body Blend – you can use any brand, I use the sugar that my local home brew shop puts together
• 1 x Premium Lager Yeast (I use Morgan’s but you can use any)
• 1 x Morgan’s 12g “Cluster” Finishing Hops

Method

Fairly simple to make this Great Northern home brew. To start, make sure you soak your Australian Lager kit in some hot water for about 10 minutes prior, in order to make these next steps a bit easier.

Now boil some water (I usually use filtered water but in this brew I decided to use tap water for something different – made no difference) and add it to your fermenter – usually about 2 litres or so.

With this recipe we are soaking the hops (not adding dry as per the Roger’s recipe in one of my other posts) – so make sure you fill a mug with hot water and soak the “Cluster” finishing hops before the next steps as you want this to soak for at least 5 minutes.

Add the beer extract (Australian Lager) and the body blend to the fermenter and stir until ingredients have dissolved. This might take a few minutes. If you are struggling to get the ingredients to dissolve, boil another litre of water and added it to the fermenter, you want to make sure that everything has dissolved.

Once you have stirred for a few minutes and everything has dissolved, add approximately 20 litres of water. Make sure that you watch the temperature while adding this water as you want the temperature to be somewhere around 25 degrees celsius. If it is to cold add some warm water and vice versa. Add water until you get to the 23 litre mark on your fermenter.

Stir the brew one more time to ensure it is well mixed in. Now throw in the mug of soaked hops and warm water. Once this has been added take your first hydrometer reading (OG). I usually get a reading of around 1054 but it will depend on the body blend that you use.

Once you have taken your OG, add the yeast ensuring the temperature is around 25 degrees. Stir quickly and then seal your fermenter with your air lock. Now wait 5 days……

On day 5 take a hydrometer reading and you should get one somewhere around 1008. It is always safe to wait another day and take another reading. If you get the same reading on consecutive days then your brew has finished fermenting and is ready to bottle, or keg if you have a sweet setup.

You should get approximately 29 x 750ml bottles – around 22 litres. Then leave your bottled home brew for at least 2 weeks before drinking. The longer you leave it the better it will get.

I like to batch label all my brews so that I know easily what I am drinking. I use the round coloured labels from Office Works. I use orange for ginger beer and yellow for beer and then I write the month and year (e.g. 1019) on the label and make a note in my brew notes of the label, the brew name and the alcohol content. That way when you store different brews over time you can easily remember which one is which.

Hydrometer Readings

• OG (Original) – 1054
• FG (Final) – 1008
• Alcohol Content (ABV) = 1054 – 1008 = 46 / 7.36 = 6.25 + 0.5 = 6.75%
• Added 0.5% because I bottled and added sugar (carbonation drops) to each bottle.

Finished Product

The end result was pretty good for a home brew, tastes very similar to a Great Northern. It is slightly more bitter and is definitely stronger.

The thoughts of Peter.

For more home brew recipes see these other posts.

This is the home brew store where we get all our ingredients from, Better Brewer. Very helpful and a good selection.