/diy/ - Do It Yourself

previous thread? >>1629466
Urgent: should i pitch the pulp in with the rest of it?

>>1677252
No idea. Sadly oranges dont make the best booze but by all means do it faggot.

If u dont like pulp throw it in cheese cloth or something and strain it later

>>1677251
I've never brewed orange juice... Okay, who'm I kidding, I haven't even been doing this long enough to have tasted my first batch; I'm working entirely on research and YT instructionals.

I know that after being processed, orange juice doesn't taste orange-y any more, they actually process the rinds separately for essential oil and reintroduce that into the juice after reconstitution to bring the flavor back (and then still call it 100% pure orange juice, hrmph!) I'd do that, honestly if I were doing orange juice. Also, you might want to do some research on the effects of citric acid on cerevisiae, because I'm sure there's a point where the concentration can be too high for the yeast to survive it, or at the very least, will slow it down; I'm working on a mead right now, and even the mild antifungal properties of honey are enough to retard the mycological growth compared to the wines I'm doing.

>>1677454
My current brews.

>>1677457
https://vocaroo.com/i/s1LpusDUEmtM

>>1677251
Anyone that has done a barrel aged beer please chime in.

I am brewing my first bourbon barrel aged stout in a couple weeks. I have read conflicting information on how long to leave the oak in the fermenter. Some places say no more than 3 weeks other places say to leave the oak in for 3 months.
>Batch size is 3 gallons (~11.5L)
>I am using 2oz (60mL) of 1/2" (13mm) medium toast oak cubes
>cubes will be soaked in 8oz (240mL) of bourbon for a week or two while the beer is actively fermenting
>If it matters the expected O.G. is 1.105

Motherfucker just exploded. There is orange pulp 20 ft away

Want to make a large a batch of cider for calvados. I made a 4 gallon batch a few years back using Musselman's brand sweet cider, EC-1118, and yeast nutrient. Came out pretty well, but if anyone has any recommendations or ideas I'm open to them. Going to do 7-10 gallons.

>>1677663
What abv?

I made another monster.
Wanted to make a high-gravity red ale (around 7%), bought a 6% kit and added a pound of DME, another ounce of hops, and a few extra grains, boiled off too much water due to a 90 minute hop boil and didn't top off. Batch came in around 4 1/2 gallons and 1.09 OG. If this ferments out properly (and it should, I made a starter and right now it's krausening like crazy) it should finish around 9-9.5% ABV.
>>1677640
I have no experience with aging with wood but when you using unfamiliar ingredients or technique it's best to go with the 'less is more' approach to avoid making something completely unpalatable. Even with dry-hopping and fruit it's better to add for just a week or two. Most people seem to want to go hard and heavy and it's really just not necessary to get good, balanced flavor.

Hmmn

missed this general
have a bump

>>1677251
I'm having problems making mango flavored rum /diy/

Mashing the mango and mixing it results in a product with a great color and flavor, but I'm having problems with texture and shelf stability.
even with 3 parts 40%ABV white rum and i part mashed mango it sometimes goes bad

adding citric acid was my first thought but this didn't seem to do anything, and I added sugar which was fine but didn't help either

yesterday I added citric acid (2 tsp/liter and 100 grams of sugar and bizarely the next day the bloody bottle turned into jelly

I've got no idea what I'm doing wrong here, help me out /diy/

>>1679061
Mangos are fucking delicious

welcome back

current brews:
>mead
>apple and plum wine
>spiced green tea wine

now drinking:
>asda (walmart) tropical juice wine
>tea wine that went somewhat vinegary

>>1679061
heat the mango and put the mango and rum into something sterilized, like you're making mango jam, not a mango cocktail

>>1677251
I have a question and I don't want to start a thread on /ck/ just for this, maybe you can help.
I want to make sauerkraut, I have already seen a lot of videos, everyone tells how easy it is but no one answers me, the cuestion is.
they put all the stuff on a glass jar to ferment.
but fermenting creates gas as far as I now.
so, wouldn't it explode? how do you put the cabagge fermenting without an airlock?

test

>>1679869
Usually you would use an airlock. Even without one and if you sealed the jar it probably won't explode since you need quite a bit of pressure. Leave a lot of empty headroom if you are worried or don't give it a tight seal. You just want the seal normally to keep crap from getting into the jar, and for a jar you can use cheesecloth.

Alright /hbg/ it seems that fall is incoming, you know what that means, right? Cider and amber beers are going to be upon us soon enough!
More importantly, I'm going to make a pumpkin beer! I will post pics as soon as I get started. Waiting for the grocery and brewing supply stores to open today so I can build my malt and spice profiles.

>>1679869
>>1679869
>they put all the stuff on a glass jar to ferment.
>but fermenting creates gas as far as I now.
>so, wouldn't it explode? how do you put the cabagge fermenting without an airlock?
The traditional method is to use an open crock (no built up pressure there, obviously) but sauerkraut produces very little CO2 anyway.

i want fermentation to hurry up so i can satisfy my budding alcoholism desu

>>1680282
I know that feel. No beer left from my previous batch, but I have a pale ale currently carbonating and an IPA wrapping up fermentation.

Me and my roommate were bored one day so we tried a mead recipe we saw in a YouTube video. It’s been fermenting for 3 days now and we checked and now there’s this stuff on the container that wasn’t there when we started. Is it mold, or just some stray yeast and suds? Also I know it’s pretty basic bitch setup but we’re college students and this is our first batch so please don’t bully

>>1680476
are you talking about the foamy stuff right above the liquid? It's normal for yeast to create it during fermentation it's called krausen.

diy is a slow board but hopefully someone's here

1. are there any brewing communities/discords you guys are involved with?

2. my 3rd brew as a poor college student (apple juice surprise), how am i doin

A while back I mixed sugar with water to try and make booze but my parents found it before I could see results. I'm possibly moving into my own place soon and wonder if homebrewing could give me an option to get drunk more cheaply. What are the options in general?

>>1677663
Add some malt. Dry cider while good is rather thin and i find takes a lot of aging, 6 months, to hit its peak. The malt gives it some body and counters some of the tart in dry cider. If you're a brewer mash some crystal before boiling the malt extract.

For cider i prefer ale yeasts like safale us05. White labs cider yeast is good as well.

Costco applejuice is cheap and good to use. If you can get your hands on crab apple include them as well.

>>1680650
Apple juice and bread yeast is your cheapest easiest option. Whatever you use make sure there arent any preservatives besides citric acid.

>>1680650
>I'm possibly moving into my own place soon and wonder if homebrewing could give me an option to get drunk more cheaply. What are the options in general?
It depends, really. Home brewing won't be able to compete in price-per-drunk with something like jug wine, rotgut or any beer that comes in a 30-rack but you can turn out a couple gallons of some breddy gud stuff cheaply and everything but the juice itself you can use over and over again.

>Spend ~$5 on either a white wine yeast (drier and more booze but maybe less apple flavor) or an ale yeast (sweeter and less booze but maybe more apple flavor)
>Spend ~$7 on two stoppers and two airlocks
>Spend ~$2 on 6' of 3/8" vinyl hose at the hardware store
>Borrow a cinnamon stick, some allspice berries and a couple of cloves from somewhere
>Borrow a copy of the Complete Joy of Home Brewing from your local library
>Spend the rest on two glass gallon jugs of preservative-free (<-- IMPORTANT; pretty much anything other than citric acid will shoah your yeast on contact and you'll end up with nothing) apple juice, preferably organic
>Scrub your hands with soap and water and rub them down with rubbing alcohol
>Pour about a cup out of each jug (this is important, as otherwise the yeast will literally BTFO your stopper/airlock)
>Open the yeast, add ~2tsp of yeast into each gallon, shake for ~20 seconds with your clean hand over the mouth of the jar, add your spices and affix the airlock
>Store in a cool, dark place (<-- also important; sunlight will fuck your shit up) and wait
>When it stops bubbling after a few days the yeast have finished eating and you're good to go; use the hose to siphon your new cider into some other containers (a few mason jars or rinsed-out milk cartons or whatever), leaving the sediment on the bottom, and store your cider in the fridge

Be aware, however, that this will be a flat beverage. Not fizzy. For that you need to bottle it, and that means spending money on bottles and bottle accessories.

>>1680514
I’m part of a local club, we meet up every month and help each other out with our next fermentations then get wasted, it’s comfy. Also post here pretty often: https://aussiehomebrewer.com/ Australia has a pretty unique climate so it’s always good to have local advice imo.

How long as that brew been going? I usually don’t like using cloudy juices, I have trouble monitoring the yeast otherwise.

>>1680728
sounds like a lot of work and expense. I was thinking more along the lines of sugar and water and hope in a plastic milk jug or two and a rubber glove on top.

>>1680929
>sounds like a lot of work and expense.
Bruh. There is literally five minutes (if that) of effort in this recipe. Open bottle --> add yeast --> add airlock --> ???? --> Profit. It's actually easier than making kilju because you don't have to dissolve the sugar.

>>1681147
>kilju
never heard that term. I guess it's not so much the effort but the expense. Im very poor so I would only be doing this to save money. If all I need to get is sugar ill probably do it but buying all that other shit seems costly. Also I might try and take some plastic milk jugs and sugar from my parents house before I leave to get started. Idk Ill keep researching. I also have considered growing mushrooms but not done much research into it yet.

>>1680728
>Home brewing won't be able to compete in price-per-drunk with something like jug wine
You what? I can make wine that's about as expensive as milk, the cheapest wine they sell is 4 times as expensive.
I suppose it depends on where you live but still.

>>1680929
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmuH8xWOJv4
You don't need anything, just the package is sufficient.
>mix sugar, juice, bread yeast
>shake
>wait a month
>get wasted
simple as

>>1677663
EC-1118 is good, and it's what I use for my apple brandies as well (I will sometimes augment the apple juice with honey and ferment a cyser to up the ABV; I've found a negligible impact on taste after distilling vs just using straight apple juice). If you were just stopping at cider, I'd recommend 'cider house select' which I've had very good results with (I don't know what strain it is though, and it has it's own blend of nutrients already built in).

>>1680690
Anon isn't making cider as a final product though, anon.

>>1681154
>Im very poor so I would only be doing this to save money.
Brewing works on an economy of scale and amortization. The bigger your batches and the more you re-use your equipment the smaller your cost per unit becomes. If you spend $48 on equipment and $12 on fermentables to produce 60 units of booze, your total cost for the first batch will be $60, or $1/unit. If you make another 60-unit batch with the same equipment, the cost of the second batch will be $12, or 20% of what the first batch cost. Your total cost to produce the first 60 units is $60, but your total cost for 120 units becomes $0.60/unit. If you were to produce a third 60-unit batch for another $12, your total costs for 180 units produced would be $84, or $0.46/unit. The numbers are pulled squarely from my ass, but you get the idea.


