Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

Decided to start a blueberry “wine” today. I only have wine in quotes as it’ll only go for a week or until it’s fully fermented before the liquor fairies have their way with it. About a year ago I made a comment here that I like doing and trying wild things. Well, prepare for an affront to whatever diety you may or may not believe in. Assuming my enzymes come in at a reasonable time, tomorrow’s post may very well be a flamin hot Cheeto fermentation. I apologize in advance to everyone here, and no, I don’t know what’s wrong with me but it sounds hilarious so I’m gonna send it.

Everything I read on research into watermelon wine or brandy people mentioned to not bother and that it never turns out. Decided to buy and blend 6 watermelons and give it a shot anyways. I must say, my apple pie brandy was my go to crowd pleaser, but this? This easily overtook it! (Aside from the 3 hours of cutting watermelons, that was a pain)

I opened first two bottles of my #cider the test batches with hops and spices.

The one with hops needs another month in bottles - it smells amazing but it still has too much bitterness. I don't know why it is noticeably darker and why it makes foam like beer.

The one with spices tastes too much like Christmas (I just don't know how to describe it better). So it is good but not exactly the season for it. I can imagine it will be good with some Christmas cookies or something like that.

I like more the Christmas one (because it is ready to drink now), my boss on the other hand likes more the hopped one. (Yes I drink at work)

I am excited for the batch with oak chips and the basic cider, which I will probably taste next week.

@[email protected] @[email protected] #homebrewing

Short writeup on homemade cider. It is easier than it looks.

I heard from my boss that on Czech FB brewing group was discussion about US-05 from Fermentis.

Someone had issues with them, even commercial brewerys. We had to throw out 2 batches of IPA so it was probably because of that - same flaw both times.

So it got me thinking if it is only local issue or if it is more wide spread.

Hey has anyone considered making a wine from peppers like jalapeno and sweet pepper?

You'd probably need to add extra sugar, but I bet it could be an interesting flavor.

Been wondering about this. I read somewhere that drinking mead while its fermenting was common practice in the old days.

However wouldnt it make you susceptible to developing a illness where your stomach begins to brew its own alcohol which causes you to be perpetually and mildly drunk?

I will probably make another 1-2 batches of #cider . I would like some other suggestions what to add.

I was thinking about some herbs and wood chips. Is there anything else I could try?

@[email protected] @[email protected] #cidre

I'm particularly fond of heather ales and spruce beers. The only sahti (which has juniper) I've had was made by me, so I have no idea if I got it traditionally right, but I certainly enjoyed it. No disrespect to all you IPA lovers out there, but the hops-forward style isn't my thing, so for those of you that are in the same camp, where do you like to turn?

So it begins, this year about month earlier. Tomorrow I will get it juiced and expect ~100 l of juice. It was little bit unexpected to do it today but somehow I managed to do it, in 4 weeks I should have something finished if I won't drink it partially fermented.

@homebrewing #cider #homebrewing

This is meant as general discussion thread, so share everything related to brewing - questions, ideas, what's fermenting etc.

As discussed in my recent post here I will pin it for about a week and do another thread in a month and we will see how it goes.

First cleanup - I just don't think that the pinned posts are necessary, they are linked in sidebar. But it has some problems with federation (it wants to open them in browser). So I wanted to ask for your opinion on this.

And suggestions:

• is there audience for general discussion thread once in ~3 months or something like that?
• should I add some thumbnail picture?
• what else?

Just to be clear I don't think that this community needs more engagement - quality over quantity. Since my hobby became my job I didn't homebrew for about year, so I don't have much to post here (but I try to be active in comments).

So I want to hear your opinions on this and some suggestions.

Edit: mentioning @[email protected]

Hi!

I noticed that I don't get anywhere close to the gravity Brewfather estimates for a given recipe. Latest example is a SMASH IPA with a good 5 kg of pilsner malt that, which on my BrewZilla Gen 4 should have landed me somewhere around 1.054 pre boil. Everything went according to the recipe: 71 °C strike water, 64 °C mash for one hour (even a tad longer than that due to being interrupted by having kids), nice recirculation all along, no visible dough nests. What I got though was a pre boil gravity of 1.037 (forgot to test for starch being still present with iodine though).

This is only my fourth brew on the system, the first I forgot to measure and two were rather experimental, but I am still noticing a pattern here in that my efficiency is rather consistently sub par. I now wonder where to find room for improvement. For me, there's no need to squeeze every last bit of sugar out of my grains, yet at a mash efficiency of only 54% where in theory I might even get 80% does not only strike me as unnecessary wasteful, this way I don't know if I could even make anything bigger than an IPA at all without stretching the limits of my system.

My grain milling is one of the things that I suspect might contribute. So much so that I already wish I hadn't bought a three roller mill but one that I can adjust with simple advice from the internet, it seems everything in this field is geared towards two roller mills.
Also I started thinking about pH. Until now I never tampered with it, does it really have the potential to make such a huge difference?

All other suggestions are welcome as well. Cheers!

Chocolate hazelnut porter, first tasting. Good porter. Medium chocolate flavor. No hazelnut. Sigh. Needs more nut extract. Not much head or carb.

