TALK STORY

Any Home Brewers?

POSTED BY: PIZMOBEACH
UPDATED: Monday, February 22, 2010 10:49
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Thursday, January 21, 2010 11:14 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


My first "Brew Day" was last Sunday. I am now the proud father of a 5 gallon primary fermenter of Robust Porter.... shhhh... he's sleeping.
Anyone else give home brewing a try?

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Thursday, January 21, 2010 3:47 PM

PIZMOBEACH

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Brewski Bump

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Friday, January 22, 2010 2:39 AM

CALHOUN


I dont much fancy beer..

I do like spirits though and have my own still.

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Friday, January 22, 2010 5:21 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Actually Michigan, being more sensible than most, allows one a very substantial amount of homebrew per year for personal consumption and gifts to friends and family, although not the hi-proof stuff - but strangely, I live in an area that has enough hillbilly refugees that you can get some pretty decent shine if you know where to look, go fig.

Anyhows, I brew mead, and not that melo-mel wanna be CRAP based off bad wine or champagne (I call it gargamel, cause gargling with it is about all it's good for!) but the real deal, liquid gold, bottled orgasm, hells own nectar - with a light dash of seasonal fruit from the farmers down the road here.

Of course, hell if imma share my recipes, given just how *notoriously* good the stuff is, but I use a simplified brew process with your basic glass carbouy setup which comes off really well and saves a lotta time and effort, provided you don't get sloppy.

The strawberry-creme variation is your go-to bottle for inducing all manner of funny reactions from the girls (there's a reason for those names for my stock...) and bribing friends and family.

Seriously, the essential process is simple enough, so definitely ponder throwing down a batch or two of the stuff, you'll be surprised at the quality you can manage - the key is making sure your equipment is spotless, really.

-F

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Monday, January 25, 2010 5:46 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Seriously, the essential process is simple enough, so definitely ponder throwing down a batch or two of the stuff, you'll be surprised at the quality you can manage - the key is making sure your equipment is spotless, really.

-F



You are so right about the spotless part. I'm finding out that process itself is a pretty basic one, not unlike making a good stew or sauce, but because sanitation is so essential it ads an element of stress that is unexpected. Which in turn can add to the joy if you don't eff it up.

I'm finding out that it's best to go ssssllllooooowwwww - and patience is something I lack in spades. So I'm learning.

Also, like so many things, the more you know the more you appreciate. I'll never swill another brewski quite the same way again!



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Monday, January 25, 2010 6:47 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Well, I do have kind of an unfair edge...

You see, bein a direct descendant of ole Devil Anse Hatfield, I come from an extremely long line of still buildin, moonshining, revenooer dodgin hill folk - who of course ran quite a bit of it, a practice that continues on occasion to this day, as some distantly related dimwit just got his ass busted with nine hundred gallons of it not very long ago.
http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/6172139/

Not to mention uncle carl, who was rather notorious, having refitted a 40's Ford with a heavy duty suspension and a cut off piece of guard rail for a heavy duty bash bumper, not that it saw much use given the local law knew how crazy he was and just got the hell out of the way...

So really, when it comes to makin booze, or throwin roostertails of dirt behind a muscled up car, I got enough shine and gasoline in my blood to make the process fairly automatic.

Helpful Hint: while it's temptin for the lazy, try to use heat instead of sanitizer whenever you can, cause there's always a chance you won't get it all out and some of em can impact your final flavor in a negative kinda way - the reason for them scorch marks on the outside of a masters brewpot is from judicial use of a blowtorch....

-F

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Monday, January 25, 2010 11:11 AM

MAL4PREZ


I've done quite a few beers and meads. I just popped open a blueberry mead this weekend and was thinking that I need to brew some beers, since I'm all out. I did a Guiness clone last summer that tasted nothing like Guiness but was damned yummy anyway. I need another batch of that.

Meads I like because you just cannot buy a good mead. You can buy all kinds of decent beer for not much more than it costs to brew. OK, a bit more. But you can't get a mead. Besides, I have a bit of a sweet-tooth.

Did you use a kit for the beer? I often use those because they're just so easy. And I've never had one come out bad.

