Cooking & Baking
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I've decided to dip my toe into the very deep pool of homebrewing, although this thread covers a bit more like buying and storing good quality beer for home use.
I have a good taphouse very near where I live and they have a great selection of about 30-40 beers. Most are local, but some come from all over the world. For years I have been buying beer from them by the growler (64oz) to take home. If you buy in bulk, you can get glass growlers for about $6 ea online or less sometimes if you can find them locally. They work reasonably well, but the problem I had right away is I don't drink that much beer at any one time and it only lasts for a day or two. So I moved on to a pressurized growler (picture below) that I could pressurize with the CO2 tank I already had for making seltzer. This is a much more expensive setup, but the beer would last for a very long time while staying perfectly fresh and was just as good (if not better) than the tap house as I had more control over the pour. If anyone is interested in that setup, I can provide more information on request.
For many years I had a great German friend who would make wonderful homebrew and share it with me. I helped him with a few batches, so I was roughly familiar with the process. Unfortunately for me he moved back to Europe, but I had always wanted to do this myself. The reason I never did was generally speaking, homebrew involves making 5 gal batches and I didn't want to dedicate the space to make 5 gals of beer and it would take me forever to drink that much myself. But you can make beer in 1 gal batches, which is what I decided to do.
There's plenty of different ways to do this. If you have a homebrew supply near you, going to them directly is your best bet as they will have all the equipment, supplies, and knowledge you'll need to get started. In my case there is one, but it's a decent drive from me, so I got the basic supplies from a kit. Eventually I'll probably resupply from the store.
The kit I got did not include bottling supplies. I actually already had that from other things I have bottled, but in my case I won't be bottling anyway since I bought a 170oz mini-keg which I will carbonate and serve from the hardware I already had. Bottling is pretty easy and requires just a minimal investment. Many kits provide everything you need.
I'm not going to go too deeply into the whole process. You basically just follow the directions and there's plenty of materials on the youtubes about how to do it. You basically just steep your grains, add malt, boil while adding the aromatics, cool, pitch with yeast, ferment, and then carbonate/store. Right now I'm in the fermentation stage after having brewed yesterday. This takes about two weeks. If you bottle, carbonation takes another two weeks or so. With the mini-keg only about 3 days. This will yield about ten 12oz beers and at my normal rate of consumption, that's at least a 2 months supply. I'm sure I'll drink more initially.
The normal temperature for fermentation is 64-75F and it stays a bit warmer in my house during the summer. Fortunately I had an old mini-fridge with an add-on temperature controller I use for storing wine so I can keep the fermentation temperature at 68F which is perfect for the yeast I am using.
I know I've made this whole process a lot more complicated and expensive than it needs to be. Lots of people make great beer by fermenting in a 5 gal bucket and carbonating in plastic soda bottles.
MaineBlueBear
(88 posts)So much fun and rewarding to know what goes into each style and the history involved.
You're all set up for fermentation so it's an easy transition to wine, kombucha, and my latest fascination: tepache. It's a beverage make from fermented pineapple skins. Clocks in at 2% abv
Major Nikon
(36,899 posts)I'd take grape juice concentrate, sugar, and my mom's baking yeast put it into a gallon milk jug with a balloon over the top and a pinhole. When the balloon went down, I knew I had wine. It was basically prison wine that tasted like hell, but when you're 14, it's alcohol and I was sure popular with all my buddies.
Once my mom found it in my closet and asked what it was. I told her it was a science experiment (which was technically correct). Dad knew right away what I was doing and just told me to be careful with it.
MaineBlueBear
(88 posts)Charles Shaw makes their wine from concentrate, nothing wrong with it ; wins awards, &c
The thing you weren't doing was racking the wine to another container after primary fermentation was complete (deflated balloon).
Or decant it into another, well, decanter next time. You'll love it!
Bobstandard
(1,654 posts)I clicked into the article because I had to. Beer. Thats all it takes.
mitch96
(14,618 posts)All batches after that were great. I just used four ingredients. Loved the smell and sound of carboys burbling away. I used "repurposed" grolsh and beck's beer bottles that I autoclaved in the oven. You could tell my beer as I used Orange Crush caps and had a label calling my brew "Old Goat Scrotum" . Always got a laugh.
I must admit I never got a hang over from my beer. I'd be real "fuzzy" the next day but no headache or stomach issues. If I went to a party (I was popular b/c of my beer!!) instead of bottles I would use coke pressure cylinders from soda distributors. Back then they were only about $15. You could buy a CO2 adaptor if the fizz wasn't enough.
I had to stop b/c I was brewing about 8-9 six packs per week and I was drinking way too much..Good stuff!!
The town I'm in now has 6-7 breweries within walking distance so on the week ends I make my rounds..
and And AND if I get too "schnitzy" there is a beautiful park to sit in and watch the world go by...
I'm burnt out on IPA's and just give me a good o'l stout and I'm happy..
m
Kali
(55,711 posts)you young punks with all your fancy specialty equipment. LOL
around my second or third batch we found a dead squirrel in the well that may or may not have been there when that batch was put together. my Dead Squirrel Stout won first place with the little competition down in Bisbee.
best I ever made was some apricot ale that happened because my freezer died and I had a bunch of frozen apricots in there that were thawing out in a hurry so I just chucked them in to my fermentation bucket. it was tasty but really carbonated, because it just kept going after bottling.