/hbg/ - Homebrew general

>commercial brewing legal advice edition

What's everyone's spring lineup? I'm brewing a black IPA tomorrow for the eclipse

I've got some questions about kegs. I mainly do cider and I'm extremely lazy. the idea of fermenting in a keg with a spunding valve and floating dip tube and having it naturally carbonate is extremely enticing. I'd have to get it to like 20-22 psi to get to 2.5 volumes at my basement temps though, and that's the main point I'm unsure about<br>most people ferment under pressure more around 10 psi, so I figure I'd likely do the same and then ramp up the pressure towards the end of fermentation, or let it finish at 10, then add priming sugar and bring it up to 20. if I then brought that down to a nice cool serving temp it'd drop to around 10 psi but be just as carbonated (based on a kegging calculator and my limited understanding, could be wrong), but what if I don't have a permanent cooling setup and I bring it back up to basement temps? will it remain as carbonated but climb back up to ~20 psi again? is there any issue with doing this multiple times, or would it be best to just use ice/chilled glasses and a long picnic tap and keep the keg at basement temps at ~20 psi? also I assume it's best to still buy a co2 tank to have hooked up when serving? that's a bit confusing in the context of naturally carbonating in a keg, most info I find online has people fermenting in a keg under pressure, then transferring it to a clean keg under pressure and then repressurizing with a tank, and I want to be as cheap and easy as possible so not doing that shit. if I was really worried about lees I'd ferment in a bucket, transfer to keg, then use priming sugar in the keg

>>2774890
All you need is co2 and a regulator and always keep it connected; at least at the beginning when headspace is minimal. Worst case scenario you might get a couple unpredictable pours at the beginning or you have to increase your beer line length if it foams continuously. Alternatively buy or build a pool table and keezer and live in the basement

wife got a kit for her birthday<br>did a cider since apple juice was half off at the grocery store

I kinda just threw together a pineapple mead by blending it up, adding in honey, covering with cheesecloth until it bubbled for a few weeks, then filtered out the pineapple bits and let it sit for little over a month now. Will this work out? Everything was freshly cleaned, but I haven't done what everyone has been saying to do, trying to be lazy and use natural fermentation processes. Smells about right though.

Did I mess up?

>>2775567
might not ferment completely dry, but as long as it isn't moldy it should be fine
Natural yeast is also work a lot slower, so it could still be working in 6 months

An idea: Steep black tea and ginger, bottle with a pinch of bakers yeast and priming sugar, serve carbonated with honey and lemon. Disgusting? Tasty? Reasonable? Why the fuck not just get a ginger bug?

What are the best brands for high pressure flip top bottles?<br>Want something that could hold champagne levels of carbonation

>>2775970
I'm also wondering this. Grolsch bottles are good, but I'd like something with more volume.

Wanna make my third batch of mead soon and was thinking of adding some spices, ideally something to offset the extremely sweet flavour. What can I add? Maybe something like juniper or possibly hops?

>>2775970
>>2775993
anyone have experience with EZ cap bottles? They're the only ones that keep coming up in my search

>>2776132
alright you slow board cunts are useless
I orderes a 12 pack of 1L clear EZ cap bottles from ohio
Thought they'd be cheaper ordering from canada direcly but the shipping is fucking unreal

>>2776143
How would I do that? just throw fresh stalks in the barrel? Cut it into strips or slices?

>>2776372
I think most people make a syrup

No exactly a wine guy, would I even like the taste of basic mead?

>>2776610
That's a tough question to answer. Either buy some mead to try or buy some honey. If you like the honey you may like mead.

>>2777088
What recipe? Gravity? Going to flavor it or drink it plain? Leaving it dry or backsweetening?

>>2777221
It's just 3lbs honey, water, nutrients, and yeast
Didn't get a good reading, since it was foamy and I don't have a cylinder, looked around 1.12
probably won't sweeten
I have some acid and tannins I may put in depending on how it tastes straight
Because it was my first mead I didn't want to go too crazy with it
My goal is just to get some experience before I try my hand at blackberry, plum, and rhubarb meads/ciders later this summer

Hey so last year I made cider and mead using Lalvin EC-1118 yeast. It was fine. Then I decided to make some wine using some Brewsy bags someone got be for Christmas. I scoffed at them but they actually make really good fruit wine. So good that everyone wants me to bring it to parties. It’s kinda hard to beta since it only takes 2 weeks to make, but is there something else I can use that is as reliable but not as expensive/lame as brewsy? Or is it fine? I don’t really mind the cost I just feel like I’m cheating at this.

Just to force myself to be uncomfortable and learn something new, I want to make a wine from storebought ingredients, mead, sake and cider. I mostly just brew beer, but have done a blackberry wine before during the season. Can I do all these with just a 5 gallon bucket setup, and bottle into swing tops? I brew beer with the ferment in keg method, and do oxygen free transfers etc. Is any of that important with wine, mead, sake or cider?

I'm not looking to make a lot, maybe gallon batches as final volume. I don't need a carboy or demijohn, right? And if oxygen-free transfers and such are important, can I do any of this stuff in my kegs?

>>2778156
I have been really autistic about not having more stuff than I need and keeping footprint minimal / equipment list minimal, so right now my homebrewing stuff is just
>2.5 and 5gal kegs for fermenting and serving, spunding valve
>electric BIAB kettle and all that jazz (e.g, plate chiller, pump)
>kegerator, co2 tank, etc
>7gal homebrew bucket with lid (don't use it for brewing at all, but it's a nice bucket for random things which may now come in handy for it's original purpose)
I'm building a glycol chiller soon to precisely temp control the fermenting kegs. But overall it's a pretty tight setup in terms of square footage. I have no miscellaneous boxes of racking canes, tubing, bottles, etc and everything is easily tucked away when not in use. It's basically just kettle, kegs and kegerator.

So trying to get into wine/sake/mead/cider presents an equipment challenge. I wouldn't mind getting a couple 1gal carboys, I can fit those on a shelf somewhere and are easy to clean and handle, and stow when not in use. But I'm quite opposed to obtaining another 5gal carboy (I used to have a few). And to store the final products, I'm unsure whether I should go with corks or swings caps. I'd hate to have both, and I'm leaning toward swings since I don't intend to age long. My gut tells me to just get two 1gal carboys with airlock and bung, and maybe 8 swing tops, adding more as necessary.

Anyway I just bought the sake book and will be getting wine ingredients from the store tomorrow to at least get the easiest part going.

