Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

It’s pretty good! Definitely have room to improve, but it tastes alright. And now I have beer for the next 3 weeks…

Had no bad batches at home scale, but quite often get these events, when even replacing the lock with an open fermenter does not help. Only regular cleanups work.

Doing a weekend of brewing. Started it off today making a bourbon mash. I got an ultrasonic cleaner a while back I’ve been itching to use. I’ve seen research papers showing some evidence of it speeding up the aging process and I’ve been dying to try it. Tomorrow I’m doing two experiments, brewing an imperial milk stout and doing a keg fermentation with a jumper to another keg to purge the o2 because I’m a cheap bastard. Never fermenter in a keg so I figure it’ll be a fun thing to try. Lastly, because the yeast was expensive I’m going to try to freeze back some yeast from the starter I overbuilt and use it in another brew down the line.

Took a few hours and a lot of spillage, but I got 41 12oz bottles out of it. Probably could’ve gotten more. Tried a bit, and the flavor was pretty muted and bitter, but I think it just needs to age a bit in the bottles. I’ll post back in 2 weeks with the final results.

I just used Max MIller's recipe, other than adjusting the botanicals a bit to account for what I already had and what I personally enjoy. Ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, and juniper is what I went with. For those that don't already know, bochet is mead made with caramelised honey. The process of caramelising the honey is where I tripped up last time; the process gives off so much steam and basically spits nature's napalm at you, so it's really easy to underdo it. Still, I made something decent enough to make me want to try again, and here it is!

OK, so this is the first mead that I have used the calculator app I published just before x-mas https://no.lastname.nz/post/2052141

Raspberry peanut butter mead, this happened after racking into tertiary. Primary and secondary had raspberries freefloating in the container, so it miiiight just be floating bits of raspberry. When I shake it up, they briefly sink and float back up.

I’ve been fed up with the GotMead calculator not working for ages, so I’ve attempted to make a more modern React app that will work well on laptop and phone

On Friday I brewed up some tree beer using Leyland Cypress boughs in the strike and sparge water as well as in the mash vessel. OG was ~1.050 and I split the boil to brew up a saison and a pale ale with galaxy and sultana (denali) hops. The saison is fermenting with a wild yeast culture I captured from my neighbor’s raw honey and the pale ale has Framgarden kveik. They’re both fermenting at 87°F/30.5°C

Had some leftovers from a sahti x stout run I recently made for a birthday bash. Not enough of the crucial Viking Malt Chocolate Light to replay the well-received recipe, though, and the hops box was on its last crumbs of whathaveyou. I decided this is the time to be brave…

I’m an experienced mead maker with a couple of Micro-Matic Sanke D kegs I bought online over the pandemic. I finally got around to using one, and I’m stuck on the last part of the teardown: removing the CO2 valve from the down tube. I’ve watched a few YouTube videos and they don’t really go into huge detail on this part. I even broke down and called Micro-Matic who basically said that this stuff wasn’t designed to be regularly disassembled but instead pressure-cleaned with an expensive keg washer. I’m hoping someone out there has a clever tool or approach they use to handle this situation, even if it’s something silly like “I hold it down over this widget with a bump which pushes up the ball and then I spray cleaner down the tube and follow it up with rinse water and I’m not dead yet”.

After like 3 years I was again brewing beer just for fun and not 2000l batch as my job or trying something on this small scale for my job (because I had a time and got the ingredients for free).

My test batch setup is nearly complete (please also appreciate the “beautiful” tiles) and I tested it with a wet hop beer. As you can see, those were clearly at the upper end of their ripeness scale, but it was the only time I could manage to pick some at all due family & kids. In they went in for a ~20 minutes 80 ˚C hop stand, during which my kitchen smelled a troubling lot of garlic and onions. By removing the bag with the hops, I stirred up the already settled trub, so I had to pour all hop debris & hot break into the minikeg along with the wort. Let’s see what that does to the beer. I’ve overshot my OG quite a bit with the setup in the pictures, with a lot higher efficiency than predicted, only by stirring every now and then, so we’re looking at an OG of 1.051 instead of 1.046.

Kernza® is the trademark name for the grain produced from the plant intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium). The plant is native to western Asia, and this perennial “cousin” of wheat has historically been grown in the US and across the globe to feed livestock. The Land Institute is developing it to serve as a perennial grain source for people and working toward a future that includes multiple varieties of Kernza® that are economical for farmers around the world to produce at a large scale.

