Home-brewing General. What are you currently brewing?What are you currently drinking?What are your plans?Post you brews, recipes, ideas and problems.Beer, wine, cider, distilling all welcome. old 'un >>2962625
Has anyone else (Britanons) tried using 'Sussex' hops, and if so how much did they differ from ordinary Fuggles?
>>3000736Currently brewing plain cider, cranberry cider, a raspberry wine, a strong cider, a blueberry melomel, and an IPA. Just finished brewing ginger beer, mead, a brown ale, a guava fizz, and a raspberry fizz. Going to start another batch of mead this weekend, and another batch of strong cider. I make a gallon of strong cider every weekend, it keeps me in 10% ABV booze all week for $4.
>>3000738I've used both, and can't tell a difference. Some of my friends claim they can, but can't tell me what's different, just that they are. I buy whichever is cheaper and use that.
>>3000865The thing was I was looking to buy the 500g pack of Fuggles from malt miller when I saw that Sussex was a couple quid cheaper, in the end I went with Fuggles because never having used Sussex I didn’t want to regret it. Think I should’ve just risked it.
>>3000864Sounds good! I have a low ABV Kölsch cold conditioning, an APA sitting in the fermenter, and a ton of plums I want to turn into wine and cider. I still have to bottle last years plum wine, it's been sitting in a glass carboy since last August.
>>3000864busy guyim still out of base malt so tried a experimental fruit hydromel? honey sugar blackberries bitter/sweet orange peel corriander seeds bittered with callista hops to 30ibus. made up 12l should come in around 10%. might add some maltodextrin to thicken it up a bit when the fermentation is done, lets see.>>3000983i have a plum tree thats done quite well this year, was thinking of making a plum porter and some wine when their ripe
Rhubarb stalks in bucket, rinsed once then pour boiling water over. After cooled strained into another bucket with about 1.5 lb sugar per gallon and sprinkled yeast. Dad told me the recipe is called "she won't say no."
>>3000736Currently ageing last year's cider. Quite a few quince blends. I'm drinking some of last years pet nat ciders which turned out amazing and I'm kicking myself for not doing more pet nats. Plans are scrump around for early high acid apples, try to find some early ripening crabs for my easy drinking blend (80-90% early apples + 10-20% crabs). Beyond that my grape harvest should be solid this year so I'll probably do a few coferments since they can be fun, I'll probably try to source some perry pears to make a QPA.
>>3000736What do you guys do with spent grains (besides throwing them in the bin)?So far i've made flour, drying it takes forever, and made bread, turned out quite tasty but needed about 5-7 min more in the oven.
spent grain as compost and spent hops as mulch for the soft fruits.
>>3001424hops is highly toxic for dogs while they occasionally do like to eat grain so for those with dogs I highly recommend not mixing it and throwing it somewhere where the dog(s) can get to it.
>>3001026Is that a wine or a mash for distillation?
>>3000983>>3000994I want to make a plum wine so bad, but we've had a late frost every spring for the past 3 years that kills all the blossoms on my trees. I'm halfway tempted to build fires near them like they do in vineyards if we have a late cold snap again next year. Three trees, all covered in hundreds of blossoms, then they die the first week or so of May. So frustrating.
I brewed my beer for the Kegland Brewing Competition but I'm pretty sure the bottles won't arrive in time... fml. Shouldn't have gambled on the DHL Packstation not having been emptied already this morning.
>>3001634Maybe some kind of tarp or fabric? Every few years frost robs me of my cherries, sucks.
>>3001863Just updated again and it actually got picked up. 2 hours later than what's written on the packstation. Thank you DHL :')Now it just has to get to the Netherlands until August 1st
>>3001864Not a bad idea, I have a few big tarps that would cover my trees pretty easily.
>>3001866Godspeed, anon's bottles.
>>3001884They arrived today. Now let's just hop that the August 1st deadline means bottles arriving on that day are still in time>Just make sure they arrive before August 1st. Entries arriving after this date cannot be acceptedBefore or on or before???
>>3002259Well, did they accept the entry or turn you away?
>>3002600There hasn't been any update so far from their side. All I can see is that the package got delivered on Aug 1st
I'll brew a Hefeweizen tomorrow. Any tips?