>>2778156
I assume just the wine would be from grocery store ingredients? since you can't get the mold needed for sake at a grocery store. wine and mead often like aging a fair bit, but as long as your gaskets are good, swing top bottles can handle a year just fine. also they're perfectly fine to just ferment in a bucket
for the cider I would actually recommend treating it the same way you do your beers, as long as you don't mind devoting a keg to it. simply because it'll be easiest to carbonate that way
for wine and mead people typically like to age in a carboy for a while so they can get rid of all the sediment before they bottle, and it's not great to leave them sitting in plastic buckets for the amount of time it'd take them to clear up. if you use bentonite during fermentation and then do a good cold crash before bottling, you should be fine though. there's not a huge difference between aging in bottles versus in a carboy so don't worry about that. if you plan on oaking or anything like that though, you may want to add them during primary, and that can be a bit annoying if you want to mess with spices which may only need a couple days in there
I'm not knowledgeable about sake, I just know you need your koji (or other mold sources if you want to do a korean or chinese style rice wine), and that they don't typically age a ton. you should be fine doing that in a bucket as well though

Trying out homebrewing for the first time with a simple cider made from store-bought apples. Had a couple hiccups: used baker's yeast since I couldn't find brewer's yeast, didn't use sanitizer solution in the airlock at first, and I threw away the red cap on the airlock like a noob.
I did eventually find brewer's yeast, and am considering repitching. I cleaned out the airlock and filled it with sanitizer solution, and I covered it with a foil cap.
It does have a vinegar flavor now due to contamination, but I'm keeping it and calling it a traditional, ancient-style brew lmao. Plus everyone says apple cider vinegar has health benefits. It is still fermenting with the baker's yeast after a week, albeit very slowly. I can't tell if it stalled and if I should repitch. Also, baker's yeast is terrible at forming lees, so I think I may use the gelatin trick when all is done fermenting.
Thank you for reading my blog post.

>>2778191
Awesome, sounds like I should be good by just grabbing some 1gal carboys and swing tops then. Thanks!! And yeah only the wine from store bought ingredients. I’ve only ever made blackberry wine from blackberries I picked myself, but I’d like to start making it from whatever.

>>2775526
would 100% fuck your wife in her ass

>>2774824
https://alcofermbrew.com/en/module/<wbr>kalkulator/page.html

I have some apple wine aging in demijohns now a mix of apple caramel, apple plain and some mixed berry wine made with Saskatchewan berries and blueberry as well as figs and a few other fruits aging in bottles..
 23 liters of stout I finished two weeks ago carbonating and conditioning atm.
Next batch will be blueberry wine, I plan on making around three gallons, because from what I remember I enjoy blueberry wine a lot.
After this blueberry wine I will be making a strawberry wine and so on.
I almost forgot, I have a tea wine fermenting now in a one gallon demijohn.
I used a couple different teas as well as 2 lbs of sugar and a half pound of honey, nutrient, acid blend. Added dried elderberries on a couple occasions and the color is amazing.
I also tried a different yeast hoping it will retain more flavors.
SG was 1.100 on brew day which was March 4th.
It has slowed a lot but still fermenting atm and smells great.

I have a corny keg I bought years ago, that I would like to start using to force carbonate brews but I'm sure I have to switch out the valves and get a lid with relief vale etc, also will need CO2 tanks etc I wonder if it is worth it in the end.

>>2778278
>Saskatchewan berrie
Saskatoon berries

>>2778259
Clean your thoughts, brother, our Lord is coming

>>2778241
bread yeast is fine for cider, you may just have to rack it twice
Sanitization is important, but it's actually really hard to fuck it up too bad since the CO2 also prevents mold from growing
airlocks work fine without a cap, you just have a higher chance of getting fruit flies in your lock

>>2778241
if it tastes like vinegar it's likely you are acetobacter infected and it will eat any alcohol you may have had and turn it into only vinegar. just dump it and start over actually sanitizing properly as it's never going to improve

>>2778334
Plenty of bacteria are anaerobic

>>2778278
>worth it in the end
It is, having the ability to carbonate doesn't just extend to beer. Hop water, flavored water, dissolving brewer's chalk, pop, all these things are unlocked with CO2. Your keg lid should have a PRV in the lid, I don't see why you would need to do anything else to it, just figure out if it's ball or pin lock and get the appropriate fittings

>>2778421
>>2778422
Ah shit, that sucks. Didn't realize they could live without O2. Should I heat the apple juice to try and sterilize that too before starting the brew next time? It was a tiny 1.5 liter batch anyways since I kinda anticipated fucking up somewhere.

>>2778437
Nah apple juice from the store is already pasteurized just make sure it doesn't have any preservatives in it. Get some star san and an air lock for next time to avoid the same mistake

>>2778437
>>2778471
Sorry didn't see you already had those things

>>2778437
>Should I heat the apple juice
If you end up working with raw juice, know that you should use the lower/longer pasteurization temperature because high heat sets the pectin in the juice (the mechanism by which jam thickens).

>>2778421
why dump it when you could just let it do its thing and have homemade apple cider vinegar?

Racked the cider and made a cyser out of 2lbs of honey we've had sitting around for over a year
Gonna try to natural carb the cider when our swing top bottles get here next week
it's super dry, but tastes good for being warm, flat, and made with the cheapest apple juice we could find

>>2778334
Data on brewing with bread yeast is scarce as fuck, no surprise there. Apparently you can use a warmed gelatin solution, but not too hot to form jello, to clear up the suspended yeast.

>>2778472
>>2778476
Thank you for the tips/suggestions. Hear me out for a second though: after cleaning the airlock well a few days ago and making sure it's properly filled with a sanitizer solution, it no longer emanates an acetic smell. The brew doesn't seem to either (briefly unscrewed the cap, making sure to keep things relatively still knowing that CO2 is heavier than O2). Is it possible that ethanol vapors condensed into the airlock and fed some environmental AAB, throwing me off?
Some cursory research seems to indicate that anaerobic AAB is pretty rare, mostly a deep sea phenomenon (?).

>>2778539
Seems like a perfectly good recourse if all else fails.

>>2778620
Goals bro. Just learned what a cyser is thanks to this post.

do yall use sanitary/triiclamp fittings?

>>2778665
>gelatin
Biofine is easier to come across for me and keeps my Indian wife happy. I usually just cold crash at 31°F though unless I'm doing a lager

>is it possible that...
If you're happy with the end I wouldn't worry too much, to really know what (if any) infection you may have you need to plate and stain

>>2778046
If you want to go cheap, skeeter pee (lemon juice) is probably as good as it gets. For fruit, dried dates are in season (1.5kg/10L).

 >>2778241
>threw away the red cap on the airlock
Back in the days when airlocks was made of glass and didn't have caps, ppl used a piece of cotton or a glass marble.

>>2775523
>>2775526
does your wife have cute feet?

>>2778421
le vinigger maymay is a bit overblown i think. yes alcohol gets converted into vinigger, but this process requires oxygen, and lots of it, which in a brew that is fermenting and saturated with CO2 isn't going to happen
Acetobacter btw are literally everywhere so you can have the best hygiene in the world they're still going to get in your brew unless you made your wort in space or something

My bottles are ariving today, lads<br>How much sugar do I put in ine gallon to get a good amount of carbonation?

