Weekend Project
When you get to the hard parts, ask me for direction, Cap’n. OINK is a master of the Wine Art/Beer Art format. I have brewed a Stout that’ll knock King Kong on his ass. Instead of “Stout” I refer to it affectionately as Snout.
After you finish fiddling around with this swill
invest in a plastic Carboy, high quality hops, and a specific gravity meter. For bottling, I use large plastic bottles with screw tops. Inelegant, but the taste is not affected and there’s no flying glass if it blows. PROST!
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 10:59 AM
Oinkster: I’m way ahead of you. I also ordered extra: two packets of Willamette hops, and the meter. The kit itself comes with eight one-liter PET plastic bottles with plastic caps. I just placed a second order for a spare keg and a couple of bewing kits to experiment with - Vienna Pilsner and Cowboy Lager. I’m gonna see just how close I can get to making genuine Guiness. Salud!
Every lad needs a hobby.
The hobby producing something drinkable is only a plus.
Excelsior, Skipper! My wife expected my first batch to taste like stagnant pond scum. Ha! In fact, it scaled the heights of mediocrity.
By using quality ingredients & patience, later batches surpassed 99% of commercial beers. The challenge in summer is to find a cool place where it won’t ferment too quickly.
Cleanliness and precise measurement is crucial—cornbread is forgiving, beer ain’t. It’s amazing to think of little Yeasties eating sugar and shitting alcohol.
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 11:40 AM
OINK! Dang it! Your description of the fermentation process, although 100% accurate, leaves something to be desired for the average beer drinker. Yeast shit? Although I do have to admit, it is kinda tasty shit.
Ain’t Nature grand? Everybody ends up eating someone else’s dung!
In fact, the crucial 20% of that stuff we breathe is plant-farts. More accurately, and tastefully, plants and animals inhale what the other exhales. Also, us animals delight in eating their fruit and planting their seeds with a nice fertilize booster. What would we do without each other?
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 12:21 PM
I second Oink’s approach with quality ingredients. You should know Skipper garbage in = garbage out. My brother used to brew out in California. He went the whole hog (sorry Oink)using a temperature controlled boiler to extract the malt and boiling up the “wort” with a blend of hops. The plastic kegs with CO2 injection are worth having too. Go easy on the sugar as well, you don’t want to blow your bottles up. Oink raises a another good point. Summers in the Midwest are a tad on the sticky side. Maybe an Ale or Stout would be a better choice for summer brews.
LBJ: I’ve always had some kind of basement or cellar. It seems extreme to me, but some have bought an extra refridgerator just for fermentation. Yea, measuring additional sugar just before bottling is crucial. That’s one reason why, in the old glass bottle days, I put it in the cellar. I never had a bottle explode.
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 01:27 PM
The kit I got comes with very precise measuring spoons and even a cool weighing scales (the kind OCM uses, if you know what I mean). I’ve got the mixture cooked up and the yeast injected. The barrel is down in the basement (constant 68 degrees F and dark). The measuring spoon for sugar is a cute little plastic doohickey with two measurement sides, one for one liter bottles and one for 16 oz bottles. The kit comes with eight one-liter PET bottles which I sincerely hope don’t asplode when I overdose the sugar a teensy-weensy bit for an added kick - or does that screw things up? Help me out here, gang! I needs some advice. Argh! I do.
Stick as close to the instructions at first. Figure out what’s going on before you “esperiment”.
Usually works for me.
Good, Skipper. I used a primary fermentation container for the first stage, when the mixture takes off like crazy. It was a food grade plastic trashcan with a plastic sheet secured tightly over it. After it quieted down I siphoned the liquid into the secondary fermenter, a carboy with a fermentation lock. If I’d started with the carboy, it would have blown the cap off—or foamed out thru the lock.
I agree with Kerr—stick to the recipe. After fermentation is complete, a small amount of sugar is added just before bottling and storing, to make the beer fizz. Too much and BOOM!—too little, flat beer. I didn’t try to measure sugar for each bottle; I siphoned the liquid into the (clean) trashcan, mixed in the carefully measured total sugar, then siphoned it into each bottle.
If you want a brew that’ll knock you on your ass—make Stout. Mine was as strong as wine.
I found that high quality yeast was an absolute must. Hence the absolute need for cleanliness—keep those wild yeasties OUT.
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 04:12 PM
Good advice, everyone! I’ll go by the book on the first batch. I also just placed an order for three containers of premium liquid yeast (for the next batch).
Question: the manual says I can vary the alcohol content by varying the sugar. Are they referring to the maltodextrin that is mixed with the gooey stuff and water at the beginning or the sugar that is added when it is bottled? I don’t want to have bottles asplode all over my basement!
Certainly not the the sugar in the bottle. Even if the bottle is strong enough to contain the pressure, you’d need to squeegee your ceiling after opening one.
There was a joke about two old Canucks who made a raisin wine with the above qualities. After the fourth bottle blew or spewed as they tried to uncork it, one said, “By Jiminey, this’ll be a helluva wine if ever get it to settle down, EH?”
Posted by Oink
01/21/2006 at 06:05 PM
Yo, Skipper! Ya say the big bash is in two weeks? I’ll check my schedule............hey, whadaya know, I’m free!
God, Skipper, I need a drink....
Skipper I also agree with Stin and Oink, stick to the recipe for now. Increasing the alcohol content by adding sugar only works up to about the 10-12% level, beyond that the yeast poison themselves (check Oinks colourful but accurate explanation above)To be honest “Barley wine” as it’s called in Britain makes me gag, too syrupy. One of the techniques they use to concentrate the alcohol is freezing and removing the water. Alternatively you could make a still!! On seconds thought stick to the 5% level and you won’t go wrong. Don’t want the BATF breaking your door down to confiscate that illicit still!
What!! Wait TWO WEEKS to have a beer!? Thats just crazy talk.
01/21/2006 at 12:41 PM
