/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>275809
Mylar isn't that good for this sort of purpose. There is a great deal of loss. Rigid reflective surface are better, even though you'll be applying the Mylar to a rigid surface, it is not the same.

Thin bathroom mirrors from a dollar store are very cheap and you can easily cut them with a typical glass cutter.

FYI, there's a guy that has already used both foil and mirror on one of those big old C-ban satellite dishes.

Here the 12 feet diameter one,

>light sharpener
http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml

There's several pages to that link above, each link to the next page is at the bottom of the pages.

A quick google search gives me this one I'd not seen before with those small dishes (I have one of these types of dishes I'll be doing this with),

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351935/Eric-Jacqmain-invented-Death-ray-dish-intensi
ty-5-000-suns.html

Video for it,
http://hacknmod.com/hack/diy-solar-death-ray-using-a-satellite-dish/

FYI, Mylar and foil are best used for non-parabola solar collecting like solar box cookers. The out of focus reflecting helps more evenly heat the inside of the box allowing the ambient temperatures to raise faster and more evenly for cooking purposes.

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Solar_Cookers_World_Network_%28Home%29

http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solar_cooker_plans

I favor the Heaven's Flame design style of reflector and insulated solar box cooker with a bottom that hangs like a swing so it'll be level no matter how you tilt the box towards the sun.

>>273524
It smells like bread. Check the temperature range of your yeast to make sure. One thing yeast hates most is quick temperature changes. So, wrap your brew with a nice think blanket and keep it out of drafts.

>>273522
Most yeasts have a range between 60F and 85F. Some go as low as 50F and as high as 96F such as Lalvin DV10. So, it depends on what yeast you are using. Bottom fermenting yeasts are lower than 60F lower (Saccharomyces uvarum 44F to 59)

>>273521
Racking is a siphoning process. At its most simple, you use a plastic tube to siphon the liquid from one container to another. There are many ways to do this. Wine thiefs are great for starting the suction for the siphoning (but a pain to clean and sanitize every time). However, there are other ways. I don't recommend you use your mouth. I use boiled water method. I fill the tube with boiled and cooled water and crimp both ends. I then stick one end into the brew and one into a spill container near the container the brew will be going into. I let the crimps out so the water will flow down into the spill container. I watch the color and stop the flow on the bottom end of the tube with the brew reaches that end and there's no more water in the tube. I then let the brew flow into the final container.

Keep the tip in the upper container where you can see it and keep it from sucking up things (a bit of boiled coffee filter tied to the end works well to keep stuff from getting sucked in, but it can clog). In the lower container the brew is going into, keep the tip of the tube at the bottom so to prevent excess oxygen from getting into the brew.

>>273507
As a general rule of thumb, top-fermenting yeasts like a temperature range about the same as what you find normally comfortable. If you are cold or hot then the yeast will not like it either.

>>273505
>the bubbles are annoying when I'm trying to sleep.
>How should I make this thing more quiet?

I count the seconds between the bubbles.

>>273508
>kilju
>They make it so it's as strong as everclear.

Kilju is a fermented beverge made from water, yeast, and sugar. Everclear is a distilled spirit. Kilju can not begin reach the %ABV of Everclear. However, many people do use what is essentially kilju as a base for distilling a spirit. That is more likely what they are doing. The unaged version of this is popularly known as moonshine.

>Also what's the best way to remove yeast? The best I could do was use a coffee filter.

Time and racking. With very short fermentation beverages like tepache you will more than likely need to stop the fermentation yourself. You can do this by refrigerating the brew. The yeast should flocculate on the bottom. Then you can rack the clear fluid off. A coffee filter will work with very limited success and should really only be used as a large sediment filter.

>>273490
Then, let it age. It will only get better. The secret to waiting for it to age a year or two is to make more. In fact, you can make other type of wines that will finish and age faster. Then you can enjoy drinking batches that are aged well enough while waiting for the stuff that requires longer aging. This is my general rule of thumb for aging,

Tepache: Immediately to 1 week (very light alcohol, but the yeast needs to be removed to be best.)
Kilju: Immediately to 1 week (I don't recommended it unaged for 6 months though)
White wines: 6 months to 1 year
Red wines: 1-2 years
Dark red wines 2+ years
Dark berry wines 3-5 years
Pure Black Elderberry wine: 20 years

>>273486
There's a chance that the fruity flavor you're looking for will come out stronger as it ages. Any harsher flavors will mellow and also allow more delicate flavors to appear. The amount of honey and apple juice should give you a very high %ABV and finish sweet. Did it taste strong and sweet?