>>2778898
There are lots of different organisms that can contribute sour or vinegar-like flavor. Having the best hygiene in the world by definition would prevent acetobacter, as would just using quality ingredients and following good sanitary practice

>>2778912
Plenty of calculators online based on sugar type and temperature, shoot for ~2.4 volumes of CO2

Hey so I'm the pineapple guy from before. I am making a new batch of drink. I had the idea to do cucumber, lime, and sweetened condensed milk this time. Am I just wasting money, or could this actually work? I've googled around, and each of these concepts work by themselves, but I've not heard of someone doing them together.

>>2775970
uh. champagne fermenting is usually like 80-90 psi. a flimsy swing top bottle aint doing that shit

>>2778917
they're airborne mate, unless you have a way to sterilise the air you're oxygenating with the vinigger bacteria can and will go into your brew (which is usually not an issue, as i have explained earlier)
it's like putting bread in a superheated steam cleaned breadbox and expecting it not to get moldy over time

>>2778947
>I can't sterilize the air
Look at that, $8.99 for four of them too
>not an issue
Thank you for your 100% subjective contribution. You must have more knowledge than entire industries, I'm sure it's highly sought after

There are several microorganisms that can either produce acetic acid or mimic the smell/flavor; brettanomyces and lactobacillus to name two. OP said it went away anyways, so sounds like it was outcompeted. Better sanitation practice is still applicable though, just because your bread molds doesn't mean you shouldn't clean your breadbox

>>2778912
I don't know if this will help you or not.

https://www.northernbrewer.com/page<wbr>s/priming-sugar-calculator

>>2778973
do you always strawman this hard when someone points out flaws or inaccuracies in your posts? you claimed "just using quality ingredients and following good sanitary practice" would prevent acetobacter
it really doesn't
>You must have more knowledge than entire industries
entire industries, probably not, but apparently more than idiots like you

here, literally one of the first results when i google vinegar oxygen
>Acetobacter spp. are present in the wine must, on the surface of grapes, and on injured grapes. Acetic acid formation may only proceed when adequate oxygen is available, i.e. on fruits, in juices and in mashes. Under the anaerobic conditions of wine making, vinegary spoilage is rare.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topic<wbr>s/agricultural-and-biological-scien<wbr>ces/acetobacter
is what i have been trying to say but it doesn't seem to go through your thick skull

>>2779001
Pretty sure you're the same fag from the last thread who wasted so much time on kegs vs conicals. I hope you find peace instead of being so argumentative, perhaps my suggestion that it could be something other than AAB triggered your monkey brain reply

>>2779001
you are a literal mong. the oxygen concentration doesn't need to be that high and if the bacteria gets well established before the yeast starts pumping out co2 guess what happens einstein

>>2778943
EZ-cap bottles claim to be rated to 100 psi

Pressure transferring a black IPA for the eclipse. 5.1% at 1.007. If you haven't tried HBC 472 hops they're fucken worth it, a nice fruity/coconut nose with wood and more coconut. Named it Peligro since on every ladder the nigger is always the one clowning around and falling off

>>2778983
>>2778921
thanks, I'll give it a shot tomorrow

>>2779079
i wouldnt trust it. champagne bottles are hugely thick and the corks are so massive they need a special machine to compress them to fit in the mouth. but its your life

>>2778673
Would you find use in something like this but way cheaper?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3042811704<wbr>12

Or do you just tighten/release with your fingers?

>>2779165
Nah I just tighten with my fingers. Put the receiving side on the bottom, flip the clamp over the top so gravity naturally pulls the bolt into place, don't even need two hands

>>2779157
>>2779079
I don't think the cork size matters. A champagne bottle would uncork itself if left uncaged and a flip top is basically a caged cork. Also just because champagne bottles are thick doesn't mean these can't hold the pressure. The glass is still rather thick. I'd probably test them by bottle conditioning a brew calculated to maybe 120psi before trusting them though.

>>2779157
the ez cap bottles are definitly thicker than the chinesium shit you'd get off amazon
they got a different shape, too
Doubt I'd ever go much higher than 3-4 volumes CO2 though

anyone here have a fruit crusher and press?
I was thinking about getting them, since we have a ton of apple trees on our property
any recommendations or things to look out for?

>>2779454
nothing wrong with some protein and extra yeast, brother

>>2778191
>carboy
cheap way to buy gallon glass jugs is pic related

>>2779430
I've been passively looking at presses for a while. From what I've seen, it makes sense to go with a hydraulic design versus a lead screw. I'm not sure how the latter is food safe or reliable with threads grinding away. Seems a jack wins for ease of use, longevity, and not getting small metal shavings in your cider. Crushers seem to be the same across the board, just depends on if you want a motor or not

>>2779269
>I don't think the cork size matters
Cork size matters, they don't make mushroom shaped corks for champagne bottles. They make straight about 30mm corks and squeeze them into a 18mm something hole, that gives it the shape.

>>2779065
look up the reaction senpai, the airlock that you see bubbling like a madman during the start of fermentation? you need that in reverse with oxygen to get vinegar.
even if you somehow managed to dump a bunch of acetobacter along with your yeast in your wort, during the aerobic phase of fermentation there is no ethanol to convert and when it gets going there is simply no oxygen to metabolise the ethanol.
it seems like i can throw around all the sources i want just so they can be totally ignored. arguing with idiots is always a challenge

>>2779033
take your meds schizo

>>2779819
that is one thing i noticed when i nig rigged a stopper out of a champagne cork, i put it in water and microwaved it to boiling in an attempt to make it clean and when i took it out i was surprised the mushroom had turned into a cylinder
i already cut the cork to fit in the carboy so that took some rework
on topic i think champagne is very highly carbonated so perhaps these bottles might be overkill if you're only working with 10g/L of priming sugar. but at least you can be fairly confident they won't explode
i use corks from porto bottles, those are very easy to reuse but you need to secure them with metal wire if you're going to carbonate. pretty nice all these bottles have roughly the same internal diameter

>>2779269
champagne corks only pop itself if exposed to temperature change or excess movement. theyre not supposed to be moved in the upright position at all and kept in a cool enviornment.

got three bottle carbonating with ~5 gr of sugar each
One flat bottle is in the fridge to be had tomorrow
Gonna get started on 2 more gallons with different apple juices, one is a 3 apple blend and the other is a sweet and tart cider blend

>>2779940
nope you are just a fucking tard. the oxygen concentration doesn't need to be that high. please do post your degrees though you can cover the name but tape and stamp with your post # and I'll post mine to compare and then I can laugh at mr ged's science knowledge

>>2780519
I have similar bottles and I don't believe they're pressure rated. Did yours mention the max pressure?

>>2780619
100 psi
https://ezcap.ca/collections/swing-<wbr>top-bottles/products/e-z-cap-1l-swi<wbr>ngtop-reusable-bottle

>>2778191
>you can't get koji at a grocery store
You need to upgrade your grocery store

Made three gallons of blueberry wine today with a litre of red grape concentrate dumped in, added a couple bananas for body and some dried elderberries that I had left over. I also added a bit of Oak and a little over 4lbs of sugar, yeast nutrient, a bit of acid blend and a bit of tannin.
I will add more blueberries later in secondary.
SG was 1.085.

