HOMEBREWING

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>>8476723

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>>8476729

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>>8476735
Pretty clean racking huh boys?

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Here's some mead i started brewing in December to celebrate Jule

Forgot pic

>>8476747
Very nice. That's the one thing I wanna make that I haven't. I'm what's your recipe?

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>>8476747
Heres me enjoying a glass
P
O
S
T

>>8476752
Yeast and raw honey
Some fruit or green tea for yeast nutrients
Amount depends on how much, i usually make small batches about 2L max so about an entire container of your average fake honey bear shits

>>8476738
clean ass bucket too brov. new?

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My dry fig wine project. Wanted to make it semi-sweet, but it fermented all the way through. I think it'll just make it more interesting. Still have to let it settle tho.

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Here's mine: hard cider, which was my first brew, and then i made pineapple mead. The mead came out really lovely and an awesome color

>>8476766
No. I make my stuff in a food production facility and I am fastedious cleaner. I want to start my own microbrewery soon.
>>8476762
So what's the water to honey ratio if I wanted to make 5 gal, sorry I'm American and all my equipment came measured out standard.

>>8476774
Cool man, I've never heard of fig wine before.
>>8476782
I agree wholeheartedly on the color. Which type of yeast for the cider?

>>8476762
>>8476785
One more question, which yeast? Wine, champagne, ale?

>>8476785
Really it ranges from 1lb. of honey per gallon of water for a very dry and weak mead to 5lb. for a very sweet mead. Obviously id aim somewhere in the middle. I want to stress that raw honey is very good for mead because of its positive health effects, something our forebears used just fine before civilization and modern meds

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>>8476798
Just used my cider yeast since i have a buttload left, Cider House Select (tm). It did really well though and the finished product is immensely true to the original fruit taste, which i like a lot.

>>8476804
Wine works best, and champagne will do well if you want sparkling mead.

Did any of you guys try autofermentation? How did it work out?

>>8476816>
>8476825

Cool. I can get raw unfucked with honey easily as all around me is almond orchards and apiaries for them.
>>8476821
Interesting was it dry like Spanish sidra or still sweeter like the Anglo kind? I've had some made with champagne dry and sparkling, as opposed to the dry flat sidra and the sweet sparkling Anglo.

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>>8476839
I let it complete fermentation (it turned the yeast so yellow!) and it was rocket fuel when we bottled. But very pineapply and it was smooth on the tongue. I had put pureed fresh fruit in it so i filtered it thru cheesecloth and bottled/corked except for one pop top one for testing. After a month i had a sip and it had mellowed out a lot, and the honey notes came thru a lot more. I'd say still naturally a touch sweet for sure.

Same with the cider, it came out pretty fruity and a touch sweet/sour. The cider tasted almost exactly like dragons head manchurian cider, which is one of my favs, so i'm pleased

>>8476903
How long do you usually leave the mead sit for?

>>8476903
post the recipe.

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>>8476913
It's my first batch, so i keep poppin' the pop top bottle open every month to have a sip. I'll drink it whenever it's too good to resist! But i don't think longer than 4 months will do much. It's at two months this wednesday
>>8476919
It was eyeballed a bit but here ya go:
1lb (approximately a pint of honey)
1 very overripe pineapple juiced and pasteurized with the honey (next time i will strain first)
3 bottles of pineapple juice, we use it at work in our recipes and i thought it was passable and cheap, also very pulpy (32 oz bottles)
Handfull of raisins
1/5 of cider yeast packet
1 tablespoon citric acid

I'm still really new to this so honestly dunno if i'm making good shit or not. Next i want to do a mango and see how that comes out.

>>8476977
What's the citric acid for?

>>8476986
just to make up for the honey and bottled pineapple, which wasnt as sour as the real fruit. i really like a tart finished product!

I'm kind of new to homebrewing, does anyone have any tips on making a cyser for the first time? I've got unfiltered (but pasteurized) apple juice, should I use a campden tablet before pitching my yeast?

>>8476774
Magyar vagy? Buzi cigany, kiturom a anyad

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New to any kind of brewing here, me and some dudes came up with a pina colada kind of melomel, thing is we also added blue agave amber to make up for not having enough honey, has anybody worked with that kind of stuff before and could say if it would affect the taste from the fruits?

We also used coconut flakes which I only just recently realized are somewhat oily, could cause problems during fermentation, we only just started fermenting yesterday.

Does it matter if my fermentation vessel has a wide or narrow opening?

>>8477473
Lol I've never heard big what you are attempting. Godspeed to you I love the creativity but only time will tell how it turns out as it is quite unorthodox.

>>8477477
No just make sure it is covered tightly with some kinda water lock that will allow gasses out but no pathogens in.

>>8477566
Homebrewing isn't a hobby where I am so I can't get an airlock anywhere.

What did people use before the invention of the airlock?

>>8477623
No Amazon.com either? I mean theoretically the lock is mostly to control flavor as airborne yeast is your main enemy since bacteria will be killed by alcohol content by the time the fermentation ends. I also saw somebody duct tape rubber gloves to the top you could use balloons too. They just expand over time. Another route is to just seal it completely and allow the initial fermentation to carbonate your product but this will lead to a very cloudy result.

