/diy/ - Do It Yourself

brewin right now iykwim

Felt like experimenting and had a 2 pound bag of dried cherries and said fuck it. Finally done fermenting but I'm not sure how to go moving the wine to the second container. Should I just shove the pump through the fruits or try taking the fruit out first?

>>2645375
I always take the fruit out first. I take a second fermenter, put a large funnel in it and a large muslin bag into the funnel.
Then I pour the brew into the second fermenter. Don't forget to press out the fruit, since most of the yeast will sit in there.

My buddy and I are having a brew day at my house and he brought along one of these ancient Mr Beer box kits that has been sitting in storage for nearly a decade. It's long expired but we're gonna brew it for the lulz.

>>2645935
Hmmm

>>2645944
The Malt will be fine and as long as it's not a Hop-Aroma intense beer and the Hops is only for Bittering, that'll be fine as well.
Only the yeast should be replaced in case you don't want to make a 4-5 days yeast starter.

>>2645944
Oop forgot to update this lol - the hop pellets were a nasty yellow-brown but we threw em in anyways. Yeast was dead, predictably, so we subbed bakers yeast. Malt was surprisingly still very fragrant. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

not sure this is relevant here since its non alcoholic, but how do i prevent my ginger beer from getting farty? On the second day it was really good so I put it in some jugs and fridged it, but right now they just smell like sulfur 5 days later even though theyve been in the fridge the whole time
I assume its the yeast sperging out, but I thought refrigeration would prevent that from happening

>>2647918
Friend of mine had exactly the same problem and to be honest, it's quite normal, but you can still reduce the amount that is produced by vigorously shaking in oxygen when starting the fermentation. The oxygen will suppress the creation of H2S and thus drastically reduce the flatulence aroma.
The rest fully depends on your process.

>be lazy, reuse same vessel and water + new salt for next batch of sauerkraut
>the water quickly turns reddish, anything floating on the surface gets invaded by mold
>there's a weird reddish gunk around the weight pressing the kraut
mannn... I'll prob jar it and move it to the fridge, but I wonder if it's not unhealthy at this point.

>>2644857
I left my elderflowers infusing for way too long because I'm a retard. Is there hope if I strain this through muslin, boil it and throw in a campden tablet or should I just chuck it and wait to brew wiith the summer blackberries instead?

>>2648423
Throw it away your retarded cunt

>>2648423
>White mold floating on top
There's no saving that, bro. Toss it and start again.

I bottle these at the same time, same brew, how come one got clean clear and the other developed that layer on top?
I looks like that organism thingy that appears when you don't have a perfect seal, like its something separate the brew from oxygen?

>>2648513
Is it really that bad? Isn't it just attacking the KHAM? NTA

>>2648423
You’re fucked buddy, no saving it once there’s spores

This isn't technically a homebrew thing, but if anyone would know what to do, it would be you guys.

I want to ship a special bottle of liquor to some family on the other side of the country (USA).
I don't have a license to ship since this is just a one-time thing that came up, and risking it getting confiscated or broken because it isn't labeled properly gives me a bit of anxiety.

Are there any other avenues I can look into, like if there is a way I can have a business that has a license ship it them for me or something akin to how FFL transfers are done where I have them send it to another business to be held on to for pick-up?

>>2648773
Bottle on the right wasn't adequately sterilised, don't think it has anything to do with exposure to oxygen as people have brewed for thousands of years without vacuum sealed containers.

>>2649344
>without vacuum sealed containers
I don't mean vacuum sealed, but that regular sealed they will consume the oxygen and leave carbon dioxide
anyway, it was sterilized but like a couple days earlier, I use because I ran out of prepared bottles,

>>2648423
Chuck it away and take it as a lessons learned. The moment you loosen up just a bit on your hygiene, you'll get fucked.
It's like computer guys claiming you don't need proper ESD safety to build a PC. That's a process that safely works until that one time it doesn't work.

>>2648773
Nothing to do with oxygen, that's an infection. If it's a kind of Lacto Bacillus, get rid of the entire bottle, except you want to make a bottle of Sour Beer in the future.
>they will consume the oxygen and leave carbon dioxide
Nothing will consume the oxygen, the oxygen remains in the headspace of the bottle. Any CO2 not solved into liquid will occupy the headspace and CO2 is more dense than air, thus layering the oxygen above the CO2.

>>2649171
I don't really understand this case, don't you have the possibility to simply ship it privately?

>Check out a beer's website
>They straight up give you the recipe and brewing instructions
So based

>>2644857
my NEIPA recipe:

30% malted white wheat (rahr or weyermann)
20% rolled/flaked oats
50% pale malt (or pilsner. whatever is lightest in color)

150ppm CaCl + 50ppm CaSO4 in boil
10 IBU bittering hops at 60 min

3#/bbl your favorite hops from the pacific northwest or new zealand

ferment with berkeley yeast's London Tropics thiol boosing yeast day 5ish

crash and keg! boom

>>2650190
>CO2 is more dense than air, thus layering the oxygen above the CO2.
there's still this thing called diffusion

Dummy question: For wine and mead I get conflicting answers: Do you add the yeast and yeast nutrition at the same time? Some suggest adding the nutrients a week after. Do you degas? Some call for a acid base while others do not. do any of these steps really make a difference?

>>2650428
you add the nutrients at the end of fermentation

>>2650190
It's illegal to ship it privately through USPS.
I also don't think it's illegal, but it's against policy for UPS/Fedex/DHL.
You need to have a license to do it legally, especially across state lines, so if it's detected it is either tossed or I get in trouble.
If it isn't marked, I also need to pack it really well to hide and protect the bottle from mishandling.

I was hoping to not have to risk any of that if there was another option I was unaware of.

>>2650479
>I also need to pack it really well to hide and protect the bottle from mishandling.
Bro, shipping is hard on packages, you're going to need to pack it properly anyway, they aren't going to baby it because it has a "fragile" sticker on it, and most damage happens in the (largely automated) sorting process anyway. Take a hard plastic cooler that will fit the bottle, pack it snug in the cooler, then box the cooler again packing it snug in the box, that's how I ship my homebrew
>t ups driver

>>2650376
This is always cool, even only listing the hops used it very useful. Though it's sometimes rare shit impossible to find in Europe like HBC 586.

I'm a noob and have started homebrewing basic kit beers at home. The flavour is fine, but I'm not getting the carbonation I want. Like 1/5 bottles has good carbonation, the rest are fairly flat, with both plastic and glass bottles

I'm putting in carb drops as I bottle them, what's the most likely thing I'm doing wrong?

>>2650428
depends on the nutrients. read the instructions when you buy them.

I would definitely degas. wine and mead with uninentional bubbles is the worst.

what do you mean "acid base"?

>>2650428
> you add the yeast and yeast nutrition at the same time?
I do but my nutrient package tells me anytime within 48 hours of pitching. Not all of the pitched yeast survives and some is already dead, so in the early hours there’s usually enough dead yeast for the surviving yeast to eat. Personally I don’t really see a good reason not to add it from the start. Grape wine makers like Staggered Nutrient Addition but I’ve never tried it

> Do you degas?
Only once after like 24 hours. But I guess if you use grape skins or lots of fruit pulp it could make a difference

> Some call for an acid base while others do not.
What’s an acid base?

>>2650658
> what's the most likely thing I'm doing wrong?
Not having enough viable yeast left, but could be many reasons: leaving it on primary for too long, overheating it, chemical remains on your bottles from cleaning, storing too cold while carbonating, using a yeast with low alcohol tolerance in a high alcohol beer to name a few.
Adding a small pinch of fresh yeast for carbonation usually doesn’t hurt btw so you could try that

>>2650892
>leaving it on primary for too long
this sounds most likely, I've been leaving it in there longer than I should rather than bottling too early.

I'll give the sprinkle of yeast a shot, thanks!

Tell me about steep times for herbs and spices. Are there bad flavor compounds from over-extraction or do you just chuck that shit in the fermenter (or alcohol for a tincture or liqueur) and leave it for the two weeks or whatever? More immediately than any actual brewing, I'm thinking about making cold brew coffee with some cinnamon and wonder if I can just throw it all together or if I should wait partway through the brew.

My berlinerweisse is completely inactive after a week and a half (no bubbling in airlock). I know sour beer moves slower, but how long is too long? What do I do if it just never starts brewing?

What would happen if you made mead from picrel?

>>2651987
You'd take an expensive piss? Better to backsweeten a mead with mad honey. I doubt the psychoactives would survive fermentation.

Price aside what do you think of this design? I have the Unibrau 10gal system with the basket and have been wanting a stainless conical or two lately, so I’d be essentially getting this system for the price of a stainless conical. The idea is to boil in the conical and use the kettle as a grain basket basically to recirculate through. I would probably only brew like this when doing a high gravity beer that otherwise wouldn’t work in the 10gal. So I’d still be able to brew while the conical is fermenting.

Price aside is it a good idea/design?

>>2653911
I should mention, I like the idea because it’s the smallest footprint possible. It allows me to brew high gravity beers out of a 10gal kettle without needing extra stuff, and can run on 120v with one or two 1600w elements. I will probably start with a non-jacketed triclamp conical as they can be had for less than half the cost of the Unibrau jacketed one, but once I find a used Unibrau 30L conical I’m buying it.

>>2653931
I brew in a bucket

>>2651167
Did you pitch the yeast and then let the beer sit for a week without any activity?
For beer, fermentation should start in less than 12 hours. My Championship NEIPA started bubbling after 2 hours.
Chances are high that your yeast was dead, did you make a starter?

>>2651987
Always wanted to try that but also had the fear of fermentation killing the psychoactives like this anon >>2652674 says. Backsweetening with mad honey sounds the most reasonable, but that would imply pasteurizing the mead afterwards which might kill the psychoactives as well.
Best bet would be to just make a regular mead and let it ferment dry. Then when serving, add a spoon of mad honey.