>popped open a fruit wine that I've made from my own garden fruit that's been fermenting for 3 months
Feels good man. Besides maybe the choice of fruit the first bottle is really good. Had various friends and parents over and everyone was complimenting it. I think I'm gonna try and brew more from different fruit once the harvest season comes this year

I had a cider go from 1.052 to 1.000 in three days
it tastes alright but it smells a little eggy
What do I do, lads?

>>2781616
The yeast probably just needs more time to clean up the sulphur taste. What yeast did you use?

>>2781638
Yeah, I would check it in a couple days and see if the smell goes away or at least is less. Do you plan on carbonating?

>>2781650
I probably will carbonate
Should I throw some nutrients in before bottling?

>>2781654
Nah you shouldn't need to add nutrients. Wait like 2 more days and check the smell. If it's less noticeable or (hopefully) gone then bottle; the yeast should carbonate and clean up the rest during bottle conditioning. If no change try raising the temp a few degrees for 2 more days but you may have to just wait for it to age out in the bottle

Anyone who could share some beer recipes they’ve had success with? <br>So far I’ve brewed a batch of undead pale ale and patersbier and both came out really nice but I have no idea what to go for next

>>2781705
Can you brew lagers or just ales/stouts? What are you in the mood for?

>>2781725
Don’t quite have the equipment for lagers yet but anything on the lighter side would be great, maybe a weissbier or something

>>2781733
Just brewed this recently. It's a pre-prohibition lager I named Blue Yodel, but W-34/70 can ferment at ale temps. Sorry I don't have a good way to export recipes in brewfather as text. If you can find this style at the store it's worth it, much more flavorful

>>2781733
This is the black IPA I did itt, add the dark malts at the last 30 mins of the mash so you just get color only. It's light on the palette even though it's dark. Coconut, woody, and bourbon notes

>>2781740
>>2781745
Both of these you'll need to scale for your own equipment and also water profile unless you're also sending your water through 6 stages to strip out pfas

>>2781740
>>2781745
Thanks a lot brother, think I’ll look into the 1st one

>>2781963
You can do any hop you want with the first one, just check what's cheapest and go with that. Also with W-34/70 do a starter if you can, not a huge deal but will cut a week off of the fermentation time

>>2781977
Also by "any hop" I meant any bittering hop (high alpha acid). Just finished that keg today actually kek

>>2779430
I have 4 trees and get too many apples to process easily. Two seasons I used a table-top juicer and it takes days to process them all (chopping apples and juicing one-by-one). Last season I bought a 5ga screw-press off amazon and built my own apple scratter but it took about the same amount of time and even more effort than the juicer (crushing apples then transferring in/out of the press takes a ton of time). This year I am looking at custom-making a giant juicer I can just toss apples in and have juice come out. I can use the press to crush the leavings or use them for "apple grappa". Some seasons I spray for worms and don't have many worms, and last season I didn't spray and had worms... and I fermented them anyway. I didn't notice a difference in the end product. I sprayed once for some kind of white fungus and it went away for good. If you have some idea about how many apples you'll net from your trees you'll be able to figure out what kind of crusher/press to efficiently produce the volume of cider you want to consume/sell. I use only a small fraction of the apples my trees produce and make about 20ga of cider per season. Rough estimate is 1hr labor per gallon. The only thing holding me back on making more is time/effort. I recommend making your process as automatic as possible. If there is some machine you just throw in apples and out comes the juice, get that one and share it on the thread so I can get one too. If you are going to go with some kind of manual press (screw/pump doesn't really make a difference), having a few friends/family help will make the work go faster but it is frustrating that the output is so slow. Last one is there is some kind of pheremone trap you should put out soon to prevent worms in your apples. I will try those this year on advice from a friend.

>>2782988
I'd just crush the apples and use pectic enzyme to get as much juice as possible with minimum effort. HDPE 220L barrels open ferment, just cover with cloth for a under a week with the apples then transfer to secondary sive tru some cloth to remove pulp and continue closed fermentation with lid and blow off tube.

>>2774824
I have a mead that's been in my closet since november.
I let it ferment with a bubbler for 4 week until it stopped but even now long later each time I open it there is significant preassure (multiple seconds of fairly intense hissing).
Surely it can't still be fermenting?
I just used bakers yeast btw

>>2783078
It could be a lot of things at this point. If there is eg acetobacter those will very very slowly convert alcohol into acetic acid, producing CO2 as they go. But most bacterial infections should be visible if your vessel is clear. If the escaping gas has a smell, that could give a hint. If you open the vessel often it could just be temperature changes

At least check SG, if there is still some sugar content it’s probably just yeast very slowly fermenting the last bits.

>>2779658
Hydraulic presses almost always leak oil, metal shavings will happily settle at the bottom of your barrel and are pretty much inert during fermentation. Not saying hydraulic is better but in reality it shouldn’t matter much and the effects are minimal. I wouldn’t be worried about metal dust, if you are just put a magnet near the threads.

>>2779430
I use a benchtop screw type press, put 10-20 apples at a time, press, then switch the bucket while someone else discards the pulp and loads new apples. Fastest way for me. Makeshift fruit presses using 2x4s and hydraulic car jacks are pretty popular among home cider makers but not worth the effort for me.

If I had a lot of money and 1000+ apples to process I’d probably buy an electric hydraulic one. But I’m pretty sure I can press 200 an hour this way

>>2783078
>I let it ferment with a bubbler for 4 week until it stopped
If you removed the airlock you have trapped co2 that will slowly release as the preassure is released each time you open.
>>2783090
Good tier advise

I know rice hulls are a thing, but does anyone put like rocks or inert balls of sorts in a mash to assist with sparging/keeping water flowing?

I have a brewzilla and the grains always seem to be a pita in my malt pipe. The grain gets into a solid mass and doesn't let the pump run well when mashing and it does the same thing and when sparging and keeps the water up top and won't drain.

>>2776074
BTW, still taking recommendations on this.
I dont wanna "spice" with something that is sugary itself, obviously

>>2776074
>ideally something to offset the extremely sweet flavour
You could use less honey and have the mead ferment dry thus reducing the extremely sweet flavor..

Weird question but are there any problems with adding multi vitamins, protein concentrate, or creatine to beer? <br>I’m thinking about making lifters lager but I’m not sure how yeast would interact with the additives.

>>2778156
I’ve seen images like this before, how can I find more?

>>2783093
How do you get a good amount of juice without crushing the apples before pressing them? I have a screw-type press and I am reasonably strong, I don't get much juice from pressing whole apples.

>>2783608
Id imagine any damage to the cells prior to pressing would mean less effort during the pressing. Would cutting the apples into rings help >>2783608
at all?