Let us know how it goes! And like the brewing bible says: Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew. :)

ETA: as far as sanitizing, I find a big vat of dilute bleach works fine. One of those plastic bins, bit enough to put a carboy or a batch of bottles in. I let everything soak overnight before I use it, and I've never had a problem with bacteria.

OK, I'm pretty anal about not handling things that will be touching the wort. I learned to brew from an engineer who works in a lab - very anal.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:02 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Hi Mal4prez... The beers I'm fond of have all jumped about a buck a six pack, some even more. $8 for six beers was a stretch, then $9 and now $10?

Mead - so, like a sweet beer then? Vanilla Porter? Ale-ish?

Yes, I'm using a kit, "Brewer's Best" - and Papazian's book, dead simple like you say.

I have to say that I'm enjoying the challenge of waiting, the "time curve" is so different.
Yesterday was one very long week after primary fermentation, which according to the kit meant Bottling Day. I've been reading though on beer forums that letting a beer sit in the primary for up to a month does wonders for it. So I decided to let it sit for at least 2 more weeks. I can't believe I can do it, pat on back.
Which means I'm looking at 4 more weeks total (2 weeks in bottles) before taking that first real taste. A lot of waiting but at least there's beer at the end of it.


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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 5:57 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Well, throwin down a batch a week for a while kinda helps with that problem, that way when your fingers get itchy, you've usually got something to apply them to, aye ?

Here's some fun and handy linkage for ya.
http://www.michiganbrewersguild.org/
http://www.michiganbrewing.com/

MBC's IPA is bottled whupass, seriously.
http://www.michiganbrewing.com/MBCBeer/HighSeasIPA/tabid/97/Default.as
px


-F

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:20 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Thx for the links Frem. "Bells" of Michigan is one of my favorite brewers btw.

Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Well, throwin down a batch a week for a while kinda helps with that problem, that way when your fingers get itchy, you've usually got something to apply them to, aye ?



Imagine when my wife suggested the same thing... I swear I teared up.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 6:42 AM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Hi Mal4prez... The beers I'm fond of have all jumped about a buck a six pack, some even more. $8 for six beers was a stretch, then $9 and now $10?

Mead - so, like a sweet beer then? Vanilla Porter? Ale-ish?


Yeah, $10 a six pack is rather silly, and I usually do pay that much because I like Guiness. Still that's only a bit more than $1.50 a beer, which isn't much. Ingredients are $.50 a beer at best, for the kits. More when you buy ingredients.

Anyway, money isn't my draw to brewing. It's so satisfying to have homemade! And it's a happy house that has a carboy bubbling away. :) Do you decorate? Supposedly, sunlight is bad for the brew. So I put colorful shirts on them. Maybe a tie sometimes too.

Mead is honey wine. I've had some that are brewed to be like beers, but I can't stand them. Mine are more like dessert wines. Google and you'll find tons of recipes. Most use 10-15 lbs of honey, maybe some kind of fruit, and then little additives like tannin or acid blend.

My ex brewed a cranberry mead that was like a really good Tokay (yummy Hungarian dessert wine). I've never been able to equal that one. Also very good is mead from a high quality wildflower honey. Talk about patience - it takes a good 4-5 years for the harsher flavors to settle out, but once they do wildflower mead is amazing! Like drinking a field of flowers.

I've never tried Vanilla. I've been wanting to try that - a mead with vanilla beans and maybe some plums. I did a ginger that's quite spicy.

Wow - now I feel like brewing! Oh - and I'm glad you started this thread because I went digging through storage last night and found a case of stout I brewed last summer. I totally forgot about it!

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 8:00 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
Anyway, money isn't my draw to brewing. It's so satisfying to have homemade! And it's a happy house that has a carboy bubbling away. :) Do you decorate? Supposedly, sunlight is bad for the brew. So I put colorful shirts on them. Maybe a tie sometimes too.



I know what you mean by homemade even in these early stages, just the satisfaction of taking on the challenge. I'm also getting a whiff of the possible improved quality - I had a separate satellite fermenter for testing gravity and the smell was so rich compared to store brands.

Glad you found your stout! A case even, OMG - Cheers!

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 10:25 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


I don't.
My dad made 2 or 3 hundred gallons of wine each year, our basement was filled each winter.
I didn't care for it because I had to do all the PITB work.
But Rhubarb wine was the bestest. Still a favorite.

