I reckon we need a home-brew thread. I know a few here make their own. Lets see some recipes.
Currently I'm having the odd stout. 7 months old now.
1 can coopers stout
500g powdered dark malt.
2 cups of plunger coffee.
230g sugar for bulk bottle/stubbie carbonation.
Mate...you could nearly paint the fence with that!!
Mine is
1x coopers pale ale
300g raw sugar
Approx 5g (per stubbie) raw sugar for carbonation.
Leave for 6 days to ferment
For SWMBO...
1X black rock cider
750g dextrose (brigalow from woolies/coles)
1litre apple juice
Approx 5g raw sugar (stubbie) for carbonation
leave for 8 days to ferment .
cheers ....Bilbo
Cupie said
09:04 AM Jan 4, 2021
They seem like strange recipes to me.
Don't you add extra water?
Or is that a given?
Way back in the 1960's I wrote a booklet on home brewing. It accompanied the other one on cultivating canabis. Unfortunately I have no copies of either.
rgren2 said
10:10 AM Jan 4, 2021
I make spiced rum, does that count?
oldbloke said
02:04 PM Jan 4, 2021
The water is s given.
Sarco Harris said
08:54 PM Jan 5, 2021
Personally, I think that if you need to brew your own, be it spirits, beer or cider, you possibly drink too much.
My late brother brewed his own beer, but bought a still and also made his own scotch and brandy.
That being said, I am by no means a wowser or a teatotaller, but he would have a substantial go at a bottle of scotch a night, and his wife a bottle of brandy.
I would humour him on a visit (as he lived in Woolongong and I in Melb, not often) and have a couple of stubbies of his beer (which was only just OK IMHO).
Mind he died from melanoma (2001) and his wife from breast cancer (2017) at 51/69 respectively.
BarneyBDB said
09:04 PM Jan 5, 2021
rgren2 wrote:
I make spiced rum, does that count?
Works for me, just need to do some plumbing to the shed and I will be making my own Bourbon. What method are you using for the rum?
rgren2 said
06:41 AM Jan 6, 2021
Just use the standard stilling process. I then mix cloves and cinnamon bark in a batch to infuse (makes it go a nice golden/red colour), I use two essences in the main mix, a coral sea rum and a Samuel Willard rum, then combine the both 50/50.
bilbo said
10:53 AM Jan 6, 2021
Heil,
Do you have any probs with brews that are still fermenting (green/in the fermenter) WHILST travelling??
cheers Bilbo
oldbloke said
01:16 PM Jan 6, 2021
No mate. I only brew at home. Not full time.
Neil
Cupie said
03:53 PM Jan 6, 2021
My funniest (funny for some that is) home brew story relates to a batch in my early brewing days.
It seems that I bottled it too green or put too much sugar into the secondary fermentation process.
My brother had just returned from a Vietnam tour and was sleeping in our guest room.
In the early hours of the morning there was a succession of explosions & he took off, literally walking on water (or perhaps beer & broken glass) and by the time I stumbled out of bed he was out in the back yard crouched, dazed and wild eyed, behind a raised garden bed.
Yep.. I had stored the brew under his bed & as one bottle blew it set off the one next to it until the whole box had exploded.. What a mess it made & he never stayed at our place again.
Craig1 said
04:06 PM Jan 6, 2021
Geez Cupie, wish I had known that when M I L was still around
oldbloke said
01:38 AM Jan 7, 2021
Cupie wrote:
My funniest (funny for some that is) home brew story relates to a batch in my early brewing days.
It seems that I bottled it too green or put too much sugar into the secondary fermentation process.
My brother had just returned from a Vietnam tour and was sleeping in our guest room.
In the early hours of the morning there was a succession of explosions & he took off, literally walking on water (or perhaps beer & broken glass) and by the time I stumbled out of bed he was out in the back yard crouched, dazed and wild eyed, behind a raised garden bed.
Yep.. I had stored the brew under his bed & as one bottle blew it set off the one next to it until the whole box had exploded.. What a mess it made & he never stayed at our place again.
Only ever had that happen once. A lively stout stored in the loft of a steel garage. About 15 went off on a 40c day. What made it worse was after 3 or 4 I decided to spray them with water to cool them off. Then the rest exploded. You live and learn.
oldbloke said
09:28 PM Jan 7, 2021
bilbo wrote:
Heil,
Do you have any probs with brews that are still fermenting (green/in the fermenter) WHILST travelling??
cheers Bilbo
What's your set up to brew on the move?