>>2653911
Don't really understand the concept you're chasing here. The boil kettle already has a heating element and what would you recirculate? The mash through the conical fermenter? The hot water through a HERMS Coil? Don't really get it.
Whatever it is what you're trying to accomplish, using the Unibräu conical fermenter for that must be the most expensive option on this planet.

>>2644857
Long story short, i brewed a stout that camed out at 1.046 OG and pitched a packet of s-04 at sunday 1 AM. At 8 am i noticed the airlock was bubbling. Later that day when i returned home the airlock wasn't bubbling. I thought maybe my bucket was leaking as usual. Anyways, today i removed the airlock, had a look and there was no krausen, so i took a hydrometer reading and i couldn't believe my eyes, the hydro read 1.010 which is within my target range for this recipe. The beer doesn't even taste bad at all, just lacks carbonation obviously. How is this possible? Is it because of the high room temp? I have no temp control and here the room temp is 24C (75F), so maybe the yeast went turbo monster?

My question now is, should i bottle it now? I'd like to know if some of you went through this and bottled right away. What were your results?

Recipe: ( My efficiency is utter cow dung because i don't have a mill yet and the one at my store sucks)
for 20 liters (5 gallons)
6kg (13.2lbs) 2 row avangard
300gr (10.5 oz) caramel 120 (God, i hate imperial so much)
300gr (10.5 oz) dark münich 2
300gr (10.5 oz) chocolate malt
100gr (3.5) oz) roasted barley
1oz magnum at 60min
1oz cascade at flame out

whats the best way to bottle 5 gallons of wine
kinda a stupid question as I could do it now, but i dont really wanna deal with juggling my racking cane to start and stop each bottle without them overflowing
should i buy a container with a spigot just for bottling?

>>2654619
Just wave a magic (bottling) wand, my dude.

>>2654636
thanks anon, I was hoping there was some tool I didnt know of that people used

>>2654639
Get a bottling wand like this >>2654636 but make sure you get one that is spring loaded, they work a thousand times better and don't make a mess when bumping the neck of the bottle.

>>2654393
30 points in less than 2 days can be plausible, depending on strain, temperature, oxygen and nutrients. What did you use to measure, Hydrometer or refractometer?
Also
>Stout
>No Flaked Barley
You should consider changing up the recipe a bit, flaked Barley is a must-have in a Stout.

>>2650428
I've always dumped the yeast and nutrients in at the same time. I've never degassed either. I've been making 6 gallons every couple of months or so for maybe 6-8 years and have never had any issues.

>>2651159
Most can be put through primary

> cinnamon
Not very strong, can be left in almost forever
> anise
Gets stronger over 1-2 weeks just don’t put too much at a time
> ginger, chili peppers
Mostly quantity dependent instead of steep time, just don’t overdo it either
> cloves
Put exactly one clove for a short time and then taste. Leaving one in for more than a week can screw up a 10 gallon batch
> any kind of zest
The white stuff makes it bitter fast. But any kind of pure zest can be kept pretty long. May increase methanol and sulfur if added during fermentation
> coffee
Never put beans (although some people seem to prefer it, always goes bitter of me), use cold espresso
> vanilla
Pasteurise because store bought vanilla pods may contain acetobacter, one or two pods in a gallon, chopped up, can take a month. Extract is a lot easier

>>2654386
>Don't really understand the concept you're chasing here. The boil kettle already has a heating element and what would you recirculate? The mash through the conical fermenter? The hot water through a HERMS Coil? Don't really get it.
You boil in the fermentor, and recirculate through the mash in the kettle. Then you ferment in the fermentor of course. Lot of advantages to the system I can list out if you’d like, I’m in love with the idea.

>Whatever it is what you're trying to accomplish, using the Unibräu conical fermenter for that must be the most expensive option on this planet.
Yeah why is it more expensive than other ones? You can get this for the same price for example, a jacketed conical AND glycol chiller: https://www.morebeer.com/products/brewbuilt-x2-jacketed-uni-conical-fermenter-premium-chilling-package.html?variant=CON735&gclid=Cj0KCQjw5f2lBhCkARIsAHeTvlg23jgVf6lWaXTn-90-6TT8MdzHi-phkt7qOabPdZdKPXyIZBY6-ugaAgINEALw_wcB

>>2655143
Nevermind with the link, that conical isn’t jacketed. I actually lean toward getting the Unibrau conical now cuz it’s jacketed.

>>2654849
>> cinnamon
>Not very strong, can be left in almost forever
I throw a stick of cinnamon into every batch of cider and mead I've made and I never actually taste it in the finished batch. Is it because the quality of cinnamon that I use is bad or because it's not supposed to impart a distinct taste?

>>2655239
It's better to boil some cinnamon and then add the cinnamon flavored water

Why use a carboy for aging vs a keg? You can do oxygen free transfers and from a keg.

i don't like to daydrink yet here i am
it all hurts

>>2654393
Any update here?

My tournament NEIPA has finished fermentation after 4 days with FG 1.010.
The Lallemand Verdant IPA yeast is a fucking beast and I ended up with the bare minimum required for a NEIPA.
A colleague of mine wasn't so lucky, his Verdant yeast chewed through it down to 1.007....
It's now in dry hop and it smells just beautifully.
But I think I will add a touch of maltodextrin to the carbonation sugar when bottling.

>>2655239
Nta but I use one stick in a 0.5L bottle and throw it in before pasteurising the bottle and get noticeable cinnamon taste.

In glühwein, about 3 sticks are used on 1L and you can taste the cinnamon too, but that’s also heated to near boiling

>>2657350
>NEIPA has finished fermentation after 4 days with FG 1.010
Damn, are you using Brewfather to estimate the FG? 1.010 is really low for a NEIPA, I usually target mine at 1.020 with loads of oats and mashing high to get a really full body.

>>2658118
No, I'm using Brewersfriend.
FG was supposed to be 1.015, the highest FG allowed to be counted as a NEIPA under BJCP Style Guide. The Verdant yeast just attenuated a lot higher than expected, 84% to be exact.

>>2658129
>BJCP Style Guide
Eh, they're maybe the main authority about beer styles but they can be pretty out of touch for recent styles like NEIPA. I measured the gravity of a lot of commercial NEIPA and they're consistently over 1.015.
Can't be helped for a tournament beer though. Good luck.

just kegged up a batch of cider for the first time, i have been bottling by the liter but i got some hand me down equipment and decided to upgrade.
my plan is to naturally ferment in the keg and hopefully only need to add extra co2 near the end of the keg to maintain a sufficient pour.
after sanitizing everything i filled the keg, added my carbonation sugar, capped it, rolled it around for a while. A lot of places online ive read demand people prime their kegs with a shot of gas to keep it from leaking, but when i checked the release valve, i was already at sufficient pressure to maintain a seal. normally i would wait two to three weeks for a bottle to carbonate and I figure I will do the same for this.
anyone have any experience with 'natural' keg carbonation?

if you've ever been here the writing has been on the wall for a while. poor location and shitty brands

so lets say I wanted to distill brandy out of some fruit wine I made. Do I have to get analy reamed by the government to do it legally?

>>2659397
yeah my local shop moved away, guess i gotta start culturing my own yeast with what i've got left.

>>2659409
why do it legally?

>>2659409
>>2659425
Careful now. This is gettin' banned talk.

>>2659434
shut up, you're gonna blow my cover rook

>>2659425
I am too paranoid, even if itd only be a misdemeanor id rather keep my record spotless
Im mostly just confused because although state licensing is reasonable enough for hoop jumping, the websites for federal licensing only really describe businesses obtaining it, and I ain't doing it for business reasons. I just wanna fuck around and make weird spirits

Hi guys I'm new here but I just started my first ever batch of "wine". 1.2kg raspberries, 1.3kg sugar, brought the thing to 4.5L, threw in 10g of yeast, slapped a balloon on top. How much mustard gas did I just make?

>>2659486
Good rule of thumb in life is that if you're doing it for personal use literally nobody cares.

>>2660490
You, uh, seem to have forgotten the trend of deliberately booking technically-over-the-threshold personal-use possession as "intent to distribute."

>>2658169
>BJCP Style Guide
>Eh, they're maybe the main authority about beer styles but they can be pretty out of touch for recent styles like NEIPA. I measured the gravity of a lot of commercial NEIPA and they're consistently over 1.015.
Can't be helped for a tournament beer though. Good luck.

>>2659244
Are you spunding?

>>2660523
>spunding
not technically, i did the initial ferment in carboys, kegged it, and then added sugar the same way i would if i were to bottle carbonate.
so a secondary fermentation carbonation

>>2660500
yeah but alcohol isn't a schedule 1 or 2 drug, but the fact you started printing your own labels with copywritten characters and began to solicit sales from liquor store owners might get you some years.

>>2660665
The analogy was not alcohol to drugs, ya dingus. It was treating personal use as intent to distribute where the situation was already chargeable. You get caught by the ATF and they won't give a shit why you were distilling since distilling at all is illegal. Granted you're unlikely to get caught in such a scenario but the whole fucking point is that paranoid is good. Don't go blabbing about it online (while in their jurisdiction) and invite someone taking a look.

>>2660674
Thought you could distill in america, or atleast in some states

>>2660489
Oh no friends! I was hoping I could leave the raspberries in the ferment but all the foam pushed them out of the liquid and they went all brown and horrible sat suspended in foam. I sieved them out, but now I have no idea of the sugar content in the ferment, or the yeast content. I've added a little more yeast and will keep an eye on how much gas comes off it. If it's very little I'll add some more sugar.

>>2660674
>the whole fucking point is that paranoid is good
Paranoid is not good, schizo-kun.

>>2659409
>>2659486
>>2660500
>>2660674
then your answer is get analy reamed by the goverment and do it legally, why are we still talking about this like you're gonna change your mind?

when do I add fruit to mead

>>2660818
im only 409 and 486
I was mostly just hoping there was some easement for personal use in small quantities like ive heard boomers tell me about or some way to do it without being a business but it seems it isnt so.
The second two posts are some other anon ranting

>>2660663
bro you just told me you were fermenting in the keg

>>2660818
Don't be retarded.

