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Thread: anyone brewing beer or making rum?

  1. #61
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    44man's Avatar
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    Years ago at work, a friend found a Starbucks coffee grinder next to the dumpster. He took it in the tool room and stripped it to the motor, grinder and hopper. Found a bad micro switch in the cabinet. We wired it to a switch. I brought it home, cleaned the coffee oils out and adjusted it to grind grain. Takes no time at all to grind a batch. I get some flour and it grinds so fast I hold the shop vac near the top of a bucket.
    I use a large, tall square Coleman cooler to mash, replaced the push button spigot with turn hande, lined the bottom with slotted copper tubing to sparge. Never get stuck with it. Found need to heat water 15* over the temp wanted.
    I go up the road for spring water, my well water will not convert fast.
    Had spoiled beer a few times until I found not to rinse B Brite with well water, just drain it.
    I use pop kegs for the beer. Have a big CO-2 bottle if needed.
    Fruit here is sad. Only once got enough wild black raspberries for wine but it was the best.
    Lost most of my fruit trees to brown mold. Have a skimpy apple but leave for deer. Too lazy to gather mulberries. Makes great wine and pie.
    Make other stuff too but need to not say!

  2. #62
    Boolit Master reloader28's Avatar
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    I got the last of the rhubarb in before everything froze and died outside.
    That should give me enough for 5 gallons of rhubarb wine. YUMMMMM.

  3. #63
    Boolit Master WRideout's Avatar
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    Lately I am finding that single-fruit wine is not usually as good as a blend. Also, it lets me use up drips and drops of small wine batches. My most recent success with blending is from wild grape, mulberry, blackberry, black cherry, and "citrus punch". Everything but the citrus is from wild sources. It helps to run trial batches of various blend proportions. I got a 100 ml graduated cylinder from my kids for Xmas (remember Chemistry class from high school?) and use that to determine the percent of each in my test glass.

    Wayne
    What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - or else it gives you a bad rash.
    Venison is free-range, organic, non-GMO and gluten-free

  4. #64
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    Paw paws are getting ripe now but I will never try wine with it again. Stuff boiled over out of the air lock all over the basement floor and can't be cleaned up easy. Need to scrape it up, sticky and slimy, thick stuff. Did not taste that good either.
    Drinking the last of my all grain IPA right now.
    25# of sugar and 10 gal of water is good for 4 gal of 100 proof if interested. They are trying to get small batches legal with a petition going on. Gov't doesn't care what you drink as long as you pay but taxes are paid on ingredients, then again on the product. Double taxation.
    If they had their way they would tax a burger after you buy meat and cook it. Course, they do when you buy a burger.
    They can stick a finger where the sun don't shine.

  5. #65
    Boolit Buddy
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    Hmm.. never saw this thread before. I have 3 gallons of Mead going, 2 of cider and I did my first extract beer yesterday. Fun stuff.

  6. #66
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    xacex's Avatar
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    Been making beer, and wine for many years. Ran a homebrew store for a while, and was ast. brewer at a large brewery in California for a couple of years. That is when it became no longer "fun." I have a computerized H.E.R.M.S. system in the garage that gets used a few times a year. I have a few "house" beers I make 20 gallons of at a time. The last batch I made was 15 gallons of a hard lemon-aid/wine. It is called "skeeter Pee" goes down good at 12%ABV. I keg and carbonate it for a nice tickle. I don't know how much all the equipment I have is worth, but it has certainly paid for itself over the years doing all grain beers. Anyone in my area is welcome to come by and brew a batch on this system here. Bring your own ingredients, and have at it. I can give even the most novice brewers an easy start, and get you going in the right direction. A couple of beers to drink while brewing is mandatory.

  7. #67
    Boolit Buddy ol skool's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by reloader28 View Post
    I got the last of the rhubarb in before everything froze and died outside.
    That should give me enough for 5 gallons of rhubarb wine. YUMMMMM.
    Kudos to you! Rhubarb makes fine wine.

    Put up the Pinot Noir for MLF this weekend and crushed and pressed 100 lbs. of Pinot Gris. Next weekend the Chardonnay and maybe the Sav Blanc will go if it doesn't rain too much. Isn't this fun!

    I make plenty of bad wine too! When I do I pour it out. While it glugs out of the carboy into the compost pile I wonder why a free man (or woman) that can make 200 gallons of legal wine or beer a year can't distill a drop of this waste stuff to make at least something useful from it?

    Steve
    Oregon
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    I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don’t think they know. And I can’t see any authority on the horizon that’s got any answers that seem worthwhile. FZ

  8. #68
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    I just got 2 5 gallon glass carboys for free. Need some serious cleaning though. Thinking an acid bath first then lots of soap and water.

  9. #69
    Boolit Buddy ol skool's Avatar
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    You can pick up a carboy brush at your LHB store. It's just a real big bottle brush. Bend it to fit the bottom and curve at the shoulder of the jug.

    Most folks around here use ammonia or bleach to clean em up. That with a brush will get the mud and algae out of old carboys. Gotta rinse till there's no smell left otherwise it could mess up your wine or beer. Detergent is too hard to get completely out of the jug to bother with...

    Wine is way easier to make than beer, but it needs to age a bit to be any good.
    μολὼν λαβέ

    I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don’t think they know. And I can’t see any authority on the horizon that’s got any answers that seem worthwhile. FZ

  10. #70
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    1911cherry's Avatar
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    You can put some small pebbles in the carboy and roll it back and forth be good as new in a few minutes, I use vinegar for cleaning the insides too, then just sanitize as normal.
    AR15 goes bang, AK47 goes bang, Mosin goes boom...

  11. #71
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    I do brew in a bag homebrewing. Never made wine because I don't like wine. Same goes for liquor and it being illegal and all. I like beer better anyway. I have a freezer in the garage with a homemade temperature controller made from an aquarium temp controller. It keeps the beer at whatever temperature I want from 0-70 degrees. I have only made ales so far. My favorite is an American Pale Ale with citra. I have also made fruit beer, wheat beer, dunkelweisen, imperial stout, porter, etc. Once you learn to brew, you can make any beer.

  12. #72
    Boolit Master WRideout's Avatar
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    One of my favorite drinks this summer was ginger beer. The recipe is from an old book I found that was published in England. Apparently over there, the authorities are hot on people who make ginger beer over the legal alcohol limit, something like two or three percent. It's about the cheapest beverage you can make; a two gal batch uses two ounces of ginger root, three lemons, and two pounds of sugar. It normally takes about a week or so to finish, and can be bottled right away. I used to use empty pop bottles, but lost a few due to bad seal on the cap. Now I just bottle it in beer bottles with metal caps.
    Wayne
    What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - or else it gives you a bad rash.
    Venison is free-range, organic, non-GMO and gluten-free

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