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I've been brewing for around two years now. I jumped in at the deep end (I always do for some odd reason) and began with all-grain. It took me a few brews to get the hang of it - but these days I always have a keg or two chilling.
Next up is an American IPA using some Weyerman Pale ale malt (10kg) and some cara red (½Kg) and a mix of Challenger and Galena taking it up to just below 60 IBUs. That should give me around 40 litres / 10 gallons :D
Awesome. I just sampled my IPA that's been bottled about 6 weeks. It was good. Lost a little of the aroma but the taste is right on. It turned out a lot darker than I had planned, though. Looks more like a stout bit drinks like an IPA.
Hello all, I recently returned from the 8th annual cider making weekend help with my friend Ben in Maine. We processed about 1000kg of apples in a day using custom engineered and built bicycle powered machines. Now I've got 100L of hard cider fermenting in my basement now, which is about enough for me to have a cold 250ml glass every night of the year.
I put up a writeup on my blog:
Tooling Up: 8th Annual Cidering
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I had a little free time today so i went on another forum i am a member of for homebrewing and found the following recipe for alcoholic coke. So ive had a crack at it and the mixture is currently sat fermenting.
Here is the recipe:
4.5L Water
800g White Sugar
3g Youngs High alcohol Wine Yeast
5g Yeast nutient
200ml DIET Coke Concentrate (from Dunelm Mill, Home Bargins or Currys)
1)Add yeast and a few spoonfuls of sugar & yeast nutient to a glass of lukewarm water cover and set aside.
2)Put sugar and half the water in a pan and heat till all sugar is dissolved.
3)Add the rest of the water to cool down the sugar water and add to Demijohn.
4)The mixture should be cool enough for you now to add your yeast starter but please check and allow it to cool further
if in ANY doubt (your looking for below 30c).
5)Top up with water, it doesn't bubble up too much so you can leave about an inch space before the neck then
fit airlock and leave it alone!
6)Fermentation should start pretty rapidly and will take about 10-15 days.
7)If you are patient with it it will go crystal clear on its own without fins or pectins.
When its clear and has finished bubbling add a further 4.5L of water and the Coke concentrate.
Add more water or coke to suit your tastes.
8)Batch Prime these on the low side, I use about 6g per 1L because I have had this stuff fizzing everywhere when
bottles are opened.
9)Bottle and leave to mature, I drink mine after about a week!
Its a very hyperactive drunkenness and has lead to a hell of a lot of dancing and what surprised me is it isn't far off tasting like proper coke! 5% approximately
Please note before you ask:
I use DIET COKE CONCENTRATE because it contains artificial sweeteners to keep use coke tasting like coke and keep it sweet!
If you use normal coke the sugars are fermented leaving the coke very bitter and tasting horrid. The overall drink comes out tasting good, and the colour and clarity is identical to big brand cokes!
Here are todays pictures:
The yeast mix:
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The sugar being dissolved:
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Racking the mixture into the dhemijon:
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Adding the yeast mix:
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Fermenting time:
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Ill post more pics and updates as it progresses.
Tomorrow is brew day! A Sweetwater 420 clone. 5 gallon all grain batch.
Sounds nice sir. Going to be starting another brew next week. Currently got a black cherry wine on the go thats ready for bottling early next week.
I went to college with a friend who studied fermentation sciences and another who had an interest in mead making. Needless to say, our house never had any shortage of delicious home brew on tap. The funny thing is- because they were doing all the work, I never found myself very interested in brewing/fermenting on my own.
That all changed a week or so before Christmas. I came down with a bad cold and since it was raining outside and I was sick, I ended up spending the entire weekend indoors. I had just had some tasty store bought hard cider (Crispin) and decided that it probably wouldn't be very hard to reproduce and furthermore would probably save me quite a bit of money in the long run to just make it myself. Since I was stuck inside all weekend, I took it upon myself to learn as much as I possibly could about making hard cider. Thanks to the infinite knowledge of the internet, by the end of the weekend I had a pretty good understanding of the process, and I had picked up two gallons of fresh apple juice from a local farmer's market. a week later, I convinced my girlfriend to help me buy the necessary brewing supplies as a Christmas present.
My first batch went perfectly. I bottled them at a gravity of about 1.015 and let fermentation continue in order to bottle carbonate. I then pasteurized the bottles in the dishwasher to kill the yeast leaving me with a semi-sweet sparkling cider. I enjoyed two bottles of my cider on New Year's Eve with some good friends and as of today, all but one bottle of my two gallon batch has been enjoyed by myself along with friends and family.
I just bottled two more gallons of some more interesting test ciders (one made with a can of raspberry concentrate and another with raisins and black tea to add complexity to the sweet apple juice that I have access to). I also have a gallon finishing up fermentation that I made with 3/4 of a pound of Dry Malt Extract to add some mouth-feel and residual sweetness. Tomorrow I'm planning to head out to get some specialty grains to try a 3 gallon batch of a cider/stout hybrid that will hopefully come out well.
