Home Brewing

[twangthang]

Been brewing for years... Great hobby!

Just opened an American Rye that is going to go waaay to fast.

@Jamarel the best advice I can give to a new brewer is keep it simple...

If you are having troubles with temp I might reccomend putting your fermenter in a small tub of water and covering the parts not

submered with damp towels. Rewet them daily. The evaporation will keep tje wort cool.

You want to keep your fermenting beer at or below the reccomended temp to keep any off flavors from developing.

 

[gwynclan]

Just found some 55gallon food grade fermenters. Will be brewing major batch this weekend. Spiced winter ale.

 

[gnatjulio]

Oh my god!!! You're brewing 50 gallons??? Niiice. I'm about to try a partial mash since I haven't finished my cooler mash tun.

 

[gwynclan]

Three half barrles and two Cajun cookers. I use a sleeping bag to wrap my mash tun in winter. Got about 400 gallons run through it.

 

[spartan]

I'm tryin my hand at making some hard cider here in the next few days. I have a timeline of about 2 months.

I wanted to get this ready for "Festivus" and kind of fell behind here.
From my poor ingredients it looks like it will be more along the lines of a poor man's cider and nothing mind blowingly great. My father has a great deal of experience brewing, but very little in the realm of cider. Process is ultimately the same.
I will post some pics of the equipment, supplies, process, etc. soon. Should be fun.
I just want it to be drinkable, nothing fancy. ::

 

[joshwolftree]

I have a great recipe for fast drinkable hard cider

a glass gallon jug of McCutcheons apple cider

two cinnamon sticks

a few cloves

some nutmeg (preferably whole because it's easier to filter when your done)

3 lbs honey (one of the larger bear shaped jars at your local wal-mart)

a number seven bung with airlock(or if you wanna go completely redneck a party balloon with a pinhole in it)

1 packet of champagne yeast

Takes about a month of brew time to get to a respectable 12%

and it's a kind of apple pie flavor instead of just straight apple

 

[spartan]

I'll try that receipe next time after I enevitably screw this one up.

 

[joshwolftree]

it was my first fruit mead a harvest cyser. picked it specifically because it looked like one I couldn't screw up even if I was impatient about it (I usually am impatient)

 

[spartan]

I'm in a little apartment atm and am a little concerned with all the possible smells coming out with the co2.
Is my humble abode going to be smelling like apple bread for 2 months? lol
It's not a bad thing in my eyes. But I might get some flak for it by SWMBO.

 

[brewshooter]

Well, it may smell like rotten eggs for a few days actually, depends on how the yeast are feeling...enjoy!!! :P

 

[joshwolftree]

I generally don't smell it unless I'm in the room with it And since the jug goes on a shelf in a pantry...

 

[peteross]

The smell clears out fast when you're done

 

[spartan]

Well the Cider is bubbling like no tomorrow. Will have some pics up in a few hours. This is my first time brewing anything and it's a bit exciting.
It's been bubbling CO2 for about 30 hours now, and I haven't noticed any smell. I'll wait til it slows down almost to a stop and do a secondary fermentation to "clear up". Not sure if that even applies to apple cider. but we will see if it does.
::

 

[jameral]

I hope your cider turns out well, Spartan! Tomorrow I'll be opening my first bottle of beer that I brewed. I'm planning on making some cider myself this weekend and possibly give making mead a shot as well.

 

[spartan]

Ok so here was my recipe:
4 Gallons 100% Apple Juice

2 Packets Champagne Yeast

1 Pound Corn Sugar

--------------------------

Total cost for ingredients = $15-$20 (including sanitizer solution)

Equipment costs will be higher, but are reusable.

Put it all in the glass bottle... shaky shaky for 10 min.

Overnight it starts to bubble.

And this lil guy goes nuts with the bubbles!

See ya when it stops bubbling. I know this recipe isn't perfect, I used questionable apple juice... probably way too much sugar...and maybe too much yeast.... and you know why?
Cuz F**k it, that's why.
Happy Smoking Fellas.

 

[mluyckx]

I know I've been on-again / off-again lately, so just to let you guys know what I've been up to.
Going to pick up the frame over the weekend. Working on the RIMS heater, then add an L-Valve on the left pump, add some QD hoses, control panel, etc... and then a fermentation chamber. Hopefully should be ready to start making larger batches in another month or so.

 

[spartan]

Very nice.
My cider turned out more like an apple wine that I didn't like. Looking back at my receipe now I'm not surprized lol.
I ended up freezing 3/4's of the batch, extracting the unfrozen alcohol/cider until all was left was a giant block of ice inside the container. I put that "applejack" into a few glass containers and added some apple juice concentrate to get it to ferment again inside the bottle to give it some carbonation.
Turned out to be a pretty nice drink to sip. Bubbly hard apple cider. My friends drank most of it at a New Year's party I brought it to.
Only have 1.75 Liters left of it. Gonna let it sit in the dark for a few more months...years. See what happends.
On to the next project!
Joshwolftree....I'm taking that reciepe next. ::

 

[brewshooter]

Looking good Mick!

 

[terry]

Looks like fun. ::

 

[jorchamp]

I've brewed beer several times. Wanted to try adding watermelon to the mix. During the first fermentation or during the second fermentation. Also straight watermelon water or with pulp (removed before bottling)?