Regular infusion mash, light belgian style witbier bill. Perle, IBU about 15. Wild forest raspberries in secondary, 200g/L. Yeast BLG201, our own.

Anyone else tried Incognito? I have tried it before but didn’t mix it properly, so I think most of it dropped to the bottom of the FV in a lump. This time giving it a proper stir with hot wort seems to have dissolved it better. I haven’t tried the beer yet.

Brewed a year ago and lagered. Time is coming to brew it again!

Made Salvadorian Chicha, although not quite like how mother made to avoid the chance of getting vinegar haha. It's made with a brown cane sugar processed in an old fashioned way - a company sells the cones of sugar called mi costeñita - and pineapple.

I already don't know what's in it, few varieties of currants, apricots, now I added red and white grapes and some other things added during last two months I don't remember.

Just a heavy mash with some chocolate malt and crystal, brittish yeast BRT101 (RIP Alzymologist Oy, but I still have the Library). Takes time to mature, couple weeks after bottling it still asks for more bottle aging (hopefully few years) but already nice and mellow. Dangerously drinkable, for its ABV.

I feel like I haven’t posted here in a while… basically I decided to take a break from drinking and thus home brewing for a bit. I want to get back into meme spirits, and I also want to make a 0 oxygen beer from ferment to filter to serving, but for now I made a berry wine for the girlfriend from some Aldi frozen fruit. This has been sitting in the fermenter on the fruit for a good 3 months (started it just before my break from alcohol) and then I moved it into a keg, no cold crashing or anything. I then ran it through a 5 micron filter and then a 1 micron filter just to see how it went, I gotta say, it turned out great. I was expecting the filter to clog but it went through like a champ. I also then wanted to try pasteurizing it in the keg using my mash and boil to see if I get some delicious glue and rubber in my mashing vessel but I didn’t! I back sweetened the wine and haven’t had any re-fermentation happen after a few weeks, so project fuck around and find out was a success. I might end up retrying a milk wine again (last one had a few tiny cheese curds floating in it that turned off most people from it) and I definitely want to try making a spicy imperial stout, but for now, I’ve gotta buy wine bottles or give out samples of this wine until my keg is empty.

Happy days! My new beer is done. This is a battle-tested recipe with lemons and ginger. This time I also had 10 g of fresh lemon balm in the seasoning infusion. This guy:

So I managed to find 80% food grade alcohol (it was harder than you might thought) and started the all season maceration.

An other mead aberration, for science!

I've been planning to brew a beer with spruce tips and did some research to decide how to go about doing it. The gold standard in spruce tip syrup making is half a glass jar of tightly packed fresh spruce tips with the top half of the jar full of white sugar. This goes on a south-facing window and the sun supposedly melts the sugar and as it runs down, it captures the taste and healthiness from the spruce tips better than any other method.

Second hand fridge with an inkbird thermostat.

The one on the left is my first batch, the right my second (just bottled).

I have these bottles which I've already used once.

I've been chasing more maltiness with this recipe and it's now getting to be in the ballpark of a couple of favourites - Plevna Dry Stout and Sinebrychoff Porter. This 21 l run had 6,7 kg of malt of which 500 g was 1300 EBC Black Malt and 1 kg was 400 EBC Chocolate Light from Viking Malt. The chocolate in particular is a great find with strong and unique taste.

I'm so glad the fermentation succeeded the sample tastes like apple cider with a sour kiss. The smell is extremely sweet. The alcohol kicks 🤙

Now that it’s no longer dreary winter I’m finally getting the motivation to do something that isn’t fly virtual aircraft every waking second of my day. I decided to make two wines, one that’s a mixed berry (blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, not sure what else it’s just the berry medley pack from aldi) and a strawberry banana. Sometimes no matter how good or experienced of a brewer you are you make dumb mistakes. Did I get annoyed when my strawberry banana starter foamed over and caused a small cleanup? Yes. Did I think to add a blowoff tube to the fermenter filled with it? No. Did I spend most of today mopping the ceiling? Yes. Originally I wanted to do a lemon brandy rather than strawberry banana, but lemons were stupidly expensive. The plan is for the mixed berry wine to be the girlfriend tax and the strawberry banana to be turned into a brandy for a camping trip I have going on next month.

This is a Rewarewa mead started over the long weekend - 7.5kg honey - made to 20 L - fermaid at - champagne style ec1118 yeast - est to be a og of about 1.113

SOLVED: I was stupid. One litre less water in the kettle meant my temperature probe wasn't touching the water and strike temperature ended up being higher than intended, which obviously obliterated the enzymes and no sugar was produced.

