the homebrew blogtrain

khoomeizhi · July 17, 2015, 08:49:44 PM

nah, i've done some nettles mead, but that looks straightforward enough. should work with your ale yeasts and whathaveyou.

seems like you could do a 'real' (grain-based) beer with nettles tea used for the whaddayacallit, sparging? if you wanted to instead. it's fun to do new experiments, though. either way it would be one.

like - have i mentioned those chinese yeast balls before? they're a dry little chunk that's got both a bacterial culture and a yeast culture, so the bacteria eats starches and turns them to sugars, and the yeast turns those into alcohols - basically the same thing the chinese peasantry use to make rice 'beer' or even just alcoholic rice to eat...anyway, i'm doing an experiment right now with those with unripe plantain - just steamed, mashed and yeast-balled.

the shit is weird, i think that's the only update right now.

MadJohnShaft · July 17, 2015, 09:00:46 PM

kombucha Has got everyone's attention - something like that?

I made two rounds of apple juice from the neighbors tree and will get maybe 2.5 gallons total.

Notes:
#16 7/17/15 hard cider from apples!
Two full 10 gallon buckets of apples from the neighbors yard
Chopped and Boiled outside until apple sauce, put in brew in bag, hung off chair.
Tons of apples round one came out very sweet
Handful of sweet cherries handful of sour cherries in round two - amazing!
2 cups of brown sugar, clove, cinnamon,
Water nutrients and 2 big tablespoons of yeast nutrients
Sarfare s-05 yeast red package nice and foamy
Put In carboy step back for the love
Yes!

Sauce

Yes

khoomeizhi · July 18, 2015, 07:55:29 AM

Quote from: MadJohnShaft on July 17, 2015, 09:00:46 PM
kombucha Has got everyone's attention - something like that?

only something like that in the loosest possible way.

MadJohnShaft · July 19, 2015, 10:13:53 PM

That carboy of apple juice from the neighbors apples blew it's airlock - it was sitting on the floor - luckily I had wrapped it in a wet towel so all the blow off was easily cleaned up. Yea!

Came out insanely dry, whoops, I added two glasses cider and it sweetened up nicely though.

MadJohnShaft · September 25, 2015, 07:57:13 AM

I'm on brew number 19 since I took it up again, with all since #7 being all grain. Since #11 ive been pulling an extra couple gallons of wort to do a secondary small brew each time as well.

I've dialed in my brewing process and am ready for kicking it up to the next level with recipes, water adjuncts and hops/yeast.

There's a new book out by the Brulosophy camp that I am enjoying much.

http://www.amazon.com/Experimental-Homebrewing-Breaking-Rules-Great-ebook/dp/B00O1ACYKY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Once I jettisoned a lot of the conventional wisdom I am finding brew days way more fun.

khoomeizhi · September 29, 2015, 11:05:04 PM

nice. it's good when you get comfortable enough with your process that you can play more.

starting my 37th and 38th batches of mead in about a week - a kousa dogwood one and a mugwort acerglyn (honey + maple syrup). it's wild persimmon season so it's really easy to start wild ferments.

khoomeizhi · October 05, 2015, 04:58:14 AM

MadJohnShaft · October 11, 2015, 08:11:52 AM

I put this elsewhere - I found tons of hops are growing on a fence by work, I harvested three rounds. I just kegged the beer I made with these. Seems strong and bitter like cascade.

khoomeizhi · November 12, 2015, 08:48:47 PM

more weird shit: among a number of other meads i've started lately, i decided to start an onion mead - take 2. the first batch was a couple years ago and i recently gave the last bottle of it away to some friends who got married. once done and clear, it's actually surprisingly and pleasantly drinkable - especially if you don't smell it first. got it in open fermentation (giant jar) right now and wow, is that a fucking weird smell. about 2 days in, still more sweet than funky.

also started the second round (6 gallons this time) of rooibos-mugwort mead. the last couple days it was pushing faster through the airlock than anything i've seen. like the bubbles were tripping over each other trying to get out. it's slowed down a bit now.

still spawning wild yeast colonies with wild persimmons, after a late-october resupply.

MadJohnShaft · December 03, 2015, 08:01:06 AM

Well, after my inaugural year of making three batches of hard cider with the neighbors apples - they cut the tree down! They took down the cherry tree too. Stupid old people.

khoomeizhi · December 03, 2015, 04:26:57 PM

that's old people for you. had you offered them some of the cider?

MadJohnShaft · December 05, 2015, 02:34:43 PM

We don't drink

Brewing today, did the boiling outside, rest inside. Worked okay. Another one to do tomorrow.

I did a re-brew of a Bavarian Hefweizen I made previously- it blew it's airlock and it looks perfect. The other one was a simple Amber Ale to use up some hops and extra ingredients.

Yes!