>>3000736I don't have a fermentation chamber and these heatwaves have made my cellar's temp fluctuate way too much to brew anything. If it were a normal summer with even one heatwave I would've brewed an ale or two by now but it's just too hot and unpredictable these days.
I want to make my own kegerator. I was thinking to make it run on ice instead of electricity because my house has kinda shitty wiring and another fridge would draw a lot of power and cost $$$. I was thinking of freezing a gallon jug of water in my current freezer and move it into the kegerator every few days (or however long the ice lasts).Is this a retarded idea? Should I just buy another fridge?
>>3003481>I was thinking of freezing a gallon jug of water in my current freezer and move it into the kegerator every few daysPeople have done this using pet bottles placing with the keg in water bath and fleece blanket wrapped over.>Should I just buy another fridge?Wherever you buy second hand, a fridge should be cheap if you can transport it yourself. However, most likely need a temp sensor and and something like an inkbird to get the temp you want (slightly higher than a fridge normally goes).
>>3003461>cellar's temp fluctuate way too muchIf you can get your hands on some slabs of polystyrene foam and insulate open to the floor you should get a stable temp. However you would then have a ferment producing it's own heat so the temp you wind up with would be up to experimentation.
>>3003461Of course I could say get a proper chiller but they cost a packet lol. You can DIY a fridge and place a heater within to be used as a stable fermentation room; there used to be a how to on "Jim's Beer Kit" but I can't find it now. I'm sure there are others. Really should be trying to have fermentations with stable temperatures but I'm like you and other than a basic heating pad and insulator in the colder months I don't do anything else. In the summers I've just generally had the fermenter in a cool spot in a garage and it hasn't been an issue but now it really is, and there's several brews I want to do.
>>3000736My grapes are almost ripe, FrontenacI am also going to ship in a 5gallon frozen Cab Sav must... but im thinking i want a white wine instead maybe, what should I try?I just opened a 2024 of my frontenac and its good, i didnt store it properly so i figured it had less than a year left
>>3003877What's your alternative plan for your Frontenac grapes? I just pressed ~12L of grape juice yesterdays from the vines on our shed. I was really impressed by the taste and amount. It was only two baskets full and the grapes themselves are rather sour and full of seeds. But the juice was worth the squeeze ;)
>>3004222As a clarification, I don't have your variety, mine are green grapes, don't know the exact type.
Is aging cider/wine before turning it into Brandy a meme or are the french onto something?
Guys help me to become a better brewer. I do brew in a bag because I only have a stove top and a 6 gallon pot. Shit takes forever to boil water. I've only done this three times and every time I hit an ABV that was 3% where I was supposed to hit 4% (stou) 5% a regular beer. What am I doing wrong? I accounted for extra grain and still get shit like this.
>>3006337I assume you're getting the abv from measuring starting gravity - final gravity. We minimally need to know if your starting gravity was below expectation in which case there in brewing problem or if your final gravity was above expectation and a fermentation problem.As the difference you're experiencing is quite large, could it be as simple as you're adding imperial gallons of water when the recipe calls for us gallons?
Pissed off because I did a brew on the weekend and my efficiency was down (1.040 v 42 on a 21 L batch); miscalculated system loss so less in the fermenter than I aimed for; and worst of all my grainfather seems to be leaking (which would account for some the 'missing' wort but not all).
>>3006751If those small variances in brewing efficiency bothers you, get some dme to top up with next time and pretend it never happened.Sorry about your grainfather, plenty guides on them leaking so hopefully you'll have that sorted without to much trouble and $.
Got a mead that's been sitting in primary for nearly 2 years now, due to laziness and whatnot. I brewed it with Lutra kveik, and my original intention was to make it sparkling. What are the odds it'll still carbonate if I just add some priming sugar in the bottling bucket? I'm assuming, despite the kveik probably having become very well settled now, that I'll inevitably stir some up when I rack it into the bottling bucket. I do have some ec1118 I could add if I need to, but I'd rather not. Guess worst case I have a very mildly sweet still mead....Also if it matters, it's probably only like 8-10% abv, was going for an easy drinker, not something super strong.One last thing, should I bother washing the kveik from the bottom of the bucket for reuse? Already washed it once after brewing a cider beer, but kveik is supposed to be tough shit, innit?