Santa said
07:00 AM Jan 8, 2021
I have an artist friend who used to travel the NT with a fermenter of home brew sitting on his caravan draw bar, yep, it was alcoholic, its only redeeming feature, worst beer I've ever tasted.
bilbo said
12:07 PM Jan 8, 2021
What's your set up to brew on the move?
I.m not on the move yet.
Plan was to put a brew down and stay 4weeks in that spot........i for fermentation plus 3.
cheers Bilbo
Rob Driver said
02:27 PM Jan 8, 2021
Hi guys,
I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road.
I have just spoken to him on the phone and what he used to do was ferment the beer for generally about five days and then plan travel to stop and let the ferment finish and settle in the fermenter for a few days.
He would then use finings which is a clearing agent to help the sediment settle out and then bottle the beer in brown plastic pet bottles.
He said apart from them being lighter to carry he could buy a special cap that fitted onto the bottle and he could carbonate the beer with a soda stream bottle.
After a while he found the soda stream bottle to be a bit expensive so he bought a small 2.5 kg bottle of C02 which was economical and lasted quite a few brews. He still used a C02 regulator.
This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away.
This description is very basic but he said he could go into more detail if anyone was interested.
From my husbands point of view and with many others, they all said his beer was quite good. From memory he had some good recipes as well. He has been brewing for many years and when he was at home he had quite a detailed array of equipment.
Regards
Angie
oldbloke said
05:20 PM Jan 8, 2021
Thanks Angie. A different way of doing things.
bilbo said
02:12 PM Jan 9, 2021
Angie said
"I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road."
Not at all.....
This next part however doesnt sound right...
"This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away."
After a week ??,,,,(depending on climate/temperature) in a fermenter the beer would still be green and taste like ?hit...........if he left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks that process might be possible.....ie fermentation would be complete and the CO2 would give carbonation.
Would you mind clarifying that with him next time you talk to him.
cheers Bilbo
Whenarewethere said
03:02 PM Jan 9, 2021
I have never done any brewing.
When one bottle explodes, & then the next explodes & so on. Is that simply from the physical force?
If it is could you place each bottle in a shield, some aluminium tube 80mm OD X 2mm wall thickness, bolted in a grid to increase mass, to stop each bottle's shrapnel hitting the next.
Just a thought.
101.6 x 1.6mm for larger bottles.
-- Edited by Whenarewethere on Saturday 9th of January 2021 03:04:23 PM
oldbloke said
03:14 PM Jan 9, 2021
If they are exploding you screwed up.
Bottled too early before fermentation has been completed in the barrel is the common mistake.
If staced together u can get a chain reaction because usually all the bottles have too much pressure.
Haji-Baba said
11:04 PM Jan 10, 2021
When I as a boy of about 9 my parents were working on a property for an old german farmer on the southern downs in Qld.
There was a very big orchard surrounding the main homestead with every fruit and berry imagineable.
The old farmer made his own tobacco, wine, honey mead and beer from produce on the property.
On one occassion a wooden keg of about 10 gallons of honey mead blew up in the brewery and froth and
bubble and beer extended out from the doorway for 20 feet and 10 feet deep.
I am not sure what else blew up but we kids kept well away from the brewery after that.
Have fun Haji-Baba
Rob Driver said
01:18 PM Jan 11, 2021
bilbo wrote:
Angie said
"I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road."
Not at all.....
This next part however doesnt sound right...
"This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away."
After a week ??,,,,(depending on climate/temperature) in a fermenter the beer would still be green and taste like ?hit...........if he left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks that process might be possible.....ie fermentation would be complete and the CO2 would give carbonation.
Would you mind clarifying that with him next time you talk to him.
cheers Bilbo
Hi Bilbo,
I have been trying to convince him to come onto the forum but he doesnt want to at this stage.
I read to him your quote above and his reply was that many home brewers have little to no understanding of yeast health in brewing.
As he pointed out the big breweries dont wait three weeks or more for fermentation to complete but rather have a time frame of a few days. This time frame is difficult on the home brew scene due to a couple of conditions.