Ran across this. Brewing with tea?

Has anyone tried this? Any good? What about over extraction? I've made plenty of over brewed tea.

I've been interested in making a ginger bug. Seems easy enough and can carbonate soda. Went to buy some this weekend and it was $4/lb. That seems like a lot! For reference, I usually buy fruits for the family or fermentation when they're $1/lb and never go above $2/lb.

I plan on growing my own, prelim researching says it's easy enough, but until then, where do you get yours and how much is it?

As my latest batch is already quite the experiment, I decided to even go a little further and not use a traditional bubbler to vent off CO2 from my bucket this time, but opt for a keg to do that.

The rubber seal in the hole of the bucket‘s lid takes a 9.5 mm hose snugly, which connects to the gas intake of a keg filled with a good 5 litres of disinfectant. The keg’s liquid out has a line attached to go into the depicted 5 litre can.
This way, at the end of fermentation, I’ll have a sanitised keg & can, and the keg is already full of CO2. Also, should I experience suckback from changing temperatures (mind you, my setup lives in my garage), there is a buffer of CO2 in the keg for that, and the line into the can is the one I use to package from the bucket, so it’s nice that it gets sanitised along the way too.

What do you think? So far, my only concern is how much pressure buildup is required to displace the disinfectant from the keg and if the bucket's lid with the attached hosing is tight enough for that.

I bought several of these beer shanks back in 2015. I took it apart recently to clean.

Since the description says it's stainless steel I figured I could clean the rust off of the barb insert. Looks like it wasn't made of stainless steel.

Should I just reuse this thing or get a new one? If so I need the specs on this part so I will know what I need to buy.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

EDIT #1: Would this be a suitable replacement?

LitKiwi 2PCS Keg Coupler Barb Connector,Stainless Steel 304 Beer Kegerator Sankey Couplers,Hex Nut 5/8"G Thread x 1/4" Barb Beer Line Tailpiece Nipple Fitting with Sealing Gasket Washer https://a.co/d/g6HhP2c

EDIT #2: I emailed the customer support at MoreBeer and I got this response. They have great customer service.

Hi Casey,

Thanks for reaching out. This looks like a standard shank tailpiece. Here is a straight version, along with a curved version, in case it makes things easier.

Feel free to send me the invoice number after you order. I'm happy to refund the shipping cost for the inconvenience. Thanks!

Cheers! Zack

Zachary Marin Customer Service Representative | MoreFlavor! Inc. | 1-800-600-0033 Hours: Mon - Wed, Fri | 7:00 am PST - 4:00 pm P Visit Our Sites MoreBeer.com, MoreBeerPro.com MoreWine.com, MoreWinePro.com BrewmasterWholesale.com

Also, my mug works as a grain scoop nicely. https://files.catbox.moe/sdesos.jpg

So I recently visited brewery with 100yo technology and what struck me most was how little has changed.

Now you basically have only differences in driving the brewery - electromotors instead of steam engines and transmissions.

Basic technology like 2 tanks - one for boiling and mashing, other for sparge and leaving decoction parts (with perforated bottom) - is same to this day.

Other thing that's different is cooling, you now have coolers for quickly cooling wort and cooled tanks. Instead of shallow baths where the wort is pooled to cool and putting ice to cellars.

So did you checked some historical brewerys with copper tanks and stuff like this? Did it make you change or adjust your brewing setup? Did you learn anything?

Someone did this before so I am going to try it. I used a hibiscus 🌺 tea and left it unattended for most of the year. So I wonder if it will taste any good.

Based on this https://www.morebeer.com/products/chocolate-hazelnut-porter-jamil-zainasheff-grain-kit.html but scaled down to 3 gallons. Came closer to 2 tho. Lost more than expected to boil, I guess.

I started it in early march with the idea that I wanted a dry but fresh and somewhat complex wine for summer. I infused some oak chips with rum, but only had them in for a week something early on with the hope that the harshness would dissipate with gases and what is left behind becomes subtly integrated in the wine. I was going for notes and slight tannins as opposed to the super dry that was my autumn wine.

While fermenting it was about 19-21°C in the room with a cold draft by the floor that probably made it more like 16-18°C down there. I didn't think of picking a yeast ahead so I went with the generic one that came in the box.

It's been a very interesting ride in this relatively short period of time. The fermentation was very slow, as expected by the temperature and draft. It stopped bubbling but had plenty of sugar left in it so I racked it to oxygenate, added yeast nutrients and kept swirling it gently daily until I got it going again.

Last taste was a month ago and it was not good, hoping it would mature after bottling and otherwise make it a learning experience. Today, much to my surprise, it is young but damn delicious already. Great taste, great mouthfeel. Tannins but not overly so, hints of vanilla, oak and rum. Easy to drink and yet some interesting flavours to explore. It's all I was hoping for.

But now I have a new problem. While bottling it, I accidentally overfilled some bottles that I balanced into a glass, and then clumsy me spilled the last splash from the vessel into the glass too.

Now I'm sitting outside on a lovely warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, glass in hand, the wine is oxidized and can not be returned to the batch. I'm not sure what to do about it. Please advice.

I, uh, fit right in that main grouping, lol.