>>2660745
Responding to an elaborated argument with "Nuh uh! Schizo!" is the lowest form of debate and you are a faggot.

I have no stake in this shit other than the formal argument aspect of pointing something out.

>>2660818
>>2660985
Ahem. Don't be retarded.

>>2660844
Early and then remove it
Or after primary as zest
Or after finishing as juice

I made a post on the last thread about my skeeter pee mulberry wine experiment, and its pretty good actually
Id give it a 6.5 or 7/10
if anyone makes fruit wine in big enough batches to end up with a gallon of pulp-yeast mixture after primary fermention I recommend this to them as well, makes alot of decent quality booze. Or at least with mulberries it does.
Wish I had enough raspberries or wineberries to try it with them too

>>2660977
as far as i know spunding is start to finish in the same keg with a pressure regulator, that's not what i'm doing. do you have any advice or are we just going to talk semantics?

>>2661058
I put my yeast in 2 days ago, can I add the fruits now while it is fermenting? One of the links in the OP says to take it out of the fermenter after a few days? Or can I just leave it in there until I transfer it to other bottles?
I am sorry if I am retarded, I have never done this before and many of the links in the OP have shit I just dont understand.

>>2661673
It totally depends on what flavor you want to create. Fermented fruit just doesn't taste like fresh fruit.
Blackberries are the extreme example, since they completely change their flavor into something else. It's still dark-berry-ish but it gains some earthy qualities and even a peppery character. Too dry and it becomes completely snappy and hot.
Cherries on the other hand become sweeter and depending on the type of cherry can even become a bit soapy. They loose their Aroma and flavor over a time span of about 12 months.
Of course fermenting fruit also extracts more pigment, so the brew will get a stronger color.

If you want a fresh fruit flavor without the fermentation character, you should add the fruit in secondary while giving your brew some rest.

If you want your brew to have the taste of fruit juice, then you have to press your fruit to get the juice and mix it with your brew when bottling.
When doing the latter, remember that introducing the sugar of the juice to your brew will reactivate the yeast and you'll have bottle bombs on your shelf. You'll need to sterile filter your brew beforehand, or pasteurize the filled bottles afterwards.

You should also consider reading some brewing literature. Gaining knowledge and being confronted with less confusion is always an advantage.

>>2645944
bottled this about a week ago btw: it was cloudy, light on the nose, short on the palate, with had a very strong meyer lemon note on the finish. We could not believe how much we liked it. We only got a couple bottles out of it but after a month I think we're just gonna house em all in an evening once they're ready ready.

>>2660706
headspace nigger, google it

I'm trying to get my buddy to make some ammonium chloride based beer but he's a skeptic. Could it work some way?

Is it possible to have a "perpetual brew" ongoing? Sort of like perpetual stew where you take some amount out and then readd the missing amount and give it time to ferment?

Basically I have a smallish fermenting vessel with a spigot and I really like having a batch of cider on draught to have with meals. How feasible is it to brew a 6 or 7L batch of cider and then continue to top up the fermenting vessel with, say, 1L when I've drank that amount? Giving it a few days to ferment obviously. How high is the risk of contamination, and could the yeast mutate over time into imparting some funky flavours?

>>2663627
>could the yeast mutate over time into imparting some funky flavours
This is a thing and proper brewing operations will have a biologist overseeing how many generations they reuse yeast. Homebrewers often supposedly find it to be a non-issue, though their tolerance for deviation (relative to a mass-produced "standard") will certainly be higher.

This is however generally done with minimal remaining liquid, pitching over a yeast cake. Refermentation is a thing, though starting again after fermentation has completed can be an issue (yeast metabolic pathways, preparing the environment before fermentation proper, "cleaning up" afterward). My only experience with it was a shandy that refermented in the keg which tasted fine but had a strong sulfur odor.

Can you not bottle a completed batch and refill?

>>2644857
I vaguely remember brewing a kit that didn't have any steeped grains, it was just DME and LME. So you got to skip the steeping. This would be great since I would be able to brew beer on weekdays after work, instead of having to use a weekend.
Does anybody have some recipes for this? Or just in general, ways to shorten brew day enough so I can brew after work?

got this dumb idea lodged in my head a while back that hasn't left that I should start a spontaneous ferment brewery one day
the more I look into it the more I've realised how achievable it would be as a side gig when I have more job security and equity in my current home
are there any really good books on spontaneous ferment beers?

>>2663042
It's not that I don't know about leaving space about the liquid, it's that I didn't think the foam would lift all the fruit out of the ferment. Lesson learned for next time.

>>2660706
> have no idea of the sugar content in the ferment
Put a hydrometer?

> or the yeast content.
If it’s been foaming the yeast content should be plenty, you can’t really sieve the yeast out and even if you remove 99% it will just grow back if there’s enough sugar and nutrients

>>2663627
You’d need to separate the dead yeast from the live yeast (see yeast washing) or you’ll get a strong bread/yeast taste after a month or two (see sur lie aging).

Sup hbg hadn’t brewed anything in a while but today was a good day

The big one is 10L with sugar, molasses, anise, ginger and vanilla, OG 32Bx and will get orange zest later
The small one is 4L mead from local honey with a little bit of ginger, OG 10Bx

>>2660678
I think it's federally illegal, but many states don't have state laws against it, so the local police won't arrest you and the Feds have more important things to do than go after somebody for making a couple bottles of moonshine for personal use.
Unless you piss the Feds off by posting too many memes on /k/

>>2664448
look up what a "coolship" is, plenty of breweries use them to naturally inoculate their wort in addition to its cooling; lambics are usually done this way. yeast from the brewing elements series is a pretty good book

I've made 3 gallons of mead so far and I put together 4 gallons for fermenting.today. Making mead is pretty fun and easy to do.

>>2664814
I thought for the coolship I could reuse an old open type milk cooling tank, bound to be one in a shed somewhere I can buy

yeast book looks interesting

also found this really in-depth blog while searching for info on amygdalin in kriek
https://www.sourbeerblog.com/understanding-brewing-blending-lambic-style-kriek/

>>2664962
there are some dangers associated with open fermentations, mainly staphylococcus and e. coli: https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/3/4/49

if you get a good fermentation you can try harvesting that yeast and making some slants for future starter cultures. if you live in the usa, asbc and white labs have some good courses on yeast handling: https://www.asbcnet.org/events/pages/default.aspx

>>2664962
also for starting a brewery stout tanks has some good talks on their yt channel

Im just gonna say it. None of your friends like your home brew. It ls disgusting . This goes for all of you.

>>2665085
i like my friends' homebrew and other people must do to, several have gone professional and have doing quite well

>>2664623
started off. The big one is still going a bit slow for +30hrs but the super high og may be pushing the yeasts a bit.

>>2665085
It’s more important that I like my homebrew. I don’t expect anyone to like my weird high abv ginger contraptions with citric acid to compensate the lack of sweetness but I sure as hell do

>>2665085
speak for yourself

>>2665085
Look at this insecurity

Didn't have time to follow the talk here in-depth, as far as I saw it, all questions got answered already, so I'll just leave this update here.
Can't make it to the German Championships, my gf has a surgery appointment that week and I can't leave her alone over the weekend. So I'll just enjoy the NEIPA for myself.
It turned out awesome, Equinox, Mosaic and Galaxy with a natural, bready, biscuit-y base. The exotic fruits, mango, papaya, orange and stone-fruits are excellent. The body is mouth filling and the after taste really pleasant.

Considering getting one of these to make plain alcohol then infuse it to make Gin and then take that to make Sloe Gin. Will this plan work and how do I make sure not to poison myself?

>>2665017
isn't that what the aged hops are for? I found a paper talking about a potential strain of S. xylosus with hops resistance but doesn't seem a massive issue. A conventional brewery I might want to be more strain selective but part of the whole sour brewery vibe that's important is giving a sense of terror

of course the casks themselves will eventually provide a biome conducive to fermentation and one could be selective about what casks get reused immediately and ones that get heavy cleaning before reuse but that sense of wild microbes is important to the whole vibe of the thing

>>2665085
Im not afraid to be imperfect at something I do for leisure, and neither should you.

Slightly off topic, but anyone here going to Oktoberfest?

>>2666528
Use low pectin fermentation stuff (so no citrus fruits, preferably just clean sugar wash), make sure fermentation is clean, and discard the first 100mL of distillate as per their FAQ (that should be in the manual imo). As to performance I’ve never tried the thing but the reviews seem okay.

>>2666634
Maybe, I go almost every year on final weekend but got a big vacation just before and it always ends up costing €2k for a weekend recent years

>>2666659
Thanks for the advice, will just plain sugar work?

>>2666995
Yes that’s a pretty good way to avoid methanol. But also keep the yeast within (preferably in the low end of) their temperature range to avoid fusel alcohols. Sugar alone may work well for fermentation but I’d recommend adding some yeast nutrient or the yeast might not grow much.

Also plz be safe, seems nobody has any idea what kind of fractions that device would generate so there’s no guarantee that it’s safe afaik

>>2666995
you need to add nutrients and adjust the acidity unless you don't mind waiting 2 years for it to finish in the single digit abv
i would suggest to add some tomato paste and lemon juice

Why do I need to wait for homemade wine to clear? Once initial fermentation is finished can't I just drink it?

not sure if this is the right place to ask, but figure it's worth a shot.

I ordered an adapter that goes from a CGA-320 tank to the proprietary bullshit sodastream valve. What I'm wanting is a 10-20lb tank with syphon tube (or at least what I think I want). I live in a pretty small town, so there aren't a lot of options locally (and even if there are, i'm not 100% sure on what i need to ask for)

so for kegarator or homebrewing, where do you guys get your CO2? any online ordering, or things to look for?

thanks, i'd rather make an ass out of myself asking dumb questions online vs over the phone =P

>>2667367
Depends on the volume, aquarium supplies stores usually have smaller canisters available up to about 1lb. For bigger ones, bar/restaurant supplies stores sell refillable ones for draft beer, up to 10lb. Festival rental places may some times rent them to out and you pay for the weight of CO2 used.