>>273476
It depends on your tastes really. If it tasted good before putting it in you can drink it. It'll only get better and the sharpness of any flavors will mellow over time. While the aging process will be faster in a smaller container the consistency between bottles will be somewhat different. Aging in a larger container takes longer, but you'll have a more consistent beverage.

I would age the mead for at least 1 year. 6 months is the absolute least amount of time and 2 years is normally ideal.

Aging times have a lot to do with the ingredients and early outcome of the beverage.

>>272396
>I like how there are no conclusive studies showing that

I cited peer-reviewed case studies in that post.

All plastics give the brew they hold a different flavor when compared to both glass, ceramic, and stainless steel.

I'd rather have the choice of using glass with the possibility of breaking it than to have a completely unforeseen reaction to the chemicals I listed leaching into the brew I am making. I'm sure the percentage of statistics of people getting injured from car accidents far outweighs the percentage of statistics of people being injured from breaking carboys. If you have the paranoid feeling that you will break a glass carboy and get injured, please, keep your fears to yourself. One word of advice, never carry a carboy with one hand and never carry it with a handle attached to the neck. Always carry them with both hands, one under the bottom and one around the neck or holding the neck handle. Never EVER carry a wet carboy or with wet hands. I'm of the class that says that if you do something stupid and get hurt then you fully deserved it even if it kills or cripples you for life. This includes eating or drinking anything bad for your health.

>"Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!" - George Carlin

>>272077
>For my next batch I'll hit up the local apple orchard

I suggest renting the use of or borrowing a fruit press or juicer. Other methods of juice extraction are a real pain.

>>272080
Use glass when it is time to stabilize the brew. The jars should be fine. Refrain from aging in plastic unless you absolutely need to. Otherwise, it will affect flavor of the final product.

>>272137
>proper fermentation lock

A blow off tube is a proper fermentation lock. I agree with the rest.

>>272319
I disagree with this completely. Use glass. 5 gallons of must and a glass carboy only weight about 50-60lbs. You normally don't move them much when they are full and if you have a brew hauler, it is easy to move. The glass does not add much weight. Better Bottles are made from PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and contrary to what the Better Bottle company and soda companies want you to believe is pretty bad. It leaches antimony, phthalates, and endocrine disruptors (PMID 20368129, DOI:10.1289/EHP.0901253, PMC 2854718).

>breaking glass

I'm sure most competent adults won't have a problem with this.

>>271907
>>271943
There's nothing wrong with using bleach as a sanitizer. It works very well if used properly.

>>271955
Agreed. However, with Côte des Blancs yeast, mild stress will merely result in a deeper fruity flavor. It's low end temp range is 12°C-14°C, 53°F-57°F.

>>271959
>>271969
>>271852
>>271980
Colloquial terms not-with-standing,

-Apple Juice: Filtered and unfiltered juice of apples, usually sweetened and/or made from concentrate (you can thank cheap business practices for this).
-Cider: Any fermented beverage made from fruit juices, including non-apple sources (aka, "country wine"). Typically reserved for tree-based fruits.
-Apple Cider: non-fermented, non-filtered, non-sweetened, not made from concentrate juice of apples.
-Hard Cider: Same as cider, but typically with %ABV higher than standard wine %ABV.

These terms are constantly in dispute due to being colloquial terms that differ between countries, locations inside countries, and even in advertising between companies.

>>271975
It produces more unpleasant fusels that need to be aged out for a longer period of time.

>>271981
>bad apples

Meaning apples too ugly, for store shelves, but not rotten or partially rotten. Otherwise, you'll end up with nasty rotten flavors in your brew or a contamination.

>>271985
Actually, this is common in all facets of brewing that use fruit, both in the home and commercially.

>>271974
Most times the potassium sorbate in store bought juices won't prevent you from brewing with the juice. By the time it reaches store shelves and gets to your home it has lost a lot of its properties in inhibiting yeast reproduction. When in doubt, use twice as much yeast as a recipe calls for. Otherwise, skip those sources of juice.

>>271837
>How bad will this taste in 2 months?