>>2783560
Ascorbic acid is used for NEIPA style beers, the rest I would add post-fermentation and you might want to kill the yeast first

>>2783608
Try freezing and thawing first?

>>2783093
Out of all the hydraulic presses on amazon there's only one that has one review mentioning leaking. The wear on the threads + mystery chinesium is off-putting for a screw press

>>2782988
Crusher + bladder press maybe. There are tons of crushers that are tall enough or have the ability to dump the fruit directly into the mouth of whatever press you're using

>>2778898
>Acetobacter btw are literally everywhere so you can have the best hygiene in the world they're still going to get in your brew unless you made your wort in space or something
Image related btfos your post.

>>2781655
it was a lot better today
got it bottled this morning, as well as another cider I had going at the same time
I currently have six litres of cider bottle carbonating and two that are ready to drink
I need more bottles

>>2784215
Such is the struggle of a personal cidery. Glad to hear it panned out though

>>2776074
Cumin
Rose
Cardamom
Saffron
Spruce tips

India sells a unique soda called Jeeru that's pretty good and has cumin as its main ingredient. It compliments the sweetness pretty well though you'd have to experiment

>>2776074
Rosehips or hibiscus/roselle. They're tart, astringent and a little bit floral and they make an excellent mead. If you're too lazy for that, get some Wild Berry Zinger or Raspberry Zinger herbal tea and make a strong infusion and add that instead.

Just bottled my first mead and cyser
mead after 19 days of fermentation finished at .99 gravity, 17% abv
cyser after 16 days finished at 1.00, 14.4% abv

the showdown between treetop and foodclub begins

Gonna order some ingredients soon and I wanna make a wheat beer.<br>What % of the grain bill should be wheat malt just so I know how much to order? Like I know rye is ideal at 30-40% but wondering if wheat is similar.

>had some bits of strawberry floating around
>decide I will let it sink to the bottom, let it clarify for a week
>already backsweetened, just need to get it clear to bottle
>come back in a week
>fuzz all over the surface
Damn, wasted the past few months. This is annoying.

Just bottled 5 litres of mead and am fresh out of ideas, what's another good easy microbatch I can do which won't require any prep work?

Thinking of trying to make a Philly sour for the first time. Planning on using a standard Berliner weisse grain bill of 50/50 pils and wheat. Will rack it on a few kg of berries.

I’ve read a lot of people add lactose to round the beer out and give it body, but I don’t want the shit to be sweet like some faggy milkshake drink. Any recommendations for grams of lactose to Liter of beer to benefit from some body without making it sweet?

>>2788113
I'd toss bleach in it to spite the mold. Fulfill your biological imperative now you fuzzy bastards.

>it’s another “homebrew” general where 95% of the posts are meadcels and only 5% are beer home brewers
Sad.

>>2789275
Black IPA and a smash with mosaic hops. Wouldn't recommend together but on their own both are very tasty

>>2789177
Would avoid lactose altogether unless you want a milky flavor. Maybe maltodextrin but you'll give everyone the farts

>>2789275
Interesting, given that beer is much cheaper to make than mead.

>>2789421
Higher initial cost puts people off. You can make mead in a plastic bucket with 3 ingredients.

just brewed a lager with some old hops Hana malt and s-189. it's pekko hops that I got years ago, basically impossible to get where I am now. Doing a 12 liter batch to use essentially as a starter for a pilsner, then a Vienna lager, then a festbeir. Anyone else a cheapskate that uses their yeast several times over? Never used s189 so not sure what I'm in for.
>>2789429
Yeah but who drinks mead. I couldn't imagine my normies friends going for that, they know beer and that makes the homemade aspect more palatable for them I think.

how much does a basic beer setup cost, and what is required?

>>2789449
12 gallon pot, muslin bag, propane jet burner, thermometer, 7 gallon bucket, airlock, enough tubing for a siphon, 60 bottles, capper, crowns

>>2789454
I started out with a gallon carboy a 2gallon pot and a Muslim bag. I made 3 batches that way before I bought a brewzillla. The gallon batch equipment cost me £25 pounds in total.
After deciding the hobby was for me I determined that I would likely be able to save money on beer long term.
Since then I bought a brewzillla a few kegs 2 fridges ( one for dispensing and one for fermentation) a steel fermenter (wouldn't buy again) a bench top capper and a few odds and ends totalling at most 700 pounds now. In the last 3.5 years I have brewed at least 600liters of beer at around 70p a litre on average. If I hadpaid for 4.5% macro lager that 600 litres would have set me back at around 1.2k in that timeframe, realistically I was probably buying £3-4/L. So in theory I'm at around £1120 cost (equipment ingredients electricity) so I could argue I've broken even on those terms. I brew higher gravity beers so have avoided more in taxes but I have brewed batches for occasions where I have essentially given away whole kegs. Ultimately I think I brew beer significantly better than macro lager so I'm happy without thinking of the costs. You certainly could do brewing cheaper than I do but it's totally feasible to be breaking even in a few years if you think about the costs on those terms.

>>2789442
I'm a noob but I have saved trub in a sanitized container in the fridge for a couple weeks and just pitched it as is. Worked really good and the ferm went really quick because of the high pitch rate.

You can dump new wort right on the old cake too, as long as the style is similar.

>>2789275
previous threads have been almost exclusively beer focused

place your bets
what'll the final gravity be?
will the d47 push it far enough, or will I need to add some high alcohol wine yeast to make it palatable?

>>2789305
Yeah I don't know if I'd ever do a black and tan with an IPA but they do look good.
>>2789306
Hmm, hadn't considered maltodextrin. I guess a tiny bit of a milk flavor would be okay if it's just an accenting note. I guess I could split the batch and single dose the bottles but that sounds like it would be a total pain too. Just worried about having a super thin beer, I've had sours with no body before and although enjoyable you can tell they're missing something.

>>2789530
lmao what kind of clown country do you live in that taxes beer based off ABV

>>2789617
I hate sours but consider maltodextrin if all you need is body. Lactose gives a milky/milkshake consistency that's really only good for stouts

>>2789664
That was the way of things dating back to when people drank beer instead of water because there was no germ theory and brewing was a widow's profession. It's the entire reason for various beer styles being what they are (fitting into tax brackets). You ignorant nigger.

>>2789668
I have had and enjoyed sours with lactose. It's generally strong ones that need the sweetness for balance. The souring is already giving a milky funk from Lactobacillus-produced lactic acid so what's a bit more milky funk in a fruity sour.

>>2789664
The YoooKay sadly. The tax rate of beers increases at certain above levels. I think wine is subject to less tax at 14% than a imperial stout at 9%. It's specifically punitive on strong beers which is baffling as you can get trollied on wine and spirits cheaper anyway. Every pint I brew is less money going to the tax man.

>>2789275
I can buy one of hundreds of beers in the store. Buying mead requires me to hunt down meaderies and spend $25-50 a bottle. Instead I brew it myself for $18 a gallon.