He claims, yeast health, oxygen into the wort or beer when pitching yeast, fermentation temperature, and the amount of yeast being pitched being to small or not having enough healthy cells. Most home brewers rely on a little packet of yeast under the lid of a tin of goo and this quantity is not enough for a healthy fermentation. He says, yes, it will ferment the beer but the fermentation will not be healthy. There are apparently not enough yeast cells in a 5 gramm packet of yeast for a 21 litre brew at average alcohol of 4.5%
He says what is happening is that the yeast when pitched into the beer has to start multiplying cells to ferment the brew and this is where those off flavour you get, comes from. He also said that temperature control is important for reducing off flavours in beer as if the fermentation gets too cold the yeast stops and the unknowing brewer bottles the beer and this is one reason how the bottles explode.
Both he and I agree that this repeating what he is telling me and posting it on a forum is difficult so he suggests if you want to make great beer start off by doing some research on the internet.
He suggested you might start with this link on yeast health.
He did ask me to add that brewing while on the road is quite challenging when trying to achieve a good result.
Regards
Angie
bilbo said
12:31 PM Jan 12, 2021
Hi Angie,
Thanks for that response.
What your brother says appears to make a lot of sense.
20 years ago "a mate" told how to............and I haven't changed anything since....ie it is what I refer to as "idiot proof". I understand temp plays a significant part during fermentation but that is not an issue for 9 months of the year in the Top End.
I will check his link ......and maybe see if Coopers have a forum for home brewers.
I reckon we need a home-brew thread. I know a few here make their own. Lets see some recipes.
Currently I'm having the odd stout. 7 months old now.
1 can coopers stout
500g powdered dark malt.
2 cups of plunger coffee.
230g sugar for bulk bottle/stubbie carbonation.
-- Edited by oldbloke on Saturday 2nd of January 2021 11:02:47 AM
I reckon we need a home-brew thread. I know a few here make their own. Lets see some recipes.
Currently I'm having the odd stout. 7 months old now.
1 can coopers stout
500g powdered dark malt.
2 cups of plunger coffee.
230g sugar for bulk bottle/stubbie carbonation.
Mate...you could nearly paint the fence with that!!
Mine is
1x coopers pale ale
300g raw sugar
Approx 5g (per stubbie) raw sugar for carbonation.
Leave for 6 days to ferment
For SWMBO...
1X black rock cider
750g dextrose (brigalow from woolies/coles)
1litre apple juice
Approx 5g raw sugar (stubbie) for carbonation
leave for 8 days to ferment .
cheers ....Bilbo
They seem like strange recipes to me.
Don't you add extra water?
Or is that a given?
Way back in the 1960's I wrote a booklet on home brewing. It accompanied the other one on cultivating canabis. Unfortunately I have no copies of either.
My late brother brewed his own beer, but bought a still and also made his own scotch and brandy.
That being said, I am by no means a wowser or a teatotaller, but he would have a substantial go at a bottle of scotch a night, and his wife a bottle of brandy.
I would humour him on a visit (as he lived in Woolongong and I in Melb, not often) and have a couple of stubbies of his beer (which was only just OK IMHO).
Mind he died from melanoma (2001) and his wife from breast cancer (2017) at 51/69 respectively.
Works for me, just need to do some plumbing to the shed and I will be making my own Bourbon. What method are you using for the rum?
Just use the standard stilling process. I then mix cloves and cinnamon bark in a batch to infuse (makes it go a nice golden/red colour), I use two essences in the main mix, a coral sea rum and a Samuel Willard rum, then combine the both 50/50.
Heil,
Do you have any probs with brews that are still fermenting (green/in the fermenter) WHILST travelling??
cheers Bilbo
Neil
My funniest (funny for some that is) home brew story relates to a batch in my early brewing days.
It seems that I bottled it too green or put too much sugar into the secondary fermentation process.
My brother had just returned from a Vietnam tour and was sleeping in our guest room.
In the early hours of the morning there was a succession of explosions & he took off, literally walking on water (or perhaps beer & broken glass) and by the time I stumbled out of bed he was out in the back yard crouched, dazed and wild eyed, behind a raised garden bed.
Yep.. I had stored the brew under his bed & as one bottle blew it set off the one next to it until the whole box had exploded.. What a mess it made & he never stayed at our place again.
Only ever had that happen once. A lively stout stored in the loft of a steel garage. About 15 went off on a 40c day. What made it worse was after 3 or 4 I decided to spray them with water to cool them off. Then the rest exploded. You live and learn.
What's your set up to brew on the move?
I have an artist friend who used to travel the NT with a fermenter of home brew sitting on his caravan draw bar, yep, it was alcoholic, its only redeeming feature, worst beer I've ever tasted.