Afaik online homebrew stores sell the same canisters as bar supply stores but more expensive. For D type cylinders, disposable are only half the price of refillable ones, so cheaper unless you plan to make 1000 gallons

Kilju question here. My brew started really fast first 36 hours (15Bx drop/7% abv) but since then it’s been dropping at only 2Bx per day. Airlock is bubbling but not nearly as fast as previous brews of this recipe at this stage. Should I be worried that it’s getting stuck?

>>2667427
thanks anon, figured it out.
picked up a 20lbs tank w/ syphon. was $145 for the tank and about $20 for the co2 (subsequent fillups will be ~$20) which is roughly the cost of a single 60L sodastream cylinder exchange at $store

so $45 for the sodastream adapter
and $200 for the tank.

at the rate in which we drink seltzer water though it'll pay for itself pretty fast

>>2644857
I was pointed to a really easy beginner wine recipe that just fermented grape juice using store bought yeast within the same container that the juice came in. I'm planning to do it because I don't have to buy anything except the juice and the yeast, but I don't have air conditioning and my home can reach 86F/30C on hot days. Maybe slightly more. Can I still make drinkable wine at these temperatures? I'm not looking for something great, just something comparable to bottom shelf wine.

>>2667582
mightn't be bottom shelf equivalent, thing about table grapes they're pretty genetically unaltered from nature, whereas people have been cultivating wine grapes for 10k years
if you can get relatively unadulterated apple juice that might be more palatable, bunch of cider varietals are inedible but most cider from places without a long cider tradition are made with table apples

>>2667595
I can easily swap out grape juice for apple juice. Is there any reason apple juice might fare better in hot fermentation temperatures compared to grape juice?

>>2667612
not particularly, I just think prison cider is probably better than prison wine, you'll ideally want a clean fermenting yeast that can handle high temps (champagne maybe?) and some nutrients

>>2667620
I was just gonna use fleishman's cooking yeast and see how it turned out actually

>>2667582
If you want a wine yeast Lalvin 71B has a pretty high optimum range (22-28C) but should still make something drinkable at 30. Is your whole house 30C or can you find some dark cabinet that stays under 28? Cellar/crawlspace maybe? Anyway

>>2667640
Bread yeast do like 30C-40C temperatures, so that’s fine

>>2667595
> thing about table grapes they're pretty genetically unaltered from nature, whereas people have been cultivating wine grapes for 10k years
For those reasons most grape juice is made from wine grapes, not table grapes. Not sure about the very cheap stuff tho it could be sugar water with grape extract

>>2653911
Samefag. I just need this cool table (brew cube) then I have the setup in pic. Gonna wait on the conical and just stick to carbing in kegs for now, but some day I want a jacketed conical and glycol chiller.

>>2667729
>If you want a wine yeast Lalvin 71B has a pretty high optimum range (22-28C) but should still make something drinkable at 30.
I could buy that online, not a big deal. The only reason I wanted to use bread yeast was because it's cheap and easy to find.

My bedroom is actually 30C/86F, it's gotten to 94F or about 32C before. My living room seems to stay a few degrees cooler. I checked a cupboard and it was 82F/28C, slightly cooler than other places in the house.

>Bread yeast do like 30C-40C temperatures, so that’s fine
that might actually be perfect, only thing is if bread yeast actually makes disgusting hard cider or wine I'd be fine using a brewer's yeast if it can handle the summer heat. I heard that bread yeast can make a sulfurous odor within the juice, is that true? And is there any way to avoid that?

Basically it comes down to whether or not bread yeast in a temperature it likes is better than brewing yeast at the high end of its temperature range. And again I'm not trying to make something great but I also don't want something horrendous.

>>2667219
depends, if it's a pectin haze that can take a bit to clear out and doesn't really have that much impact on the taste
if it's yeast that hasn't settled yet you're really going to taste it and it will give you the shits, i'm talking from experience here

>>2667943
you worry too much bruh, just dump some bakers yeast in the juice and see what happens. if you also could mention the sugar concentration i can estimate the potential abv and if you should add extra sugar. grape juice is usually quite rich in sugars already
and your bedroom is at 30°? lol, where do you even live. my bedroom was also at 30° once for a day during the record breaking heatwave 2 years ago
24° right now with around 22° downstairs and it's peak summer, thank you atlantic west wind. luv me moderate climate me

>>2668022
okay, I'll just do it and see how it goes haha
I live in Southern California with no air conditioning and my bedroom gets direct sunlight for most of the day. Only reason I mentioned celsius temps was because the only thermometer I have in my house happens to be in celsius only.

>>2668047
i always get slightly triggered by americans who are literally the only ones still using freedom degrees and expect everyone else to be familiar with it, same with their inches and gallons but unfortunately there is no avoiding it but i'm glad you had the decency to use both
as for what you're trying to do, there are literally dozens of videos of retards on youtube mixing bread yeast with that welch-something grape juice from concentrate and want you to believe they have reinvented the wheel
it's redneck wine but that doesn't mean it's automatically bad

>>2668062
well you better believe I'm gonna try making some redneck wine pretty soon. I'll report back unless I forget.

>>2668062
Americans inherited Imperial from the British and have struggled to make the conversion happen. Everyone learns metric in school and all science (excluding grandfathered engineering units as elsewhere) is conducted in metric but Imperial remains what is most familiar and most used from birth. Meanwhile the British are still weighing themselves in Stone. Don't get all haughty and act like it's stubbornness.

You'd also do well not to forget the value of divisibility - easy halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, sixths into twelve and tenths and twelfths into sixty. The attempt(s) to make "metric" time replace the 60 and 12/24 failed for a reason.

>>2668080
i was not trying to argue which one is better, i was saying it's not very polite to exclusively use burger units and expect everyone else to be familiar with it. hence why i complimented anon who grew up with freedom degrees for also including communist degrees so freedom hating communists like me know what temperatures he's talking about
also i really do believe metric is superior especially in the context of brewing. do you calculate your sugar concentrations with pounds and gallons (the non-imperial one) or do you use pints and ounces? or teaspoons and grains if you want to be precise? what is the density of water? can you use specific gravity and density interchangeably? when i calculate the amount of sugar for a certain density i have to do the difficult mathematical operation of dividing by 1 to get the OG
but i don't want to derail this thread into metric vs us customary shitflinging

>>2668080
also
>Meanwhile the British are still weighing themselves in Stone
using feet, cups, spoons, is all fine but stone as a unit is taking it too far? do you realise to us something like tablespoons and cups sounds just as ridiculous as stone does to you?

>>2668062
You might as well bitch about people who speak their native language on the internet and "expect everyone else to be familiar with it." The whole world gets thrown into shared spaces and keeps speaking as they normally do.

>>2668085
>>2668087
That post said nothing about which was better. It explained what the situation actually is and why it isn't unreasonable. The bit about stone was obviously pointing out difficulty in fully converting to metric, as was the bit about time, and the bit about engineering. That's what the sentence immediately before it was saying. You're so far up your ass that you can't even consider that. And now you're rambling about a "muh communism" strawman. You are utterly fucking lost. Keep your /pol/ and /int/ shitposting to their boards. Want to derail or not, you don't get to flail around like a faggot and not get called a faggot.

He's a fucking zoomer who has no idea how recently imperial was still common outside the US or for how goddamn long it was the standard of a worldwide empire. Just ignore him.

>>2668091
>You might as well bitch about people who speak their native language on the internet and "expect everyone else to be familiar with it."
the reason i don't is i don't expect other people to know my language or put what i wrote in a translating engine, that's why i use english here. so you agree with me then?
if i post something in my language i also include the translation so others don't have to

>>2668102
>It explained what the situation actually is
what you brought up was completely irrelevant. all i was trying to say is if you're going to use your snowflake units it's not a bad idea to also include units the rest of the world uses so you save other people the effort of converting.

>>2668107
>recently
mid 19th century actually but okay.
>or for how goddamn long it was the standard of a worldwide empire
was

Homebrewing is a lot like engineering. It's both hard science and needs to be in terms that commoners can work with and it's an ANCIENT tradition. Both are still haunted by retarded unit conversion bullshit. Isn't it interesting that the engineering associations haven't bothered to fix a lot of it? Look at him talk like a few generations isn't recent or like everyone being together on the internet isn't recent. What a clueless moron.

>>2668109
>what you brought up was completely irrelevant
You're too stupid to understand that the poster isn't attacking what you said but how you even came to believe that it's something to be said. You are ignorant and self-absorbed. Go back to /pol/ and /int/.

>if you could also include metric units that would be great
didn't expect this to cause so much butthurt, jesus

Go back to /pol/ and /int/.

>>2668120
believe it or not i was genuinely not trying to bait, not this time at least. why do i even bother to troll for (You)'s when simply stating my opinion has the same effect
>Go back to /pol/ and /int/.
>/pol/
is a shithole
>/int/
make me :). /diy/ is not your safespace, sorry
seriously if i was a regular on an american forum or subr*ddit or whatever then when in rome do as the romans but i dare to say we have a lot of regulars here that aren't american
even the site itself was bought by gookmoot a while ago
anyway like i said i don't want to derail a wholesome homebrewing thread. let's agree to disagree and get drunk

Anyone ever made beer jelly? I found this congealed beer in my fermenter.

>>2668062
>>2668085
>>2668087
>>2668107
>>2668117
Friendly reminder that metric/imperial debates do not belong in hbg. Ever since the beginning of these threads people have been using either metric or imperial in their post, or used both as a form of courtesy. Has been working well until you two came along

>>2668450
>but i don't want to derail this thread into metric vs us customary shitflinging
maybe i should shut up as well, it's not the thread for it and the discussion went nowhere. i have said my opinion and maybe that is where it should have ended

>>2668409
I am relatively new brewer but isn't this a type of infection? Interesting nonetheless :)

>>2668633
I mean the beer was fine other than some lumps of jelly. What infection could it be? Never heard of one that makes jelly.