>>3007606Bottle first one in pet and you can squeeze it to feel if it's carbonating. If it doesn't work add tiny amount of rehydrated ec1118 to each bottle.Unless it smells bad I'd try to reuse the kveik but I'd make a slow gravity starter 1.040 with lots of fermaid o min 5g/L to check viability and get decent amount of viable yeast. then cold crash in fridge to concentrate.
>>3006828The under-hitting the efficiency is annoying but not too bothersome really, I had been assuming 90% for this brew (which is in line with my recent form), and it was down to roughly 85%. This is pretty good for homebrew standards so it's not worth too worrying about but even so I like to think I'm brewing as efficiently as I can. The other thing that happened with that brew which annoyed me was I was going to use these EKG pellets I know I had in the freezer, but hadn't used for a good while, and I couldn't find them. Just seemingly vanished and it was best part of a 100g pack.
Got a damson plum that is LADEN with fruit. Wife wants jam but plum wine ins acceptable.Got any recipes? Have maybe 14 pounds picked so far, another 25-30 available
>>30077985kg plums 4L water 3kg sugar makes for 10L. Port, madeira or malaga yeast, yeast nutrient. backsweeten with up to 300g sugar. This makes a sweet wine If you use any of the classic listed yeasts it will reach their alcohol tolerane so no need to stabilize, just make sure it's done. Clearing agent optional.You need to remove the seed from the plums and chop them a bit, but nothing excessive, the good stuff is water soluable. boil the water before poring over the plums to kill the wild yeast (you can save a bit to make it cool down faster.If you've got a mesh bag and pectic enzyme you can use that and remove within a week or so. split the sugar in two additions (before and after),If no bag, first don't add any sugar, wait a few days pour thru sieve to remove plums, then add sugar.
>>3007806I just went picking up the tree and got nearly a 5 gallon construction pale done in about an hour more than 20 lb.My guess is we've only picked maybe a third or bit more of the tree
>>3007863what kinda yield would you get from that? there's a park across the street from me with a mature plum tree that yields probably double that, I could probably sneak a couple barrels over
>>3007798Damson jam is the shit btw. My grandfather has a damson bush which he got from taking a cutting off a neighbours tree which over-hangs onto theirs so he usually picks them from both and likes to make jam with it, I can never get enough. At a stone I would say you have enough to do both. All these fruit wine things are all the same btw, just extract the juice and ferment like with normal wine and cider; might be worth getting a wine/cider press if you are going to make it a regular thing. You can also make damson gin same way people like to make sloe gin where you just add them to the gin with sugar, which is apparently quite nice. >>3007863enjoy the chopping up lel
How do I inactivate yeast?I'm experimenting with brewing mead and I was interested in a bottle-only recipe that takes only a week, creating basically an alcoholic fizzy soda. But when it comes to keep it from fermenting, i dont know how.I considered bringing the bottles up to 50°C for a while until all the yeast dies, but that would stress the yeast and cause it to produce bad alcohols, yes?What else is there?Also, do I have to let the mead rest to get rid of the yeasty taste? Does that also clear it up or do I need gelatin for that?
I've got 30L of high sucrose brew which is stuck, and I've reintroduced yeast but it's dead stuck.Relative gravity is 25 so it's totally undrinkable. Sugar and shite
>>3009434Should've step fed the sugar
>>3009411>How do I inactivate yeast?You can't. Fermentation stops when the yeast runs out of fermentable sugar.>>3009411>brewing mead and I was interested in a bottle-only recipe that takes only a weekThis sounds like youtube content...Don't waste good honey. Don't prematurely optimize. For something that's cheap and fine without a long maturation look to skeeter pee (lemon juice) or apple juice.If you want speed and residual sweetness use one of the kveiks or possibly a belgain saison. If you need more sweetness use a non fermentable sweetener before bottle conditioning.Stay way below 10% potential alcohol, those last % will slow down fermentation considerably. Start at the higher end of the temp range and wrap your fermentation vessel in a blanket.When bottle conditioning use at least one pet (soda) bottle so you can squeeze it and make sure it's working.When finished put the bottles in the fridge to cold crash and the yeast and other particles will settle at the bottom.