>>1681312
>I can make wine that's about as expensive as milk
And made with bread yeast it will probably peter out at about 10%, or about 2/3 the alcohol content of something like Franzia. Not to mention the fact that if there's a fuck-up somewhere in the brewing process the bread yeast is much less forgiving than a proper brewing yeast.

>>1681357
hmm you make a good point. Also, how much does this shit smell? are the people in my building gonna be mad if I do this?

>>1681357
>if there's a fuck-up somewhere in the brewing process the bread yeast is much less forgiving than a proper brewing yeast.
Unless you're making JAOM, which uses bread yeast and is basically fool-proof.

>>1681364
>hmm you make a good point.
It's worth spending a little bit of money to do it right. One pack of yeast is easily enough for five gallons and you can use and re-use pretty much every piece of equipment you buy over and over again

Also, how much does this shit smell?
Not as much as a kitchen.

>are the people in my building gonna be mad if I do this?
You probably won't get anyone complaining about the smell but you should check your lease to make sure that alcohol production is allowed.

>>1681370
>Unless you're making JAOM, which uses bread yeast and is basically fool-proof.
Yeah, but a JAOM is both slow and fiscally inefficient compared to kilju or cider and requires more overhead.

>>1677640
You need to soak the cubes in bourbon, preferably cask strength or at least anything over 100 proof.for a month minimum for decent extraction. Helps if you toast the cubes beforehand.


Also for those that like to experiment the lower the alcohol the more you'll extract vegetal and piney compounds and higher alcohol lends itself to more extraction of baking spices, vanillin or even coconut. I made a RyePA with koelsch yeast once then lagered it with Hungarian oak and it was easily the most complex tasting batch I made. It didn't last long, but the I can still taste it two years alter.

>>1679061
Do you have a gin basket? I'd do a thing of frozen mango concentrate in the pot to start. After I would put shredded dry mango in the gin basket along with some actual pulped mango as well. Good luck.
>don't forget that you are trying to pull flavors from the mash so maybe only do a single run

>>1679061
Also forgot to mention that you should do a mash of molasses, brown sugar, and raw sugar for the pot. It will be infinitely better than stilling out a raw spirit.

>>1680650
Sugar and water makes sugar wine. It tastes like shit but it will get you toasted. It's literally what people make in Alaska where alcohol is prohibited. If you want to get good and fucked turn five gallons of water and five lbs of sugar into a simple syrup, pour that into a fermentation vessel about half way, fill up another quarter with water, shake it up, and throw sow turbo yeast in it. Typically a 1 to 1 ratio of sugar and water has a gravity of 1.090 for a reference point.
>don't know turbo yeast then Google it

>>1680728
> will be a flat beverage
>carbonated takes extra equipment
What? Brown sugar and a flip top bottle?

>>1681482
>What? Brown sugar and a flip top bottle?
If he's too cheap to buy an airlock what makes you think he'll buy bottles?

>>1681154
>considered growing mushrooms
Buy a grow bag and a syringe of spores. It's as easy as injecting the spores into the bag and putting it in your closet.

>>1681485
A flip top bottle costs maybe $4. I buy this sparkling lemonade from Aldi for three bucks and drink that then reuse the bottle.
>the lemonade is tasty and I'm able to get a reusable flip top

>>1681312
will this work with yeast made for pizza dough?

>>1681511
Yeah but it won't eat all the sugars because different yeasts have different alcohol tolerances. Red Star Blanc yeast is a champagne yeast and will process more sugars into alcohol before it peters out.

>>1681481
I didn't know Alaska banned alcohol...weird how they have such a meth problem lol.Your post seems like a real good idea.

>>1681486
hot damn that's great fucking news, I thought id have to get a bunch of jars and shit, never heard of a grow bag. Is it safe to buy this stuff on the clearnet and not get ripped off or arrested or will I need to into bitcoin on tor?

>>1681524
The spores and growbags are both completely legal. So that's not an issue.

>>1681524
Oh and far north settlements and provinces in Alaska ban alcohol because people get drunk and pass out in the snow only to freeze to death.

>>1681524
Also funny, I'm both anons about simple syrup and mushrooms

>>1681542
nice

>>1681544
interesting

>>1681550
you've been very helpful. I can't wait till I move into my own apartment and I can do this stuff. Do you know off the top of your head if it's easy to grow poppy plants indoors or whatever plants you make DMT with?

>>1681553
DMT is datura grass. I'm not your guru and I won't lead you all the way. Look into erowid. The DMT extraction is ready enough but again look it up.

>>1681553
Also poppy plants I know nothing about.

>>1677251
>homebrew
does this go for any home fermentation?
I'm running into an issue with my kombucha where
>upon mixing with juice it stops fermenting
>grows what looks and smells like bread mold on the top of the scoby

>>1681638
I was wrong about Datura, I swear I remember reading it somewhere. Datura is scopalamine I think.

>>1682166

Don't think it is, but I can tell you when I chewed Datura it was the worst experience I ever had in my life - imagine a feeling of complete doom for about four hours. Fuck Datura.

What are people's thoughts on PureData vs. Supercollider?

>>1682225
Huh?

Was brewing mead for like four years, graduated university, and then moved to China to teach and got back. Been living in what amounts to a shoebox and having a volatile work environment/schedule (don't want to get into it much). In the spirit of getting back into things I got one of those canned extract beer kits with a kilo of dextrose and a fermenting bucket from a local shop, with a spigot and bung + airlock. I haven't done beer before, but seeing as it's a syrup that you dilute in water, I can't imagine this stuff is much more involved than mead, other than carbonating it in the bottle. I don't need a heck of a lot of advice, but desu if anybody cares to impart anything I'm all ears.

I'm aware that all-grain tastes better, but seeing as my homebrew setup is limited (by my living circumstances) to the aforementioned equipment, some sanitizer that I need to get, and an electric kettle, I'm not particularly eager to get to anything all-grain so far.

>>1677457
which ones the jenkem?

>>1677251
This is stupid, but im being serious and actually curious.

>bought 1 liter blue cream soda
>only drank a small amount because it sucked
>pissed in it like a pissbottle
>forgot about it for several months.

>found it, went to empty it
>it fizzed up and sprayed, smelled like I dumped alcohol all over the floor.

I know you can make alcohol by fermenting sugars, but im curious if it was actually possible the drink had alcohol in it, albeit unsuitable to drink alcohol.

>>1683048
your dirty dick probably deposited some yeast

My current tepache

>>1677251
>current brew: cider
Has anyone here tried homedistilling yet? I wanna try it at some point.

I have a 5 gallon kit that's a golden wheat ale that I want to turn into a shocktop-like beer by throwing in some sweet orange peels. It's in day 4 of fermentation, so when should I add orange peels to the fermenter? About day 7 or so?

>>1683576
Check out homedistiller.org forums. Lots of good information there.

Make sure you're careful and don't do anything stupid. Provided you're not a careless retard you'll be fine and have an enjoyable experience, but if you are an idiot you can do real damage to yourself.

>>1683576
Yes.

>>1684112
Pretty much this.

I'll be straight with you. If you're going to distill alcohol, l recommend starting with a pot still because you're going to need to learn to how to cut your alcohol. It's easier to start with a pot still and learn to read by temperature and smell than constantly taste-testing your distilled alcohol on that lazy Sunday morning and you're floored by 10 am. Remember, 30 ml per gallon to remove foreshot OR when the temperature on your gauge goes past 175F. Learn to keep your heads and tails and make runs out of those. You don't always have to double distill with a pot still even though it's very recommended to do so. What'll be a fun one for you is ice waste for the first few times you'll decide to distill. Learn to plug and circulate with cold water and ice instead of constantly using bags of ice. The other trick is to figure out if you have the time to not use a thumper keg.

>>1682726
It's a bucket brew, follow the instructions and bottle with those they provided. Enjoy your beginning of brewing

>>1682972
Fuck off troll

>>1683245
What is that?

>>1683592
Wait till the primary fermentation is done and then put the peels in. Be sure to traumatize the peels so that the oils express.
>Anon screams at the peels
>goes full silence of the lambs
>makes amazing brew

>>1683576
Look into a heating element with a PID controller. Methanol evaps at a lower temp and you can run it only to produce methanol first. Let it run for an hour and toss that. It's the heads and the rest is all booze.

>>1684124
You don't drink it, only spit test. Common sense friend

Is it possible to make federweisser (Sturm, new wine) simply by buying some fresh (wine) grape juice and adding yeast?

>>1679869
For jars without airlocks, some people reccomend burping the jar by opening once a day during the active fermentation.

>>1684367
Yes

After a month on medical leave, I'm back to my shit. Hefe for the wife on the bottom, a simple apa to gift some friends on the top.

>>1684112
I reckoned it wouldn't be terribly hard, at least on the basis of "we've been doing this for thousands of years, as long as I'm not idiotic I should be alright." I've checked homedistiller.org, yeah, just cross-checking.

>>1684124
Yeah, I was thinking of doing a pot still, especially because most of what I've seen and most distilleries I've visited are pot still distilleries. As for a thumper keg, I was aiming at an apple brandy (which unfortunately doesn't have an easier name), more for drinking, less for getting shitfaced.

>>1684341
Wouldn't that keep the tails in? I'm tempted to say that it'd need a lot more aging to get a good taste.

>>1677251
I used one of those beer making kits that you eat or so leaders of water and put in a Carboy and sprinkle the yeast over the top


The thing bubbled furiously for about a day and a half and is now quiet again. Shouldn't it take longer than that?

>>1684912
It depends on the original gravity. If it was 1.050ish or lower it wont take a long time to ferment. I'm assuming it's not completely quiet, correct? Just slowed down significantly?

>>1681553
growing poppy plants indoors is not feasible but people have done it in grow tents. it's a waste of electricity/space imo. also poppy pods and the plant straw etc are schedule 2 in the U.S. at least.

I need to buy my friend a new Co2 guage, the one that tells you how much is left in the tank. I found some on Amazon like this: https://www.amazon.com/Replacement-Gauge-0-3000-Right-Thread/dp/B000P7642G/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=co2+guage&qid=1568827107&sr=8-6, but his set up is all stainless lookin' so I'd like to get him one that matches. I heard welding supply stores may be a good place to look but I live out in the boonies and I'm running out of time this morning to online shop but I'd like to order asap, if any can help out it'd be appreciated!

Pic unrelated, just some myc on agar.

Let's see some bacteria art, homebrewers

>>1684910
>Wouldn't that keep the tails in?
Not him, but in general yes, it would getting rid of the foreshots and heads, but then you'd still have the hearts and tails left. Next off after the heads would be the hearts.

The problem with this approach for apple brandy, though, is that a bunch of the nice apple-y tastes and aromatics are in the ethyl esters that are in the heads. If you don't collect any, you'll end up with a fine enough spirit, but one that doesn't have any particularly apple-y characteristics.

Besides that, methanol in a solution doesn't all burn off at the same time/rate. By far *most* of it burns off first, but there will still be some coming out throughout your distillation process.

Certainly make sure you dump your foreshots, but you're probably going to want to keep at least some of your heads to mix in with the hearts for your apple brandy run.