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Saturday, January 30, 2010 10:39 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


I make wine, my wife is doing a batch of Chocolate Port right now.

Rhubarb and Strawberry wines are my favorites,

messed up and corked a batch while it was airated now its Strawberry champaign.... Very tasty, but loss a few bottles in explosions







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Sunday, January 31, 2010 1:19 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
my wife is doing a batch of Chocolate Port right now.


Oooooooo
*drool*

I've never, EVER been able to get that one right, I'm iffy on beer, fine with shine and I swing for the wall with every bottle of mead - but for some all fired reason I've never been able to turn even a decent bottle of wine, much less port!

And good golly, chocolate port, my fav, eep.


There's a handful of aging tricks you might hear about for mead, some of which actually work, but you *have* to incorporate that concept from the beginning of the process cause trying it on a batch you've already thrown will screw things up.

I've got a pretty quick setup for passable quality mead, just the kinda stuff you set out with dinner, that rack has a sticker of speedy gonzales on the side.

The one way in the back, on the other hand, is the kinda stuff you pour with trembling hand and hold up in reverence to a choral alm before sipping lightly, meh heh heh heh heh heh

-F

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 4:16 AM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
I make wine, my wife is doing a batch of Chocolate Port right now.

Oh, yum. Care to share a recipe on that one? I've never tried such a thing, but it sounds fabulous!

I also messed up with a mead and ended up with bubbly. Luckily, it was just right that no bottles blew, and it's quite tasty. I need to try to recreate that accident, because I'm nearly out.

Pizmo - I was thinking about your plans to let your beer age. You racked it off the dead yeast, right? Definitely should do that if you haven't. The dead stuff will give it off flavors.



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Sunday, January 31, 2010 4:35 AM

STINKINGROSE


I got into home brewing when my husband and I decided to make the beer and wine for our wedding. We'd had friends' offerings before and wanted to try it. (Microbrews were few and far between back then.)

It turned out well, all of it.

We haven't stopped since.

After finally trying a few lovely meads by a friend I decided it wasn't as scary as I'd heard. "Cat piss" and "rough" were all I'd been told about it to that point. Untrue!!

I making a batch last year for the first time, it has aged well and is now ready for drinking. (Sour cherry and fresh ginger as balance to the honey, it's dry and sparkling and a suprising shade of light orange-pink.)

I decided to try another batch, which is sitting there waiting for me to either rack or bottle it. Nothing but honey, water, and yeast. The recipe said it would be ready to drink as soon as fermentation stopped. I scoffed, remembering the last batch that definitely needed a little time to decide what it was going to be when it grew up. I was wrong, and I'm having a hard time not breaking into it. Tasty, and still has a bit of room for "even better".

Doctroid just whacked off another batch of beer, which has to wait about another week before it's ready for bottling.

I tried making hard cider last year. It went OK, but I'm giving it time to turn into "yum" instead of "ho-hum".

We also know people who magically have distilled things appear in their hands, and we've got a newly licensed distillery about two hours from our house. I'll have to pop in and see how their offerings turn out. If it's better than my friends' homemade attempts I'll be surprised.

Last midwinter I was given a tiny wee glass (less than a shot) which had been ceremoniously poured from an amber colored little bottle. The offerring party held up a hand and admonished me to smell it first. I almost didn't make it past that point. It was as if July had exploded inside my head filling it with liquid sunshine and warmth. When I finally tasted it the world went golden oozy cherry yum. It started life as kirschwasser, got left in bottles for 7 years, had sugar added, then was left in peace for a further 10. OMG does not cover it. The bottle had started out clear and was coated from the inside. I sincerely hope that wasn't the last bottle, because to think that something like that is not in the world any more is a sad, sad thing...

Now if I could just figure out where to find someone with a machine shop and discretion who would take barter on speculation I could get a good lid for a still made and try to replicate the effort...
It was that good.

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:03 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
Pizmo - I was thinking about your plans to let your beer age. You racked it off the dead yeast, right? Definitely should do that if you haven't. The dead stuff will give it off flavors.




I just had a feeling there were brewers and vintners and 'shiners out there... it just fits with Rim mentality somehow.