The jar is filled with:

I know a lot of members here are in Finland so I figured I'd share this event here (sorry for the FB link but that's all I've got). Mika Laitinen (of brewingnordic.com and author of Viking Age Brew) is giving a traditional sahti brewing demo/course on Saturday April 24

Brewing up an APA with WHC Labs High Voltage dry yeast. It's insanely quick - I put it in at 3pm and by 8pm there was CO2 coming out of the fermenter. 2 Days later and it's down to FG. That was fermenting at 30 C, which is as high as my fermenting fridge goes. You can ferment at up to 36 C.

Lemmitor @A_norny_mousse@feddit.org in this community tipped that if the process serves and luck is on one's side, fermented birch sap can be better than champagne. Right now is the time when sap can be collected, so I'm giving it a shot!

Came out not bad. But the starting temperature was a little high and it has a slight tangy flavour.

... great time to get a brew going :D Yes, Big Brew is getting struck by a week-long strike starting today. Sure enough I hope the workers will get what they are going for. I know what I'll be getting, this is the fourth run of the lemon + ginger recipe and it's guud:D

I brewed two rough versions of this sahti recipe over the winter, the only difference each time being the yeast that I used (and any mistakes that I made). The first batch used Mangrove Jacks M42 ale yeast, the second used a sourdough starter made over the course of two weeks with Bioreal fresh organic yeast and some basic bread flour. Each one was clarified with fungal chitosan, although I can't say I was particularly impressed with the results - it seems to have killed the ability to form a head without really clarifiying it much. Each also got a small amount of priming sugar in the bottle and at least a couple of weeks before drinking (save for a pint for me during the bottling process).

https://norden.social/@feinschmeckergarten/113895524164193517

It's pretty good even raw. Pils and golden malts,honey, some bitter and some sweet orange peel, cascade hops and coriander.

Orange on the left, lemon on the right. Lemon looks darker since I did an oopsie with the water level and had to boil for a while. Orange wine is at an fg of 1.006 and tastes very sweet, don’t even have to back sweeten it. It tastes different but I like it! 18% abv. Lemon wine has a very bitter back end. I’ll be screwing around with back sweetening it to see how it is. The lemon wine ended at 1.032 or 10% abv. Girlfriend likes both so I’m not sure which I’ll be turning into brandy but either way, citrus test was a success!

I've recently developed a taste for Blanc 1664, a lemon lager that's produced in bulk by one of my country's big industrial brewers. I'm also a fan of ginger beers. Here goes an attempt to combine the two on a more robust malty foundation than what the store options offer.

This beer was fermenting normally for about 16 hours then foamed heavily. I guess its infected but I don't know how, usual strict precautions were taken. Outgassing like crazy.

This month photo for this regular discussion thread is from my summer trip, I visited few craft brewerys and tasted local beers.

Appreciate the mandolin recommendation. Made this go so much quicker and easier. This one is going to be made into orange brandy. In retrospect I should have saved some of the oranges to candy them and toss them into the end product but depending on how lazy I get the next few weeks, I might end up doing just that.

Someone said that orange doesn’t ferment well so naturally, I’m going full send. I bought a mandolin and chain mail glove as recommended by someone on a comment from the lemon wine post. That’ll be in tomorrow so today I’m making a yeast starter for the orange brandy.

Girlfriend wanted wine so I brought up a spare fermenter from my other house, giving lemon wine a shot. This will be my first proper wine (that I won’t be immediately turning into brandy) Glad to be back at it after the hectic holidays. I want to make an orange brandy next, but after slicing 50 lemons by hand (I don’t own a mandolin) I think I need a short break from slicing citrus.

Today I and my dad opened his Christmas beer with rosemary. It is great, lighter for special beer and with notes of rosemary.

It's been clearing out at 2,5 °C for over 24 hours already, so I couldn't wait any longer and took a little sampling. And it's a-lovely :D

This time of year one thing happens that has absolutely no relation to holidays: late berries (cranberries, lingonberries, rowan) spent enough time in frozen state to develop flavor worth of melomels. A gift for self in several years, something to be safely forgotten until bottling and then again.

Semi regular post about your brewing adventures. Share recipes, ask questions, mishaps or successes.

The stove in my new apartment was a fluke, but with a couple immersion heaters I got better boils than I've ever had!