>>1684912
It's probably still fermenting, airlock activity doesn't necessarily mean fermentation is (or isn't) still going on. It usually takes 1-2 weeks to finish up and then you still need to condition for another 2 weeks before bottling to develop flavor. Did you take a gravity sample before you pitched the yeast? Just make sure your fermenter is in a dark place around room temperature.
>>1684869
Love hefes, so good and easy to make.
>>1677963
Update: red ale is now at 9.5% ! Gonna secondary soon and dry-hop

>>1685154
Gotcha, the foreshots are the real dangerous thing anyhow - do you reckon that with an apple brandy it'd be best to distill twice? Or would it be something that'd be best distilled once?

And based on my knowledge of how much spirit you get out of distillation, you get like a 10 fermented to 1 spirit ratio (so 10 gallons of cider would output 1 gallon of apple brandy, roughlyish), which begs the question (for me, anyhow) - how on Earth do you age the damned thing? With a tiny barrel?

I’m glad to find this - I was posting on /ck/ about my first attempt at Wine Making and no one mentioned this general existed until I found another home brew thread that mentioned it
Attempting to make wine for the first time
> Parents had Concord grapes growing they weren’t going to use
> Figured why not give WineMaking a try
> Got about 2 gallons of grapes
> Per recommendation of a winemaker in my mothers church, I filled out the rest with grape concentrate, water, and sugar of course with a little tannin thrown in, but probably not enough as the color seems a bit light to me
> Moved it from the primary bucket to a 6 gallon Carboy a few days ago
> It appears to be happily bubbling away
Now I play the waiting game

>>1685228
looks very nice anon

>>1684337
not the anon you're quoting but tepache is a fermented drink made from the pineapple.. bark? Idk how it's called but the stuff you need to peel off before you eat it. There's some special type of bacteria that grows on it and feeds on sugar afaik.

>>1681648
Fellow kombucha brewer here. Approximately how much water, tea and sugar do you put in during f1 and are you using black tea without any additives? Also, what type of sugar are you using? I've found that brown cane works better than regular white, and powdered sugar seems to give me the worst results.

You're probably adding too little and it doesn't have enough sugar left after f1 to feed on during f2. A general rule of thumb I follow with great results is to add about 500g per 4L of liquid.

>>1685117
have you got any original images like this that you would let me use for album art for noise music?

Is it recommend to make mead in a wood barrel or a carboy. If I can use a wood barrel does it have to have a certain char level?

>>1685998
Meads used to be made in wood containers all the time. You’re over thinking this shit, just try it and see what happens.

>>1685998
just make it in a carboy unless you have a wood barrel or something

>>1685117
Those pellicles are Brett not bacteria.

Lads

Got myself a steal on an enterprise #35 press. I'm fucking stoked to harvest and press some apples with this bitch.

I gave it a hot soap bath and got the bulk rusk off, and it just got put into a vinegar/salt bath to soak over night and I'll give it a fresh coat of pant external & fresh coat of food grade oil to coat the inside and gears etc. before I put it int he bath, I quartered 4 medium apples to try it with. This seriously only filled the press about 1/16th full which is pretty crazy to start with, but I found the apples WAAAYYY to hard to crush by hand, so clearly I'm going to need to do something different

Thoughts:

>blanch apples whole in my 5 gallons stock pot
>quarter and boil apples, like prepping for pie or something
>put apples through food processer first
>just dice/chop the apples really small


wtf should I do to make the press easy, but not make them so squishy that the entire mass of apples just squirts through the holes in the bottom?

Also what else should I try pressing with it? I have plans to try

>stuffing sausage
>pressing grapes
>apples
>Olives for olive oil


???

>>1686380
what's the difference with regular yeast?

>>1686516
>I gave it a hot soap bath and got the bulk rusk off, and it just got put into a vinegar/salt bath to soak over night and I'll give it a fresh coat of pant external & fresh coat of food grade oil to coat the inside and gears etc. before I put it int he bath

Rust like that needs a more intensive treatment. I would recommend taking it apart and blasting/wire brushing every single piece separately before re-finishing it.

>>1686516
>before I put it int he bath, I quartered 4 medium apples to try it with. This seriously only filled the press about 1/16th full which is pretty crazy to start with, but I found the apples WAAAYYY to hard to crush by hand, so clearly I'm going to need to do something different
>wtf should I do to make the press easy, but not make them so squishy that the entire mass of apples just squirts through the holes in the bottom?
Bruh. You're supposed to crush apples (pretty much anything, actually) before you press them and you're also supposed to line your press with some kind of cloth. You should read some cider-making books before you fuck up out of ignorance and get discouraged. A proper crusher will make your life easier but a regular food grinder could do in a pinch if you don't mind your arm going dead.

>Also what else should I try pressing with it? I have plans to try

>>stuffing sausage
I have no idea if this would work and I think that it would probably be an inefficient pain in the ass, but go for it.

>>pressing grapes
>>apples
Hell yes.

>>Olives for olive oil
If you think you can just toss some ground olives in there and hey presto out comes EVOO you should probably do some more reading.

>>1686680

>rust like that
Actually, it the acid bath turned out better than expected even.

1 cup pickling salt per gallon of 5% Acetic acid, bathed for 12 hours. Rust literally just fell off, only needed a wire brush for the nooks and crannies. I actually finished the first coat of paint today and will finish the touch ups tonight.

>supposed to crush
yeah, figured that out lmao. I did some testing with my 2 different food processors and the chop function on my newer one actually manages to get close to what you see in most videos where people are juicing.

As for the cloth, that's for a different style of press. This one is designed to form a cake layer on the bottom of the crushed material that serves as the "filter" so to speak. I absolutely agree that a proper crusher + a wood plank & cloth filter would work better, but this seems better for my small scale. Now that being said, I think I can easily put a cloth sock in and make it work even better if i get pulp issues.

>sausage
So this thing was ACTUALLY made to stuff sausage, and it was marketed as being a fruit press on the side.

>Grapes
I think the grapes are going to work really well actually. I want to try it once the pain is dry

>olives

that's what I'm asking for advice senpai

>>1677251
So for the past year I’ve been making basic home brew wine from grape juice, packets of dry yeast and two cups of sugar each, my question is could I follow the Sam reprocess for oranges juice?

>>1687113
>that's what I'm asking for advice senpai
The thing about making olive oil is that actually pressing the olives is just a minor part. As I understand it you basically grind fresh olives into a paste, turn them into a slurry with hot water, press the slurry and then siphon the oil off of whatever comes out the press after it cools.

>>1687342
The old method is grinding them up for 30-40 minutes, putting them on fiber disks, pressing that (running water by the sides will help), and then letting it separate through gravity, then you siphon the oil out. Remember to clean thoroughly.

>>1687342
>>1687474
Honestly it sounds like something I can accomplish at home. it's not likely I'll be able to cold press said olive oil... but hey I mostly cook with it any ways. Would be a neat project for sure!

Also, restoration is complete >>1686516 (except the handle) in case any one is interested

>>1687478
Looking good.

>>1687478
>>1687113
Didn't mean to start tripping but it's too confusing to keep deleting between boards.

Any ways, Can I just use Cheesecloth to press? I'm pretty sure it would work....

This guy seemed to make ti work but I can't tell if it's cheesecloth or not (same press)

Pressing starts at 11:15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K7hA1CKEHA

I'm this guy >>1677640

I brewed the stout on Saturday and pitched White Labs WLP090 in it. My fermenter has a coil inside that I use to pump ice water and regulate the temperature. I have been keeping the fermentation at 65-66°F (18°C), but forgot to add new ice last night and just remembered to do so now.
>Fermenter temp was at 78.6°F (26°C)
It took about 15-20 minutes to bring the temp back to 65°F. How much did I goof?

m8's

What the fuck did I do here

>nominal cider yields, 20 lbs -> 1 gallon
20 lbs of apples
1 gallon juice
1.05 (ish) gravity

Juice yield = 43.8%
sugar yield = 2.19%
Sugar recovery = 21.89%

>I just ran though with
1.0 lbs apples
201 mL juice (.053 gal -> 1.06 gal/20lbs apples)
fucking 1.0386 gravity

juice yield = 46.2%
sugar yield = 1.78%
sugar recovery = 17.77%

Sugar yield & recovery seems abysmal. Am I just being a cunt? is there that much variation in apples? Also I account maybe 3% error for lost liquid (pretty tight setup actually), less than 0.5% error for lost raw apples in chopping

>After this i added 137 g water, soaked back into the apples then re-pressed and got
1.0 lbs apples
337 mL juice (.089 gal -> 1.78 gal/20lbs)
1.0282 gravity

juice yield = 76.5%
Sugar yield = 2.16%
Sugar recovery = 21.49%


So this had the sugar yeild and recovery I was expecting, but at what cost (that fucking O.G.....)

So am I just being a cunt, or is this really how much variation there are in apples? I feel like the first squeeze OG should have been higher.

>>1687740
Yeah, there's genuinely that much variation in apples. Certain apples that are great for cidermaking are fucking dreadful for eating. Water content, sugar content, etc, that's all gonna shift based on what species of apple you're using. A lot of it ends up averaged out when in high quantities.

i've been brewing beer for 2 or 3 years and now i want to try making kombucha. I have one of these ss brewtech fermentors, can I ferment kombucha in it without worrying about infections sticking around and also will enough air get inside to keep the bacteria alive? should I just cover it with cloth?
I have a spare food grade bucket I could use but the spigot is pretty convenient

>>1687782
can't help you with your kombucha questions, but is the valve high enough that it clears the yeast even with high gravity beers? I have an ss brewtech chronical bme and kinda wish I had bought 2 buckets instead, but someone with a bucket told me they had issues with yeast during transfers.

>>1687803
yup i never have problems with yeast when racking, i've never brewed above 7% though i think

>>1680514

There is a /ck/ beer drinking discord with a few homebrewers and pro-brewers on it.

yDbSXG

what did ancient folks use instead of airlocks?

>>1687941
Barrels, mostly, or something similar, with a porous lid.

>>1687777
Damn. Ok. I couldn't tell if I was just fucking up and doing something wrong (I think my chop is actually quite good). Thanks for chiming in.

>>1687782
Stainless is ok for kombucha, but don't forget you can't use any standard metals for booch. Everything should be plastic unless it's pure stainless other wise you can kill the acetobacter and lacobaccili

as for air:, it should be fine but don't fill it up all the way. Since it's a simultaneous fermentation and many of the yeast species can be bottom fermenting, which will actually give you an uneven fermentation gradient. when you're ready to harvest you'll have an alcohol rich layer and an acid rich layer and can yeild booch over 0.5% ABV. Alternative is to just let the fermentation go longer, but then you just end up with vinegar and it can be tough to drink.