M4P - no I didn't. Funny thing about that is I was going to but I kept reading people say "I've stopped doing a secondary... let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks and then bottle." And then I'd see others say what you're saying. I could send you a bunch of links from some brew forums (some get pretty nasty, though not RWED bad ) - the upshot is these "let it sit" people think that given time the yeast will clean up any pollutants, and that you risk more from a second racking with exposure to oxygen and contamination. My 2 local home brew shops are split as well.
My feeling was that I would buck tradition and try what the new people were saying. I also felt like I had a strong urge to do a secondary fermentation but that was largely based on wanting to "mess with it" and that alone should be a sign, "quit fussing with it."
Anyway - next weekend is 3 weeks, bottling for sure then, and then 3 more weeks in bottles. I will definitely post a follow up... unless it's total crap of course.

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:12 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by stinkingrose:
Last midwinter I was given a tiny wee glass (less than a shot) which had been ceremoniously poured from an amber colored little bottle. The offerring party held up a hand and admonished me to smell it first. I almost didn't make it past that point. It was as if July had exploded inside my head filling it with liquid sunshine and warmth. When I finally tasted it the world went golden oozy cherry yum. It started life as kirschwasser, got left in bottles for 7 years, had sugar added, then was left in peace for a further 10. OMG does not cover it. The bottle had started out clear and was coated from the inside. I sincerely hope that wasn't the last bottle, because to think that something like that is not in the world any more is a sad, sad thing...

Now if I could just figure out where to find someone with a machine shop and discretion who would take barter on speculation I could get a good lid for a still made and try to replicate the effort...
It was that good.



Great story S-Rose. 17 years... incredible. How people live long enough to get to know the patterns of something that takes that long is amazing.

A lot of people are talking about meads - definitely going to have to try that once I feel I have a better sense of how to make a decent beer.

Here's a question for anyone: I was going to start a brew today, but I have a cold and I thought I should wait since "sanitation" is one of the holy trinities of brewing - sound about right?

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 11:39 AM

STINKINGROSE


Wear a mask. (Or a bandanna for that outlaw ambience) Wash your hands. You're probably not going to put anything nasty into it that will affect fermentation, and you won't make contagious beer.

If you're feeling crappy you are, however, more prone to make mistakes which might affect the outcome.


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Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:03 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
M4P - no I didn't. Funny thing about that is I was going to but I kept reading people say "I've stopped doing a secondary... let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks and then bottle." And then I'd see others say what you're saying. I could send you a bunch of links from some brew forums (some get pretty nasty, though not RWED bad ) - the upshot is these "let it sit" people think that given time the yeast will clean up any pollutants, and that you risk more from a second racking with exposure to oxygen and contamination. My 2 local home brew shops are split as well.
My feeling was that I would buck tradition and try what the new people were saying. I also felt like I had a strong urge to do a secondary fermentation but that was largely based on wanting to "mess with it" and that alone should be a sign, "quit fussing with it."
Anyway - next weekend is 3 weeks, bottling for sure then, and then 3 more weeks in bottles. I will definitely post a follow up... unless it's total crap of course.

Yeah, my rules are the mead rules, and off flavors are a bigger deal for something that you want to age 5 years. You're right, it's probably not a big deal for beer.

The thing I've been told is that yeast that runs out of sugars to eat will begin eating dead yeasts (autolysis) and that's where the bad flavors come in. Huh - I just checked autolysis on wiki, and apparently yeast eating yeast is a major part of flavoring champagne. Who knew? I didn't! But it also says: "If not properly managed, wine faults can potentially develop from autolysis. If the layer of lees begins to exceed 4 inches (10 centimeters), the enzymes released from the process of the yeast digesting themselves creates reducing conditions and promotes the development of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptan odors."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autolysis_%28wine%29


Exposure to oxygen is definitely bad. But I try to rack meads every 6-12 months and as long as everything's well bleached it seems all right.

As for being sick - my ex who taught me to brew (the very anal engineer) would get upset with me if I breathed on anything going into the brew. Seemed extreme, but then his meads always come out better than mine, so who's to say?

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:05 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
I make wine, my wife is doing a batch of Chocolate Port right now.

