Brewing, anyone?

jefair1 said:

Publish it. I am sure people would buy it. I would.

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I'm no writer. Plenty of books on the subject that baffle, confuse or talk down to the reader.
Of my book collection there is one I would highly recommend. Cider, Hard and Sweet, by Ben Watson. A simple explanation of the process do's and don'ts. And a fun read. It will have you planting your own orchard of temptation.
Speaking of orchards, standard size trees take 7 or so years to get going with production of fruit. They also have to be pruned. They live for decades and should be planted 30' apart.
Dwarf trees do not need pruning and begin fruit production faster, only a few years. They get planted 15' apart, but only live about 15-20 years. See where this is going?
If you plan out an orchard of your selected varieties in a grid pattern, and alternate standard and dwarf of the same varieties, all 15' apart in all directions, you will get apples sooner from the dwarfs to satisfy your efforts. Once 15 years go by and the dwarfs slow, and the standards need more room, you cut down all the dwarfs. Use the wood in your smoker. Now the standards that are producing tons of apples are 30' apart in all directions. Just what they needed. And those standards will outlive you.
And just a side note. If you plan on planting and get confused by which apple pollinates which apple, but wont pollinate that other apple and so on.......a crab apple pollinates every apple tree out there. That's where the Dolgo crabs come in. They produce in only three years and you get bushels for cider and pink crab apple jelly.

PhDBrewer said:

Does anyone have an interest in mead?

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I made a batch last year with my son.
Boiled 5 pounds of honey in one gallon of water, skimming the foam off for about 10 minutes
Added that to another gallon of water in a sterilized 3 gallon carboy
Let cool and added a packet of Lalvin EC 1118 yeast, put in the air lock and let it go
My son re-racked it into a fresh carboy in January and we continued to let it go
Bottled in June. Nice taste.
Plan on drinking some next week
Not bad for my first attempt.
I am thinking about doing another batch but this time adding some fruit such as raspberries to the second fermentation.

Woody

I've only made hard cider once and just used store bought apple juice. I did not back sweeten and it finished very dry, but was excellent and I enjoyed it a great deal as did my wife. I used regular yeast, however it is my understanding that the traditional way to inoculate the cider is to set it in an outhouse with muslin covering, to allow the yeast in and keep the fly's out. Here is a great short read on brewing beer from back in the day.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35597/35597-h/35597-h.htm

Heres the book that started me in 91 and started most of these micro breweries.

I have had very good luck with Cooper's & Mr. Beer extract refills. I have 5 gallons of European lager in my larger fermenter now and two 2 gallon batches of Irish Stout in my smaller fermenters. I bottled up 5 gals of Czech Pilsner 3 weeks ago. Really good beer. Not at all a fan of IPA's . . . no no no . . . yuck! I have no plans for becoming a brewmaster. I keep it simple with the extract refills.

pooch156 said:

I have had very good luck with Cooper's & Mr. Beer extract refills. I have 5 gallons of European lager in my larger fermenter now and two 2 gallon batches of Irish Stout in my smaller fermenters. I bottled up 5 gals of Czech Pilsner 3 weeks ago. Really good beer. Not at all a fan of IPA's . . . no no no . . . yuck! I have no plans for becoming a brewmaster. I keep it simple with the extract refills.

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I haven't tried the liquid extract, but the have made some really tasty beers with the dry extract. Hardcore homebrewers will say that only all grain brewing makes a good beer, but brewing all grain adds a lot of variables that can lead to issues. Both types of brewing make excellent beer and I have spoken to true virtuoso homebrew brewmasters that use extract for one reason or another.

I learned all my cider making from the lower 40 books. Uncle Perks old stump blower in fact. I live in their stomping grounds and know family decedents.

For you fellas in prickly pear country, they brew up really fine. But, you do need to run them through the blender, boil them and then the needles will go into the sediment on the bottom. Have to maintain sterile conditions same as with other brewing. You can make prickly pear vinegar too.

hunter thompson said:

Heres the book that started me in 91 and started most of these micro breweries.

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Yes sir, that's the book that got me started as well.

Never made hard cider but I brewed ales and lagers for about 10 years. Moved from bottle conditioning to keg conditioning. I stopped 15 years ago. Teetotaler now.

Whughett said:

Never made hard cider but I brewed ales and lagers for about 10 years. Moved from bottle conditioning to keg conditioning. I stopped 15 years ago. Teetotaler now.

