anyone brewing beer or making rum?

[woodsxdragon]

I made wine/mead/cider for a few years. some good some bad some really terrible. Tried beer brewing. Didn't like the results. think i'llstick with wine and the like. Moved to an apartment two years ago and finally got a house last summer. I finally got my wine cellar setup and at some point in the move lost some pieces to my fermenting equipment. Everything should be here in a week that i reordered. I'm pretty excited since my property has berries, concord grapes, cherries, and pears. well should. winter was rough.

[reloader28]

Woodsxdragon, did you try a kit brew or with grains?

I did several Mr. Beer kits when I started and wasnt happy, but now I have the Clone Brews book and aint made a bad batch since. I've tweeked the Grolshe clone and now its one of the best beers I've EVER drank. Its my light home brew.
I started doing partial grain and moved to all grain, but this book makes it extremely easy to understand for anyone wanting to try brewing.

[MaryB]

Mr. Beer kits... ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww might as well drink Buckhorn or...

[reloader28]

The wife went to the store yesterday and they had pears on sale.
She decided she wanted some pear wine and picked up enough for a 5 gallon batch.

[Bulldogger]

reloader28, please share the recipe if you don't mind. I've been meaning to make Perry and wonder the best way. My first and only home wine making attempt, with my own grapes, wasn't great, so I've shied away since.
Bulldogger

[woodsxdragon]

Finally got my frozen apple juice going. Only made a 1/2 gal just to test. Its in the secondary. I did start a gallon of blueberry/raspberry. It smells wonderful and right now tastes like fresh berries
I'm hoping to make it semisweet around 13% at the end. Starting s.g was good.

[woodsxdragon]

I tried with Mr beer and with a... What's the word? Partial grain? The biggest problems I had with beer were probably my fault. Time management and spoilage. I did make a gallon of a "Killian's" ripoff that I brewed in time.for a party. It went well. I've had better luck making cider so that's what I used all my beer bottles for. My favorite thing is wine. Specifically fruit stuff. There's a lot of orchards near me so I have access to fresh fruit.

[Moonman]

Knew a BOOTLEGGER once, said he got a load of cheap bananas
from a train wreck.

Claimed it was the worse stuff he ever made, was just awful he claimed.

[AlaskanGuy]

Cheers.... Some of my beautiful wife's home made "booza"..... it is home made wine with a bit too much sugar added... So we call it Booza...



Sorry about the duplicate pics... Darn pic posting anyway.

[reloader28]

Alaskan, that looks tasty.

Bulldogger
One of my recipes for 1 gallon pear wine....
3 1/2 quarts or so of water
2 lbs sugar or 2lbs honey
4lbs ripe pears
1 campden tablet (crushed)
Chunk the pears into a fermenter and crush them with the campden tablet. Pour in the water and sugar mixture. (you should boil the water but then youll have to wait til it gets back down to about 70*) then add
Add 1tsp yeast nutrient and
1/4tsp tannin
Cover and air lock for 12 hours then add
1/2tsp pectic enzyme
This one dont say when, but according to other recipes, you wait a few hours, then add a packet of champaine yeast.
Stir daily for a week.
Rack to a secondary and again whenever you get 1/4" or so of lees and top off with water.
When its done, you can stabilize and sweeten if you want.
Best served chilled

If you want Perry, like hard apple cider...
use only 3/4 - 1lb of sugar or honey
It will take less time to ferment and clear and will have less alcohol. Bottle when done and try in 2 months.
If you want it sparkling, add 1 1/2tblsp of sugar/gal when bottling.
DO NOT USE REGULAR WINE BOTTLES FOR THE SPARKLING because it is carbonated.


Thats as simple as I can make it, though I havent tried this one yet.
After butchering 2 dozen chickens today, its 100* and I've had a couple home brews and 2 or 3 glasses of home made Concord grape wine. MMMMMMM. Any questions, just let me know.

[woodsxdragon]

so that was my original setup back when I lived with mom and dad. Thats been about 3 years ago. Lots of fun.

This is what I have now. Eventually I'll mount a shelf along the wall but right now i'm just laying the wood there.