Oh, yum. Care to share a recipe on that one? I've never tried such a thing, but it sounds fabulous!

I also messed up with a mead and ended up with bubbly. Luckily, it was just right that no bottles blew, and it's quite tasty. I need to try to recreate that accident, because I'm nearly out.

Pizmo - I was thinking about your plans to let your beer age. You racked it off the dead yeast, right? Definitely should do that if you haven't. The dead stuff will give it off flavors.



-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left



Actually this one we bought a kit, you make it like you would a red wine, 4 weeks in you add a chocolate mixture in.

Started it after Christmas... I can't wait to try it


May try to do a mead when I get a chance... that sounds really good



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Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:19 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
M4P - no I didn't. Funny thing about that is I was going to but I kept reading people say "I've stopped doing a secondary... let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks and then bottle." And then I'd see others say what you're saying. I could send you a bunch of links from some brew forums (some get pretty nasty, though not RWED bad ) - the upshot is these "let it sit" people think that given time the yeast will clean up any pollutants, and that you risk more from a second racking with exposure to oxygen and contamination. My 2 local home brew shops are split as well.
My feeling was that I would buck tradition and try what the new people were saying. I also felt like I had a strong urge to do a secondary fermentation but that was largely based on wanting to "mess with it" and that alone should be a sign, "quit fussing with it."
Anyway - next weekend is 3 weeks, bottling for sure then, and then 3 more weeks in bottles. I will definitely post a follow up... unless it's total crap of course.

Yeah, my rules are the mead rules, and off flavors are a bigger deal for something that you want to age 5 years. You're right, it's probably not a big deal for beer.

The thing I've been told is that yeast that runs out of sugars to eat will begin eating dead yeasts (autolysis) and that's where the bad flavors come in. Huh - I just checked autolysis on wiki, and apparently yeast eating yeast is a major part of flavoring champagne. Who knew? I didn't!

Exposure to oxygen is definitely bad. But I try to rack meads every 6-12 months and as long as everything's well bleached it seems all right.

As for being sick - my ex who taught me to brew (the very anal engineer) would get upset with me if I breathed on anything going into the brew. Seemed extreme, but then his meads always come out better than mine, so who's to say?

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left



I used to have a landlord some years ago, a old Ukrainian guy, who did things really old school

no chemicals for clearing, he used Bentonite, etc

he would sample the wine every week, when it started to loose its sweetness he would add about 1 cup of dissolved sugar. He would keep doing this until the wine maintained the level of sweetness he was going for. He told me, yeast can only survive up to a certain percentage alcohol concentration, so he was feeding it until the yeast died, maxing out the alcohol produced.

From what he told me, Sherry and Champagne yeast actually live to a higher concentration.

I have done this with some Strawberry, and Nanking Cherry wines, and wow... lots of flavor, but you have to be careful with it. Mowed the lawn after a bottle and left some strips of long grass like stripes all over the place( my wife still laughs about that )


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Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:39 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Well, if you want a quick sample to see if you like it (not everyone does, but those who do, REALLY do!) grab a bottle of Deco Chocolate Port, if you can find one locally.

Ain't half bad, but anything homebrewed will stomp it flat, barring a complete screwup.

That old Ukranian fellow knew what he was talkin about, but you gotta be careful with that, it's not science, more like art, cause you develop a feel for it, see - two supposedly "indentical" batches might go different directions in flavor (not necessarily a bad thing) even if you do everything scientifically exact.

Me, I'm really picky about my honey, cause a lot of places take pasteurization to extremes and there goes the flavor, so it's better to make contacts with a direct supplier, as I have with a couple clover honey folk (and good golly damn those fekkin bees HATE MY GUTS, lil pricks sting me every bloody chance they get!) but I kinda stay AWAY from the bees, yanno...

-F

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 4:48 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


I have a mead recipe a guy down at a farmers market I go to gave me, he had a bottle too and it was good.

He is a Hutterite, which if your not familiar is something like Amish, but they use modern tech, drink, etc

On their colony they have bees set up to feed on different fields to give different types of honey

I think they had Mint, Canola, and Flax honey each with a slightly different flavor.

I bought some mint and it was really nice. That was the stuff he recommended.

