Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

I’ve been brewing indoors on a gas stove and it takes forever to get 10 gallons to a boil. I bought an outdoor propane burner and haven’t taken it for a spin yet. How long does a propane tank usually last you?

So my friend has some vineyards and this is the part of the year.

We picked about 600 l of white grapes, 100l of red and about 50l of some sweeter white variety. He will have another group to pick the rest of it (about the same amount).

If you think that this is too much for homebrewing, it isn't. There is legal to make up to 2000l of it per year and lots of people make it to that limit.

If someone have good pick sharing site I can link few images I managed to take.

Opened my first bottle of hibiscus mead. I think it needs longer to carbonate, or I might have not added enough carbonation sugar. Probably both.

It is pretty drinkable. This is reassuring given it was made using the cheapest available honey and is well under a month old. Voss Kveik yeast and good nutrients do wonders!

Definitely needs some refinement when it comes to sweeteners and acids. This was my first time using acids to balance a mead and I think I should have chosen citric acid or malic acid instead of tartaric acid.

Front Left - Orange & Mango cordial Front Right - Ginger beer from cordial Left Rear - Stawberry Jam Wine Right Rear - Cyser Bochet

Using the Bray Denard methodology for the bochet minus GoFerm (didn't have any at the time). Using Voss Kveik yeast from LalBrew for the bochet and the jam wine.

The two from cordial are using EC-1118 primarily because I had it lying around not being used. They also have added sugar - brown for ginger beer, white for orange & mango.

I will be interested to see how the orange and mango goes for two reasons: It had preservatives that normally prevent fermentation, and you don't normally use orange juice to ferment.

TLDW: Their mandarin orange wine was a bit too bitter. Testing, unscientifically, if they can tell a difference. They can. They think it lowers the bitterness.

Interesting. I'm mainly a beer brewer (only my first cider recently) so I've not had a brew that's "too bitter", as with beer you WANT them to be bitter, usually. I've heard to add a pinch of salt to a pot of coffee.

Has anyone made any This is the time of year for it

Hello fellow brewers. Here I go, once again, with my favorite show: Rate My Beer Recipe. BS apart, I'd love to here your insights in the following. It's supposed to be a realy simple, straight forward American IPA. No shenanigans, no fancy practices, no need to reinvent the wheel.

64.5% Pale Malt. 24% Pilsen Malt. 8% Wheat Malt (protein to help foam). 3% Special B Malt (color correction).

43 IBU Cascade First Worth 11 IBU Willamatte boiling for 10 minutes 1g/L Cascade in the flame out 3g/L Willamatte and 3g/L Cascade DH for 5 days.

60 minute mash, 30 minutes boiling. PH correction for mash in (~5.5) PH correction sparge water (~5.5) Neutral Water profile.

Fermenting with US-05, starting 15°c and letting it go up until 18°c. Once done, gonna diacetil rest it around 22°c for 5 days (DH time), cold crash for more 5 days and throw to postmix.

What you guys think about it?

We semi-recently got a corker which has let us move a bunch of our meads out of carboys and into bottles (and then boxes). It's extremely fun to be able to pull out a corked, labled bottle of mead at a gathering, just an extra bit of pizazz.

Details of the labels.

Burnt Honey: A bochet that's absolutely delicious, but a bit too sweet to drink a lot of. The yeast simply gave up partway through the fermentation (I assume due to the hilariously high SG) and rather than restart it we decided to lave it as is.

The Hard Way: Elderberry + Blueberry mead, nicely aged, lightly backsweetened, balanced with a bit of acid. Tastes shockingly similar to cranberry juice. Hence the name, a bunch of effort and a year of time to create something that you could get a similar end point to with cranberry juice and vodka. Still super nice to drink.

Summer Lovin': Fast turnaround mead made with fermenting juiced strawberries with the honey, then filtering immediately after primary, and backsweetening/flavoring with "oleo saccharum" and some citric acid. Extremely tasty, excellent summer drink, we liked it so much we've made two batches of it. Best part is that total time from start to bottle is under a month.

All of these were filtered using plate filters down to the "semi-filtration" level, which appears to be enough to stabilize them for back sweetening! My theory is that although the "semi-filtration" of about half a micron can't promise it removes all bacteria, yeast tends to be significantly larger and is removed without issue. At the very least we've had no bottle bombs yet.

To explain why there's a bee in a garbage can, "Garbo" was a combined last name me and my wife were throwing around as a possibility when we were getting married. The name was veto'ed, but we kept it as our "meadery" name, and since it brought to mind a little Garbage Bee that's what I doodled as our logo. It stuck as a theme after that.

Hey, folks.

So, we're up to 1.6k subscribers now (yay!). Thank you to everyone for making this possible!

So, it's probably time to add a couple more moderators.

We seem to be a pretty chill bunch so far, so do reach out if this is something that you're interested in.

What liquid do people use for their airlocks?

I have been using water for a while but have recently seen people who think this isn't best practice and is likely to get infected.

I have also found out that the sanitizer I use breaks down over time so likely wouldn't be suitable. I have taken to using dish soap for now but don't know if there is a problem with this practice.

I am currently avoiding vodka because of the alcohol duty in my country.

About the event:

Explore over 30 delicious beers brewed by some of NYC's best homebrewers inspired by nature's bountiful harvest! Beers will be separated into 8 categories: oats, wheat, corn, rye, fruit, vegetables/herb/spice, sugars, and miscellaneous grain. Your entry fee gets you a souvenir glass and unlimited samples of homebrew for the duration of the event! The event will take place on Saturday, October 14th from 1-5PM at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Building 77.