The alleviation for all of this, is to maintain proper oxygen content for the cellulose production by keeping in a target specific surface area (in2/in3). a lot of research has shown a good target for this is at least 0.025 cm2/cm3 (~12.5 in2/gallon), but a better target imo is 0.04-0.05 cm2/cm3 (29.5 in2/gallon)

The higher 0.04's and 0.05+ lead to quick and even fermentation with good quality cellulose production, even fermentation kinetics and better control over the final product imo. Additionally, the brew spends less time in it's most vulnerable state (higher pH, low bacterial colony establishment etc).

https://www.academia.edu/33218912/Specific_interfacial_area_as_a_key_variable_in_scaling-up_Kombucha_fermentation"

brew bucket (what itlooks like you have) at 7 gallons/14in diameter you'd be at 0.0375. filling to only 6 gal would give 0.044 and 5 gallons would get you 0.0525, which seems really good.

Cover it with cheese cloth or a loose knitted piece of clothing that youve sanitized and rinsed with distilled/RO water. If you're worried about air, point a fan to get a gentle breeze across (read: parallel to, not AT) the cheesecloth

>>1688022
I wouldn't really suggest chopping unless you're also including the cores and you're trying to maximize volune used.

>>1688029
>chopping

why?

I am including cores, but I'm very open to whatever. I used the chop function on my small food processor. Seemed to work ok. as mentioned, my juice yeild was actually decent, slightly higher than "nominal", and it was really just my sugar yeild that was dissapointing
What would you recommend instead>?

>>1688032
Ah, right, I thought you were throwing the cores away. But yeah, it's mostly about choosing the right apples.

>>1688044
any good guides?

What If i'm just going to a local orchard and picking? Might not have the luxury of choosing?

>>1688047
If you go to a local orchard, ask the owners what types they cultivate, and then do a bit of research on those types.

IPA merrily chugging along

>>1685171
>a tiny barrel
Quarter casks or half casks are sold for this exact use.

How do I clean out large glass containers with small openings?

>>1688639
you buy large glass containers with large openings.

seriously I have the same issue and it's just stupid to even deal with small openings

>>1688639
I try to avoid my carboys whenever possible but will use them when I have multiple brews going at once. I usually swirl some water and dump the majority of the gunk. Then use a carboy brush to get the krausen. If it's really bad I fill it with hot water and oxyclean or pbw and leave it in there for a day.

>Where does /hbg/ dump their trub?
If it's not bad I will dump in my toilet. If it's a lot I fill an empty container (fast food/big gulp type cup) and throw it in the trash.

>Apply to local breweries that are hiring
>Ask about their processes
>"What do you mean you're supposed to clean the fermenters between batches? We've never cleaned them."

How do these places stay in business.

>>1688639
If you have access to a local brewery or distillery, ask to borrow a few oz of either caustic or something called tergazyme if they have it. The latter is really good for cleaning glass containers.

>>1687631
If it was actively fermenting, you might get a bit of esters from the yeast but it isn't the end of the world. Depending on the off flavor, it's either easily fixable or you may have to blend it to get rid of that off flavor.

>>1683592
Add them after fermentation is done or (if you decide to do this again) add half the orange peels after your boil is over and the other half after primary fermentation has finished. Be sure to express them a bit beforehand.

>>1688651
>>1688651
>>"What do you mean you're supposed to clean the fermenters between batches? We've never cleaned them."


fucking lol

Interesting. I mean, from a technical perspective I guess I can see that if you feel confident in your control of wort, inocculant etc going in then you might feel that was ok... especially since they probably have conical fermenters and are catching the trub then using that for future yeast props.

But still.... lets say they have a 10 bbl fermenter.... what happens when ONE time some lactobacilli form a colony when the dickhead running it forgets to put fermenting product right back into it? that's almost $1000 bucks in malted grain lost alone, not including yeast, nutrients, RO water, water salts, hops, adjunct flavors, not even to mention downtime and opportunity cost - I could see that being a $5,000 mistake in a business that already doesn't make much profit

>>1688654
I know. It's been boomers so far.

There's nothing wrong with kegging off beer and leaving the yeast inside and then brewing back into it, provided it's an extremely similar beer or even the same beer. I'm just extremely doubtful that smaller places are doing it properly.

Boomer homebrewers who "go pro" are the worst.

>"Everyone loves my hefeweizen!"
>"B-But why is there chocolate malt in it?"
>"I wanted to go for the chocolate banana flavor."

Got a local orchard with honey crisp, gala and fuji and a few others lined up. going to round up the senpai and go picking, and shoot for 2-4 bushels on Saturday, then Sunday we're going to process them into
>cider
>hard cider
>apple butter
>apple preserves
>apples for baking

can't wait


>>1688685
jesus, this is the "lineoleum over natural hardwood floors" of the brewing industry lmao

>>1677251
pro brewer here if anyone cares of has any questions. 15bbl brewhouse with 210bbl capacity, brewed 5-7 times a week for the last 5 years.

>>1688719
how to start a brewery that actually makes money

>>1688719
Does your owner suck too?

>>1688738
If you want to open your own you need to do one of two things.

If you’ve worked in a professional brewery, just get some years under your belt and then find capital investors or get a loan. Pretty normal.

If you’ve never brewed before or if you home-brew, hire a professional brewer.

>>1688738
go with the draft/taproom model and create a bar/experience that people want to go to in a desirable location.

stick to 5-10bbl systems so you aren't over producing. keep your setup as simple as possible so when things break they can be fixed/replaced

work at a brewery for multiple years in multiple positions before starting your own


>>1688740
been at the same brewery for 5 years, owners aren't bad at all and they've given me free reign to brew whatever/whenever I want

>>1685228
If you ever have some cherries, do the same with them. Homebrew cherry wine is sublime.

>>1688639
DIY PBW which is 70% oxyclean 30% TSP

>>1688751
Is it a small brewpub or a production brewery? I wish I had some more free reign desu.

>>1679061
pasturising your finished product might also help anon.

If I buy unpasteurized cider from a farm do I need to use campden tablets before putting in my own yeast? Also can I just use champagne yeast?

>>1689155
If you're worried about it you could just heat it to 160 F / 71 C and hold for at least 5-10 minutes, no?

Champagne yeast should be ok.

>>1688685
>>"Everyone loves my hefeweizen!"
>>"B-But why is there chocolate malt in it?"
>>"I wanted to go for the chocolate banana flavor."

>>1687478
Absolutely beautiful cider press, well done on the restoration.
Now let's see it in operation.

>>1688738
Start with a business model, then work around that. Here's the kind of business model I would make for a production brewery.
>Create large throughput space
>Contract with other breweries, soft drink manufacturers, or extract companies
>Take out loans and find investors willing to support a business venture to that end
>Keep long standing contracts with your clients
>Make beer with excess production space under your own brand.
Trick would be to actually get the contracts for those products.

On the other hand, other anons mentioned the Brewpub business style. It works, but you'll be competing with other restaurants and brewpubs in your area. If you make good beer and have a good food available, as long as you keep reasonable pricing you should be financially solid.

>>1677251

>>1688719
>pro brewer here if anyone cares of has any questions.
What are the restrictions on brewing with potentially dangerous/psychoactive ingredients such as those traditionally found in gruit? Flowers and coriander and orange peel or whatever are already everywhere, but I'm wondering about the legal issues surrounding ingredients like Myrica Gale, Mugwort and other Artemesias, Marsh Rosemary (Ledum sp.), etc. Is it just a ppm test of the various regulated chemicals like they do with thujone?

>>1688755
Thanks, since I have all the equipment I will probably try for a cherry wine next year - going to try for Apple wine or cider next

>>1689343
th-thanks senpai

I'll get pictures of the harvest and video of quartering, chopping (with my undersized food processors), transfer to press and collection of juice

>>1677252
I would do it, the pulp will still contain sugars that the yeast can convert. Just strain afterward.

Could I get away with making cider in a 5gal carboy or bucket? Most recipes recommend 6gal or over.

Also, is there a good beginner recipe for cider? I'd like to use fresh fruits, but it's my first time making it, and I don't want to mess it up.

>>1690079
I'm a complete cider scrub, been making mostly ales and a handful of lagers, as well as kombucha.


I'm picking 4 bushels of apples today, and going to use my food processors as "crushers" (already tested and it seems to work ok, I got pretty good juice yield actually) and the old fruit press I just restored >>1687478 >>1686516 to squeeze em.


I'm planning on using a 5 gallon carboy, but I'm likely going to only fill it to 4.5 gal. I might also do a few diluted versions in 1 gallons on the side so I can make some low ABV ciders for my younger family members.

I have no idea how well the regular carboy is going to work. The first 1 lb of store bought apples (gala) only got me 1.0386 S.G. so I can't see the fermentation going very crazy.

>>1688651
>>1683592
Tha is for the advice. I had to reboil the batch and add more sugar to get a higher alcohol content, but the taste turned out excellent, just need to ferment it a bit more.

>>1684338
>>1688651
Thanks for the advice. I had to reboil the batch and add more sugar to get a higher alcohol content, but the taste turned out excellent, just need to ferment it a bit more.

>>1690082
Thanks. I don't think I have access to an orchard, but I can see if they sell apples in bulk at my store though. Otherwise, I might just have to use apple juice. Any reccs on what brand(s) I should use?

>>1689589
>>1690082
Just as an FYI your yields are going to be lower with chopped apples than crushed apples (assuming that you don't process them basically into a slurry) and extraction is going to be more difficult and inefficient as well. The point of rendering the apples into pomace as opposed to simply chopping them is to damage the cellular structure of the apple as much as possible so more liquid gets released and blades are a relatively inefficient way to do that. You could eventually get a decent pomace from a food processor but with a proper fruit crusher you could do the entire batch better and in a fraction of the time.

How can I properly clean a moldy liquor bottle?

The water at my town has gone bad and I’d like to repurpose my old liquor bottles as my daily water receptacle and for “prepper” like storage.

>>1690593
>How can I properly clean a moldy liquor bottle?
I'll give you a few options, in ascending order of cleanliness.
>Hot water
>Hot water + soap
>Hot water + oxy-clean + distilled water rinse
>Medical grade enzyme-based detergent + distilled water + distilled water rinse

--------------------------------------- ^These are CLEANING agents, they will not necessarily DISINFECT your vessel. Always clean before sterilizing because otherwise critters could hide in the gunk and re-contaminate the contents of the bottle.

>Hot distilled water + bleach + distilled water rinse
>Hot distilled water + Star-San + sterilization in oven/pressure cooker/autoclave

-------------------------------------^ These will DISINFECT your vessels, and should be used after CLEANING.

The more expensive enzyme-based detergents are basically the nuclear option unless you have access to something restricted; they will chemically scour the shit out of anything with a biological component - scaling, soap scum, plant matter, live critters, dead critters, decomposed critters, you name it - and leave your glass as clean as it was before it was filled at the factory because that's probably how they cleaned it at the factory in the first place. They make no claims of being disinfectants but they are de-facto disinfectants because they not only destroy any microorganism they encounter but basically any biological matter where something COULD grow. This autistic level of cleanliness matters in breweries and hospitals but for just cleaning out some bottles a round of oxy-clean for the crud followed by a round of bleach water for the goobers will do you fine and you could even sterilize them in your oven if you were really that paranoid.