Have to wait for the market to open in the spring to buy some, or drive three hours to the colony.

Might be worth a drive some weekend, they have some great deals on Chicken, Eggs, homemade bread, etc


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Sunday, January 31, 2010 5:23 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
M4P - no I didn't. Funny thing about that is I was going to but I kept reading people say "I've stopped doing a secondary... let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks and then bottle." And then I'd see others say what you're saying. I could send you a bunch of links from some brew forums (some get pretty nasty, though not RWED bad ) - the upshot is these "let it sit" people think that given time the yeast will clean up any pollutants, and that you risk more from a second racking with exposure to oxygen and contamination. My 2 local home brew shops are split as well.
My feeling was that I would buck tradition and try what the new people were saying. I also felt like I had a strong urge to do a secondary fermentation but that was largely based on wanting to "mess with it" and that alone should be a sign, "quit fussing with it."
Anyway - next weekend is 3 weeks, bottling for sure then, and then 3 more weeks in bottles. I will definitely post a follow up... unless it's total crap of course.

Yeah, my rules are the mead rules, and off flavors are a bigger deal for something that you want to age 5 years. You're right, it's probably not a big deal for beer.

The thing I've been told is that yeast that runs out of sugars to eat will begin eating dead yeasts (autolysis) and that's where the bad flavors come in. Huh - I just checked autolysis on wiki, and apparently yeast eating yeast is a major part of flavoring champagne. Who knew? I didn't!

Exposure to oxygen is definitely bad. But I try to rack meads every 6-12 months and as long as everything's well bleached it seems all right.

As for being sick - my ex who taught me to brew (the very anal engineer) would get upset with me if I breathed on anything going into the brew. Seemed extreme, but then his meads always come out better than mine, so who's to say?

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I used to have a landlord some years ago, a old Ukrainian guy, who did things really old school

no chemicals for clearing, he used Bentonite, etc

he would sample the wine every week, when it started to loose its sweetness he would add about 1 cup of dissolved sugar. He would keep doing this until the wine maintained the level of sweetness he was going for. He told me, yeast can only survive up to a certain percentage alcohol concentration, so he was feeding it until the yeast died, maxing out the alcohol produced.

From what he told me, Sherry and Champagne yeast actually live to a higher concentration.

I have done this with some Strawberry, and Nanking Cherry wines, and wow... lots of flavor, but you have to be careful with it. Mowed the lawn after a bottle and left some strips of long grass like stripes all over the place( my wife still laughs about that )

Reminds me of my great aunt Stephania, who fled Poland in the 70s and settled in Alaska. She gathers tons of raspberries from her garden, then pack them: thick layer of berries, thin layer of sugar, repeat 3-4 times in a 1 gallon jar. Let it sit somewhere dark for a while, skim off the floating remainders of berries to use as ice cream/cakes toppings and you've got a vat of raspberry wine. She never even added yeast, just let the natural stuff find it.

Oh yeah, and when her milk (unpasteurized) went bad, she'd make cheese out of it. I just loved her! Unfortunately, wasn't with her long enough to learn.

I go with unprocessed honey bought online. It's amazingly good, especially the wildflower. I've got four gallons of it right now, waiting to be brewed. Really should get on that.

I'm intrigued by the strawberry cherry wines. Are they brewed with grapes?

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Sunday, January 31, 2010 6:16 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:


Reminds me of my great aunt Stephania, who fled Poland in the 70s and settled in Alaska. She gathers tons of raspberries from her garden, then pack them: thick layer of berries, thin layer of sugar, repeat 3-4 times in a 1 gallon jar. Let it sit somewhere dark for a while, skim off the floating remainders of berries to use as ice cream/cakes toppings and you've got a vat of raspberry wine. She never even added yeast, just let the natural stuff find it.

Oh yeah, and when her milk (unpasteurized) went bad, she'd make cheese out of it. I just loved her! Unfortunately, wasn't with her long enough to learn.


I'm intrigued by the strawberry cherry wines. Are they brewed with grapes?

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I have also read if you do as your aunt did, in a ceramic croc, which you leave on the kitchen counter preferable in the sunlight, add some water and run a hose off of it into a carboy which you put under the kitchen sink... after a while you get a raspberry brandy type drink. I have never tried it though.