>>2789607
If it went from 1.156 to 0.990 it would achieve 21.56% which is above even ec-1118 which tops out around 18% on average. D47 will get it to about 12%.

One more problem is if itll stall due to the high sugar content shovking the yeast.

Guessing 1.065 FG

>>2789673
Brits didn't start measuring ABV of beer until the 1800s, just before Pasteur made his realization in the 1850s. It was also largely brewed and pioneered by the monasteries in the middle aged, hence the various styles and contents based on what the monks needed. Nice emotional reaction though nigger

>>2789693
Based, fuck the king or whatever

>>2789775
Before actually measuring ABV it was based on the grain bill. Plenty of styles developed after commercialization, after the monastic tradition. Stop deflecting and admit that post was fucking stupid.

are those buckets with a tap a meme or actually nice to use? i usually dont bother racking so i just stick a jug in the liquid when i want to drink it but im scared that it might get contaminated

>>2789607
I'd frankly be surprised if D47 did anything at all at that gravity. I'd say 1.010 once you get frustrated and pitch something sensible like 1118. If there's enough nutrition and a warm enough ambient temperature 1118 might even ferment to dry. I'm pretty convinced that shit would ferment anything.
enjoy your rocket fuel/spoilt sugar water (there is no in between with high proof meads)

>venture into home brewing dedicated forums
>it’s there most vile cesspit of autists screeching at each other over exceedingly esoteric shit like arguing how homebrew isn’t “real beer” if you don’t use a three step decoction on under modified malt (even though 95%+ of all commercial brewers today do infusion or step mashed) because in their autistic mind since that’s how Germans did in 200+ years ago that’s the only “authentic” ale/lager

Why does every niche hobby attract the worst kind of autist that should have been executed at birth?

>>2790055
It's not that the hobby attracts them. It's that they can't help but make autistic reactionary posts and there isn't a fuckload of dullard normies to drown them out.

>>2789861
That would be an ale connor before they used hydrometers but keep spouting random shit that you think sounds smart so we can all laugh at you

>>2790055
Not even that, it's wannabe autists that take the first answer they find on quora and shit it back out without thinking so they can sound smart. Happens here all the time

>>2789878
Compared to what you're doing they're worth it, unless the jug you're rawdogging into your fermenter is a ram's horn then I'd say continue on

>>2789664
>>2789775
>>2790123
Why are you trying to pretend that taxing beer by strength is a weird thing? It was completely normal for a substantial length of time and fighting over details doesn't change that. I'm not about to go digging for citations because I just don't give enough of a fuck. It's comical but sad how you're projecting, but I guess at least you're self aware.

>>2789878
they're worth it. you need to replace the tap every few years or you'll risk it breaking and wasting a batch, but they're cheap

>>2790055
>why does every niche hobby
This is literally every activity in life. There are amateur car guys screeching about slapping a turbo instead of a super onto classic american muscle, when they don't own either. Cars arent a niche hobby.

They're just the know-it-alls who need to feel superior because they're absolute failures in life.

>>2790130
Taxing beer at all is weird. Taxation is theft, lets have a Boston beer party.

>>2790130
Please, show me your citations. You completely fabricate arguments and then abandon them as if that's some sort of moral high ground.

Beer vs water myth:
https://leslefts.blogspot.com/2013/<wbr>11/the-great-medieval-water-myth.ht<wbr>ml

How tax was assessed by taste:
https://zythophile.co.uk/false-ale-<wbr>quotes/myth-3-medieval-ale-conners-<wbr>wore-leather-breeches-and-tested-al<wbr>e-by-pouring-some-on-a-wooden-bench<wbr>-and-then-sitting-in-it-and-seeing-<wbr>if-they-stuck-to-the-bench/

Taxing beer based on ABV happens here in the first world as well, it's just the ranges and structure are much more logical. 0.0%, <0.5%, >0.5% are all different brackets since different tax law covers them. Federally real beer (>0.5%) goes by how many barrels you've sold:
https://www.ttb.gov/taxes/tax-audit<wbr>/tax-and-fee-rates

At the state level it's generally the same rate with some specializations around 3.2 Mormon piss

>>2789992
the d47 is pumping out some serious gas rn, though it wasn't doing much until I tossed in another round of fermaid O at 24 hrs

>>2790425
well I'm impressed
>fermaid O
time to order some of this shit I guess. I love D47 but just got so sick of it getting stuck if I so much as looked at it funny

>>2790426
only one casualty among 48 bottles is not too shabby though

>>2790429
It was my first time with it, seems like pretty good stuff

What do you guys think of this girst for a Philly sour?<br>Adding the sugar because I read that adding some sucrose during boil will help lactic acid production in the primary ferment.

Not exactly homebrew but I figured best place to ask. I obtained some home made palinka at the jobsite and want to check the abv, but I have no equipment because I’m in a hotel.

If I slowly raise the thermostat over a few hours and check when it burns with a lighter, can i use pic rel to reliably determine the ABV or nah?

>>2790701
drnk it and measure how drunk you get

I'm trying to get into distilling, I know nearly nothing. I just wanna find out by trying out. I'm currently fermenting some white grapes for wine (not gonna distill this) and I wanna try fermenting pineapple next which I want to distill.
most 2-10L stills are about 300-500 euromoneys, I think that's a bit expensive for just getting into things. Are there cheaper alternatives to this? I wouldn't mind getting one but it just seems too much.
or just any general advice pertaining to the setup of a still would be appreciated
also this thread doesn't have any OP information? or general guids/tips

I asked in the sqt and anonymous recommended me a countertop water distiller for around €100, I think getting a better one is just better in this case

>>2790829
if this is available for you, it should be pretty good. 50l for $120, hopefully it's not too much more expensive if it's available in europe. I've heard pretty good things about vevor homebrew stuff for the price, but with the caveat that they may need more tinkering from time to time to fix shit. but I'm sure the home distillers forum will have all the information you could possibly need to figure things out
https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Alcoho<wbr>l-Still-Stainless-Thermometer/dp/B0<wbr>9J582G8M
if I had the space I'd probably get that one myself
found a guy reviewing it on youtube and he said it's the perfect still for beginners who don't want to invest a ton when getting into the hobby. vevor has a few different models, I have no idea what would be best

I wish it was legal to distil in my state

>>2790977
just don't sell anything you make, share it with stupid people, or allow your neighbors to know/be angry with you and you'll likely be fine. seriously, try and find articles about people being arrested for home distilling without one of those qualifiers. and with the latter two, the police will go after you because they assume you're selling it. I found someone on the home distillers forum who got into shit after a neighbor reported him, but he fought and got the charges dropped since he wasn't selling his hooch

>>2790055
there's a lot of retarded elitism involved in homebrewing desu. for example just dare to suggest using bread yeast and you get verbally lynched
snowflake mead and beer makers are probably the worst