>>1677252
Supposedly you can get some extra fermentables if you mash the pulp and leave it in. I've done it with apples but never tried orange.
And that's mash as in convert the starches to sugar, not physically crush them. Either bring them up to mashing temp and let it sit, or pitch some amylase enzyme.
Again, never tried it with oranges, so dunno if it'll make a difference.

>>1690436
not trying to be a cunt, but Im finding COMPLETELY opposite results from this

I ended up only getting half a bushel (~10,729 grams of raw apples) due to constraints

I got ~5,333 mL of juice at 1.0371 S.G.
or ~ 5531 grams of juice, for a juice yield of 51.55%
or 497.1 mL/kg,
or 0.060 Gal/lb
or 1.19 Gal/20lb

"Nominal" or the rule of thumb I'm basing this off of is generally assumed to be around 1.0 gal/20 lb or 43.8% - So i hit 20% over that.

Sugar yield & recovery:
1.84% yield
18.44% recovery

Nominal is
2.19% yield
21.89% recovery

Now again I'm basing this on "generic apples" so my working theory is that these apples I picked, which are MUCH more tart than sweet, have less total sugar than the baseline "10 grams sugar / 100 g apples".

No way to know for sure, but that's my assumption seeing as how i'm getting similar sugar yields.


I just washed, de-stemmed, then quartered the apples manually, and stuffed them into my Ninja 1000 Watt blender on the lowest setting (https://www.ninjakitchen.com/support/product-series/86/ninja-professional-blender/)) , and let it go until the blade began to clear all the chopped pieces and the load lifted off the motor. That got me to pictured.

And like I said, the juice yield was wildly good, a full 20% above the rule of thumb. Sugar yield was low which MAYBE could be partially attributed to lack of crushing, but more likely the tartness of said apples instead of sweetness (which I prefer for flavor any ways), or possibly people over-stating how easy it is to hit a 1.05 S.G. just by pressing apples.

Either way, collected a total of 1.41 gallons - pasteurized it all at 160 F for 5 minutes, kept 1.5 liters for drinking over the next week, pitched 1 gallon with brown sugar added to hit a 1.05 S.G. for some hard cider.

1.25 kg of the leftovers are in the crockpot right now making apple butter, and the wife is trying to figure out what to do with the rest of it lmao.

>>1690928
>>1690436
>>1688029
>>1687478
>>1687479
>>1687777
>>1688029
>>1688044
>>1688070
>>1689343


Also, 50% apples were "Jonathan", other 50% were Regent. The regents were pretty juicy, but the Jonathan were pretty dry desu. I didn't test juice yields independently, though I should have.


Also, in case any one wants to see the press in action:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3AfNtLgXgG/

So it's been 3 weeks since I started my two batches of ghetto brewed mead. One of them is still bubbling around every 30s or so and the other is 1-2 minutes. I'm gonna rack the one that is still fermenting a bit but I want to store the other batch so that I don't have to put an airlock on it. I've read some stuff about cold crashing but apparently that only puts the yeast into hibernation. If I cold crash it and don't add any more honey/syrup back in, will it be bottle-able? Should I get one of those tablets that kill the yeast?

>>1690963
Just ladle it into a glass and drink as needed. It won’t go bad on the counter and you’ll save yourself some dishwashing.

>>1690928
>blender

You said food processor, not blender. Totally different action; blenders are way better for doing fruit than a food processor.

>>1691047
Interesting - So my food processor is basically just a shitty blender. It got an almost identical pulp as the blender but just at like 25% of the rate.

either way, sorry to confuse and happy it turned out great.

took 1.5 kg of the leftovers and making apple butter with it now and it's turning out aweeeesommmmeeee

>>1691116
>Interesting - So my food processor is basically just a shitty blender. It got an almost identical pulp as the blender but just at like 25% of the rate.
The idea behind crushing/smashing/etc. fruit before pressing is to rupture the cellular structure of the flesh that retains liquid so you can extract said liquid via pressure. Food processors are specifically designed to cut instead of crush whereas blenders are the opposite.

And yeah, congrats. Looks delicious.

>>1677963
Me too. Just got a half barrel BIAB setup running and went to brew a ~6% NEIPA, got fresh 2019 hops and all and then went an boned it by overshooting my sparge by ~7 gallons.

My preboil OG was 1.04 rather than 1.07. So I then added about 10 pounds of table sugar and went with a 200 minute boil. Now my OG is 1.1, throwing my hops all out of order and that may even be too high for the yeast I used.

I'm debating diluting it back down to 1.07 but it's started fermenting. I really shouldn't brew crossed

>>1691453

>>1688651
>Apply to local breweries that are hiring
>Ask about their processes
>"What do you mean you're supposed to clean the fermenters between batches? We've never cleaned them."

Commercial breweries often leave their yeast stone in on same/similar brews due to the expense of fresh yeast and the nature of conical fermenters. The last place I had the chance to ask said they did between 5-10 brews before dropping the stone. Kinda makes sense when the price for a single inoculation of yeast is in line with an entire brew. Not that making a yeast culture isn't a fucking easy thing.

I did have a chance to interview a brewery owner for the purpose of purchase and holy shit was I mad. They weren't breaking even but weren't far off either.

>10 taps, only four are the breweries own beer
>two of those are IPAs which differ ONLY in their grain bill (briess brewers malt/pilsen malt), and were ~20 IBUs short of their advertised bitterness.
>capacity to brew once a week, brewery averaged twice a month
>despite capital flow issues, owner/brewer only works 2-3 days a week and also hired a brewer because brewing was too physically stressful for her.
>open grain bags stored with no no temp/humidity control
>100% pellet hops
>no new recipes since ~2015/16

>>1688685
Boomers are the worst, period. the above exists only because of hovering boomers who just love the idea of a female brewer, despite the beer being shit. The younger crowd was at a couple other breweries in town that had decent beer and an actual variety.

It's really not that hard to brew good beer. It is hard to brew the same beer twice and have no difference between the two. Most micobreweries know this and since instead brew a recipe once and move on. Perfect for ipa/sours and the countless seasonal styles out there.

>>1691480
>>10 taps, only four are the breweries own beer
>>two of those are IPAs which differ ONLY in their grain bill (briess brewers malt/pilsen malt), and were ~20 IBUs short of their advertised bitterness.
>>capacity to brew once a week, brewery averaged twice a month
>>despite capital flow issues, owner/brewer only works 2-3 days a week and also hired a brewer because brewing was too physically stressful for her.
>>open grain bags stored with no no temp/humidity control
>>100% pellet hops
>>no new recipes since ~2015/16


oof

>>1691480
I responded after that saying it's normally fine to keg off and brew back into it if it's the same beer or similar in style but this place went something like this.

>brew milk stout
>ferment
>tilt racking arm
>transfer to brite tank while leaving yeast bed in conical
>brew a cream ale into the fermenter with milk stout yeast/trub
>the owner wonders why his cream ale is coming out muddy brown/orange with slight chocolate notes

Big think but yeah it was a boomer who retired from aerospace and he enjoyed homebrewing. I hope he found a retard to brew for him making minimum wage. It sucks because his system could have been kino if it wasn't hardpiped retardedly.

T-There's nothing wrong with 100% pellet hops, using whole cone is a meme. Unless you meant using shit like CO2 extract or cyro hops, then I agree.

>>1691725
that greentext, holy shit boomers man. Also why the fuck would anyone pay the guy who makes your ONLY product, minimum wage? I've never understood that.

>T-There's nothing wrong with 100% pellet hops, using whole cone is a meme. Unless you meant using shit like CO2 extract or cyro hops, then I agree.

I generally disagree, but didn't always. A year or so back I decided to buy only 8oz and 1lb hop bags online from then on and as a result have had a chance to compare whole to pellet hops and of course a bit of cryo and oil as well. Kinda like weed, fresh whole cone hops have a unique character that is spoiled both with time and processing. The AA potency is basically identical, but the smell/taste whole cone adds to a hop forward beer can't be denied. For that reason I usually save whole cone for whirlpool/dry hop and use pellets for everything else. Also with whole hops, once they are opened they need to be used within a week unlike pellets that store fairly well after the bag has been opened.

Cryo and oil are probably the future though for breweries. They both create way less trub matter and haze which is a good thing for almost every style and brewery and I can imagine a time when just like weed oils/extracts, the flavor/aroma can be custom tailored.

>>1683048
yeast is naturally occuring. What concerns me is that there was enough sugar in your urine to feed it. Might check the ol blood sugar.

>>1691791
Confirmed diabetes lel, he's probably american.

>tfw buying ~1,300 lbs of wine grapes for the 3rd year in a row

>>1677251
Why do people still use jars, there's gotta be a more efficient way of using up all of the space left behind by left over food that you're never able to get out, especially more solid stuff like peanut butter

My first experience with home brewing was when my wife left a small amount of grapejuice in a sealed water bottle on her nightstand for like a week. One day I decided to toss it and it felt really fucking firm. Curious I opened it and it made a loud BANG and there was grapejuice everywhere. I almost shit myself.

Is this thread usually here? I'll try to post pictures and answer questions about (specifically) beer related stuff when I can.

>>1691764
It's pretty common in the industry and shitty homebrewers are usually the cause and end recipients of it since they're eager to learn for close to nothing and boomer homebrewer owners are eager to save some shekels.

>eager homebrewer takes a shitty brewing job from a local place for minimum wage "to get their foot in the industry"
>finds out that brewing isn't just about drinking beer and smelling hops
>gets overworked since they're most likely doing everything from brewing, cellaring, and packaging
>quits after a few months
>cycle continues with another retard

Pro-tip: Unless the brewhouse is easy to use and their logistics are on point, don't take dedicated brewing jobs for less than $17/hr. That's entry level pay for plain ol' shift brewing at larger regional breweries not named ABInBev or MolsonCoors.

>>1691480
>It's really not that hard to brew good beer. It is hard to brew the same beer twice and have no difference between the two.
So much this. The drive for consistency has really watered down the actual vibrancy of flavor for many craft beers. Shit like SN pale ale and Sam Adams doesn't have that pungency of flavor that I remember anymore. I wish it were more ok to have inconsistent results in the craft beer business but oh well, that is why I homebrew.

>>1677251
I've got a batch of mead that began fermenting early last year, and it's been drinkable for a while but the level of sweetness is fairly overpowering (I used about a 1:3 ratio of honey to water). Is there a way to cut the level of sweetness to a more palatable level so that it isn't quite as sickly sweet?

>>1688825
it is a small production brewery... initially the goal was to grow into a huge one but the market dictated otherwise. now we supply 2 taprooms and do a ton of canning

>>1689351
no idea, I assume it depends on your local regulations. probably illegal in california regardless of ppm

making beer and a fair amount of cheap wine just because. maybe 6-12 2 liters of wine. doesn't really take much to make it. use to live it a day our two and it was ok i'm try a week and see what happens. someone said 3 weeks. i don't want vinegar.

