Brewing

Nope. Should it? Surely not?

No, I wrap mine so it gets none.

It is now 10d later. The baker’s yeast is still fermenting the Mead quite well. Just bubbling away in it’s slow, gradual style it has been thusfar. Any nastyness that could’ve been there has completely disappeared. There was some “Krausen”, but at this point it’s all gone and all that remains is the ring it made on the grass and thin, light, white foam being formed by the rest of the fermentation. There’s lees forming on the bottom and very, very gradually it seems like the liquid is lightening, but it’s still fairly opaque. Then again clarification is only likely to happen a month+ in, if at all.

The pineapple brew seems to be slowing significantly in fermentation now but the bits of fruit bobbing at the top seem to be still fermenting furiously so: I surmise there’s not enough alcohol yet to kill the yeast, but the main “body” of the fluid is probably out of sugar. I may add more to help maximise alcohol content until fermentation does stop completely. (I did make up the recipe on the fly so… it’s entirely possible). A quick taste test didn’t yield an at-all bad drink. Perhaps lacking a bit in flavour, and in need of chilling. I’m considering bottling it (eventually) with a bit of sugar for natural carbonation. That combined with a chill should yield something quite nice.

(Warm beer tastes crappy for a reason, the cold changes our ability to taste certain unwanted flavors)

Me, I have kind of given up on high alcohol brew - I’m not that desperate for it anyway. I have now tried more or less anything and everything I could think of. Lots of sugar, little sugar, start with a little and add more, teaspoon of Marmite, regularly stir, don’t regularly stir, whatever. The result is invariably the same: after five days the fermentation mostly stops, resulting in a pleasant but very mildly alcoholic drink.

Got a 5kg bag of grain from the bird feed section at the local co-op. Since I don’t have any hops, I thought it may be a good idea to try and make some whiskey. I’m busy malting the grain at the moment, which is kind of fun. Even more fun was replicating successfully the harvesting of wild yeast from grapes, as in the video linked to by brianvds earlier. I intend using this wild yeast in my grain ferment. So hopefully it will come together nicely. Unfortunately whiskey has to sit around with a block of wood in it for a few months, and then mellow for another year. :frowning: So it should just about be drinkable when this lock down ends.

I can barley wait.

Just way too much work, for way too little product. Well, if you’re lazy like me.

I’m kind of happy with the brew I now make. Not very strong, but enough to make me mellow. My landlady has tried some. She thinks there is more alcohol in it than I think. Who knows? I have no way to measure it.

Perhaps you can use your landlady as gauge.

I’ve also learned that at the start of the ferment the yeast, a facultative anaerobe, needs oxygen to get its population going. So some frequent agitation is useful in the beginning, until it goes into the fermentative stage.

I do my brew in 2 L plastic bottles, with the caps not quite tightly screwed on, so there are probably limits to how much fresh air gets in there…

FWIW: I did end up with not-bad pineapple beer. But wanted to see how good I could get it, thus “racking” it into a bunch of 2l coke bottles, added sugar for carbonation and cold-crashed. After about a week racked again and put back in the fridge. This left me with a nice, cold, slightly carbonated (need more sugar) beautifully clear, pineappeley (shock), greenish-yellow drink. It’s really not bad, has that familiar bitter aftertaste many beers have (lacking in hops… so… no idea why…), and gets a good buzz going for both me and the missus. In a world without legal alcohol, it’d totally liven up a party. BUT it’s not actual beer…

I did spring for some grains and yeast (edit: and HOPS!) from the brew supply place, while we were still in the dark ages of Lvl 4. They had slim pickings where stock was concerned and I “got what I could” to make what will be “definitely beer”: of not any style or recipe in particular other than “what Boogie could figure out are the rough rules for making a beer”. Got to me in short order and I went ahead trying to make my first ever actual beer. The process is both fascinating in it’s requirements for exactitude and planning, and really fun! AND THE SMELL!!! After brew day missus requested we do it again due to us shooting low on volume for the first batch… and so it was. Fermentation is just about done on the first batch, what I’ve tasted thusfar is really great, but I haven’t had enough to make a call on alcohol level. The color is perfect, it really is “definitely beer”, and I’m VERY chuffed about that. I’m expecting 4-5% ABV at the efficiency I achieved. The subsequent batch a tad more. Hoping to work on that…

I was able to, as stock has come in-and-out, been able to acquire more beer making (and bottling) essentials so batch 1 will soon be racked into bottles to carbonate. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Also, I threw some hard cider (apple juice + sugar) into a fermenter a while ago + beer yeast and do expect that to work out brilliantly also.

I’m hooked.

I found that if I leave my simple sugar-plus-yeast brew for ten days instead of five, it does after all ferment a bit more, and ends up a bit more alcoholic too, though I doubt if it gets to more than 4% or thereabouts.

Now you can buy again, and my landlady got some bottles of wine. The other day I had a glass or two - and woke up the next morning with a splitting headache. I am clearly out of practice. But I concluded that the liquor industry produces stuff that is way too strong, probably deliberately to make it more addictive. Henceforth I’ll only ever drink what I brew myself. I have a feeling lots of people are going to do the same, and the liquor industry has been dealt a permanent blow by the temporary ban. We’ll have to see how the tobacco industry will come out of it.