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I can really understand that. I still drink beer, but have scaled back lately. It interferes with the rest of life. I feel like the less the better. My pop is part of the secret society and is so much better off without it.

nkbj said:

For you fellas in prickly pear country, they brew up really fine. But, you do need to run them through the blender, boil them and then the needles will go into the sediment on the bottom. Have to maintain sterile conditions same as with other brewing. You can make prickly pear vinegar too.

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I have a vision to make a mesquite pod “beer”. The pods are sweet, especially from the sugar mesquite. I thought as a flavoring instead of hops using prickly pear fruit or to add barrel cactus fruit (which taste like lemons). To get any kind of alcohol content, you’d have to boil down the wort.

Ponderosaman said:

I haven't tried the liquid extract, but the have made some really tasty beers with the dry extract. Hardcore homebrewers will say that only all grain brewing makes a good beer, but brewing all grain adds a lot of variables that can lead to issues. Both types of brewing make excellent beer and I have spoken to true virtuoso homebrew brewmasters that use extract for one reason or another.

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I have found that many many of the "all grain brewers" that poo poo extract brewing (which will use some grain too), are more interested in justifying their spending of the money for the malted grain needed to produce their ale. In fact a great many if told an ale is "all grain" when that ale is not..., when asked will praise the brew and cannot tell the brew is actually more malt syrup than grain.

Many years back I used to enter brewing contests with "trick" brews, not to win any awards, but to see what reactions I got from the "judges". IF the competition had professional beer judges.., they always would pick up on what was done, but as for the homebrew brewmasters..., not always but (imho) they way too often missed the planted brew.


I never placed in the top three when I did this:
Things like..., entering an all grain category with a brew that was at least 50% extract..., the pros caught a taste difference, the rest, nah...
Relabeling a commercial brew made by the brewery that sponsored the event to see if they'd recognize their own product... really telling when one of the brewery judges entirely disliked the entry
Entering one style of beer deliberately into another style..., like a brown stout into brown or common ale, or the reverse...., a steam beer into a lager category...

LOL

LD

So, I really didn't want to go to far down the road of extract brewing as I wanted to keep this as Colonial/Early America ad possible, but it has been brought up a few times.
I know almost nothing about any of this. So, the 1st question I have regarding extracts is, how are they made?
Also, are there additives in an extract that aren't there in a grain brew malt?
It is described as basically just skipping a step, but, that doesn't seem honest to me. To my mind it sounds like "instant beer."

Can someone fill us in briefly?
Then move on to more traditional recipes and styles?

Brokennock said:

So, I really didn't want to go to far down the road of extract brewing as I wanted to keep this as Colonial/Early America ad possible, but it has been brought up a few times.
I know almost nothing about any of this. So, the 1st question I have regarding extracts is, how are they made?
Also, are there additives in an extract that aren't there in a grain brew malt?
It is described as basically just skipping a step, but, that doesn't seem honest to me. To my mind it sounds like "instant beer."

Can someone fill us in briefly?
Then move on to more traditional recipes and styles?

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So yes. Instant wort, but all the sanitizing and boil/hop additions/fermentation/packaging is the same so not instant beer. Liquid malt extract is wort that has been vacuum boiled and dry extract is spray dried wort to make a powder. Same stuff as in all grain wort. Could be you lose some volatile compounds which can be good or bad. And salts in the water they use to make the wort for the extract will still be in there so if you use hard water, you’re doubling up on minerals. Other than that, it’s a pretty good substitute for all grain. Most extract brewers use some real grain to steep with the extract to get appropriate colors and flavors for a given style of beer.

As to traditional brewing. Here’s a great podcast that demonstrates how both high tech and accessible DIY brewing is.
Season one was incredible a real page turner for me.
https://open.spotify.com/show/7ktEBaB89W4dvhJfzJfN9z

Started extract brewing, bottling etc.... In the end I wanted to really replicate what the big boys were doing.
So I moved on to all grain, and kegging brew. This book to this day is always been my basis to follow.






I brew close to 15 gallons at a time, open ferment, and use safale yeast. Now here in South Carolina we now have a malt company where I buy my grain.

Mulebrain said:

Started extract brewing, bottling etc.... In the end I wanted to really replicate what the big boys were doing.
So I moved on to all grain, and kegging brew. This book to this day is always been my basis to follow.