I normally don't drink beer or ale because I find it too bitter. I have no problems with malt though (I actually think it's pretty interesting). Would I be correct in thinking that unhopped beer is less bitter?

Also does anyone have any advice for brewing my first ale? I have made fruit wine, mead, and cider before but never beer. I have some kveik yeast and spray malt from other brews that I can use so I am thinking of using that. The closest I have gotten to brewing ale or beer is making bochet braggot so any help is appreciated.

Ok, so I was interested in trying my hand at a sour beer and have also been trying to reduce my alcohol intake. I have been drinking a lot of brewdog's AF beers when at home.

I decided to do a kettle sour with hibiscus flowers as the flavoring instead of fruit. I'm doing a minimal berlinerweisse for the malt.

I aimed for 5gal (20l) in the fermenter. I used a 110v brewzilla.

Here is my bill:

• 3lb 2row
• 2lbs wheat malt
• 16oz good belly mango-flavor probiotic drink
• 7ml lactic acid
• 3oz dry hibiscus flower in boil (5min)
• Safale 05 dry yeast
• No hops

Steps:

• Heat 5gal water to 168°F
• Mash in, hold at 168 x 1hr
• Drain the grains
• cool to 90°F
• Add lactic acid to get pH to 4.5
• Add good belly, cover with plastic
• Set temp to 85°F and wait
• When pH reaches 3.2 - 3.4, bring to boil for 10min
• Add hibiscus, boil for 5min
• Cool to 80°F, rack to sterilized fermenter, pitch yeast.

SG 1.026

Lessons learned: Boiling soured wort in the house makes the house stink. The wife was not impressed.

Pitching yeast at higher temps than 100°F kills the yeast.

Morebeer takes 4 days to ship a simple packet of yeast from one state to the next.

Beer is currently happily fermenting at 65°F. I'm going to float another couple of oz of hibiscus as a "dry hop" in a couple days. I'll attempt to update this post with FG and tasting notes when complete. I hope to end at 1.010. That'll put it around 2%.

I thought I would ask some questions.

Who uses nutrients? What do you use them in and which ones do you use?

There seems to be lots of ways to use nutrients in things like mead, wine, and even cider. Many people even debate whether and when they are actually needed especially in the mead space.

I've even been blocked before for suggesting SNA (Staggered Nutrient Addition) is unnecessary or elitist even though it's a recent invention.

I bottle all my beer, and I get them by de-labeling stuff I buy. However, I tend to forget what state they’re in so I designed and 3d printed my own label holder with slide in labels. Cardboard boxes hold bottles well, but they’re not see thru. Now I know! STL: https://www.printables.com/model/562504-hanging-sign-clips

So this morning at 5 am when I was leaving to work I had this conversation with my dad:

D:"So when will you drink the KEG? I need it empty."

Me:"But it is your beer"

D: " ... "

Me: " Nevermind, bye "

Has anyone added an electric igniter to their gas burner, to start or restart by button press their burner? Bolt it to the side, so the igniter is just under where the flame is, and the button is on the leg of the burner. Something like this MENSI Double Ignition kit Electronic igniter with high Spark Plug Wire Length 450mm Each for Catering euqipment Stove https://a.co/d/aPxAqWn

Getting the water hot and trying the Weiss from two weeks ago (needs a little more carbonation)

New batch today, limited time, so making a partial mash stout, here's the grains

Hi folks, I'm looking for a recommendation of a beer similar to Big Bangin IPA.

The beer is 7.2% and I'm looking for anything between 5% and 7.2%.

Maris otter malt. Columbus, Simcoe and mosaic hops.

Ideally I would just like a kit that could make something with similar flavours.

Thanks!!

Correction: Big Bangin is 7.1%

I wouldn't call that a 'modern' home brew. There are a few issues from a quick view:

• Sanitize everything
• take OG readings
• Don't use wood. Stainless or plastic are better *<=edit for clarity *
• Sanitize everything
• stagger the nutrients if you can
• 4 days on the fruit may not enough
• take SG readings
• use a syphon
• Sanitize everything
• don't use muslin
• vodka is better than water in the airlock
• take FG readings
• use an auto-syphon - don't put your dirty lips all over the syphon
• Sanitize everything

One last point that I didn't mention above but is very important, Sanitize Everything

PS I make meads and one of my favorite is a Feijoa mead

Made in a 5L demijohn.

Ingredients:

• 3x Seedless Raspberry Jam 420g
• Lalvin EC-1118 yeast
• Pectinase enzyme
• Fermaid-O 10g

I believe now that this is more nutrients than necessary.

I have made other beverages before but never a fruit wine!

I might need a help with my first cider brew. I've made wine in past it was all based on natural yeast, had my recipe that contained water with whatever berries I was making it.

I tried making cider, put 4 liters of apple juice from market (natural juice, but still, packed), 1.5l redcurrant berries (frozen, blended, fermented in a bag) and 2 liters of water. I added yeast and everything it needed, 6 days have passed now, hidrometer is very close to 0 and while it tastes ok, I think it tastes quite watered. I plan to sweeten it a bit (still, dry or semi dry) but have no idea how to make it more saturated (taste wise).

Is there anything I can do, especially at this stage?