With the Strawberry wine, no grapes... straight strawberrys into the must. i have seen some recipes that put a small amount of elderberries in as well.

The Easiest Strawberry Wine Recipe

Ingredients
- 3 lbs. fresh strawberries
- 2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons citric acid or lemon juice
- 1 gallon water
- 1 teaspoon wine yeast

Directions
Place all ingredients except wine yeast in crock. Mash fruits with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water.

Stir to dissolve sugar and mash strawberries. When cooled to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, add wine yeast.

Cover the crock and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside.

Rack after 30 days and again after another 30 days. Bottle when clear.

Allow to age at least 3 months, better 6-12 month.

I stole that off the net, but it is pretty much all I do. I think I use a little Tanin too.



Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Tuesday, February 2, 2010 2:18 PM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
The Easiest Strawberry Wine Recipe

Ingredients
- 3 lbs. fresh strawberries
- 2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons citric acid or lemon juice
- 1 gallon water
- 1 teaspoon wine yeast

All you'd need for a mead is replace the sugar with honey.

I need to go to the brew store this weekend. :)

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Monday, February 15, 2010 4:36 PM

MAL4PREZ


Hey Pizmo - I got an Irish Stout going yesterday. Bought a kit, and also the fixings for another Guinness clone (that doesn't actually taste anything like Guinness) which I'll brew next week. In a month or so I'll post some comparisons...

How's your porter doing?

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010 1:27 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Hey M4P - what Porter? It's been 5 long weeks... as of this next weekend. One more week to go until I try the first bottle of finished beer. I had a taste when I was bottling and it was pretty good but thin-ish. I was told that that's what young beer tastes like, especially before carbonation and before 3 weeks *minimum* in bottles, so WAITING.
I have a German Altbier in a primary and an English IPA kit on it's way. Yeah, I have the bug, figure I want to see this to the point of being decent at it or what's the use?

So 1 1/2 weeks I'll post some notes!

If you get a chance watch Beer Wars - doc about commercial beer. Nothing we wouldn't already guess - Bud is Evil. They keep buying up brands and shelf space to push the little guys (who make the best tasting BEER) out. Now they're starting to buy up hop farms so they can control that market and squeeze the smaller brewers even further. All to sell more goat p.... Then there's the Beer Distributor Lobby... oiy.

Good luck with your stout!

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Monday, February 22, 2010 5:26 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
How's your porter doing?



Mmmmmm.... Porter!



So last Saturday was 5 weeks from brew date (3 weeks in a fermenter, 2 weeks in bottles), time to test. And I humbly submit that is was pretty damn good. Not as strong in ABV or complex tastes as some of the really good (expensive) micro breweries out there like Brooklyn, Dogfish, but still tasty.

And now I'm hooked! There's something about the process, rather slow and tedious with FAIL a real possibility after waiting 5 weeks, that makes it unlike pretty much anything else I've done.

Cheers!



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Monday, February 22, 2010 8:09 AM

MAL4PREZ


Quote:

Originally posted by pizmobeach:
Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
How's your porter doing?



Mmmmmm.... Porter!



mmmmm - pretty!

I need to bottle mine sometime soon. Though I'm also tempted to find a cold spot in the basement and cold lager it...


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Monday, February 22, 2010 9:31 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:

Originally posted by mal4prez:
I need to bottle mine sometime soon. Though I'm also tempted to find a cold spot in the basement and cold lager it...



How long do you typically do that for? (I can wait np, I'm just curious) I'm also wondering about life expectancy of home brew, I know it's not wine but I have read that it does hold pretty well, 6 months to a year.

Speaking of bottling... now that I have gone through one bottling day I'm thinking those 22 oz bottles look like a good idea.

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Monday, February 22, 2010 10:49 AM

MAL4PREZ


I don't know about the cold lagering really. I've only read about it, never done it, but I want to try. I think it needs a few weeks up to a few months, and it's generally only for certain yeasts. Not sure if the kit I'm using has those. But certainly for my Guiness clone it'd be good.

As for bottling, I find these handy:

http://www.partypig.com/

That uses up about half of the batch, so only ~24 bottles needed for the rest. Besides, the pig is so cute. :)

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