What's your set up to brew on the move?
I.m not on the move yet.
Plan was to put a brew down and stay 4weeks in that spot........i for fermentation plus 3.
cheers Bilbo
I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road.
I have just spoken to him on the phone and what he used to do was ferment the beer for generally about five days and then plan travel to stop and let the ferment finish and settle in the fermenter for a few days.
He would then use finings which is a clearing agent to help the sediment settle out and then bottle the beer in brown plastic pet bottles.
He said apart from them being lighter to carry he could buy a special cap that fitted onto the bottle and he could carbonate the beer with a soda stream bottle.
After a while he found the soda stream bottle to be a bit expensive so he bought a small 2.5 kg bottle of C02 which was economical and lasted quite a few brews. He still used a C02 regulator.
This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away.
This description is very basic but he said he could go into more detail if anyone was interested.
From my husbands point of view and with many others, they all said his beer was quite good. From memory he had some good recipes as well. He has been brewing for many years and when he was at home he had quite a detailed array of equipment.
Regards
Angie
Angie said
"I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road."
Not at all.....
This next part however doesnt sound right...
"This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away."
After a week ??,,,,(depending on climate/temperature) in a fermenter the beer would still be green and taste like ?hit...........if he left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks that process might be possible.....ie fermentation would be complete and the CO2 would give carbonation.
Would you mind clarifying that with him next time you talk to him.
cheers Bilbo
I have never done any brewing.
When one bottle explodes, & then the next explodes & so on. Is that simply from the physical force?
If it is could you place each bottle in a shield, some aluminium tube 80mm OD X 2mm wall thickness, bolted in a grid to increase mass, to stop each bottle's shrapnel hitting the next.
Just a thought.
101.6 x 1.6mm for larger bottles.
-- Edited by Whenarewethere on Saturday 9th of January 2021 03:04:23 PM
Bottled too early before fermentation has been completed in the barrel is the common mistake.
If staced together u can get a chain reaction because usually all the bottles have too much pressure.
When I as a boy of about 9 my parents were working on a property for an old german farmer on the southern downs in Qld.
There was a very big orchard surrounding the main homestead with every fruit and berry imagineable.
The old farmer made his own tobacco, wine, honey mead and beer from produce on the property.
On one occassion a wooden keg of about 10 gallons of honey mead blew up in the brewery and froth and
bubble and beer extended out from the doorway for 20 feet and 10 feet deep.
I am not sure what else blew up but we kids kept well away from the brewery after that.
Have fun Haji-Baba
Hi Bilbo,
I have been trying to convince him to come onto the forum but he doesnt want to at this stage.
I read to him your quote above and his reply was that many home brewers have little to no understanding of yeast health in brewing.
As he pointed out the big breweries dont wait three weeks or more for fermentation to complete but rather have a time frame of a few days. This time frame is difficult on the home brew scene due to a couple of conditions.
He claims, yeast health, oxygen into the wort or beer when pitching yeast, fermentation temperature, and the amount of yeast being pitched being to small or not having enough healthy cells. Most home brewers rely on a little packet of yeast under the lid of a tin of goo and this quantity is not enough for a healthy fermentation. He says, yes, it will ferment the beer but the fermentation will not be healthy. There are apparently not enough yeast cells in a 5 gramm packet of yeast for a 21 litre brew at average alcohol of 4.5%
He says what is happening is that the yeast when pitched into the beer has to start multiplying cells to ferment the brew and this is where those off flavour you get, comes from. He also said that temperature control is important for reducing off flavours in beer as if the fermentation gets too cold the yeast stops and the unknowing brewer bottles the beer and this is one reason how the bottles explode.
Both he and I agree that this repeating what he is telling me and posting it on a forum is difficult so he suggests if you want to make great beer start off by doing some research on the internet.
He suggested you might start with this link on yeast health.
http://beersmith.com/blog/2019/11/19/the-importance-of-healthy-yeast-for-beer-brewing/
He did ask me to add that brewing while on the road is quite challenging when trying to achieve a good result.
Regards
Angie
Hi Angie,
Thanks for that response.
What your brother says appears to make a lot of sense.
20 years ago "a mate" told how to............and I haven't changed anything since....ie it is what I refer to as "idiot proof". I understand temp plays a significant part during fermentation but that is not an issue for 9 months of the year in the Top End.
I will check his link ......and maybe see if Coopers have a forum for home brewers.
cheers Bilbo