>>2791021
I wonder if you could get around all that by throwing in some aromatics and saying you were making essential oils with ethanol as the solvent. Especially if you did it with a low temp vacuum distillation setup to gain extra credibility. That was all the rage 10-12 years ago when modernist cuisine came out and food nerds wanted rotary evaporators to copy some of the more esoteric recipes. You can make a vacuum still setup relatively cheap though without a crazy expensive rotavap tho. Now I also wonder how low temp distillation impacts normal alcohol production. I’m sure someone has tried it

>>2791038
>no officer this setup is a decade old meme not an illegal still

>>2791038
or that you need or prefer distilled water. those fermenting buckets in the corner are of course unrelated, you would never put alcohol in there because that is illegal haha

>>2791038
>>2791021
It's illegal to own a stil in my state without a commercial license, so saying you're making something non-alcoholic wouldn't get you off the hook

>>2790883
>$90 import and shipping fee
>still cheaper and more volume than most I can get locally
wtf!
thanks, that was a big help. I didn't think about looking on amazon, I looked only at local sellers. the price is comparable, for 50L it's €220 (no discount)
>space
they also have smaller ones indeed, I'm still gonna make up my mind but this has been a big help.

semi related general question but I read that the first bit that gets distilled is full of methanol and is toxic, is there somewhere I can read more about this?

>pic
>10L for one person
uuhhhh

>>2791157
>>10L for one person
oops I forgot to change it to 5L per person, point still stands (for now until it gets crazy drunk)

>>2791158
that's input, not output, so you'll get something like 3-6 drinkable liters from 50 liters of input as far as I can tell
>>2791157
as for the methanol question, home distillers forum is probably your best bet, I'm sure they have a frequently asked by newbies thread that covers all that stuff. the big thing I know is that you can't get rid of all of the methanol, some will be present throughout the run, but it's apparently in a bit higher concentrations in the beginning and end of the run. but I'm pretty sure I've also read/heard that the amount present in the first bit are more things like acetone and whatnot rather than methanol. here's a thread I found quickly
https://homedistiller.org/forum/vie<wbr>wtopic.php?f=15&t=11640
I will say though, I've not spent enough time on the site to know if it's perfect, I just know it's THE resource for home distillers. taking a look at their wiki, it's got a bit of fud concerning freeze distillation, which is surprising since they're pretty good about dispelling other common distilling myths. at least they don't regurgitate that bs about apple palsy that everyone else does when talking about applejack, but I'm getting off topic

>>2791043
You let the cop arrest you, the defense is for court
>>2791139
A still is illegal but does that include a low temp still? There’s still explosion risk but instead of the traditional still it’s basically a chamber put under vacuum that you heat much more gently. Because it’s under vacuum the boiling point of the solvent is lowered quite a bit so the working temps aren’t as high but the principle is the same. It still looks sketchy but doesn’t look the same although I suppose the giveaway would be the odor. Either way just don’t get caught. As long as you’re not blabbing to people about your shine you’ll probably be fine

Have any of you guys actually made good money from this?

>>2789664
Ireland here and they introduced this bullshit here 2 years ago Supermarket beer nearly doubled in price overnight as did spirits. The cope given was to try and reduce the amount of drinking and funnel the excess taxes earned into the healthcare system. Instead it's being pissed away on all the refugees they are flooding the country with.
Seems to have gotten lots of people into homebrewing though since the webstore I usually use is constantly out of stock of nearly everything.
They'll probably ban homebrewing next

>>2791529
They do that for a lot of shit in the US as well. "We're taxing you extra to save your own life and the environment" says tyrannists

>>2791228
>that's input, not output
oh right I see
>second part
>https://homedistiller.org/forum/vi<wbr>ewtopic.php?f=15&t=11640
thanks a lot, that beginner's guide does cover a lot

>>2791501
only in that I spend a bit less making a batch than I would by buying the equivalent amount of booze. I have no intention of ever selling what I make, it's just too much hassle.

>>2790425
>>2789607
Gravity is down to 1.07
D47 is still going strong

who sells a good quality 5 gal fermenter?

speaking of, is there a difference in yeast for different types of drinks or does it not matter in the end? I imagine the alcohol fermentation process is the same for all, just the the type of ''feed'' (fruits, grain, etc.) or additives it gets matters.

>>2791977
yeast is an ingredient, and they produce different flavors

>>2791933
Depends on what you want and how much you're willing to spend. Anvil isn't bad for a basic stainless steel fermentor

>>2791974
Could always take a gamble on a wild fermentation, you have all the yeast you need in your backyard

>>2791980
I see that makes sense
but how does it manifest, can something taste ''more yeasty'' or not? or does it just take the taste of the type of drink it is

>>2791986
The key word is "metabolic pathway."

>>2791986
some yeast can eat malt sugars better than others, so that's a factor with beer specifically. but other than that they can enhance or create vastly different characters. some yeasts won't really create their own flavors, others will create pineapple flavors, others will create apple flavors. some will even convert some acids into a bit of alcohol, lowering the acidity. you could probably spend the rest of your brewing career following the same recipe but just changing the yeast, along with things like fermentation temps, and you'd get very different results

>>2791991
that's pretty cool
I remember saving https://files.catbox.moe/m92eo6.jpg<wbr> but never looked at it
>goaty
hmmmmmmm
>>2791993
thanks to you both

I think I'm gonna get a book or something that dives deeper into the principles of brewing, I assume that ''Principles of Brewing Science" is a good one?

>>2792003
I don't remember if I found that book as a recommendation or just arbitrarily pulled it from a library genesis search but I've only skimmed through it. It is a technical scientific text rather than the for-the-layman conclusions that most brewing books are. You probably would benefit from the latter rather than the former.

>>2791641
I'm still holding on 1.065 as the final.

making a small batch of rhubarb syrup to test out fermenting in 1/2 gallon of cider

>>2790432
I know we brew poison, but does the bottle being blue do anything else?

>>2791974
>I can't afford $2
Jesus anon that's sad.

>>2792086
I guess companies using the 10 cent part instead of the superior 25 cent part are broke, eh?

>>2792086
beer yeast is like 4-7 bucks or more a packet compared to 1 for wine yeast

>>2792150
cope and grow your own yeast if you want it cheaper.

>>2792003
Not either of those anons and I’ve never read that book but I can personally vouch for “The Complete Joy of Homebrewinh” by Papazian and “How to Brew” by Palmer.
Both go into a lot of detail of not only yeast but of all of the core foundational knowledge needed for homebrewing.
I think Papazians book is more fun to read, Palmer’s book gets incredibly autistic and mathematical. Both are essentials IMO.

And yes, like the other anon said yeast is just as important to a beer flavor/style as the hops and grains you’re using. They’re wildly different and you can make entirely different beers by changing the yeast alone.