Here are some pictures of my first batch:
happily bubbling away:
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and the finished product:
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I'll look forward to posting more here as my brewing adventure progresses :).
Looks good. Right now I got my grains milled, my strike water heating up and my hops measured for addition.......gotta love brew day!
Hit the numbers for the mash right on the nose! 6.5 gals of 1.048 sg into the pot for a 90 min boil. Things are moving right along!
I got the American stout/cider hybrid put together last night...fingers crossed. OG was 1.071 so it should pack a pretty good punch while maintaining drinkability. The wort (or would it be must in this case- haha) tasted incredible - a ton of chocolate and coffee flavor with a bit of smoke and then the crispness of the apple juice at the end. I actually ended up putting about 45oz of cranberry juice in with it all because I had it in the fridge and wanted to get rid of it so we'll see if that imparts any extra berry flavor or tannins. I'm really hoping it will turn out well. I will post results if it's a success and pretend it didn't happen if it ends up being gross ;).
Here she is, happily bubbling along this morning:
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What a mighty fine picture sir! Sounds like a very interesting brew. Keep us posted on its progress.
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...
Only if they can make some money by doing so.Quote:
Oh don't worry, the US Federal, or your state government, will find others ways to make a criminal out of you...
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!
I've been homebrewing since 1999, when a buddy and I started in college. I was surprised when I moved to AL to find out that it was still illegal. So, this weekend I decided to dust off my pots and make my first legal batch. I chose a good old ipa with a hefty dose of Centennial hops for that wonderful citrusy aroma. Can't wait!
Glad to hear you're getting back into home brewing. You may want to check out Alabama's first legal home brew competition.
Alabama Brew Off
I don't know if this is enough time to get a good batch in to them.
Tomorrow's will be my first legal brew day here in Alabama. An all-grain American IPA.
Actually decided to go with a Belgian Pale Ale. Hit all the numbers dead on so we'll see howit goes.
The Belgian has aged nicely and is very refreshing. Today's brew is an American Amber. 5 gallon all-grain featuring warrior hops.
Two weeks ago, I brewed a No-Pay Porter "Senate" version in honor of my employer who believes its ok to allow me to work without pay.
Amazingly enough, I believe it will be a disaster. The smack pack I used showed no results 24 hours after pitching. I threw in a backup pack of S-05, and ended up with a very slow, very tame fermentation. Will check it in a few days to see if it fermented out or will be thrown out.
Luckily, I have a Red and a Red Rye on tap.
Awesome, these forums have threads of three subjects that interest me quite alot; Straight Razor shaving, pipe smoking and brewing. :)
I'm going to buy my self Braumeister 50l when we move to new house and get little more space to work with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRazNwUqnhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCKR6EXb0oM
I'm trying to keep the rig small until I retire and quit moving. Currently using a couple of ice chests (HLT and MT), a 15 gal pot, 6.5 gal glass carboy, 4 kegs and a freezer (keezer-to-be).
Once I retire, I'll be adding in a couple of walk-in cold rooms complete with an obscene amount of stainless!
What a machine!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ymir
It indeed seems to be rather good machine. Sure you could get one cheaper if you knew how to weld stainless and program the pump and boiler unit but I think it´s safe to say, Braumeister is just very easy and efficient approach.Quote:
Originally Posted by tbert33
I love beers my self, and I have lately started to widen my perspective in the matter. Don´t get me wrong I am big bad newbie still but the hobby really interests me. I have slight OCD when it comes to things and Braumeister helps with that; It helps in eliminating the random factors of brewing, given proper sanitation. From what I have read you can produce good quality beers with very little random variance in the results. This gives chance to hunt for THE best beer, as every time you brew a beer you can recreate the results, and adjust accordingly to the next brew. If you can not recreate a beer you have made, you have very hard time trying to better your products as Change A, can result in outcomes C, D, E leaving you wonder what did you do wrong and what did you do right this time around.
Regardless of the degree of automation or the amount of technology, the key to reproducing results is to take detailed notes about each batch.
Indeed. You need to take notes of pretty much everything that can affect the results.Quote:
Originally Posted by jfleming9232
Well its on my shopping list. It may take me a few months to stump up the cash for one of these machines but mark my word... i shall have one!!! :D:D:D
I had a skim through so sorry if I missed. But has anyone brewed beer in a demijohn? Im curious as I found a few under the stairs. One is now making a kit wine. But was thinking of brewing a 1gallon batch of beer. Maybe an IPA.
Geek
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I know this has been a dead thread. But since I have got back into home brewing I thought I would ressurect this rather than start anew.
Above is a current batch of a blush wine. It's about ready for clearing. So i should have 6 bottles of wine in about 10 days. Woohoo.
Incidentally just in time for the new arrival and my wife being able to drink wine again 😂
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One of my bottles of wine. I bottled today. When syphoning off from the sediment was accounted for I got 5 bottles of blush.
Geek
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Actually 5 bottles and a glass 😃
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Ok so been looking at the wine and it looks like there's sediment in it.
As far as I know this won't do me any harm right? 😂
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