>>1692002
*leave

>>1691807
Cheapest one to make that is still useful. Also quite easy to make.

>>1691879
Water dilution, but that cuts other stuff down; lowers the honey amount (25% honey is way too much).

as my mead is clearing up i'm getting beginner's nerves about botulism

>>1690593
The worst problems I have with cleaning bottles is scale, lime or some worse compound. Go to a hardware store and buy some HCl descaler, used by bricklayers for example. Make up some solution, get gloves maybe a facemask (or try not to get a lungful it sucks) also eye protection, acid into water to dilute, then soak + scrub the bottles (nylon brush). In terms of concentration go as hard as you have to. Protip this also works for toilets.

>>1680746
Melbourne?

Going to rack my wine from the Carboy it’s in now back into the primary in an attempt to get rid of some of this sediment on the bottom (and then back into the Carboy again a couple days later)
I have 2 questions:
> 1) is there some kind of filter I could use at the end of my syphon (I mean the video game got the name from somewhere right)?
> 2) Could I add more sugar at this stage (a few weeks after primary ferment) or would that just be sweetening it without producing any extra alcohol?

>>1694432
Fug forgot pic

>>1677663
Cotes de blanc is a fine yeast for making calvados. Ferment will be slow but that just means it won't blowoff delicate flavors like you can with some gorilla like EC- 1118. watch the nutrients.

Source - formerly worked in distilling professionally. Eau-de-vie master race. fuck bourbon drinking plebs

>>1680703
FYI, potassium sorbate (common preservative) can be overcome with large doses of yeast. The sorbate is absorbed as it kills the yeast and eventually it will all be consumed. You can also acclimate yeast to it by making a starter and gradually adding the sorbated liquid. Made a cranberry mead one time that was a bitch to start due to natural sorbate in the berries and the antiseptic properties of honey. Huge doses of EC-1118 saved the day.

Has anyone ever brewed anything with coconut water?

Possibly a stupid question, but is it possible to substitute a chemical digestion for koji when making sake?
I know it's almost certainly not the best method, but I don't really have a way to culture koji.
As far as I've read, the important thing the koji does is produce amylase.
Does that mean I could just mash the rice and add another source of amylase?

Made grape juice with mom last week. Is it worth the trouble to try to brew this? This isn't more than 750ml of grape juice. How much wine would I get? Don't really care about ABV, only the taste.

>>1692128
Getting botulism in your mead is incredibly unlikely lol.

>>1694745
Hmm not sure but IIRC some people were investigating such a thing some years ago on homebrewtalk, in one of the rice wine threads. It was a bit confusing though because people kept misunderstanding how the rice fermentation worked vs a normal beer fermentation and adding pointless adjuncts, plus of course the differences of brewing something like makgeoli vs Chinese types of rice wine vs Sake, of which there are myriad. In particular, sake does not use a specifically glutenous rices AFAIK whereas the others do, as glutinous as possibly, and the fermentation is really a dual simultaneous fermentation or whatever. But the point is rice is made up of amylopectin and amylose and you need something to break that down into sugars or whatever compounds essentially which the yeast can then ferment. I've only made makgeoli and chinese rice wine and both times was able to find the starters in my local Asian market. However it seem reasonable that you could surely find some other reagent to break down the starch into sugar, and then go straight into a yeast fermentation but fuck if I know what that would be.

>>1694745
Another thought, maybe contact Budweiser and ask them, since their beer is primarily made from rice and they sure aren't doing some bacterial fermentation lmao.

>>1685425
I have a question regarding champagne yeast for f2. Can I just keep the strain going or I need to buy a new bag of yeast every time I want a fizzy drink?

>>1689155
You don't need to use campden if you're pitching yeast with killer factor. I prefer not to because then I get some of the complex flavors of the natural yeast with the stability of cultured yeast. And don't use champagne (or EC-1118) yeast, unless you can control temps to nice and cool, otherwise you'll destroy a lot of the finer notes of the cider.

>>1691879
I'd say give up on it being "mead" and freeze distill it to liqueur strength.

>>1694760
Not sure about wine, but with beer you lose about 5-10% of the volume in trub/lees. So you'd make just under a bottle's worth of wine from that juice.

>>1694432
You could probably rig some kind of cheesecloth filter, but I think better to just keep the hose above the crud line so it doesn't draw much to filter out in the first place. For the sugar, as long as you haven't pasteurized or chemically stopped the yeast they will wake up and eat the sugar, tho maybe at a slower rate than they would while it was more active. Yeast never die unless something kills them, they just go dormant.

In conclusion i would like to give a shout out to based US 05 which is currently at 105% apparent attenuation on my cranberry cider.

>>1686516
You need to cut them up into 8ths and put it in cheesecloth or some kind of cloth filter so it the mush doesn't go through.

>>1695037
Thanks that really helps

I am making some wine, and it has some an egg smell from the sulfide. Can I simply use a piece of cleaned and sanitized copper when racking it?

>>1694432
not entirely sure about wine sedimentation; nor the impact of oxygenation moving wort from fermenter to fermenter, but the hombrew filters available like BIAB won't do much to actually reduce yeast content.

Your best bet is to allow the yeast to properly settle and then rack it off to another vessel (assuming fermentation is complete) and give further time for dropout. At the risk of favor one could also cold crash the wine and skip the aforementioned process.

>>1695300
Cold crash before serving and don't worry about it.

~1300 lbs of grapes
expecting around ~300 liters of wine, very strong wine, very good
dad makes wine I just help, grandfather had over 5,000 liters every year in Europe
best wine better than any store brand, dalmatian way same way it was made when we wuz romans (the trick is to just not add any industry shit wow amazing recipe)
over 20% alcohol
guy offered me $600 for 50 liters I respectfully decline since it's not for sale since we drink but maybe we make more next year to sell or maybe open small winery wine gets best compliments easily worth $15/liter better than any meme industry shit or other wine you find anywhere besides maybe top tier aged wine
better than all friends homemade wine by far
haven't seen a wine in michigan better than it, any grape works as long as it's not some shitty cheap grape
made riesling and merlot last year, zinfandel and albarino this year
good luck to all you winemaking frens

Had a dream last night my Carboy shattered
That might be a bad sign

>>1695749
Now I'm no dream scientist but I think it means you're gay and also an extract brewer.

>>1694887
Are there any good guides on how to go about this? Seems like an interesting concept

>>1696176
uh, ya, we can all use google I presume.

Put your mead in a bucket. Seal the bucket and put the bucket in the freezer overnight. Remove the unfrozen contents the next day.

Watch out for nasty hangovers however, since you have avoided the distillation process andincluded higher and lower alcohols.

I'm a poorfag who likes to have a drink or two when I get home from work.

Made some cider a few years ago with a friend but it took weeks and didn't taste that great.

Do you guys have any suggestions for some crackhead tier, fast fermenting booze I can homebrew?

>>1696340
make some kilju with turbo yeast

>>1696340
Kilju a bucket of molasses: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/golden-barrel-5-gallon-sulfur-free-blackstrap-molasses/125BLKSTPP.html or a bucket of corn syrup.

>>1679141
Did you just add yeast to the asda pineapple juice brit bro?
What kind of yeast?

What are the best companies quality and cost wise to order from for corn and malted grain?

What would /diy/ pick out of these? I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make to have a bottle tree, etc

>>1697564
Bottle trees are handy (having dozens of bottles on your counter can take up a lot of room) so if you're okay with plastic bottles then I'd pick Morgan's and buy a bottle tree a la carte because $40 is about $15 too much. I personally like glass swing-tops so I'd go with Dave's and buy a bottle tree a la carte. There are a few caveats with swing-tops, however; they're relatively expensive so giving beer away can get expensive in a hurry if your bottles aren't returned, you need to replace the (inexpensive but of variable quality) seals if they start to harden or get really gunked up and they require a bit more effort to clean and sanitize.

>>1697578
Thanks for the feedback - I think I'll go for Dave's with bottle tree as it's actually a fairly good price here. In Australia the average for it seems to be around $45-50, so $40 is under market price.

>>1697564
seems overpriced desu

What's a better extract brew kit to use as the base for my Christmas ale - "sparkling ale (amber)", "Yorkshire bitter", or "brown ale"?

Looking to keep it as simple as possible, and just add a few spice notes to the recipe (cinammon/giner/vanilla/orange)

Latest picture of my first mead. It's been 10 days fermenting. Tastes like sweet white wine. I've got other pictures from the every day if anyone is interested. I used champagne yeast. Has anyone used an ale or beer yeast to get a more beer/ale flavor? Did it work?

>>1697825
all grain BIAB. Seriously, if you have a 5 or 6 gallon kettle this is super easy. If not, they are like 30 bucks from most stores. If you go that way, you can make your own recipe or copy one of the hundreds of thousands online. At least it will be a proper Christmas ale.

If not, I'd do the amber and order a pound or two of some darker grain specialty grain like Victory or special malt/extra special malt.

>>1684556
Just made honey fermented garlic and this and a daily shake was all that was needed.
No Kahm's apparent. Easy and delicious.

>>1681544
Add to that everyone almost always constantly carries a firearm and a knife, good looking women are endangered species, the roads are usually shit and bears will fuck you up.
Add vitamin D deficiency for winter too.

>>1681524
Collect your spores from your first harvest or try to transfer the colony (iffy, contamination wise)
Use the time between figuring out what bag you will order and when you innoculate to read up on a more /diy/ setup.
You will need a sterile container (fish tank, cooler, etc) grow medium and a decent location. As long as you do it correctly, after that it is pretty smooth sailing.

>>1691725
>cream ale is coming out muddy brown/orange with slight chocolate notes
Done properly, I would fuck wit dat.

>>1688755
>>1689574
Cherry Reisling mix is also quite good IMO.
I would be interested in an apple cherry mix as well, can confirm apple and blueberry together is divine.
Maybe even get crazy and add some mead.

>>1690593
>Bleach
>Vinegar
Never together unless you cap quickly and intend to throw.

>>1694462
Appreciated advice, anon.
Had never given thought to sorbate in cranberries before.
You likely just saved me a headache.

>>1691802
Based and Dionysian

>>1691807
Manufacturing equipment and materials procurement already exists and is basically perfected, so cheap and efficient.
Recycling is widely available both commercially or consumer reuse.
Shape is nostalgic and the feel and sound is, if glass.
Stackable.
Slightly easier to initially fill.

Use a small/medium silicone spatula (baking/mixing kind, not cooking/flipping)
https://youtu.be/M19hdkWC-ok

>>1695594
Based ESL alcoholic Europoor transplant. Fellow Michifagger here.
A classic Mediterranean style would probably sell well in the Detroit area.
Most serious Leelanau styles tend to be Germanic with the obligatory French for Canada or whatever.
Lot of Greek/Med/Pizza restaurants and "buy local" thinking in the south thumb, could be a viable market.