I have a Schwartz brew on tap and the last of that homemade cider. The third tap has a 2 gallon run-off from the end of my brewing of previous Pale Ale - I put a slug of some saison yeast I had saved - it's pretty fucking awful.

I have second one of those run-off brews of the Schwartz beer with a slug of saved heady-topper yeast and a lot of those hops from work I found growing on the fence.

So I got 2 five gallon batches fermenting now.

khoomeizhi · December 28, 2015, 07:37:44 PM

during the calendar year 2015:

i started 11 batches/16 gallons of mead or similar
and bottled 10.2 batches/17 gallons of mead or similar - for a total of 74 corked 750mL bottles for longer storage.

i've been trying to start one batch per month, and that got totally mucked up with all the shit leading up to and following buying our house in april, but i almost pulled it off on average in the end. numbers!

Beta Cloud · December 29, 2015, 02:18:18 AM

finally got a batch of cyser together.
3lbs honey, 5gallons apple cider.
cooper's and nottingham ale yeast.

yeast.

juice n' honey.

awww yeah, that's the stuff.

see ya' in a few weeks.

khoomeizhi · December 30, 2015, 06:52:17 AM

you get that from a recipe? just wondering - seems a little light on honey compared with most cysers. i guess you're going for a less-aging-needed session-type thing?

MadJohnShaft · December 30, 2015, 05:34:29 PM

How was the ale yeast? I used 3 different champagne/wine Yeats in the 3 ciders I made this summer.

I timed it out and have Schwatrtzbier, American Ale and a Hefweizen on tap for NYE.

khoomeizhi · December 30, 2015, 09:31:46 PM

yeah, we'll open something that's at least a year-and-a-half or a couple years old. got a wine rack for christ-mass, so now shit's all accessible.

khoomeizhi · January 01, 2016, 06:27:55 PM

Quote from: khoomeizhi on July 17, 2014, 06:00:47 PM
just bottled a gallon batch of se chung (chinese roasted oolong tea) mead.

i love cryptic labeling.

we ended up opening one of these nye. strangely 'rich'. roasty, a little sour.

khoomeizhi · January 05, 2016, 05:33:33 PM

wild yeast, bitches! roll the dice!

Beta Cloud · January 06, 2016, 11:43:47 PM

ok, this shit is for real.

mountain dew, champagne yeast, airlock, glass bottle. boom.

letcha' know how it turns out.

MadJohnShaft · January 12, 2016, 10:17:15 AM

I have an all grain Munich Helles to brew but I hurt my shoulder and can't lift stuff for a while, plus it's windy and single digits outside.

I should do a small batch ferment of something, probably not Mnt Dew though ;0

Edit: I made homemade root beer! If I like it I'll try something else, like ginger ale.

http://www.hiresbigh.com/homemade-rootbeer-recipe

Beta Cloud · January 15, 2016, 11:45:48 AM

Quote from: khoomeizhi on December 30, 2015, 06:52:17 AM
you get that from a recipe? just wondering - seems a little light on honey compared with most cysers. i guess you're going for a less-aging-needed session-type thing?

done it a ton of times, usually comes out to be 6-7abv,
not a wine burn and nice and dry. sometimes i backsweeten for the lady-

khoomeizhi · January 15, 2016, 05:29:51 PM

ah, gotcha. all the cysers i've made have been around 11-14%: wineville. but that's the range i do most of my stuff in.

we're gonna be planting out the orchard at the new farm this spring, with a number of things cider/cyserable. i'm gonna fuck some shit up with the ugly/unsaleable shit - was also pondering pressing and cooking cider down to higher concentrations for brewing...with cull asian pears? fuck yes.

eh, just give me like...six years. starting from scratch here. but then it's on.

Beta Cloud · February 14, 2016, 05:24:16 PM

all strained into secondary, (left to right)=
ale yeast cyser, 5 gallons. chamomile flower and vanilla bean mead, 1 gallon. raspberry cider w/cider yeast 1 gallon.

all came out great so far, aging will only make them better. may need to back sweeten the raspberry cider though.

MadJohnShaft · February 15, 2016, 08:52:38 AM

Do you pasteurize it after the back sweetening? I keg so I have no exploding bottles so I can leave it in the fridge or kegerator cold.

The root beer is really great.

Should be able to try the ginger ale today, I started light on the sugar and kept adding sugar (and more ginger) until it seemed about right. I boiled water first, let it drop to 180 then added ginger and citrus with the thought I wanted to sterilize but not boil. The citrus seemed a bit bitter so I fished out the rinds early. It's in a keg carbonating now.

Still got a case of that bad mead I made, I have a few I flavored in the bottle with raspberries or cinnamon sticks. They have an inch of easily disturbed trub on the bottom. I should crack one and see where we are at. I will never use crappy grocery store honey again, next time small batch with decent honey.