It looks like we're getting assload of pears this year that we don't know what to do with. Is there anything good I can brew from that? No idea what variety it is, they don't look great but are quite soft and tasty when ripe and lack the grainy texture typical for pears. The biggest problem is that they completely spoil in under a week once fallen off the tree so we have to do something with them fast or they just go in compost.

>>2668639
Many lactic acid and acetic acid bacteria scoby show up as jelly, most notably k. xylinus as used in kombucha

>>2668696
Juice ferment and distill? It’s a common way to get rid of surplus fruits but not always legal. There’s cider poiré (or ‘Perry’) but iirc you need a pretty sour grape variety.

>>2668696
Juice them, maybe boil the juice down a bit and save as a concentrate in your freezer for whatever. Add to stuff you're brewing for flavor or try to brew it straight but it will likely be a bit bland and boring.
I used to use boiled cider to add flavor to kombucha, worked pretty well.

So for mead I go
>ferment honey and water in container with yeast
>after a week or two, move to another container filled with whatever fruit or shit I want for flavor to ferment more
>after fermentation stops in that I move it to bottle
is this correct?

my poorfag hooch journey has just begun
>apple juice
>fleischmann's active dry yeast
>pour out some juice and aerate before adding yeast
that was a few hours ago, how long until I start noticing that it's actually fermenting?

>>2669802
BROS ITS WORKING

how do i make alchohol withhout buying yeast seperately? All natural ingredients, there must be a way for natural fermentation

>>2669936
Capture wild yeast instead

>>2669936
you could try this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzPaINFECzQ
i really have my doubts about some of his content and i'd rather use bread yeast from the local store, but it appears that this sometimes works
russian roulette/10 but if you manage to get a colony started then good for you

>>2669473
That should work. But fermented fruit tastes different than the fruit itself. If you want some light orange taste, add zest instead. Herbs can be added in primary if you want.

>>2669936
Wild fermenting but as other anon said it’s hit and miss, chances of infection are pretty high unless you know very well what you’re doing

>>2669872
there's a good chance it'll smell like rotten eggs for a bit while it's fermenting but that doesn't mean it's gone bad
if it starts to smell like wet dog or something else similarly pungent then I'd start to worry but that's not really all that likely
make sure you have some way for the carbon dioxide to escape from it otherwise you're making a bomb - you can use a balloon with a tiny hole in it if you don't have an airlock, just don't try to do it with the lid still screwed on
I think this is pretty much everything I probably needed to know when I first did this
enjoy your prison cider anon - it won't taste very good but it also won't taste very bad either

>>2669872
>>2669976
oh yeah and the fermentation will probably be pretty much over in like a day in terms of alcohol and gas production so don't panic if it stops bubbling sooner than you've been led to believe - bread yeast is much faster than most brewing yeasts are in my experience but it's very warm where I live so maybe that's a part of it
it'll probably taste like lighter fluid if you try drinking it straight away. Best to give it at least like a week just sitting there and it'll get a bit nicer

>>2669164
>>2668968
Thanks, I think I'll go with juicing them for now and try fermenting some of it later. I hear pears lack acid so I need to add my own, how much exactly do I need and which one? Is citric good? Measuring TA is not a problem.

>>2669976
It's been a few hours and there is bubbling, but no bad smell (yet). The cap is just screwed on loosely so air can escape. I checked it a few times and it isn't building up any pressure. I'm doing it as cheaply as possible, just yeast + juice and relying on the fact that the juice container is already sanitized. can't wait to try it in a couple weeks.

>>2669978
oh, so not 2 weeks? I figured it'll be at least 2 weeks for it to ferment and then for the yeast to settle to the bottom. if it's done and settles earlier that'd be nice.

>>2669936
Are you willing to work with agar media? You could culture your own easily if so. You could also probably just ask a local home brewer for some yeast cake or starter, would be a lot more suitable strain of yeast.

>>2668409
Did you add gelatin when cold crashing / clearing?

>>2669983
2 weeks is probably a good idea desu. You can probably get away with less time but it'll probably taste worse the earlier you drink it. Mostly I just mentioned that cause personally when I first tried this and it finished bubbling in like 12 hours I assumed I'd fucked it up but it was actually fine

>>2670003
cool, if mine stopped bubbling quickly I'd also assume something messed up. Should I shake it up to aerate it or should I leave it alone?

>>2670198
once fermentation has started oxygen is your enemy

>>2669982
> how much exactly do I need and which one?
Check the internets, I’m not really sure about the exact measures. If you add it purely for taste just do so while tasting it

> Is citric good?
Best in my experience, lactic acid has a pretty distinct taste

>>2670217
oh okay cool. I haven't shaken it again

Thinking of brewing... well, I can't call it beer, more like chocolate malt liquor.

10 lbs Brewmaster porter/stout liquid malt extract.
10 lbs sugar.
2 lbs cacao powder.
2 lbs coconut flakes.
Turbo yeast.

6.5 gallon batch.

Am I using too little coconut/cacao powder for the batch size?

dumb wild ferment brewery idea guy from up thread

is there a good reason if I'm doing this as a hobby business initially if I'm only filling one cask a brew day and a half dozen a year for the first 2-3 years why I shouldn't just buy 3 100L single vessel electric systems and a false floor urn and run them in parallel instead of spending an order of magnitude more on a brewhouse with an effective capacity of 300L that I'd outgrow quickly if I wanted to go full time?

>>2670217
to be desu during an active fermentation the liquid is saturated with CO2. oxygenation is not as problematic as is often claimed in my opinion
when it's finishen, even then. some oxygen might diffuse over time but we're talking about weeks of exposure here with a shitty airlock
this is my opinion. i have lamented in the past of brosciene being everwhere in this field and this i did not fact check

>>2670494
within the first few hours after pitching, yeast will consume all of the oxygen in the wort. any oxygen introduced after this will result in potential off flavors and reduced shelf-life regardless of time. this is understood even at the macrobrewery scale. Dissolved oxygen during mashing and fermentation will impact your product negatively.

a leaky airlock is not going to be much of an issue due to the (presumably) positive pressure in your fermentor and the CO2 blanket (this concept is even exploited by open fermentors), but if you're going to agitate an active fermentation to bring yeast back up into suspension, that's where you should be careful about DO.

>>2670494
>i have lamented in the past of brosciene being everwhere in this field
This kind of information comes from HARD science, legit biology and study of yeast's (and possible contaminants') metabolic pathways. If anything is broscience it's "I haven't noticed any problems in my brews so it must not be real."

The fact of the matter is that yeast use all available oxygen in a preparatory phase before switching to anaerobic processes and, once they have, the processes in which they would use oxygen are not good for flavor. Nor is the effect of oxidation on hops and other components, nor is the aerobic production of vinegar from a contaminant. "Muh CO2 saturation" is utterly irrelevant - it does not suppress the effects of oxygen, CO2 is not a cure for O2 as ethanol is the cure for methanol.

>>2670712
Nta but I think you read his post wrong. Oxidation just doesn’t happen if the liquid is nearly oxygen depleted and the air above it is almost pure CO2 for the simple reason that there is no oxygen to dissolve. Shaking a vessel with the airlock on does pretty much nothing co2 wise because the gases are balanced anyway (if the liquid could hold more co2 at its current pressure, it would). It may free up some trapped bubbles, and you may shake up some stuff trapped between the dead lees on the bottom (mercaptan etc).

>>2670394
why would you use turbo yeast?
it's the equivalent of using chinese gutter oil to make a cake

>>2664623
Anyone else make charts?
Seems it’s not stuck after all just slow and steady

>>2670829

I have a high alcohol tolerance and would prefer not to have to drink 3 pints just to get a buzz.

>>2670835
sometimes, for some experiments if what i'm trying to ferment is rich enough in nutrients by itself
when i have my data i can use it to guestimate future stuff. not too accurate vs actual readings but better than nothing and i'm lazy

>>2644857
yeah, can I just make super strong alcohol with pure sugar
then add juice, barrel sawdust, and mix it with that ultrasonic thingy
not trolling it just seems like a good idea

>>2670994
You can get 18% abv with many normal yeasts, with the best turbo yeasts maybe 21%? That’s definitely not worth it, maybe if you’re in a hurry but it’ll be nail polish

>>2669936
You could buy an unfiltered beer you like and use it to make a starter.

>>2669986
No

>>2668968
>Many lactic acid and acetic acid bacteria scoby show up as jelly, most notably k. xylinus as used in kombucha
I was drinking a lot of kombucha around the time I started it but I'm pretty good with sanitation so I don't see how it could've got in

>>2669983
>oh, so not 2 weeks?
I did the same thing with a lose cap on a 2 quart bottle of apple juice and the same bread yeast about a month ago. It was still bubbling after a week but I got bored and chugged it one night because I ended up fucking around with the cap since I didn't really shake up the yeast and a lot of the bubbles forced up all the yeast through the cap everything crusted over on it. I wasn't sure how much air was getting in or gas out since I monkeyed with it a bunch just said fuck it experiment over with. Had a real bread-ish taste to it, got a very mild buzz. Tasted a lot better adding some lemon juice to it.
Figured I'd try it for fun and use it as a baseline to compare it to other yeast see if the flavour turns out different with the same juice type.

>>2671700
I was gonna wait for it to mostly clear out, it's only been 4 days so far though
will pick up some lemon juice to add to it

what to do with lees, I have just been dumping them in my lawn. Can I use them for anything?

