Alcoholic ginger beer

>>8176593
Wassail.

>>8176593
dark rum, rye whiskey, dry gin, these are all recommended.

thanks

>>8176593
Make a horsefeather.

A few variations, but my favorite:

~2oz Rye Whiskey(I think Bulleit Rye is fantastic for this, personally use more than 2oz.)

~half a can of ginger beer, maybe a bit less. Ginger ale works, and is sometimes a safer bet since a lot of the alcoholic ginger beers can vary wildly in taste

~just a dash of bitters. Don't overdo this.

Just stir this a little with rocks in a tumbler. I typically drink my whiskey or scotch neat, but when I feel like a cocktail this is a go-to.

>>8176850
Why does rye keep going up on price?

>>8176852
Fuck if I know. It's a bummer. I need to try some Canadian Ryes to see how they compare maybe as a substitute.

>>8176852
Everyone is discovering rye nao

>>8176593
Rum
Lemon
Ice

>>8176593
>I took a beer recipe and made alcohol
>feels this deserves a thread

>>8176593
>I took a regular ginger beer recipe
i'm guessing you didn't create a ginger beer 'head'.
http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A827426
this will give you great beer once you ferment it. add dark rum for a dark and storm

>>8177349
No need to be a dick about it

>>8177349
Oh relax.

>>8176593
If you've refrigerated it (to kill the yeast) you could add more sugar

>>8177555
Nice trips
Im on my way to make mead, but the first time we did it, it ended sour as fuck
Could it be because we didn't refrigerated it?
please answer, I would like to get again into it, but I dont wanna make the errors of the past

>>8176593
lmao just add some non alcoholic ginger beer to it, you're havin a good time

>>8177759

You didn't have your equipment sanitized properly and it became infected with a wild yeast or bacteria. Everything that contacts the mead prior to and after fermentation must be sanitized with a soak in a 10% bleach solution.

Also, it's best to pasteurize by heating to 180 for 20 minutes and cooling as rapidly as possible. Some, don't heat it because honey is naturally antibiotic, and still produce good mead. But occassionally you will get a sour.

>>8177794
but I did sanitize everything before, I swear
I used bread yeast thou

>>8177822
Use Champagne yeast, like Lavlin EC-1118, dumbshit.

>>8177860
Im looking it on amazon
4 dollars for 5g of yeast?
seems a little pricey

>>8176593
lime

>>8177878
I buy it at our homebrew store for like $2.50 a pack, but whatever. Bread yeast won't do. The bread yeast will be killed off by the alcholic environment after about 3% alcohol. Mead should be at least 13%.

>>8177968
>homebrew store
Will check that out, thanks
I didn't even know bread yeast was so bad, and that it gave that bad taste
On another question
I get the whole process except for the 'aging' part, what does happen when we say that mead is 'aging' in the fridge?

File: Screen Shot 2016-10-12 at 1.10.12 PM.png (889KB, 649x641px)

889KB, 649x641px

Moscow mule

1oz lime juice
1.5oz vodka
1/2 cup ginger beer
served in a frosty copper mug

>>8177982
I'm not sure anyone really knows what is happening chemically, but it will go through changes that can affect flavor. It might taste good when bottled, so-so after 3 months, and fantastic after 1 year. Or it might be the reverse, it's hard to say.

Mine doesn't usually last more than a year. I just store mine in a closet in a back bedroom, not the refrigerator.

>>8178107
I thought aging was basically a thing only for wine and wooden-barrel stored liquors, where the liquor adquires the tanines and chemicals from the wood
Any other type of change in the liquid could only be the yeast still afecting the alcohol percentage. But the yeast is supposed to be killed when you bottle the mead, storing it in the refrigerator

>>8177794
>anno dominus MMXVI
>sanitizing brewing equipment with bleach
shiggy my bromigo.

>>8178125
aging mellows out harsh flavors in unbalanced drinks. wine and spirits (and beer) are sometimes aged in oak to extract flavors from the barrels. yeast doesn't die when you bottle it, it goes dormant and slows or stops fermentation.

>>8178287
thats very interesting
About the yeast, it doesn't 'reactivate' when you take the bottle out of the fridge, right?
If I place the bottle in a freezer, would that kill the yeast?does it have any bad consequence?

>>8176593
Muddled mint, lime juice and whiskey

>>8178273
>shiggy

Not really. Extremely effective, cheap and safe.

>>8178333
it will reactivate if there are still fermentable sugars in the mead IE you put it in the fridge before it was done fermenting.

if you put full bottles in the freezer the liquid expands when it freezes and explodes. don't do that. it still won't "kill" the yeast, not sure what your goal is here.

>>8178342
Well, as I see from your explanation, my last try of mead went sour because of the yeast(bread) and because I didn't put the bottle in the refrigerator
Basically, I want to batch some mead and keep it stored in my basement all the time I want without it going sour, and keep a rich and good flavour
Also, Can I distill the mead and make honey brandy?