>>8477650
They don't ship to my part of the world.

I heard the Japanese fermented their sake in open-topped wooden container?

>>8477623
you seal the carboy/fermenter in whatever way you can best, then run flexible clear tubing, which you can get in a pet store, through the seal and submerge the free end in a bottle of water or another container with water.

>>8477662
Well yeah and so do traditional Belgian witbiers and German hefeweisens. It's wild fermentation you just let the yeast in the air do their thing over time, you can do the same with bread. Like I said it's mostly and issue of reliable flavor since you don't have as much control. I recommend pitching in yeast so you get a good strong ferment since neither of us are sake masters I don't know the other techniques they use. I hear it's very different from beer and more like a cross between wine and kombucha. In any wild ferment I just can't tell you what your flavor will be, but it will get you drunk.

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Is there a guide I can refer to start making my own meads and beers?

I've got access to a shitload of yeast our bakery can never reduce the stock of.

>>8477684
You can't use that yeast. I mean I guess you could but I'm not sure that it would survive at a sufficiently high enough alcohol content. Different yeasts need different environments, best option for a consistent result is using strains cultivated for a specific purpose. Beer Smith is a good online guide.

>>8477705
it will. the main difference between baking and brewing yeast is alcohol vs CO2 production, but the difference isn't large enough to make it unusable for brewing, just not optimal.

it's still stupid to do though because yeast is cheap as fuck.

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>>8477623
Balloon with a pinhole works fine. This batch of sugar wine (sugar + yeast nutrient + cream of tartar for potassium + champaign yeast) turned out good. It's shocking how similar it tastes to dry white grape wine - a big portion of wine flavor is made by the yeast.

How do people feel about BIAB? it seems like a pretty simple method for brewing but I'm not sure if it's any good.

>>8477684
http://howtobrew.com/

A full how to book on the subject. Haven't read the online lately (have the print version) but it gives the basics in a quick TLDR firm, then spends 100 or so pages explaining all the fine details.

>>8478206
It works well enough. Even having a full size mash tun I still like to line it with a giant mesh bag just to make clean up easier. So long as your pot can keep a fairly stable temp for an hour or so BIAB works no different really.

>>8477684
Mead is very similar to sugar wine. Honey is only slightly more nutritious than pure sugar, so you need to add yeast nutrient + potassium (not included in yeast nutrient because they expect you to use fruit or grain which already has plenty of potassium) for good results in a reasonable time. I only ever use champaign yeast because it's awesome (fast/alcohol tolerant/kills other yeasts/doesn't need a lot of nutrient/settles out well/doesn't autolyse easily) and the only reason to use a different yeast is for a different flavor, and champaign yeast tastes fine to me.

If you're sufficiently motivated, or if you're trying to make something high ABV, you should add the nutrients gradually over a week or two (search "staggered nutrient addition"). I've made good tasting 18% ABV using this technique, but if you only want 10% don't bother.

>>8478199
>potassium
Is potassium really necessary? Can I use banana because it is rich in potassium?

>>8478270
Any fruit juice will work, they all have more than enough potassium. It's only needed when you ferment pure sugar or honey.

>>8478253
>>8478273
Okie dokie.

Also how do I make my own yeast nutrient? I tried boiling some of them once so the other can cannibalize the nutrient but it made the wine smell like dry yeast.

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>>8476723
Currently have brewing: 4L of Sake (far left), 5 gal pomegranite Mead (middle) and 5 gal blueberry wine (far right). I'll be bottling a California Steam Beer I brewed with my homegrown hops in a couple days.

>>8478539
That blueberry looks boss, hope it'll be delicious!

>>8478702
I brew it with champagne yeast so it usually comes out like a good merlot with a slight blueberry essence. I really like it.

>>8476723
>black Lager
>On MLK Day

Racist.

Test.

>>8479131

Wouldn't that be an homage to black people if anything?

>>8478408
There's no good solution. Just use grape juice. Grape juice is the best fruit juice for yeast and doesn't need anything added.

>>8478539
You just put a towel on the sake vat?

>>8480708

koji thrives through aerobic fermentation, unlike beer. You need a little airflow.

I have an imperial stout with toasted oak chips that has sat in my closet for over a month now.

I used White Labs Super High Gravity yeast in a 1L starter to pitch. It was a 4 gallon batch with an SG of 1.085.

After two weeks I racked 3 gallons of it into secondary with the oak chips, and racked the other gallon onto raw pecans. The gallon is now sitting in a crock to turn into vinegar.

>>8481971
I thought at the point where you introduce the yeast the koji has already produce enough enzyme to turn rice into sugar?

Just got a pound of citra in, making a zombie dust clone either today or this weekend.

>>8480708
One of the reasons was because it's a test batch of 4 litres and I didn't want to tie up a 5 gallon fermenter for 1 gallon. Also, the traditional sake breweries brew in wooden vats covered with cloth, so I figured it wouldn't hurt. I'll probably do a 4 gallon batch next time in a 5 gallon fermenter with an airlock.