I've been doing homebrewing together with my wife for quite some time, and at some point we started collecting a yeast library. There was a point in my life where we had an opportunity to start a company that does something we enjoy; we've tried starting an analytic lab for microbreweries (as we are both actually doctors in chemistry), but it didn't take off at all due to lack of demand (and COVID breakout), we had to switch to doing whatever brings cash (of course IT stuff it was, mostly, I feel ashamed).

Last fermenter is about to be empty. This one is my blue razz jolly rancher. Smells amazing. Tastes terrible (without back sweetening) Came out at 11.8% abv. Back sweetening with simple syrup down to 8.5% seems to be the winning combo, if I were drinking it as a wine: smells much stronger than it tastes of the delicious artificial blue razz flavor. Over all a fun YOLO project. Guess we’ll see how it tastes as a spirit in the next few hours + 24 hours for the angels to have their share. Now to determine what to make next… I’m thinking of trying pressure fermenting in the keg for my beer, a wine for my girlfriend, and the third fermenter for whatever meme spirit I feel like whipping up next, which I haven’t the slightest clue of what I’m in the mood for yet.

This sucks! :D

Came out like a slightly savory barely fruity pickled cucumber or olive like flavor. It's only useful for sauce complexity. It has a sustained savory aspect to the aftertaste that is more positive than the initial slightly vinegar like bite.

This one is going to be ACTIVE. Hope I can keep up.

I have definitely been posting in this community a lot over the last few weeks/days so apologies if it’s a bit much lol, things should slow down since I’m running out of jars and fermenters though. But here’s my fermenter with plenty of sugar, blue razz jolly ranchers, and lots of nutrient. Along side my meme I’m going to turn into moonshine I’ve also got a fall beer my girlfriend requested. I’ve made the pumpkin ale loads of times but this is the first time I’m doing it without pumpkin (the one I bought was rotting when I cut into it and I didn’t feel like going back out and buying another)

I don’t quite know why I didn’t realize I’d have to individually unwrap these and it’d be a pain in the ass, but there’s no going back now. Blue razz jolly rancher distillate soon. I’ve also got my sweet potato beer fermenting (it’s supposed to be pumpkin and sweet potato but the pumpkin I bought was rotting on the inside, so I just rolled with what I have). I also ended up making 80 dog treats from some of the spent grains from the beer, if pupper is happy I’m happy. Over all I think I’m coming back from my one year brewing break with a vengeance.

@homebrewing Displacing disinfectant with CO2 from fermentation

From left to right. Blueberry brandy with home made blueberry syrup for color and flavor, 48% ABV. Blueberry brandy, no additives, 54% abv. Flamin hot Cheeto liquor with 15 dehydrated Carolina reapers added to it for a few hours (it’s so spicy it makes my stomach hurt) 48% abv. Cheeto liquor 48% abv. All my fermenters are empty now. Let’s see what else we can do. Think I’m gonna do a beer and another meme spirit, but sadly I can’t find bulk sour warheads in a single flavor online so I’ve gotta spin my wheel of random shit to brew

This was by far the weirdest distillation I’ve done from a process perspective. I’m a fairly green distiller but usually I can tell when something is hearts or heads or tails but this? Strong Cheeto flavor the whole way through. I’ve never seen color come off a still but it came out with a yellow tint the entire time. Split it into two batches, one just straight on its own and one sitting on a handful of dehydrated Carolina reaper peppers and some other hot peppers. Clocking in at 48% abv. What’s it taste like you might wonder? Wash all the powder off of a Cheeto and suck on it for 5 minutes. After that take a shot of vodka. I think the flavor will be almost dead on to what this tastes like. Admittedly, I poured 750 mL down the drain, I can’t justify using another jar to store a meme. Over all, 10/10 would science again.

Shoutout to poleslav for telling me to ignore the thermometer and giving general encouragement. My distillation efficiency was absolutely terrible and I got the balance of juniper and hibiscus way off, so it's sweeter than I intended, but it's definitely pleasantly drinkable.

I found both dark and light rye bread at the store but it was the factory-made kind. I definitely made mistakes with both batches including adding way too much bread to the light kvass.the bottles need a day to carbonate then we shall see how well they turned out. Not that I have any reference for the flavor.

Some old stale vegan oatmeal raisin cookies for brew.

There was a video posted on this community from the brushow on YouTube, and while most of the things were cool, I found this to be brilliant. Seeing as one of my other hobbies includes 3d printing, I decided to give it a go. Not sure if it’s entirely homebrewing related but, once I get the single screw to mount it to my tap, I feel this will be an awesome addition whenever I stop making horrid creations and go back to doing beer