It'll be fine providing that the plastic is HDPE #2 and the must does not get contaminated. As soon as it is done, get it out of the plastic. You can store/brew it in plastic, but seriously, glass will be much better.

A few tips. After sanitizing your equipment with a sanitizer you need to rinse off, rinse it only with water that has been boiled and allowed to cool enough to handle. Otherwise, you risk contaminating the equipment with unboiled water.

A single, normal-sized, yeast packet will brew up to 5-gallons in a nominal amount of time. Adding more yeast than that will decrease the amount of time the yeast fully colonizes the must and can shorten the brewing time. It will also have the affect of fighting off foreign microbes quicker and reducing contamination. Excessive amounts of yeast can stress the yeast and cause off flavors in the brew. 2 packets per 5 gallons is quite fine.

Next time, use a clear plastic tube for the blow off tube. Then you'll be able to see suck back happening if there's a sudden cold temperature change and be able to move on to the next step. Rack into a second container when the bubbles are 1 minute apart.

>>271900
In unscratched plastic or other martial, you only need to wait 20 seconds, if the concentration of bleach is at 10% or higher. Check the text on the bottle to find out the original concentration. A mere "cap-full" of bleach per 5-gallons of water probably didn't do very much at all. This is due to the high dilution and being so diluted it will have adversely affected the pH level of the bleach. Next time, use straight bleach and merely swish it around without water so all surfaces are coated. Then rinse it out with boiled water.

>>263866
Check out this setup, OP.

>STEAM ENGINE 12KW GENERATOR Solar Mirror Array Death Ray
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTvAL7ty53M

>>263875
Oil would be far better than water. Since the oil is being directly heated, you won't have expansion like you would with water. This means you can attain extreme temperatures. Even massive solar power plants use molten salt to capture the energy and transfer it to water to create steam. The blocks would help hold a great deal of heat for a long time during bad weather and over night It would be far longer than what water could hold because you can heat the bricks and oil up far hotter. Molten salt is normally stored underground as a "battery" backup for when the sun isn't shining for large-scale solar power plants. These methods are standardized.

>>257087
The wines and meads I have made, using Fleischmann's bread yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fleischmann's Strain 139 ATCC 9896), have won awards (mead taste testing using the AOCC recipe and country wine tasting using my Tepache wine recipe). 7 times out of 10 they have done extremely well. Now that I have a large body of information and experience regarding that specific strain, I'm getting 10 out of 10.

Specific wine yeasts have had decades to be developed and for the wine makers to learn how to use them. The same can not be said for bread yeasts. however, with use and familiarity, you can achieve very good results matching and sometimes exceeding wine yeast performance.

It seems to me that the anti-bread yeast sentiments in nearly all brewing discussion stems solely for lack of knowledge regarding how to use it properly. It boils down to a typical anti-skub mentality.

>>255502
>also, does the balloon airlock work?

Yes, they work and work pretty effectively.

The plastic tube into a container of water is actually the very best method for an airlock. Those are known as blow off tubes.

>>255580
When you say sediment, do you mean stuff that is floating around or stuff laying on the bottom? If it is on the bottom then don't worry about it. Just siphon (rack) the upper liquid off and leave the sediment behind. If the sediment is suspended then you need to clear it before racking. There are a variety of means to clear a brew. the most common method is time. Wait longer. After that doesn't work you use a clarifying agent based on what type of sediment you have. A clarifying agent is known as a "fining" and there are several you can use, Irish moss (carrageenan/red sea weed), egg whites (albumen), gelatin, casein, isinglass, bentonite (clay), and several more,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finings

I'd recommend trying things in this order, time; wait it out, cold; put it in the fridge for a long time, bentonite; so you won't be putting anything in that might be an allergy problem for someone, then egg whites if everything else fails.

I recommend staying away from Irish moss because carrageenan is actually pretty bad for your intestines and can cause lesions and malignancies along the intestines. (note that carrageenan is widely used in dairy products now in order to give it mouth feel for the now missing cream).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrageenan#Health_concerns

>>255507
You can typically get a max 19%ABV depending on the brand name you use. It is a lot like wine yeasts only it is normally designed for harsh environments and creation of CO2. Using it means you'll have more foam than you'd normally expect.

When I use bread yeast I only use Rapid Rise Fleischmann's bread yeast. I recommend only using it in recipes that call for it specifically, in recipes that you need to substitute Lalvin EC-1118, and to get a stuck fermentation unstuck. When making your own recipes with it treat it like you would the EC-1118. Use a blow off tube airlock instead of a typical airlock.