>>2671730
ymmv, I added around a cup of sugar into the juice before I started. I drank a bit to test the before I added the sugar.
It tasted nothing like it did when it started. My thing was clouded with yeast and had a shit ton of the bottom. Another week or two might of improved the flavor a lot I had a quart without lemon juice then half way through adding it to a glass kinda felt mandatory to me to finish it off toward the end.
I'd be interested to hear how yours turns out I plan on doing it again after I get an spare air lock and fermenting jar, or just jury rigging an air lock if I'm super bored.

>>2671837
I added no sugar to mine, I wanted to start off as simple as possible. straight up apple juice, bread yeast, loosely capped lid, that's it. But, I think maybe I'll be better off leaving it a bit longer. I wanna try it soonish but if I can wait 3 days that'll already be a week and then I can wait one more week and that'll be the original 2 weeks I wanted to go for. I'm hoping it clears up in the next week or so.

if it's only slightly disgusting I'll be happy, since it'll be like $3 for 50 ounces and it'll probably be between 5 and 10%abv.

Tentatively, I think next time I do it I'll try other juices with the yeast I already have and see which ones end up tasting the best (and get me the most drunk) before moving on to ordering actual brewing yeast. I'll let you know how it turns out in a week and a half, give or take.

>>2671842
>>2671837
I just checked in on it
there is a thick layer of what I presume to be yeast on the bottom. It's less cloudy than it was before, I don't really see any bubbling. It's still a bit cloudy and there is a slightly off odor to it which is slightly sulfurous but it's not too strong at the moment. I'm going to keep waiting for it to clear up more.

>>2671938
the last few days let it warm a few degrees, the yeast will clean up the sulfur taste. then throw it in the fridge and it should clear. if you're brave tighten the cap during the clean up phase and it should naturally carbonate itself

>>2670994
use a yeast like ec1118, and aim for 10-12% at the highest unless you want it to taste like shit, if you want to get drunk make yourself a keg distiller.

turboyeast will always taste like shit because its made to produce fuel alcohol

What should I make for my first batch of mead?

>>2672437
for my first batch I'm going with huckleberry honey. it tastes extremely sweet and smooth so I hope the end result is worthwhile.

Finished first mead today, it’s completely dry and just over 5% abv but tastes a bit bland and I think it needs acid. I have no acidity meter and only few bottles to test, is there any good way to estimate a starting point for how much citric acid I need to give it the right acidity? Or should I do this after aging it

>>2672189
Back in the day I’d use turbo yeast to make sugar wine then back sweeten it to some 150g/L and add an a big lemon worth of juice per litre. If it’s sweet and sour enough you don’t really notice the chemical taste from the byproducts.

>>2672126
> if you're brave tighten the cap during the clean up phase and it should naturally carbonate itself
Won’t this cause the sulfur gases to dissolve back into the liquid?

>>2673091
bruh that nearly half more sugar content than cola

>>2672126
okay so it's been a week. it's mostly cleared up, there is a bit of a sulfur smell, I siwrled it around a bit in the bottle which seemed to help a tiny bit. I poured off some and tasted it--there's not sulfur taste to it. It just tastes like cheap wine. I'll let it keep conditioning or whatever but basically it works

>>2673091
that's terrible, i make apple wine with ec-1118
the taste depends entirely on the quality of the juice/apples but it doesn't throw out nasty byproduct tastes like turbo yeast, and it goes fast

sounds more like you're making some horrible prisonhooch tier stuff than anything resembling wine

please stay away from turboyeast and use something like ec-1118
t.tried distilling a product made from turboyeast and it was rank

>>2673232
I recommend getting some campden tables, sulfur based preservative that helps prevent spoilage and oxidation
the sulfur notes from it dissapear after letting the wine/drink air for a few minutes

increasing temp is also no bueno honestly since the fermentation proccess produces it's own heat and high heat makes offtastes

just letting it sit after fermentation is finished and or racking it will reduce the original sulfur smell

>>2671183
Could be a lactic /acetic acid bacteria infection from the air, not anything to do with your actual kombucha, just that it produces a bacteria scoby just like in kombucha

>>2673091
the yeast will absorb the sulfur flavor during their cleanup phase and then drop out of suspension. if you want you can do a CO2 purge to scrub the sulfur smell but it sounds like you're not setup for that

>>2673359
brewers yeast will have a temperature band. fermenting entirely at the higher end of that band will likely impart more yeast character, but on the last few points before fermentation is done increasing the temp to the higher end of the band is perfectly fine, and for most lager yeasts almost a requirement.

>>2673359
I'll try campden tablets later on when I'm more used to the process. I don't have control over the temps, it's hot in my house but the brew so far is very drinkable.

I'll let it keep sitting another week (unless I drink it all before then) and see how it changes. Should I put it in the fridge at some point?

>>2673576
putting it in the fridge can be nice for making the yeast settle, and then you can pour it over into another container carefully

to get the best result out of fruit juice wines and such you should get some larger brewing buckets with airlocks so you can make larger batches and let them age for a few months

I currently have 28 liters aging and bought some beer kegs to store my future products in

Can fumes from old alcohol be dangerous? Just poured 25l of 3-4yo kilju that was in a fermentation bucket that was slightly open to the air via a dried out airlock and felt kinda dizzy after.
At first it didn't smell like anything but after scooping and pouring into the toilet it smelled a bit like alc. Be i got close to the yeast at the bottom it started smelling like yeast and vinegar.

pitched yeast yesterday, how long does mold take to grow? There are little islands of something floating on top and I cant tell if it is just some yeast floating around or mold has already taken over

I dont want to dump 3 gallons

>>2673879
if it's white and fuzzy then dump, mold is pretty obvious

>>2673905
It was crystal clear, but after dumping it i got really dizzy followed by a headache.
Dumping it to make room cause I'm not doing anything with it and it has just been sitting there for years.
Have 100l more to dump but that has fruit meat and seeds in it so i imagine it will be a fair bit more nasty after years at room temp.

>>2673910
then i'm confused, you said you pitched yesterday but now it's been sitting for years. you've had a must just sitting unfermented for that time?

>>2673920
Ah sorry, on my phone so thought that was a reply to me.

>>2665666
Well, at least you are enjoying it for yourself : it won't be lost
Hope everything goes fine for your gf

>>2666666

>>2673872
> Can fumes from old alcohol be dangerous?
Basically no

> Be i got close to the yeast at the bottom it started smelling like yeast and vinegar.
Some sulfides or whatever that were trapped, maybe some organic decay, maybe some acetic acid, but nothing to worry about normally.

>>2673879
If it’s small, white and not fuzzy it’s probably just yeast clumping together or holding onto some ingredient and pushing that up and nothing to worry about.

If it grows out into a ‘network’ or dried out white bubbles it’s probably bretts. Just monitor for a few days, for bretts the smell should be a giveaway

Getting ready to press some pears into cider for the first time - do I need to star san the container that the juice is going into if I am going to add campen first?
My plan was to grind/press directly into the primary fermenter then add campden tabs, wait a day and then pitch yeast - *presto*. Will this work or is it worth the hassle of sanitizing an intermediary container?

update on my bread yeast and apple juice brewing: it tastes pretty good, the sulfur smell is already mostly gone. It's been only about 10 days. I tightened the cap a couple days ago and it is not lightly carbonated. I'd say this is a pretty great success. I'll be doing this again very soon and I'll try tightening the cap a bit earlier to build up more carbonation.

>>2674567
Personally I'd give it a san wash before, just for the craic.

>>2674567
I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here. Campden is a strong yeast growth inhibitor and a poor sanitising agent so you don’t want to add it until after fermentation is done.

It’s likely worth it to sanitise the fermenter and everything that will touch the juice with star san. But you’re cold pressing whole pears and not pasteurising, the yeast/bacteria already present in the pears are probably the greatest contamination risk anyway

>>2675182
i've read they use campden tablets to stabilise the wort from anything unwanted that was present on the fruit, but like you i also don't know how this affects the yeast afterwards
apparently some winemakers don't give a fuck because the yeast is going to outcompete and kill off everything anyway

my malt order arrived but i forgot to order the yeast aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Has anyone here experimented with using sourdough yeast to make beer? My wife has a really good starter going and I am thinking of giving it a try

>>2644857
How much margin is there on the FG? I'm brewing a kit, the FG is supposed to be 1.010-1.014. It stopped fermenting and is now at 1.022 after a week. How bad is that? Do I have to pitch more yeast or DME or something, or will it be fine to keg it at that FG?

Sup /hbg/. First time trying to make mead. Im close to 3 weeks into this batch and there's this weird network-like structure. Dosen't look like mold and it smells musty and smells vaguely like alcohol. Am I on the right track or should pitch the batch?

>>2675977
you'll have a lower abv but you're fine to keg. in the future really pay attention to mash temperature, it sounds like you mashed/steeped the grains at too high of a temperature, which results in longer sugar chains that can't be digested by the yeast. you could pitch bret if you want to make this a sour and are fermenting in stainless steel

>>2675554
Would be like any beer with wild yeast. You might get lucky and get something nice but most likely it'll taste not-great and stop fermenting at a low ABV.

>>2675510
Drink an unfiltered beer you like and make a starter from the dregs. If the starter works, pitch it.

5% abv to go but I got no SG drop at all for 3 days. Pitched some new yeast, no swirling or anything and it started back up within an hour. Could this be a nutrient deficiency? I royally added yeast nutrient in the beginning

should i get a hydrometer or refractometer

>>2660706
Average city steading brews enjoyer

>>2676405
Hydrometer always. Refractometer if you know what you are doing since alcohol affects refractometer readings.

>>2644857
I popped my cherry, wild black cherries from the back yard. I followed a recipe online but I used ⅓ honey from the amish for the flavor and ⅔ Ohio made beat sugar instead of cane sugar. Used a cotton cloth and rubberband over a big pickle jar. Questions: Does using honey make this mead instead of a cordial or wine? Since I only used the yeast in the fruit will it taste different if I did it the same? Overall fun and tasty for my first go.