>>1696171
Never go full Freud.

>>1692128
Unless you seriously fucked up, you'll be good.

>>1694745
If you want a quickie (ghetto koji), purchase something called Amylo300 and add it to your mash. It's an enzyme that breaks down complex sugars, which should let you get some optimal sugar extraction. Add only a tiny bit during mash and another tiny bit when you pitch yeast. The second addition takes care of any sugar chains that may still be in suspension.

>>1697825
Brown ale imo. Works better as a base with Christmas-y spices and flavors. I made a maple syrup all grain two years ago and it was really nice. Aged it on half a pound of coffee beans and it was an immaculate breakfast beer during the holidays.

>>1698236
I’ve used ale yeasts and it does make for some nice flavor. I just use bread yeast now because beer fags make ale yeasts too expensive.

can anyone who does electric brewing recommend a heating element for 110 v to use in conjunction with a stove top

What grains should I use for a hefeweizen?

>>1699323
american or traditional german?

>>1699325
Traditional German.

>>1680650
>tfw mommy just bought me 2 gallons of molasses for rum

>>1699717
I use barbados molasses. 5 gallons +25 gallons water. Boiled yeast and miracle grow. Yeast pitched at 100 degrees in a closed vessel it will work off in 3 days.

What's your recipe?

What's the laziest possible beer one could make? As in you set up everything only at the beginning, don't bother to monitor it, and somehow there are almost no off flavors at the end. Would it be a sour?

Is it possible to make something alcoholic with just water, sugar, and yeast? If so, how do I do it?

>>1700937
mix it together bruh

>>1700944
how much of each component? how long do I wait before drinking it? anything special I will need to take into account?

>>1700937
Yes. You need a fermentation vessel. The quantities vary.

>>1700956
1 liter of water, 100g of sugar, 1 spoonful of yeast will work, a handful of raisins will be good for alcohol managing.

>>1701027
>100g/L
nigger he's trying to get drunk

>>1687941
They make a jar with a double rim, then an upside down bowl that fits between the double rim. Chuck some water in there, it will let air out but not back in.

Now who can tell me: I made some shitty Mead, so I'm going to just distill it. How much % should I let purge at the beginning? So far it's all been crystal clear

>>1696340
Cider only takes two weeks. Three if you bottle condition.

>took weeks and didn't taste that great
Anything that ferments fast is going to taste pretty bad.

>>1701379
Even then it doesn't take that long. Maybe 2 weeks. I haven't experimented and my cider usually sits in my fermenter for weeks because I bottle and bottling is a pain in the ass.

>>1698277
Where are you at? I'm around the M-59 and M-53 area. I just bought this still for $400 from some guy. Good deal? I'm going to have around 150 liters of white wine, 150 liters of red wine, and about 8-9 gallons of brandy, maybe 10 if lucky. Fuck man, Albarino grapes suck ass compared to Chardonnay. I got baited into buying them by a friend. I should have just gone with Chardonnay and Riesling again. The Zinfandel is good though, as usual. All the grapes had very little juice this year compared to last year. How profitable do you think producing 30,000-40,000 liters of good quality wine per year could be?

>>1692128
Even if you did no sanitation at all at worst you’d have an infection that would render it undrinkable due to the taste. Remember that homebrewers INTENTIONALLY infect their beers all the time to make sours. Botulism is very rare, especially in mead since it has a higher ABV than beer.

>>1702025
I was under the impression that botulism for homebrew was pretty much impossible because homebrewing generally creates a very acidic product. Especially more so since you inoculate your wort/must with yeast that outcompetes botulinum.

>>1698267
Any time.

>>1677454
>hrmph!
Where the fuck do you think you are

>>1680476
>>1690963
I stabilized and cracked the first half of my mead batch with the boys this weekend and it was a moderate success. Was pretty much dry as a desert jet fuel but four cups of it got one of my friends plastered so I'm calling that a win. The next half of the batch had a lot more syrup in it so I'm betting its going to be even stronger. Thanks for the help everybody. Next year I'm gonna buy some real brewing equipment with my big boy money and put some actual effort into brewing a one gallon batch to bottle and uncork when I graduate.

>>1702620
>Was pretty much dry as a desert jet fuel but four cups of it got one of my friends plastered
did he have a nasty hangover

>>1699769
I'm using 2 gallons of Golden Barrel blackstrap molasses and 4 pounds of dark brown sugar with 5 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket. I also am doing two 10 pound brown sugar runs with a jar of molasses thrown on top of each.

>>1677640
the longer you let the chips in the stronger the taste gets but too long can make it bitter/polyphenolic otherwise it wont get bad in a unhealthy way
dont put in the bourbon during the main fermentation it will slow the yeast down or even kill a main part of it if you dont use some sort of strong yeast
this can result in a lacticacid production

>>1679061
just work in a clean enviroment
wash your hands and desinfect them
the alcohol should keep most things safe
make mango molasse with pure alcohol will do the trick
pasteurisation is also a good idea just pressure cook it
10 min at 60°C will kill alot of germs
also maybe just use mango juice by pressing the mango should help with the texture and mouthfeeling

first time brewer here, ive succeeded in creating a ripe ginger bug. how do i turn it in to gallons? how do i make it as alcoholic as possible?

Where do you guys source your barley from? Making a homemade sweet feed mix to brew up some shine, as all the local feed stores provide nothing but pellets now. From what I'm seeing it's a 30/30/30/10 mix of cracked corn, oats, barly, and molasses, but the only thing I can't find in large amounts at a sensible price is the barley.

>>1704659
Usually the local Homebrew store. Most keep a handful of full sacks they are willing to sell and mill for you. not the greatest selection or prices so Every six months or so I take a road trip to someplace like morebeer and make sure the grains I want will be in store. For distilling, i assume you use the cheapest base malt available, which would be Breiss Brewers malt at $35/50lb sack. A 50lb bag of wheat from Briess should cost the same but may need to be ordered before hand.

Oats are a bit more expensive at $1/lb. Corn you may have to special order, but should be available to any Homebrew store as well.

>>1700471
CiderPA. Or Gruit. Buy cider/apple juice, should have an OG of 1.05. Buy a lb of sugar and yeast. Assuming you have left over hops, pitch the yeast, wait 3 days, pitch 2oz of hops per gallon for 3 days then remove. Wait for yeast to drop out and then bottle/keg.

You've now got a juicy yet winey 5% abv beverage without boiling or mixing and a fairly tasty one at that as well.

>>1704920
Current best prices I can find
Cracked Corn - $10 for 50# sack from tractor supply
6 row malt barley - $.69 per half lb at a local brewery store I checked out, thanks for the suggestion.
Rolled Oats - $19 for a 50# sack from tractor supply
Mollases - $25 for one gallon via amazon (free shipping)

I think that all should provide an adequate mash.

Went to a local orchard to use the freshest apple cider I could to make apfelwein. Gonna end up being the most expensive wine and applejack I've made but hopefully it'll be worth it. I'll find out in a month!

>>1702036
Botulism is more of a possibility in mead since it can be present naturally in honey. This is why you should never feed honey to infants.
The chance of it surviving a proper ferment is very small however.
It is always something to keep in mind though. Botulism makes for a horrible death.

I dun goofed with my most recent batch of beer. Forgot to stir it while mashing and wound up with fucking 3.5% abv.

How do I brew with nothing but some juice, yeast, and a balloon?

Posted earlier in this thread, made Mead for a while, left the hobby, picked it up again with an extract kit. "Canadian red ale," honestly, not bad, but next batch I make is going to involve either steeping some hops or dry-hopping. Maybe using some aromatic malts for a bit more flavour on that side too.

>>1705936
Add yeast to juice, poke a few holes into balloon, cover jug with holey balloon, wait until booze

>>1705995
How do you know when it's done?

Third and biggest batch of mead. First go was a gallon I made because I had surprise honey from a collapsed bee hive. Figured why not. Now I’m experimenting.
This batch is 15lbs of honey, approximately 3 1/4 gallons of water, and a nutrient tea made by boiling 2 black tea bags, one cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, 1/4 of an apple, 1/4 of a pear, and an ounce of juniper berries for about 20 minutes.
I pitched a packet of red star white wine yeast 28 days ago and the airlock is still bubbling about every 8 seconds. A quick taste reveals the sweetness has come down quite a bit since last week. Not sure when I’ll rack
Pic related

>>1706027

You'll know when it's done when it stops bubbling. Honestly just do it and fuck it up somehow, drink it anyways, then figure out how you can do better next time.

I think I’m going to pickup some Cider from a local orchard and use it to make Apple wine sometime this week
I know Sorbate is bad, but are there any other additives I should be sure are not there before buying?

>>1702123
> Where do you think you are
4channels most wholesome board

>>1702123
>>1706345
Zoomer BTFO

>>1706467

> discussing lager yeast strains around normies
> "oh are you making sourdough anon"

Any distillers itt? Whats your setup?

I got a fuckload of lemons ready to just drop off my tree and the birds are getting hungry
Does anyone have any experience making Lemon Cider/Brandy/general hooch from fresh lemons?

And do you reckon I can have it brewed and bottled before christmas?

i've got this one trashwine batch that has been bubbling for 3 months, even after dropping metabisulphite and potassium sorbate in it. apart from that it looks finished. i don't really understand.

>>1707394
Make limoncello

Anyone with experience making nigger juice? I see some blue tropical punch shit at the store and have some spare ale yeast, highly considering dropping it in and seeing what happens

>>1707570
Do you have a hydrometer? If not make one from a straw and fishing weights, calibrate it with pure water and drop it in. Something is fishy. Also does it smell like rotten eggs? Might be infected

I'm going to make a batch of mead tomorrow using just culinary lavender and a flavoring. Everything else I've made I've used more fruits and stuff so I'm not sure what if I need additional yeast nutrients.
Should I buy a pack of them chemicals or maybe just use raisins or something? I'm trying really hard to make lavender the primary flavor

>>1707570
bro it's long rotten poison

>>1707765

Raisins don't act as nutrients. Buy Fermaid-O and do TOSNA... It ferments so much quicker and doesn't have any off characters to the taste.

I wish I was american so I could get my hands on some of the good stuff that you guys get in terms of tannin powders.

Also modern mead makers on meme book is one of the best pages to follow for mazing.

>>1707394
Get yourself a bottle of grappa, then let the lemon peel seep in it for a few days, make some bomb-ass limoncello.

>>1706030
>Should I buy a pack of them chemicals or maybe just use raisins or something? I'm trying really hard to make lavender the primary flavor
>I wish I was american so I could get my hands on some of the good stuff that you guys get in terms of tannin powders.

> nutrient tea made by boiling 2 black tea bags, one cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, 1/4 of an apple, 1/4 of a pear, and an ounce of juniper berries for about 20 minutes.

>>1707857
>>1707886

I'll look into tracking down Fermaid O, that sounds like the best option.

