Homebrew beer

[Bosh]

Does anyone else here make homebrew? Just had the first bottle of my second homebrew (screwed up a few things on my first one) and its ****ing awesome. Honey pale ale made with dried malt extract (don't have the equipment to grain mashes atm) and a whole bunch of honey. Really great smooth taste and no off flavors whatsoever.

Really great hobby to get into and if you don't do the more complicated ****, its ridiculously easy.


Now I have 5 gallons of good beer sitting around

[Fake Boris]

Congratulations !

[DanS]

How long does the beer keep?

[Bosh]

Originally posted by DanS
How long does the beer keep?

Depends on the style, but quite a while. The stuff I just brewed I started less than four weeks ago, apparently it generally peaks after about three months at room temp and it still drinkable quite a bit after that if you keep it out of the light. If you stick it in the fridge, it lasts even longer. Time isn't so much of an issue as light, since light makes beer skunky.

Generally the higher the alcohol content the longer it'll take to be drinkable but the longer it stays drinkable. If you make really strong stuff like barley wine (12%+ alcohol) you won't want to drink it for at least a year but it'll keep for years and years.

[DanS]

Thanks for the info.

Sometimes I'll drink a weisbier import that is a little less than fresh. The beer sometimes sits on the shelf after the long journey from Bavaria. I've always wondered how long is too long.

[VetLegion]

Congrats!

Oerdin tried to make some ...brew..., but his descriptions of the process...

http://www.counterglow.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29486

[DanS]

ITYM, cider. But Oerdin was doing scrumpy rather than cider as we know it here in the States, IIRC.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by DanS
Thanks for the info.

Sometimes I'll drink a weisbier import that is a little less than fresh. The beer sometimes sits on the shelf after the long journey from Bavaria. I've always wondered how long is too long.

Weisbier is one of the beers that's ready the fastest, so I assume its one of the beers that goes bad the fastest as well. Probably excessive heat and the light of being on the shelves does as much to it as time though.

Weisbier is one of the fastest/easiest kinds of beer to brew, I'm going to do some of that next myself by harvesting some Hoegaarten yeast

Right now I have some stuff that's just started that's kind of hard cider but very un-scrumpylike. Its got an extra kilo of sugar (for more alcohol) but nothing besides that the juice and some wine yeast (which should ferment it very dry and make it taste like a white wine with a bit of an apple aftertaste, not much like standard hard cider).

[Ecthy]

Do you grow the yeast on your own? Which ingredients do you produce on your own? What recipes do you use, what tools are necessary to get it done? Homebrewing seems extremely interesting. Spain has shyte beer

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Do you grow the yeast on your own? Which ingredients do you produce on your own? What recipes do you use, what tools are necessary to get it done? Homebrewing seems extremely interesting. Spain has shyte beer

I do it very low tech, mostly because my stove is too crappy to keep the heat high enough to do a real mash. Didn't make anything myself, just bought everything online.

What I did for this beer was basically this:

1. Ordered **** online.
2. Sterilized the **** out of everything with bleach (apparently iodine is better though).
3. Boiled 85 grams hops in water (some for an hour some for 15 minutes some just stuck in the water when the boiling finished to get the right amount of bitterness/flavor/aroma).
4. Mixed in 2 kilos of dried malt extract and about a kilo of honey into the pot.
5. Let things seep for a bit.
6. Poured the pot into a big plastic bucket, straining out the hops.
7. Filled the bucket up to 23ish liters with bottled water (had a water cooler bottle).
8. Put in the yeast, which I'd had in a container of water for half an hour to wake up.
9. Covered the bucket and put an airlock in (easily buyable online).
10. Kept the temp at as close to 20 degrees as possible for three weeks (I put the brew bucket in a big kimchi fermentation bucket, filled it with water and then put ice in the kimchi bucket periodically to keep the temp down.
11. After three weeks I put the beer into bottles with 10 ml of sugar per liter so the yeast can eat the sugar and carbonate the beer and kept the beer in the dark (light is very bad for beer) and at 20 degrees again. Apparently I should keep the beer in bottles for two more weeks before drinking, but its great now.

Pretty idiot-proof, all you have to worry about is temp and bacteria. If you can keep **** clean and manage the temp its pretty hard to go wrong while using dried extract. Serious brewing with grain is much harder, but the **** I made with extract is pretty comparable to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale quality-wise which is good enough for me...

For info try:

https://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

https://www.homebrewtalk.com

There's recipes all over the place. Run them by the people at homebrewtalk.com and avoid liquid extract (and especially the BS instructions on liquid extract cans) if possible.

Also you probably won't be able to brew lagers this time of year, with hot weather I'd recommend a wiezen or a Belgian ale since those do better with higher temps.

[Ecthy]

Are you generally using a low level of language or are we facing erratic censoring?

[Ecthy]

You add extra sugar after brewing to get the carbon dioxide in?

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Are you generally using a low level of language or are we facing erratic censoring?

Just standard low level language

You add extra sugar after brewing to get the carbon dioxide in?

Well you need something at bottling for the yeast to eat or you'll have flat beer. You can use sugar, corn syrup, molassas, wort (unfermented beer), more dried extract, whatever that's got sugar in it. What you use affects the flavor and head a bit, dried extract or wort are probably the best but it doesn't matter THAT much.

[Ecthy]

What is the 2nd step all about?

What precisely is that stuff you bought online?

[Bosh]

For this beer I bought: plastic brew bucket with airlock and spigot, hops, dried extract, plastic bottles and tops. Pretty simple. Had the honey lying around.

The second step is just making sure that everything that the beer will touch is COMPLETELY clean. Bacteria can do bad things to beer.