I’m probably due an update:

My 1st beer, while lovely at first, has kindof an off-note I still can’t place. I’ve read countless internet articles trying to describe off flavours but with no luck finding something that matches or makes sense. Finding the words to describe it is also not being very successful. It’s distinct but also hard to describe. However, it gets you buzzing, and is not a bad beer. I just would love to know how to eliminate this one minor aspect of it. Because…

That note is still there in my 2nd batch, but is not as prevalent, making it a lovely, fruity, dark amber beer to drink… Frankly I love it, and it has a bit more punch than I’d expected. I’d say it’s fairly par-for-the-beer-course, and after a draught-sized helping I get plenty tipsy. One thing it lacks is “head”, though it is plenty fizzy. And, of course, still that feint off note I’d like to remove completely… But a huge improvement. (Aging isn’t helping on this particular one, but keep reading…)

Though I’ve now taken a different direction and am trying to produce a German Wheat beer. That effort is coming along nicely “at first taste”.

As for the Pineapple brew, I still have some and it seems to be aging very well. It seems better every time I taste it, and any “wild” flavours that it had initially are waning. (I did make a ton of the stuff and seeing as I now have beers also… it’s being neglected just enough)

I’ve kindof just left my Cider to age in a dark corner and at last taste I can say it’s millimeters off from a traditional Savannah. Keen on bottling it soon.

Mead… Mead keeps bubbling but the gravity is still very high and it’s still very sweet many months on… I may re-pitch yeast in it soon.

What a great new hobby!

Me, I decided it’s easier to give up on drinking alcohol than to try achieving any appreciable alcohol content with baker’s yeast. Yes, yes, I know, everyone easily gets 10%, but I can’t work out how. Mine stubbornly refuses. It galls me to give in to bureaucratic rules like this, but there you go.

If I do ever attempt it again, I’m going to go for natural yeast from grapes.

Nice going Boogie! Or should I say, nice bru. (get it?)

My attempt at malting barley turned out a disaster - some lactobacillus took over where the yeast should have been, turning the whole pot hugely acidic. Alcohol content was negligible.

But we persevere and I am now repeating the exercise using corn. Just started sprouting yesterday. The idea is to make whiskey from a green malt.

Ja hey…

My attempt at malting barley turned out a disaster - some lactobacillus took over where the yeast should have been, turning the whole pot hugely acidic. Alcohol content was negligible.

But we persevere and I am now repeating the exercise using corn. Just started sprouting yesterday. The idea is to make whiskey from a green malt.

Do you still subject the mash to a boil?

I’m going to let the 8kg corn sprout for maybe a week, then mill it wet and unkilned through a Kenwood. Then I’m going to add some water and
incubate the mash at 60 - 65 deg for an hour to try and persuade the starchy endosperm to turn sugary. Any hotter and the amylase may denature.

For beer you’d boil wort after the mashing (carb → sugar) step to kill any (esp lacto) bacteria before you infuse with yeast. At that point denaturing the amylase is moot. However I guess in this case you’re trying to utilise natural yeast already in the grain?

No not trying natural yeast again soon. I’ll give it a good dose Pick n Pay yeast this time round. Will try boiling and then pitch once its cool to, say, 40deg.

just some tips: The mashing in temp is critical to taste (long vs short sugar chains). For your low ABV beers, mash in at 61-63 C; for stronger ABV mash in at 78C, Leave mash in for 60 -90 minutes (keep temp constant). Boil wort for 60 minutes and add bittering hops at start of boil plus late hops at between 15-9 minutes before end of boil…(and here’s the biggest mistake homebrewers make) drop wort temp from boil to about 24 C as quickly as possible (I do it in 2 seconds! via a 46 plate heat exchanger)…make sure your yeast is viable prior to pitching it and pitch in to wort at 24C or lower. For beers over 12%ABV you’ll need champagne/turbo yeast.

Not something to brag about… :wink:

Actually, depending on the volume you’re talking about that’s really, really impressive. I dunk my container with about 5l of wort into a cold bath (was winter, so I mean REALLY cold) and that cools it in about 12 minutes or so. I’ve yet to make myself a dedicated rig for this.

make sure your yeast is viable prior to pitching

I’ve commenced doing “starters” (see spoiler) 24 hours before brewing and really prefer it now. It takes a little bit more planning but I really like how quick the fermentation goes. It’s one of the ways I’m trying to address my off flavors… jury still out.

When I say starter, I mean I quickly “brew” a small batch 24 hours in advance using dry malt extract and a short boil, add yeast nutrient, then try to infuse as much O₂ as I can over night to help the yeast multiply. It’s tricky to keep this whole process sanitized, but I’ve been successful thusfar.

For beers over 12%ABV you'll need champagne/turbo yeast

I may try Kveik yeast at some point to see how quick it can be done, though as I understand it makes “acceptible” beer, not great beer.

Kveik yeast is a Norwegian strain that is known for being super aggressive, completing fermentation in “as little as 3-4 days” without some of the bad stuff that’d happen if you tried to ferment using other yeasts at the same pace (temperatures)

not bragging but the heat exchanger is awesome provided your cold water supply can cope…do about 1600 litres per brew. I pitch 500gms of yeast in to a 24C sample of the wort to get going…and then test the wort in the fermenter again after transfer to avoid yeast stress (shock from temp differences in sample vs wort). Remember that 95% (avg) of beer is H20…if your water is not quite what is needed you may get off-flavours coming through…lagers/pilsners need soft water (low in calcium and magnesium)vs ales that prefer hard water…so select your yeasts to suit the style of beer and the water…typical lager/pilsner yeast ferments at between 7-14C (longer fermentation times) while ale yeasts work at 16-24C (quicker fermentation). Filter water and test Ph and eliminate all chlorine. Home brew shops could advise and supply the right yeasts…also remember yeasts play a major role in the taste as well.