>>2676471
Congrats on a good first brew man

> Does using honey make this mead instead of a cordial or wine?
The correct term I think is melomel. A cordial is alcohol free as far as I know, a wine in most country can have added sugars but not added honey but for ‘fruit wine’ there aren’t too many rules

>>2676477
Thanks, definitely want a hydrometer to get some numbers and maybe a bigger jar. Next year I'll definitely have to try blackberries and raspberries. When they come in. There's riverbank grapes everywhere but animals get to them long before they ripen.

Any of you brewers got advice for someone getting into fermentation?
I made my first Ginger sodas and a pina colada from a bug and they were so tasty they were gone before I could take a photo.

I hear Tepache is easy to make. I'm mainly looking for ideas that don’t require specialist yeasts/molds since those are hard to come by here...

looking for cider recipes, something fizzy, not too boozy, both dry or mildly sweet are fine
suggestions?

Its been 3 days and my fermentation seems to have stopped - I fear I underpitched Would throwing some more yeast on help

>>2678262
>underpitched
no such thing

>>2676737
Tepache is easy, wild fermented using whatever yeast or bacteria is in the pineapple skin afaik. You can’t buy ‘tepache bacteria’ but it depends a bit on where the pineapples were grown and how they were handled, store bought may have too many molds on them

>>2678288
Please elaborate - my brew has stopped bubbling and doesn't smell like its doing anything now like the first couple days

>>2678288
I put ~3g of yeast into a 3 gallon carboy with 3lbs of honey. Shit is underpitched

>>2678541
woop i mean 9 gallons of honey. same shit

>>2678543
what yeast did you use? 3g is meaningless without knowing the strain so we can lookup the cell count, but your shit's probably fine. stop being a retard and get a hydrometer for next time. record the original gravity before you pitch, then take readings every day until the gravity no longer changes.

>>2678574
D 47

I just started kegging my beer (it's the second one) and after I start the carbonation process it seems to "steal" all the favor and aroma, it gets overwhelmed by an "acid" taste. The first beer I kegged stayed this way til the end. I think it was over carbonated, cause I tried to carbonate it quick (shaking the keg). Now I tried an other method: I pressurized the keg several times (to 28 psi) for 3 days and let the beer absorb by itself aiming to get, after the absorption, a pressure of 14 psi. This time my beer doesn't seem to be over carbonated, but it still got kinda tasteless and acidic. In the last 2 days it started to recover it's aroma and taste, but still isn't as it was before force carbonating.
Is it normal? I see people force carbonating and quick carbonating and no one seems to have this problem. I never got this problem when I was bottle conditioning my beer.

>>2678600
If anything you slightly over pitched but seems fine

What do you guys think of this exquisite fancy homebrew I made

>>2679058
I'm amused that you put that on carpet even momentarily.

>>2679090
It's been sitting on the carpet in my closet for a week now

>>2679058
freeze it, pour the alcohol into a glass, freeze again, repeat several times. drink the resulting applejack and take out the pain on your family

Making a fruit mead, but I fucked up. Was going to go from primary fermentation vessel for two weeks, move it to secondary with fruits, remove the fruit after two weeks and bottle it after a few more weeks. But I realize my secondary fermenter is not going to work. Can I just add the fruits to the primary fermenter now and leave it there for a while? And just take the fruits out, then bottle it way later?

>>2678600
Ah yes using a diva strain when you don't have a clue what you are doing. The yeast aren't the problem. You are.

Mead. My first brew ever. It'll be ready next summer as I'm making Trójkniak. Although I gave it a sip once the main fermentation period was over, and it tastes excellent already. I'm using local mixed flower (wielokwiatowy) honey.

>>2680988
Polish noblemen enjoying mead by
Wandalin Strzałecki.

>>2680996
Forgot pic

>>2666528
>how do I make sure not to poison myself?
I don't recommend these stills first of all, and you avoid poisoning yourself by cooking slowly and not drinking the foreshots.

All fermented beverages have methanol and the likes that make up the heads when we distill. Any time you drink a beer you're taking in some methanol. The reason people get sick is they don't cook slow enough to burn off the smaller molecules such as methanol that make up the heads.

You won't die from drinking badly made distillates unless you're drinking properly distilled heads heads, as poorly distilled spirits has the heads mixed across the hearts and tails, where the ethanol prevents severe effects.

My point is that if you fuck up the process, you may not get acutely ill as the methanol will be mixed with ethanol, but you'll have the worst hangover of your life.

If you want to do it right, you need to have a still that you can control, one that allows you to slowly increase heat and taste along the way to identify what is horrid tasting (heads) from what is desirable (hearts). Taste and smell govern cuts every day of the week while slow burning makes this accessible.

>>2666528
>>2681069
Additionally - if this is the best you can do that's okay, just follow the instructions and remember that the cuts are tricky at that size. it may not be perfect, but it may just be fun.
>>2665085
maybe not YOUR homebrew

>>2666528
>>2681069
Anon is both right and partially right, you won't get poisoned by Methanol unless you collect foreshots from 20 runs and chug it

Methanol also isn't produced in dangerous amounts in distilling, dangerous "moonshine" comes from retarded hicks adding it from destructive distillation of wood or from the gubment like denatured alcohol

First time poster:

What is the minimum amount of time needed to make a good, but quick, honey wine/mead? Like do I need a year or two years minimum to get a solid product? I want to make a blackberry and honey mead for Christmas. To have with dinner but also to give as a easy gift. Also, for the berries, is it best to use fresh or should I buy dried ones online?

I've never made beer or mead before but after watching some videos it doesn't seem that hard if I make sure to read the tips/etc. I know it's already september and christmas isn't that far away so I don't know if it's possible to make it by then; or if I did make it if it would be "done" by then. Thanks for any help.

>>2681230
You can get an alright wine made in a month, although I'd jut make one now and age/rack it as needed until Christmas. Make it something you pull out at the dinner table on Christmas or something. I followed DIY Fermentation in YouTube and his methods are easy enough to start out with.

Just start now, have fun, and it will reflect when the time comes. People in the real world generally appreciate a well to do effort

>>2659424
My local shop shut down in fall 2022 due to pandemic bullshit. Talked to the dude for a while when he let me know, said that biz was down like 60-70%, homebrewing as a hobby is the first thing that gets cut. Sucks, the closest place now is now like 30 min away and has shitty bankers hours and much worse selection.
>>2681069
Just finished my first sugar wash run, got maybe 3L out of the 5gal wash. The hearts taste really damn good, much better than any vodka I've had before. I do plan on watering it down a bit, though.
The tails much less so ofc, so I was thinking of taking them and distilling them again, see if I could get better shit out of them before just burning it or whatever.
Are multiple runs a good or bad idea? I need to do more reading on wtf I'm doing, desu

>>2681406
>Are multiple runs a good or bad idea?
Certainly not a bad idea, I just don't do repeat runs for tails myself. I have done them to get the heads out of batches that were meh, and it can help. If you have enough that you want to run again, give it a try. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't. I'm about to have a reflux setup so I don't plan on doing many double or triple distillations.

>>2681406
>>2681484
Additionally, keep a hydrometer and cylinder handy to proof your product. It's cool to have really high proof stuff on hand, but don't drink setting that's over 100, or at least not much of it. We're just not made for that kind of alcohol consumption

>>2681486
>We're just not made for that kind of alcohol consumption
speak for yourself

Cider has been in secondary fermentation about a week - seems to be looking good. Is there any way to know when to bottle without taking an OG reading? I don't want to waste any of my fruit pressed juice and am thinking about transferring today - that will be 2 weeks total fermenting so far (1 primary 1 second)

>>2682461
Imagine moving things to secondary without taking gravity readings. Get s hydrometer stop being cheap.

>>2682461
>secondary fermentation
lol. lmao even

>>2682638
>Imagine moving things to secondary
fixed

>>2681486
Yeah I need to get a hydrometer for spirits to test as I go.
> don't drink setting that's over 100
Yeah, it really has to be watered down

>Making mead
>after a few weeks, move it into a secondary with some berries
>less than 24 hours this is on top
Do I need to toss it?

>>2683520
it's fermenting the sugar in the fruit. let it go a couple weeks

>>2683520
krausen gonna krau

>>2683654
rookie mistake
if i know a lot of pulp is involved i get extra paranoid about potential volcanoes. checking up on a carboy with the airlock on the floor, yes i had that happen
1/5th of initial headspace as a rule of thumb but even that depens on the shape of your fermenter. a gradual taper to the neck is preferable

>>2681776
>speak for yourself
I work in medical and I love how patients fuck around until they find out

>>2644857
It's almost Mead season lads!

lads, I've done goofed up, left my brew in the bucket for a couple of months, also, it had a ginger in hopsack hanging off the side, I think it was just enough to leak some crap in

I've had brew with bad floaters before, I was careful and trying to bottle it, taking liquid only from below and discarding a good portion, but even then this stuff is apparently forming inside the bottles, I've tasted it and it didn't seem off (not great tho)

question is, besides being shit, does this stuff actually pose any danger, is it actual fungus?

>>2676737
>>2678338
>Ginger sodas
also, I like to try alternate recipes for this, did you use lemon juice for it or what?
I like the ones where you get a bit more taste to it, but fermented lemon or orange is just not good

>>2685341
It looks like a sour. Did you actually taste it? You might have changed styles but it's probably good

>>2685345
Add the lemon juice afterwards

>>2685772
I did taste, didn't seem off but not great either, it stayed with the ginger hop this whole time so I guess you could call it sour
it formed inside the bottles as well and there is little bit visible floaters around
can you show an example of what you mean?

>>2685991
Nta but brettanomyces infection can look like that and is sometimes used for sour beer. Does it smell of a barnyard (or band-aids)?

got an irish red going, all out of wirlfloc but that's alright. hit my pre-boil sg dead on, should come out to 4.7%

Bottled almost 10L of anise-cinnamon-molasses herb wine with a bit of ginger and bourbon vanilla. It’s still kinda sweet since I overdid the SG but the taste of the spices is pretty well pronounced still, a bit like sweet liquorice at first then a slight gingery aftertaste. 17.8% abv.