[Bulldogger]

reloader28, my next door neighbor just complained yesterday about their old pear tree that puts out bushels of little dollar sized pears that are kinds plain on taste. My reading about cider making says the mellow flavor fruits make better wine/cider because they aren't sickly sweet, and you can add sugar to adjust...
I also like that your recipe doesn't involve pressing the fruit, just smooshing and fermenting.
I guess I'm making pear wine/cider this week, free pears free, recipe, why not!

Bulldogger

[AlaskanGuy]

Well, get right on it hen Bulldog... And post pics of your progress...

[woodsxdragon]

Well this is my first all grain batch. Looks like quite a few places sell one gallon kits now. It's a "Belgium monk's ale" kit. Should be bottling it this coming week.

My rasberry/blueberry is looking good. needs some time to develop for sure. think i may have ended up a little higher % than i wanted.
the other one is a apple-lemon one. Its gonna be a great party drink once it ages a little.

[MaryB]

Just checked Northern brewer, 1 gallon setups are CHEAP and for me with my back problems perfect for easier brewing. I know what I am buying in October...

[ol skool]

Netted the vineyard last weekend from the birds. Cab, Sav Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Petite Syrah, Chardonay and a little Zin. ~50 gallons, well below mother gov't 200 gallon limit. Make blackberry if SWMBO has some she doesn't need and elderberry or elderberry/blackberry port if we get any RIPE elderberry after the birds have their share. Elderberry out here isn't really good enough for wine until it's been frosted once or twice then the berries dehydrate and sugars ramp up and the tannins are altered to long chain.

Have a recipe for green tomato wine that is, well, kind of tasty and well worth doing if anyone is interested. We put plastic over the tomatoes and peppers to save them from the first couple of frosts, then I get the green tomatoes when the days are to cold and short to ripen mater's anymore. Usually make ~10 gallons. Had a glass of last years vintage with dinner tonight.

I'm having a bad time with bald faced hornets this year. Anyone else?

[woodsxdragon]

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/Beer/O...n-Recipe-Kits/
http://craftabrew.com/collections/recipes
http://www.brooklyn-homebrew.com/bee...on-recipe-kits
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/all-g...e-brewing.html
http://www.love2brew.com/category-s/413.htm
http://www.homebrewexchange.net/cata...ngredient-kits
http://www.maltosecart.com/1-gallon-beer-recipe-kits/

I don't know when it started but i do know none of it was available like 4 years ago. I was super excited because everything i hae setup is basically for one gallon wine (jugs/fermentor/etc). I've got the stuff for 5-6 gallon batches but i never really needed that much beer. some of those kits are super cheap.


ol skool, not much of a problem with hornets for me up here. mainly had a problem with the weather last winter. nothing produced except my raspberries and blueberries. Pear tree had about 40 pears, cherry trees had 2 or 3 cherries. It was very sad.The local orchards/wineries got hit hard too. Troutman vineyards (makes a great farmers red) lost about 30% of their European grapes. Orchard near me had like a 10% yield of peaches. It was rough. The little concord grape vines I found didn't appreciate my pruning this year. Hopefully next year goes better for us.
As far as veggie wine... I made some killer jalapeno wine that i used for cooking and marinading.

[reloader28]

I just got 30 gallons of chokecherry wine into the carboys. Hopefully it turns out as good as last years.
A friend really likes the homebrew and wanted to help out a couple days ago so we made 5 gallons of beer.
I'll bottle it this weekend.

[Moonie]

I've never used a kit, I've always used recipes I've found online. I've done 1 gallon batches of mead but never beer. I do like my 3 gallon better bottles as I don't really have the room for my big 5 gallon in the house and it is never the right temp in my storage building/man cave for fermenting.

[AlaskanGuy]

We have 10 gallons of Nangoon berry wine cooking now... Never ever had as many nangoons as we we did this year, usually only get enough to make a couple of pints of jelly, and folks around here guard their Nangoon berry patches locations like Ft. Knox guards it gold.... But this year was un-precidented... Never dreamed we would get enough of the small berries for wine, but we picked gallons of them, and got 30 pints of concentrated juice.

But I will have to wait a while before it is done, and I will be gone to SE Alaska when it is ready...

When making wine, we dont over think stuff and just keep it simple.... Throw the juice of whatever we wanna make into a five gallon bucket, add the sugar, fill the bucket with water nearly to the top, sprinkle the yeast, and seal the bucket... That is all there is to it really. And 5 gallon buckets are cheap...



AG