>>8178333
If you use Champagne yeast and let it ferment to completion, there won't be any sugar left for it to eat, so it'll go dormant. I think sweet mead yeasts are designed to go dormant after a certain level of alcohol is reached, but I'm not 100% sure about that. It could be they add Campden tablets to stop the yeast, or pasteurize it to stop it at a certain point. I only make dry meads with Champagne yeast and it doesn't continue to ferment after bottling.

>>8178362
I'm a different person than you were originally talking to. he was right, if your mead is sour, then bacteria was present. it has nothing to do with yeast. yeast doesn't create lactic acid.

he suggested champagne yeast instead of bread yeast because bread yeast tastes like shit. it does not sour anything.

putting the bottle in the refrigerator slows activity of bacteria and yeast, it doesn't kill anything, or prevent souring. sanitize better.

you can distill anything with alcohol in it.

>>8178364
sweet meads are usually backsweetened. they let it ferment out completely, heat or UV pasturize it, and add honey or another kind of sugar once the yeast is dead to sweeten it.

>>8178371
Okay, I'll have to face the fact that I didn't sanitize properly, Ill fix that in the future
You know, I hate honey, honey is far to mellow for my tastes. But that bread-yeasted mead tasted really good, apart from the sourness, obviously. Which stroke me pretty weirdly

>>8176593
Stone's green ginger wine.

>>8178373
Makes sense. Since I only make dry I wasn't sure.

>>8178528
>hate honey, honey is far to mellow for my tastes

You'll probably like dry mead then. It has an essence of honey, but not really a honey flavor. Hard to explain.

>>8178593
I think I get you. Tastes exactly like honey smells

>>8178602
Pretty much, with the kick of the 13-15% alcohol. If too mild for you, next time add fruit or spices for additional flavor.

>>8178711
Ok so, next time I batch I:
>Sanitize everything properly
>Use a champagne yeast, lavlin EC-1118 preferably
>After the fermentation, rack it up, refrigerate it a bit, and bottle it
>Consider aging it in a small barrel if the material is good
>Eventually distill it, and bottle the final product in fancy bottles with custom-made labels for fun, and to give to friends
Man, what a cozy and productive hobby

>>8177759
mead can take a long time to age i.e i let mine age for 2 years before i even think about drinking it

>>8178852
sorry man, not waiting that much for some honey cider, unless its really top-notch

>>8178862
then enjoy your sour as fuck mead

>>8178751
No need to refrigerate after fermentation. Just either bottle and store in basement or closet, or distill immediately.

Cask aging is going to be impractical and unnecessary. The last time I checked, liquor casks were incredibly expensive. I'm talking a couple hundred for a small one.

>>8178905
jesus, that much?
Think I'll distill directly
>>8178904
I will enjoy my mead, that's for sure. But Im not waiting more than I'd wait for an aged wine, never seen it recommended either

>>8176593

Lager, might make a decent shandy

>>8176852
A big supplier of rye whiskey was LDI, know known as MGP and it was a specific distillery in Indiana devoted to producing whiskey for the sake of blending for bigger brands like Crown. Other companies started outsourcing from them, cutting, blending, or aging what they had to produce their own whiskey.

Companies outsourced their whiskey from other distilleries because of the very expensive overhead for starting a whiskey business. More time in the barrel is usually associated with better quality, but it also means cuts to immediate profits that investors don't favor. This is why a lot of new start-up distilleries have vodka, gin, or "white-dog" whiskey because it's an immediate product they can sell in order to provide some form of profit and revenue for the new company. It's also why a lot of newer American whiskey (either rye or bourbon) on the market can tend to only fall under or around 6 months of aging. Chances are, if you find a whiskey that is new and has relatively good reviews or tastes great it might be from Indiana. There is nothing wrong with this, as the quality is definitely still there, but if somebody is trying to sell you something as "hand-picked and aged" in your state, ask for the back of the bottle. "Distilled in Indiana" is the most common statement on American whiskey right now, at least with new distilleries or the biggest ones.

A lot of the reasons why rye was cheap was because it wasn't very good or because it came from MGP. With more start-ups using MGP and with big companies like Diageo being a main buyer, the price is inevitably going to go up. The cocktail revolution didn't help that much either, as cheap quality products like Rittenhouse Rye being especially hit by the market (Rittenhouse was at cost close to 20 dollars per bottle over 4 years ago before being the rye of choice by craft bars. No joke, I worked at a bar where the bar manager devoted entire weeks of ordering just for cases of Rittenhouse).

>>8176593
I don't know why you went ahead to make alcoholic ginger beer when you can easily just add other spirits to non-alcoholic ginger beer and enjoy yourself 2 months ago.

>>8178018
Yeah, a variation of this for sure. If it needs a little sweet maybe earl grey simple syrup and give it a little lavender.

>>8179825
Well that sucks I wish I had stocked up.

Guess I'll stick to bourbon like the cuck I am.