Is there anything that will make it taste less sweet without making it too sour?

>>2683654
I feel your pain anon. I apparently did not seal my all-rounder of mead and got an explosion. It is sealed now and pressure fermenting happily.

TLDR are college size fridges of any use for small scale homebrew?
I've been using Mr Beer 2 gallon keg to make up batches of beer in S FL. One of the issues I have is ferment temp. The coolest place in the house is the kitchen / inside, and it's around 78F at lowest during most of the year, which is a little high for what most recipes call for.
I've got a college size fridge that either needs put to use or donated, and wondering if that would be useful to drop the ferment temp down... whether it's worth the hassle. I've got PID controller and can force the fridge to maintain whatever temp I want. I'm mostly making IPAs, stouts, and wheat beers, and maybe it's not really needed unless I start making lagers / pils.

>>2687336
if your fermentor fits then yes it's useful for controlling ale fermentation temps as well as cold crashing. also gives you the ability to ferment lagers

>>2687336
Yeah it'll work. I'm in central FL so I feel your pain, I used to brew with friends in DE and my buddy's basement stayed a perfect 68 degrees F from fall through spring. Now I use a small chest freezer but I see no reason a mini fridge wouldn't work as long as your fermenter fits.

>>2687394
Also this, it opens up lagering.

birds ate all of my grapes meant for brandy
God came to collect natures tax
what the fuck do i do now

>>2687554
Make pies out of birds

>>2687554
ferment bird juice

my magpie cider is pushing 15 days, should i rack or give it more time bros? I capped it to cold crash but now I'm having second thoughts. still have some slow bubbling, but it's starting to get a musky smell. is a little stink normal or sign of brewing too long?

Ive been thinking about that anon that made elderflower liquer here and was wondering, would honey suckle liquer be viable and good? I have an ass ton of flowering ones around my house and i remember loving to suck the sweetness out as a kid. Theres 1 listed on google but it barely exists so im a bit warey, anybody tried something like this?

>>2688633
There are honey suckle cordials and wines so a liqueur could be fine. But pretty sure some species or parts of the plant are toxic. There even martines honeysuckle liqueur but I’m not sure if it’s made with real flowers

>>2688799
yeah martines was the one i was talkint about when i said 1 listed, someone reviewed it saying it tasted like aspartame so id assume its just shlock
but damn, I shouldve looked up honey suckle wine, now its showing up everywhere. Ill put that in my to do list for next year along with dandelion wine

>brew wine for the first time
>it is too strong and has that specific weird assy smell
>give it to people, ask them afterwards if it smells "assy"
>they say they don't know what I'm talking about, but agree it's too strong
why is my wine assy, will the assy smell go away as it ages?

Weird thing, but I noticed that I only got moulds (reds, blacks) on my Ginger Bugs after I started grating my ginger instead of roughly chopping it

Is it relevant? Weird thing really

>>2689530
How clean is your grater?

I made my second mead a while ago and after aging it still tastes … bad. I only added honey, yeast nutrient and yeast, it’s 5% abv. I can’t detect a common fault from its smell or taste really, it’s not chemical at all, it stays mildly sour with a bad musky aftertaste

>>2689530
Grate some star san

Nah it’s probably the bigger exposed surface area making the mold grow faster. Grated apple will get moldy in a day too

How do I bottle without making a mess
>get siphon
>put one end in bottle, one end in carboy
>start siphon
>bottle fills up
>time to move the end into a new bottle
>cant squeeze the hose shut
>taking the siphon out of the carboy spits out a whole shitload into the bottle

>>2690534
You can use one of these things or siphon all your liquid into a container with a spigot ( like a brew bucket) before bottling. I usually do the latter since it lets you mix in bottling sugar evenly without stirring up any sediment.

>>2690534
a bottling wand works well too. it leaves the right amount of headspace and shuts off as soon as you move it off the bottom of the bottle

>>2690534
bend the hose in two, retard

>>2686050
>Does it smell of a barnyard (or band-aids)?
I have to clue what that smells like, but just to be clear, it didn't sound off at all.
Also, looking at older pictures, I found this which was one that came out perfectly, and by reference really doesn't look all that different considering it stayed in for longer.

BROS I NEED MY WINE SUPPLIES BACK ALREADY, I LEFT THEM AT HOME WHEN I MOVED ALONG WITH MY IN PROGRESS FERMENTS
im getting wine making withdrawl

>>2690534
Listen to >>2690712, I've been using a bottling wand like he posted for dozens of batches with very few problems. The only times it's ever given me grief was when I brewed with whole cone hops, the seeds would get stuck in the plunger and keep it plugged open. I've stopped brewing with whole cones and stuck to pellets since that brief foray, and my bottling wand hasn't had a single hiccup since.

how safe is it to drink canned beer that is clearly still pressurised that expired 24 years ago? asking for a friend
my friend is fairly sure it should be safe to drink but who knows such old beer develops nerve gas and autism poison over time. he had no issues with 5+ year old beer but this is 2,5 decades

>>2692702
your "friend" is a fag and you are also a fag by proxy

Any EU anons here?
I want to buy an AIO RIMS system, and I'm unsure which to get.
I'm in contact with someone who could sell me a Brewzilla 35L Gen 4, which is currently my favorite.
I've also looked at the Klarstein Brauheld Pro 45L and Grainfather Connect (30L).

All I want is a solid system that allows me to comfortably brew 5gal/20L of end product.
I'd also like to buy a stainless steel conical fermenter and get into kegging.
I'm unsure of the 'priorities' to make better beer. Currently I buy my grains already crushed and I use a Sou Vide stick and a bag in a big pot for brewing.
I also want to invest in a chiller since as of now I always let the wort cool overnight in the fermenter before pitching my yeast.
Any reccomendations on a good "upgrade path"?

>>2693044
Beers I have brewed so far:
- 2x Pils: which turned out good but was not clear
- Black Smoky IPA: Tried to brew it for a special occasion, was okay, fucked up the dry hop though and the beer has hop burn
- Dunkelweizen: When cooled in the fridge an enjoyable beer, slightly off smell though (I think chlorophenols or fermented at a too high temperature)
Brewing with a sous vide stick is better than adjusting the stove temp every few minutes but still a pain in the ass

>>2693044
all of those are just slightly different chinese iterations of a glorified coffee urn. top priority should be hot side and cold side temperature control, followed by cleanability (sanitary connections, ability to break it down), material, and batch size. i would go with none of those because fuck threaded connections, single piece ball valves, and chinesium stainless

>>2693070
What would you go with? Or what do you brew with? Price is another factor I need to consider.

>>2644857
Just finished preparing my first batch of homebrewed mead, used 2.5 pounds of shitty store bought honey, and about 4 grams of yeast, put the last of the nutrients in on Monday, also tossed in a dash of vanilla extract for flavor, never brewed before, what should I expect? I've got it fermenting in a nice dark and warm cabinet rn

>>2693144
brewtools b80, but before that i brewed in a kettle i upgraded with a couple tri clamp bulkheads and an inkbird pid controller for controlling the elements. if you're mechanically inclined this is the cheapest and usually better route, just need to find a malt pipe that fits your kettle.

try and find the largest setup you can in your price point or you may still need to have a coffee urn or something as a hot liquor tank for sparging. connections can be upgraded to tri clamp or at least a 3 piece ball valve for disassembly

Local aldi stopped selling the sparkling lemonade that came in 750ml swing top glass bottles. On top of that the local brewing store closed so I have no place locally to buy bottles anymore. Where do you guys get your wine bottles from?

anyone have any good cream ale recipes? First time brewing beer here with my buddy and we are doing a partial mash.

>ginger wine is way too gingery to be drinkable
its never been more over
any suggestions?
My idea from the start was to add lemonade since i was loving lemonade + ginger beer over summer but helped nada

>>2693380
>brewtools b80
their systems look pretty good, although a b40 would probably be a better fit since I don't plan on brewing such big batches

>>2694932
you can do 8 gallon pre-boils in the b80. the b40 is nice but you'll end up needing a separate hlt for sparging, though i do like at least in the US their option for 2x 120v mains to achieve 3000 watts. overall though be prepared to spend a fuck ton on tri clamps because their kettles are all retarded 34mm TC for some reason.

I want to start distilling spirits and brewing beer for me and my friends. I'm in New Zealand so it's legal. Can anybody please recommend some good resources to learn the basics? What kits would be good for beginners? Thanks lads.

>>2694715
dilute it down to 5% abv and bottle carb it for ginger beer

>>2694998
I just don't know what to do with that much beer :D
I just watched a comparison video (G40, BZ 65L, B40) and the B40 does look really solid, especially the valve system.
>>2694998
>you can do 8 gallon pre-boils in the b80
I still don't quite understand. Why wouldn't I need to sparge with the b80?

>>2695683
>valve system
the valve system is quite nice, though there's a learning curve. i tested with some water until i got comfortable then wrote down the settings. same with the pump, it's a variable speed, your first brew just write down the percentage you use for mash recirculation. my first brew i ended up with all the water in the malt pipe and almost exposed the heating elements. also putting the elements in mashing mode is nice because you don't need them running at 100% every time they ramp up and risking a potential scorch.

>Why wouldn't I need to sparge with the b80?
the boil volume for the b40 is something like 12 gallons. for a full volume sparge you're looking at about 15 gallons being used. you can cut down on some of the water requirement with the steam hat but you'll likely need a sparge heater; the cheapest coffee urn off amazon will do.

overall my biggest complaint is just the 34mm tri clamps, requiring you to basically only buy through them which is annoying. their TCs and valves though are heavy duty and nice. wish they sold the mini uni+ in the states, hopefully soon.

>>2695683
oh also i'd recommend going with the laser etched filter as a future upgrade, the screen it comes with is good but it brushes up against the recirc pipe and makes a very metal-on-metal noise