Other brands tend to produce more fusels and off flavors. I don't recommend using turbo yeasts except with kilju for which most kilju recipes call.

Try this alcohol calculator:

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=745&Itemid=16

>>254346
I've not made that exclusively. I have used tea bags on several occasions to add tannins to some wine recipes. A tea wine would be interesting.

>>254352
If you are drinking sweet meads and you are having trouble with sugar at night, try dry meads instead. Honey contains glucose in freer form than it is in sucrose. Glucose can act as a osmotic diuretic. If you eat lots of sugary foods or foods containing honey you can have trouble with the net water level of your body (as well as needing to use the bathroom a lot). You'll need to drink more water to replace the water you are losing. Couple this with the affects of alcohol and you'll need to drink even more water to prevent a hangover. You will need to eat a snack that has ample amounts of electrolytes to help compensate for the water loss and water intake. If you dry out and are low on electrolytes, your body won't be able to flush out the tannins and impurities of darker alcohols and a hangover with a headache will be your punishment.

>>254403
The adult digestive system easily destroys live botulism spores. An infant's digestive system can not, which is why you can't feed honey products to infants; it can kill them.

A low pH level doesn't kill the spores, it merely keeps them from activating and creating the deadly toxin. The range of pH that botulism grows in is 4.8 and 7. Pure honey pH is around 3.9. Yeast likes a pH level range of 3.7 to 4.6.

When fermenting, you should check the pH level and add acid to the brew after it has fermented. Acids like citric acid get metabolized during the fermentation process to a certain degree with can raise the pH.

With proper fermentation and storage, there should not be a problem with botulism in mead.

>>254296
It is a blatant improvement. If you've never had piloncillo before I recommend buying some and buying the standard brown sugar you normally buy. Taste test them side-by-side. It is like the difference between honey and corn syrup. Use it in whatever you like, if you like the flavor.

>>254286
Make it with real piloncillo and not brown sugar at least once. It makes a world of difference in the flavor.

>>254272
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Recipes/Cold-Beverages-654/Tepache-702.aspx

That is the recipe I started with. It's pretty good. I can recommend a few things after you've tried the base recipe. Clear it and make it sparkling. You can treat it like a soda and add CO2 either from a canister like you normally would, or allow the yeast to ferment some in a tightly sealed soda bottle in the fridge (like in home soda making). You will get a cleaner product in a shorter amount of time using the CO2 canister. I personally use priming method of bottling to make it sparkling. Having this beverage sparkling is a real treat.

I've also made a wine with it. Take head, the clove gets much stronger as the wine ages; don't use very much if you plan age it a few years. It is one of my best wines.

>>254276
I started brewing tepache then banana wine. I use the entire banana, peel and all to really give it a good fruit flavor (wash the peel first). My first bottled batch of banana wine was made in 2008 (and posted on /ck/). It is quite amazing stuff now.

>>254249
There is a low alcohol beverage known as "tepache" that uses pineapple rinds and takes less than 3 days. There is also "kilju", but it takes a standard week. The main draw for kilju is that it is a sugar wine and is consumed without any aging. It is rather harsh and is normally only made for the alcohol content. You can age kilju, but then you couldn't strictly call it kilju anymore. Aged kilju is good for making mixed drinks. Tepache on the other hand is pretty good when made correctly. It is far less harsh and has an alcohol content comparable to a light beer. It is akin to a pineapple and spice flavored wine cooler with low alcohol content. I recommend clearing it and making the yeast go dormant. Otherwise, you'd be drinking live yeast which is not all that fun in the end.

I just brought in my oldest bottles of homemade wine from my wine cellar. I have a spare fridge that will hold better temps than the temporary wine cellar. Too bad I can't fit in all my 1-gallon jugs full of wine. I'm considering turning my temp wine cellar into a large fridge.

>>236705
If you know what you are doing, bottled juice and store-bought honey can make some very good wine and mead. This is true even with ones containing potassium sorbate; though I recommend ones not containing potassium sorbate. I have done so on many past occasions. Now I use my own fruit (3 acres of crops) and honey (5 hives).

It's too bad you weren't in /ck/ during the Homebrewmen's hayday a couple years ago. amazing things were done.