You brewed in Indonesia? Just curious how you sourced the brewing ingredients there.
Any Homebrewers Around?
- Thread starter abecox
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All the ingredients (yeast, fermaid, nutrient, bentonite, etc) are available in Indonesia. Honey are always easy to get. Coffee, spices, and any flavoring are ample. And Indonesian e-commerce market are the way to get it all with no hassle. Heck, we even have many microbrewery around (but mainly in Bali).
I homebrewed for years, then launched a commercial brewery with some friends. That took up my free tine for a while. Haven’t brewed in about 12 years. Been thinking of doing a batch every year at the holidays like the OP.
I homebrewed for about ten years, starting in the mid-80's. Began with extract kits and ended milling and mashing. Even took a trip to Belgium to collect yeast strains. When we bought a house, and then our daughter was born, the time just wasn't there for an all-day brew. I miss everything about it, but I just can't drink that much anymore!
Early on, there was very little commercially made homebrewing equipment, so I built my own. That was a lot of the fun for me. Wort chillers. RIMS system, Sparge water heater.... And homebrewing supplies were a lot less expensive. Once it started to catch on (Thank you, internet and rec.crafts brewing, while the S/N ratio was still reasonable), everything went up in price
Early on, there was very little commercially made homebrewing equipment, so I built my own. That was a lot of the fun for me. Wort chillers. RIMS system, Sparge water heater.... And homebrewing supplies were a lot less expensive. Once it started to catch on (Thank you, internet and rec.crafts brewing, while the S/N ratio was still reasonable), everything went up in price
When I started homebrewing the 90s, the range of beer was not there. Homebrewing was the route to get the styles I desired and for a good value. Now the selection of styles is available at the grocery store. I do miss the process.
I'm debating doing a dry January but that doesn't mean that I can't brew up something. I think with an extended cold snap predicted I'm gonna do a Vienna Lager, use my cold room to sorta properly lager it.
The Christmas Ale was a hit at the family party, by my calculations we drank about two gallons of it. Still have about another three to get through plus the two in the bourbon barrel that I really ought to uncork and see if it's any good or not.
The Christmas Ale was a hit at the family party, by my calculations we drank about two gallons of it. Still have about another three to get through plus the two in the bourbon barrel that I really ought to uncork and see if it's any good or not.
I used to brew a lot until we moved up here 6 years ago. Still have all the equipment but when we downsized to move, all the pint bottles - of which I had a couple of hundred, plus a dozen gallon carboys - I gave away. Over the past month though, Mrs B and I have been drinking a particularly nice beer in flip top bottles and I thought: these are far too nice and useful just to put in the recycling bin (no returnable bottle deposit in UK any more), and so I kept them and will keep on drinking more and keeping those until March, when I think I will make a special brew for next Christmas (I kept all my brewing records). It's based on a pale malt with small amounts of crystal and chocolate malt, hopped with Fuggles and Goldings and spiced with liquorice root, coriander seed, black pepper, allspice, ground ginger, caraway seed, and an orange. Comes out at about 5% ABV with two good mashes. Victorian recipe - happy to share it if anyone cares to try it for themselves.
Today I brewed a smoked Dortmunder Export lager. Dortmunders are a bit more full bodied than your usual German export and I think the oak smoked malt should give it an interesting character. First brew of the Year and it's been going pretty swimmingly.
Doing my annual Christmas Ale today with some cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger and a few pounds of some local Blackberry Blossom honey. Didn't realize I hadn't done much home brewing this year. I gotta fix that.
Well, didn't get around to making that special Christmas brew - it's rather late in the year now, for proper maturation - but since the Farm held an apple pressing weekend 18-19 October, I find that I have acquired about 20 gallons of happily fermenting cider. I didn't know that. I thought I was only lending the containers... so I had better do something about that...
Cider is one of those things that I'd really love to get into. I've been looking up methods for building your own cider press and it seems like its the kind of thing that I could probably knock out in a weekend with minimal cussing and trips back to Home Depot.
This is how we do it on the Farm...
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My wife got her grandfather’s home brew recipe he used to make in a crock back in the day. We bought a kit and made a batch for his 80th birthday party. A good time was had by all. He enjoyed it so much he dug up his antique bottle capper and gave it to my wife.
We started making brown ale and Porter that we enjoyed. With the microbrew explosion in Vermont we could finally get good beer and ale so it wasn’t worth the effort and we drifted away from brewing. When we moved a few years ago we gave the long unused kit away.
We started making brown ale and Porter that we enjoyed. With the microbrew explosion in Vermont we could finally get good beer and ale so it wasn’t worth the effort and we drifted away from brewing. When we moved a few years ago we gave the long unused kit away.
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My first batch was a British Ordinary Bitter made from a kit with canned, pre-hopped liquid malt extract purchased in a Boots Pharmacy in England. This was shortly after Charlie Papazian published The Complete Joy of Homebrewing in 1984. Since then, I have had a couple of periods where I resumed, never succeeding in making truly good beer. I resumed again beginning in about 2017 and have found the homebrewing world utterly remade by the internet and the availability of ingredients and advanced equipment.
Today, 40 years after brewing my first batch, virtually every batch is good and occasionally I brew one that's exceptional. Sadly, homebrewing is on the decline, forcing many local homebrew shops to close.
Today, 40 years after brewing my first batch, virtually every batch is good and occasionally I brew one that's exceptional. Sadly, homebrewing is on the decline, forcing many local homebrew shops to close.
I've played around with fermenting mead and gotten decent results. All the store bought meads I've tried are far too sweet, and I wanted to make a dry or off-dry style. It's more similar to making wine than beer, though. I might try brewing a session mead at some point with a bit of carbonation, more like a beer.
You'll have to let me know if you do, I love a good mead and especially a dryer one. One of my first ferments ever was with some buddies in college when we were all 19 and we got a ridiculous amount of Costco honey and made some from that. I'm sure it wasn't good but for how young and inexperienced we were it turned out fine by my taste.