Posted on 12/05/2008 9:10:10 AM PST by djf
Do you bake your own bread? That is a good and easy way to get use to yeast making things! Doing so has got me interested and brewing my own wine, but I don’t think that is going to work in a one bedroom apartment. LOL!
I know every Goodwill I ever went into has like 6 of them homemade bread machines for sale.
correction - conditioning is another name for fermentation. It is a secondary fermentation.
No, no I mean handmade from scratch! I it is very easy. A lot of people are terrified by the idea, but it is actually really easy. Kneading the dough isn’t that big of a deal.
It's the plastic thing on this mason jar...keeps the air out so you don't end up with vinegar. The one I have is in a rubber stopper that fits in the top of the jug.
Or you can make your own by punching a hole in the bottle lid and putting in a piece of tubing so that one end is in the bottle headspace and the other end is sumerged in water. (seal around the lid with wax)
Make that “submerged”
I saw a recipe for tomato wine years ago and always wonder what that would taste like.
Since I have had two beers I understand sumerged.
“Like a cap on the jug with a hose connected”
that’s one way to skin the cat.
If the jug is a 5-gallon (or 3.5-gallon) glass carboy, that method works well because of the large hose diameter. The outlet end of the hose should be submerged in a bucket containing water and some unscented bleach (as a sanitizer). Something along the proportions of 1/4 cup bleach added to 5 gallons of water (though not necessarily that quantity).
If using a gallon jug, the smaller diameter hose in the cap will plug easily, resulting in a big honkin’ mess (overflow (bad) or explosion (really bad)). I usually use a large planter tray (~ 24” diameter) to set my fermenter on to catch overflow.
Skip the cap and use a hose with a large enough diameter to fit snugly inside the mouth of the jug. Avoids (bad) and (really bad) situations.
~hic~
Need to start another batch of cider.
Always ensure that the Strategic Ethanol Reserve is fully stocked...
It is so eazy-peazey I can’t believe I was paying 7 & 8 bucks a sixpack for so long. Once you amortize the bottles (which you don’t even have to buy since you’ve been stockpiling them), even buying kits and paying shipping you’ll come out ahead. I’ve gotten several from www.williamsbrewing.com. The first one I made was the Weizenbeer. One thing - if you do end up buying more bottles, go right to the 22 oz. Capping 5 gallons in 12 oz bottles takes way too long.
Cool!
My favorite beer!
Lot of folks think it’s too skunky, but I don’t like flat tasting beers. Gimme a stout or a strong ale anyday!
I’m not a beer aficionado ... so if I had as many beer bottles as you, I’d think about making root beer. ;-D
Thanks!
Please add me to your ping list.
I read both your blogs, you are obviously very experienced. My feeling was that I wanted to start smaller, really kind of be in experiment mode.
So from what I understand:
You boil the grain to dissolve sugars and starches
You let it cool and then add the yeast
You let it ferment
You may/may not at that point “draw off” the fermented mix, also, you may then add more sugar and yeast for a secondary fermentation
You then bottle it
My curiosity is most about the final bottling phase. If it’s bottled and there are still some yeasts in there (and however much unfermented carbs), will putting in in the fridge basically shut that down? Or do you NOT want to shut it down to get some carbonation?
I read where you are using kegs and 20psi CO2 but I wanted to keep it as simple as possible to start.
Thanks again!
The labels on the bottles I have say 15.2 Fl ozs
So, that’s 2 bottles/quart, 8/gallon, and I have 22 of them.
so that would be about 2.5 gallons worth which is part of the reason I want to start small.
“Bottle too soon with secondary going on or overestimate the amount of bottling malt and you get a bottle full of foam or little popping sounds coming from yer basement...which is bad news because it tastes bad after you wring it out of a mop. Don’t ask me how I know that... ;-)”
Time for some family lore. My grandfather decided to take up bathtub brewing during Prohibition (probably more as a protest, than for the beer). He was a traveling salesman and had to leave town before the fermentation had completed, so he instructed my grandmother about bottling and left. She had a sweet tooth and decided the beer needed a bit more sugar before bottling up. The bottles were stashed in the closet at the end of the hall. A few nights later, they sat up in bed, startled by the muffled explosions coming from the closet. They were afraid to open the door and beer ran down the hall all night as the explosions continued. Grandma said they picked glass out of the closet walls for years. So ended the bathtub beer experiment.
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