View attachment 108834View attachment 108835

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I brew close to 15 gallons at a time, open ferment, and use safale yeast. Now here in South Carolina we now have a malt company where I buy my grain.

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Thank you very much.

I used the “partial grain”, that is to say a measure of what ever grain the recipe called for. Placed in a “boiling bag” and boiled with the wort for the prescribed time. A mix of fresh hops, and blasphemy, hop pellet The wort was racked to a primary fermenter, a large plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid and air cock. After a prescribed time the new beer was racked to a glass carboy and allowed to sit until all solids had settled out. I was partial to the English style bitters, Ports and Stouts. Ales required no refrigeration and fermented at room temperature. Later I switched to using corny kegs and outfitted a chest type freezer with a control to maintain lagering temperatures.
I logged every batch and over a ten year span filled a three ring note book with success and failures.

When I started the local grocery store was about the only source for malt syrup. Bit it was the start of the craft beer revolution and several supply stores started up in the area, established no doubt by home brewers.

Whughett said:

I used the “partial grain”, that is to say a measure of what ever grain the recipe called for. Placed in a “boiling bag” and boiled with the wort for the prescribed time. A mix of fresh hops, and blasphemy, hop pellet The wort was racked to a primary fermenter, a large plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid and air cock. After a prescribed time the new beer was racked to a glass carboy and allowed to sit until all solids had settled out. I was partial to the English style bitters, Ports and Stouts. Ales required no refrigeration and fermented at room temperature.

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Most "kits" that I find are of two forms these days. Liquid Malt Extract [LME] with some grain with pellet hops, and all grain kits with pellet hops. A lot of times it seems the average home brewer is limited by budget, equipment and by time/technique. Some of the all grain extracts really need a rather experienced mashing person to get the results that justify the extra costs.

So this year is a brewing Christmas for me. I have a Pater's Beer (Belgian ale from an abbey), Red Irish Ale, and Peary Cider going out as gifts. I also have a Nottingham Brown Ale in the fermenter, and an experimental ale in the experimental fermenter (2.5 gallon batch).

The Experimental is for a fellow with a Mr Beer home brewing device. He wanted to know if I could come up with something simple that would make a good table beer, as he thinks (and I agree) he's getting overcharged with the "refill" kits for his device. Oh the kits he gets seem to make a good copy of an average commercial American beer. For the price though I'd just buy the beer, and save time, because the taste isn't improved (imho) and you have to wait four weeks or so for results.

So the experimental recipe is thus:

3.15 lbs. Munich Liquid malt extract
6 oz. torrefied wheat, crushed
1 oz. American Crystal hops
1 packet Fermentis Safale S-04
3 gallons water*, which is one 8 lb. bag of ice, and 2 one-gallon jugs of spring or distilled water.

IG 1.046 (should be a tad higher but some of the LME was remaining in the packaging)
FG 1.012 ABV should be around 4.5% (if I'm reading the hydrometer right)

Pour one and a half gallons of water from the jugs into the brew kettle.

Into the 1.5 gallons of water dissolve the LME (stir it well to prevent syrup scorching on the bottom of the kettle) and add your torrefied wheat in a hop sack, like a DIY teabag. Bring to a boil. Add a half-ounce of the hops, boil for forty minutes. Then add the other half ounce of hops and boil for twenty minutes more.

Remove the grain in the sack, using tongs and squeeze as much liquid from the hydrated crushed grain back into the wort
* into the fermenter dump the 8 lbs. of ice (8 lbs. = one gallon)

Pour the finished wort into the fermenter over the ice. Use the remaining half gallon of water to adjust the quantity in the fermenter up to 2.5 gallons. (You do have gallons and half gallons marked on the fermenter, right? )

Seal the fermenter, and wait until the ice is fully melted and the wort is down to below 70 degrees F. (I just let it sit overnight for about 6 hours. Yes many brewers this this is way too long. )

Open fermenter and add Safale S-04. Reseal, and install fermentation lock. Allow to ferment about a week.
Rack it and let it sit for another week.

Bottle in sanitized 12 oz. bottles with some Fizz Drops, and condition for two to three weeks. Drink. IF you want to keep the beer for a few weeks, then pasteurize it once it's conditioned.

Cost $24.35 for a case of 24 12 ounce bottles of 4.5% brown ale using the drops, and about $23.00 if using table sugar to prime. That's about $4 a six pack.

LD