>>3009442Hindsight is 20/20.I've added some turbo yeast which will strip the sugars, though the finished beer may be undrinkably bad
Pressed some apple juice todayPut some yeast I had sitting in the back of the fridge for over a year into 1/2 galpraying it'll be alive in the morning
>>3009632It's running, lads
>>3009632Unlike your canned malts or store bought juice a fresh press will be full of wild yeast, bacteria and mold spores.While your primary fermentation and the resulting alcohol should pasturize your juice and that's a big reason cider even exists, it's highly advisable to pasturize your juice with sulphur dioxide.It's very easy to do, goes hand inhand with sanitizing your equipment, gives the desired yeast a significant head start, and this can be more important depending on which yeast you add and what the final product is going to be.
So barrel 1 is stuck at 20RG, indeed it should have been step fed. Took some bad advice from commenter #138346 from blindleadingblind.com.The sugar content is just way too high and suspect yeast which will finish at higher ABV as starting cultures won't take.
>>3009775I heat pasturized it
>>3009788This is fine. Makes sense. But isn't S02 pasteurisation far easier and less energy intensive?Currently drinking all the beer at the bottom of the barrel which wasn't really worth racking.
>>3009790It's been a while since I did any home brew, or pressed any cider, so I didn't have much suppliesHave a ton of caning stuff though, so it was what we could doOur neighbor has a ton of apples too, probably gonna run the press again this week
i had to suck up my pride and add sugar to the grape mush, the drought fucked the sugar percentages despite the grape species being resistant to both cold and heati have about 800 l of the mush, but no idea how much of it will be left once i pull the stems out, meaning i will be left with less than 100 liters of grape brandyits been a bad year for fruit and there is nothing i could have doneplums are even worse, they appear once every 2 or 3 years, they started shriveling before they were even ripe, the brandy from them will have to be herbalits been a horrible summer
>>3009834>will be left with less than 100 liters of grape brandyIf that's a bad year, what does a good year look like?
>>3009834Godspeedm8
>>3009792If you have a solid understanding of the techniques and applicable science you can take certain risks and make certain trade offs.
>>30098923 years ago i had 80l of black wine, 180l of grape brandy and 250l of plum brandy, this is a catastrophe.Difference is, along with the drought is that i had the pigs fenced in the plum orchard and they plow and kill weeds around the trees making them a hundred times healthier and efficient, the grapes are good if they have enough water, scorching heat does fuck all to them, both blue and yellow. I still don't know how to make white wine, cant be fucked with it honestly. Also, birds can fuck up the vineyard if they dont eat properly, they pluck every grape there is in a day and i dont even notice, everything gone.
My raspberry mead from the last thread is ready to bottle. In this picture you can see the liebig condenser I am making. This year I picked enough damson to make 60l wine that I am going to distil to brandy. Please Anon above give me some tips on fruit brandy.
>>3009456I appreciate the info.I guess I'll just let it ferment 66% of the bottle to the very end, filter with gelatin and then fill up with 33% unfermented honeywater.
>>3010205Not much to say if you will brew it from wine, look after the heat, dont overdo it and keep the flow of fresh water into the cooling end, pull out the acid, first half a liter to a liter on each batch.I never did it from wine, but if you ever brew it from mash, put a spoon of pig fat into the pot, it will keep the potential foam from forming up as it boils, it can shove mash particles into the pipes and then youre fucked.If you miss out on desired strength, put it to brew again, but cut it down with distilled water, formula to dilute brandy is: Water to add (L) = Current Brandy (L) × [(Current % - Target %) ÷ Target %].L is liters i thinkI carved it in a rock somewhere, you can look it up online, use the same rig to distill waterYou can add jams and juice of the same fruit to the mash, or the liquid you want to brew, just buy yourself a refractometer, again, i only know metric sobon 10 grams of the fruit ot mash, you need 16 to 20% of sugar, i learned 20 is best, above and brandy comes out stronger, which might be in your case
>>3009834Are you that balkanoid that comes to this thread once a year to flex on your yields and lack of laws on alcohol production?Last i remember you were sifting wine from some Macedonian or Moldavian 'species'I remember your stirring paddle, 50 years old by now, oak.Did you do anything with the corn you said you would try?Did you stop drinking half of what you brew and is your dad still alive after chemo?
How the FUCK do I brew honey wine, bros?
I've perfected the sugar wine.>1:3 tea:water, infuse in the fridge for a day >1:6 sugar:tea The tea provides flavor, caffeine and most importantly a fuckton of nutrients.Ferments out bone dry almost twice as fast, zero eggy smell.