And yeah I usually do a tea for my meads but this time around it's literally just lavender buds sitting in there after boiling for an hour or two. That mix sounds super nice so I'll save that for another batch, sounds like a good holiday blend

>>1687920
Got a fresh link?

>>1707886
I want non shit tannins that actually stop oxidisation of the wine by partially binding to the oxygen in solution and then dropping out. E.g. ft blanc

>>1707765
>As enologists began better understanding the science of fermentation, nitrogen was identified as a principal nutrient and winemakers as early as the 1900s began adding ammonium salts to their must.[4] Urea was also used as an early nitrogen supplement but research linking it to the development of ethyl carbamate has led to its regulation in many countries, including the United States since 1990.[2][18][19]
Unironically just piss in your must, piss is pretty clean too.

Picking up several gallons of fresh cider to start Making Apple Wine this Sunday - anyone have any tips?

>>1707570
All a bubbling airlock means is that you're outgassing something
Don't rely on an airlock to tell if fermentation is taking place. Buy a fucking hydrometer/refractometer

>>1708005
Freshie: gCPwqN

>>1708351
Use honey to hit that high level of wine abv. Use nutrients and temperature controll.

Is this worth it for $125 AUD? (85USD)
I'm looking at getting a kit that I can reuse for lots more beer making after the initial batch, is there anything it's really missing?

>>1685228
Neat! My dad is a grape farmer for welches. I visited and took home 50lbs of concord grapes. I turned 30lbs of them into a 5.5 gallon batch of wine.
I got about 2 gallons of juice out of them. Added 2 gallons of water and 6.5lbs of sugar to get an initial gravity of 1.095,, then stuck the bag of skin and pulp into my primary fermenting bucket. It showed about 5.5 gallons at that point. I added campden tablets and let it sit 24 hours, then pulled the bag of rinds and pulp out and squeezed all the juice out by hand I could. The skins add a "foxy" (earthy/chemical) flavor, so I didn't want them in during primary. I added yeast and let it sit with a cheese cloth over the bucket for 5 days. Gravity today was like 1.007, which is lower than I expected, so I racked into secondary. It's a nice purple/magenta color now. I might get another carboy and do a 2nd racking in a few weeks when It's done fermenting. Right now, the bubbles up top are swirling pretty heavily and the airlock is popping every couple seconds, even though I left a half gallon of yeasty wine behind in my primary fermenter.

For what it's worth, with the juice water and grape chunks my bucket was almost full. After squeezing the juice out of the rinds/pulp, I was at 5.5 gallons. After racking I think I'm at very close to 5 gallons. Very excited to see how it turns out, but I'm a relatively novice brewer, and concord grapes are definitely NOT wine grapes.

>>1708681
>brew day

>>1708351
Don't forget to rack to a secondary after it's done fermenting. Also, most commercial cider brewers add artificial sweeteners (so they don't ferment) to their cider to make them sweeter. You could also use some potassium bisulfate to kill the yeast before fermenting is completely done, ie when gravity is above 1.0, to keep some sugars in your cider and make it less dry.

I have a large batch of cider I brewed from my apples last year, it was my first cider and I didn't know about this. It tastes like a wine which kind of sucks for a brew that is under 6% ABV. I used a champagne yeast for mine.

>>1708527
I mean, it'll get you started. You'll likely want a glass or plastic carboy and a racking cane (siphon) to move your brew into a secondary fermentation vessel to get rid of the sediment that will develop on the bottom of that bucket. When it's been in secondary fermenation for a while, you can rack it back into that (cleaned and sanitized) bucket to prep for bottling. A bottling nozzle will also be a decent investment.

I'd also start saving all your traditionally capped beer bottles and buy a bottle capper and bottle caps since screw tops are gay as fuck.

>>1708527

It will let you get started immediately. You can ferment in it for 2 weeks and then bottle it.

If you want to make average beer all the time and just get smashed... You should be fine with that kit and then you can make whatever Big W or the Coopers website are selling.

$125 is a bit more than 2 slabs of beer provided you lose none of it when bottling. But it will get cheaper over time because you will spend $30 for the next Coopers goo-can and brew enhancer with carbonation drops.

>>1708682
cool motorcycle

>>1677251
Anyone ever try to make wine with ocean spray pink cranberry juice? I'm on day five and it looks like a non-starter. The regular cranberry (with sugar added) went all the way to 18% with no problems, no nutrients needed, but I'm not getting any bubbling going on in this bottle.

>>1709162
>Made with Real Fruit Juice
>"Made"
Code word for "chemical cocktail with 1% fruit and 99% garbage".

>>1708984
Thanks nibba

>>1681154
>If all I need to get is sugar
I've tried this on two separate occasions, once for co2 in my grow room, and then a second time after I started brewing. Neither worked. Best I can tell from what I remember of bio, is that they'll eat the sugar to produce co2 and alcohols but reproduction requires spcific nutrients that aren't in table sugar (or honey). For my meads, I toss in a 1/8C chopped raisins per gallon as yeast nutrient. That might do the trick, but you're still looking at flavorless weak alcohol water, so basically like flat Bud Light. Also, I've been using around 3lbs total sugar per gallon with bread yeast, and have a dieoff just prior to dry, so that's about your max.

That said, a much better way to go as a beginner is to just use a pasturized half-gallon juice. They're $2 or less, just pour a glass (~12oz), add 2C sugar, 1/4t bread yeast, balloon and wait. Surprisingly good for no effort, with nothing to sanitize.

>>1681364
>smell
I've got about six gallons going at various stages right now, and it's just a slight hint of fruit, honey and co2 when I'm right there with my head in the cupboard, staring at the bottles hoping time will speed up.

>>1684955
>growing poppy plants
Perfectly legal, at least in some states like mine. It's only the harvesting of opium that's illegal, but if you're growing them indoors and nothing else the assumption of guilt would be pretty strong, but I know little ol' ladies with a bunch of red poppy growing in their front yard next to other flowers, and they don't get bothered by the cops, high school kids are another story.

>>1685154
>distillation
I've never understood this. I get that a concentrated shot of heads or tails would be pretty toxic, but wouldn't the relative volumes of various alcohols be roughly the same in distallate as it would be in say, wine? It's not like I'm removing the methanol or isopropyl from wine, so if the heads and tails were mixed homogenously with the heart wouldn't it be no different?

What sort of booze could I brew from passionfruit? I get a yearly bumper crop of the stuff. I've never made alcohol before (only kombucha when I was much younger), would I need to test the sugar content and pH of the juice? Would the passionfruit work better as a flavorant rather than as the principal thing being fermented?

>>1679061
Citric acid helps pectin set, iirc.

>>1707857
>Raisins don't act as nutrients
You do know that saccharomyces naturally lives on grapes, right? Raisins are literally the OG of yeast nutrients.

>>1709165
>"chemical cocktail with 1% fruit and 99% garbage"
15% juice, but I get your point. I would have thought it would have at least started a ferment though. I'm suspecting an unlisted preservative. Even my Langer's Kiwi-Strawberry is looking like it's going to finish well, and I figured that would be seriously lacking in the right balance of nutrients for a complete ferment.

>>1709176
>What sort of booze could I brew from passionfruit?
Passionfruit wine

>>1709176
Could make some passionfruit mead.

>>1708527

Honestly I just walked into a homebrew store and got a bucket with airlock and a spigot for thirty bucks, then just saved up glass bottles and got a capper. Still using the cans of extract, I literally only have a closet to do this in, this kind of brewing isn't as bad as some would say, but it's still not great.

Just did all of my sanitising, only to realise that I don't have any brewing sugar (or regular sugar). I'll go to the shops tomorrow and buy some, but will I have to re-sanitise? Or if I just leave it in a clean location and don't touch it, will it be ok?

>>1709426
It's probably fine if you cover it. I've never understood the insistence that everything needs to be perfectly sanitary and precisely measured. Wine was first invented by complete accident by people who didn't have any access to sanitary products or awareness of microbes, and for millenia was just a process of pouring juice into an old bucket and waiting.

"Why yes, I never use crystal or caramel malts in my IPAs. How could you tell?"

>>1709183

Of course. That doesn't make raisins a good source of nutrients though. There's a reason why majority of the best mead makers in the world don't use raisins anymore and have moved onto Fermaid-O, Fermaid-K + DAP - And that's because it makes a better mead.

>>1709741
I wasn't arguing that modern science hasn't provided certain advancements, just that raisins are, in fact, a good source of nutrients.

It's like comparing bullet trains to steam engines. I get that bullet trains are faster, but your argument was that steam engines don't run at all, and that's simply not true.

My fermenting bucket is leaking lads, I think the valve for the tap isn't screwed in tightly enough. Is there anything I can do to avoid losing the whole lot? It's a race against time here

>>1709877
sanitize a glove or long bag and reach in and tighten it or transfer to another bucket.
is it one of those stainless brew buckets? i've fixed leaks by just tightening the spigot clockwise from the outside without reaching in for the locknut

>>1709877
Had to leave the house straight after posting. As soon as I came back I washed my hands carefully, transferred to another (sanitised) bucket, tightened the tap as much as I could, and then transferred back to the fermenter. It was leaking steadily across the 3 hours I was away, and I lost about 5-6 litres from the 23 litre brew.

Is it fucked, or do I still have a chance of salvaging it? It was only a cheap brew so it's not the end of the world, but would still be a bit annoying if I lost it.

>>1709880
Good advice, just didn't see it in time. It's even worse than a stainless steel one, it's just a plastic bucket you get in the starter kit. Could probably do with upgrading soon.

>>1709950
you really shouldn't ferment in those, those buckets are just for bottling. The spigot isn't meant to hold the pressure inside during fermentation

>>1709954
I know they're shit, but they are clearly labelled as fermenting buckets in the starter kits

>>1709183
>>1709783
>just that raisins are, in fact, a good source of nutrients.
They aren't, apparently.
https://gotmead.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Raisins-are-NOT-nutrients.pdf
not that guy btw

> everything I've made since moving in has turned to vinegar
IS THERE JUST FUCKING ACETOBACTER FLOATING IN THE AIR HERE?!

>>1710041

Even then, reading that PDF and knowing about the guy who wrote that. He's one of the home-mead makers in the world.

2 years ago I brewed a maple syrup mead, and I made the mistake of matching the syrup in quantity to what would be used in a honey mead and now it is so sweet it is almost unbearable, it's good on ice especially once it melts a bit, anyone else do a maple syrup mead have any advice for future brews?

>>1710370

- Use less maple syrup.
- Maple syrup meads (Acerglyns) are best made as traditional meads that you stabilise and back sweeten with, using maple syrup.

Do you nutrients and all that jazz to help with fermentation?

Fermentation keeps locking on me. The same batches that were super dry in 10 days this summer are super sweet after several weeks now. I can't afford anything fancy. What options are available besides cranking my house up to 70F?

Idk if this general works like some of the others I use but in case it does

New Thread:
>>1711061
>>1711061
>>1711061