Thread: Home Brew

I've not tried my hand at brewing beer at home, but myself and my buddy have taken to making our own wine. He's been focusing mainly on reds, and I'm delving in to the world of mead. It has been a very rewarding experience. My first batch was a more tangy, citrus heavy batch; the normal honey and water, but added a whole large lemon and a large orange. I bottled and left some to age, but I'm already down to one bottle. It could probably have stood to wait a while before drinking, but I couldn't help myself. It tasted pretty good for a young wine.

My second batch has been a straight mead; only honey and water. I'm waiting for it to bulk age before I bottle later this month. From what I can tell this time around, it's going to be a much sweeter batch. I used ~5 lbs of honey + 1 gal of water.

My next batch that I'm going to start up once I bottle my current mix, is an elderberry mead. I've got some dried elderberries from my local brew shop, and have a 4lb jar of clover honey. I hope the flavor is a good one.

Sounds great Tiger!

Im looking to do an orange spiced mead in the next few weeks. Ive never tried mead before but if its sweet then im your man!

Just need to source some quality honey for a decent price.

Do you have any pictures that you can share or any more recipes?

@tbert33

I'll take some pictures of my current batch before and during bottling. I'll also post some of my process and recipes. There are sooooo many different types of mead to make: pyomel (honey and grape juice), melomel (honey and fruit juice), methegelin (honey and spices), straight mead..... There are nearly limitless combinations that are out there for exploration.

The good thing about mead, is that it very tolerant to changes, and is very forgiving if you make a mistake early in the process.

I'm in Sweden. This time of the year it takes two hours to bring a decent batch to the boil. So I tried a Coopers (LME) concoction. Three cans and over 130g of cascade and challenger hops on the ceramic hob.

This is my first ever non-all-grain brew. I did 5 gallons/25 litres and it was quite a kick-ass beer. Next time I'll leave it to condition a little longer (yeah, right) - but overall I was quite impressed. I did notice a 'freshness' difference in the taste - but it was very drinkable. Come March/April i'll be back to my Monster Mill and my 56 litre mashtun and my 100 litre boil pot I have 12 Kgs of pale ale malt and some vie na waiting to get mixed iin, along with 2Kgs of Galena.....

Roll on spring!!!!

Went to the LHBS to pick up a few odds and ends as my batch of wheat beer is slowing down in the primary, and I'm prepping to keg. It's amazing how home brew equipment has progressed since I brewed my first beer in 1994. I'm still brewing from extract but have progressed a bit going from bottling to a kegging system. Some of the stuff available to home brewers today is amazing. The brewing sculptures are awesome. And I was drooling over the fully decked out stainless conical fermenter with cooling and heating, and yeast collecting gadgets. Only $1800.00. But my $12.00 plastic bucket works just as good. Well sort of.

Alabama becomes the 50th state to legalize homebrew! www.alahomebrew.org. I'm no longer a felon!

Oh don't worry, the US Federal, or your state government, will find others ways to make a criminal out of you...

Oh don't worry, the US Federal, or your state government, will find others ways to make a criminal out of you...

Only if they can make some money by doing so.

Ha. Well, in the mean time, congrats... and enjoy that homebrew with a clear conscience!

Now,for my first legal batch, how about .....

Emancipated Amber Ale!