>>2792252
Forgot to mention if you read these books make sure to supplement with online info and common sense. They’re a bit old and have some outdated information (recommending a secondary fermentation which no one does anymore, papazian suggests boiling bottle caps which ruins newer caps that have plastic oxygen absorbing seals inside etc)

this hobby is gonna turn me into an alcholic why is it so god damn cheap !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>2792083
It blocks light like a brown bottle while also being pretty

>>2792029
>>2791641
the d47 is starting to slow down
Going to give it a couple more days then measure the gravity again

>>2792556
If you've been degassing it and its still bubbling like that, I'm revising my guess to 1.055

I'm trying to make the absolute cheapest sugar wash I can for distilling purposes. My plan is to only buy the table sugar, and as far as nutrients go I will just grab some random (or maybe not so random) leaves and blend them into the mix and pasteurize it, with maybe a little bit of vinegar for sugar inversion and pH control. Has anyone here tried this madness before?

>>2793109
please for the love of god do not do that "nutrient" idea. if you absolutely don't want to buy fermaid o or dap or whatever, buy one of those 1 pound/450g bricks of baking yeast for ~4 dollars (saf is what I'm thinking of specifically, red star also has 1 and 2 pound bricks but they're more expensive for me) and then use boiled bread yeast as your nutrient
also I was curious and quickly looked up the cost per gram of sugar for molasses, blackstrap molasses, and white sugar. grandma's regular molasses gets you 117g sugar per dollar ($30 per gallon), golden barrel blackstrap molasses gets you 119g sugar per dollar ($19 per gallon), and finally walmart brand white sugar gets you 578g sugar per dollar ($3.14 per 4lb). molasses becomes a lot more efficient if you're willing to buy molasses meant for feeding animals, but even then it's a bit less efficient than white sugar at around 338g sugar per dollar, but that was evaluating the first result that didn't seem awful, there might be cheaper stuff out there
check firewater on reddit, I'm sure people have covered how to be as frugal as possible there

>>2793109
if you want to ferment sugar water to distill without knowing what you're doing then tomato paste is my recommendation
it just werks. my fried liver says hello

I'm currently doing a sugar wash and I think its done. Problem is that the water trap still bubbles slightly once every half hour. Question is that can I crash the temperature with a cold water bath to stop any residual fermentation so I can clear it before distilling? <br>I don't have an alcometer since they seem to be rarer than hens teeth at the moment in my country so I don't know what the final gravity is so I am just going by the bubbling if that makes sense

>>2774824
Ive never done any brewing and want to make the fermented drink Tepache.
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/tepac<wbr>he-recipe-5223710

Is there anything I should know so I don't kill myself?
None of the recipes mention any dangers, but it feels very weird to just leave an open container of chopped fruit around for a few days.
I'm a bit nervous but I've tried the drink and it's god tier.

>>2793667
I've never made tepache, but I can alleviate most of your worries based on what I know. so when fermenting, botulism is the the scary thing since you can't sense it. if it goes moldy, you can see and smell that and toss it out (there's no fixing it if it truly gets moldy, toss it and start over, but it is common for newbies to assume benign things are mold. mold is fuzzy and usually not white). if something nasty gets going in there and turns it sour, you can smell and taste that, and if it tastes fine congratulations you made pineapple vinegar.
so those aren't worth worrying about, but what about botulism? well there are three things to know about it. it can't grow below 4.6ph (which is why homebrewing is safe, juices and honey are below that, and with beer the yeast will bring the ph down below that fairly quickly), it needs an environment free from oxygen in order to grow, and it takes time to grow. now I'm not sure the ph of the tepache water (I know pineapple juice would be low enough to be safe), but the last two points work against the botulism here. covering a container with something like a cheesecloth allows air in, and you'll drink it all within a week or two. if I had to guess I'd say the tepache water would be similar to beer, where if it's not below 4.6 when you mix it up, it will be once the yeast gets going. I know lots of homebrewers who make tepache use their setups with airlocks and they're not dying of botulism, so if you're really worried about the open container thing (fair enough) then you could buy a cheap wide mouth jar with airlock, or an airlock for a jar you already have. I'd personally go that route since that makes it less likely you'd end up with mold or vinegar

>>2791501
I save money by getting over a dozen bottles of alcohol for the same price as buying 4 or 5 bottles of cheap wine

>>2793689
is botulism even an issue in open air ferments like wild fermenting alcohol? im pretty sure like every other culture out-competes it

>>2793897
I should have used more definite wording than "the last two points work against botulism" and said "the last two points remove botulism as a threat"
but yeah, botulism isn't an issue at all with open air fermentation, mold or some other obvious spoilage will be your worries

I bought an irish red recipe kit to brew my first beer with

Anyone have any experience with no chill or overnight chill for beer? I brewed a blonde ale that I intend to enter in my states homebrew cup. Just sampled and bottled it yesterday. It's nearly flawless in all regards, except it's a little on the hazy side. My plate chiller is out of commission, so I just stuck it in a sealed container in my fermentation chamber and let it cool overnight. I've seen both sides of the argument saying that not getting a proper cold break can be the cause of haziness, so I can't be sure if this is the reason. I also, didn't use any finings as I ran out and forgot to get more on my trip to the LHBS.

Recipe:
5lbs/45.5% Muntons Marris Otter
5lbs/45.5% Franco Belges Pilsen
8oz/4.6% Briess Honey Malt
8oz/4.6% Briess White What Malt

6g U.S. Magnum @60min
5g Galaxy @35min
5g Czech Saaz @20min
5g Galaxy @5min

1L starter US-05

60min mash @150F
60min boil
Fermentation @68F for 3 days and then slow raised to 72F over two days, followed by 3 day cold crash @35F for a total of 14 days

gonna pick up some buckets from ace to make a few fermenters

>>2794355
F O O D
O
O
D

G R A D E
R
A
D
E

>>2794355
i just nicked a 10l glass carboy from my late grandfather but they're a pain in the ass to clean
i also don't know the difference between plastic and food grade plastic

>>2793897
competing doesn't have much to do with it as botulism spores are almost indestructable, it just needs a specific environment to do its thing and in the context of brewing the ph is almost always too low
the only stories of people dying of botulism are from prison where they tried to ferment potatoes without knowing what they were doing

>>2794409
order your buckets from an online home rew shop to ensure food grade.

>>2794418
i was aksing what's the difference
do people who nig rig fermenters from buckets get plastic aids and go to hell? it's something i don't know anything about

>>2794425
Homedepot food grade buckets and lids, the lids have spouts you can stick a bung and airlock into.
I use them for fermenting kimchi.

>>2794425
some are toxic, some cause cancer, and some cause you to become a tranny

>>2794425
Flip the bucket over, check that it says HDPE. Check the sticker and make sure it doesn't say recycled HDPE. If both are true then it's food grade. Homer buckets work great but are only 5 gallons. Don't waste money at a homebrew shop for a bucket

there are no homebrew shops within 150 miles of me<br>What would the cost of entry be if I want to open a homebrew shop

>>2794509
Research it and see. Most of the shops I've been to also sell malt in bulk to local breweries, probably not a bad angle if you've got breweries near you since that'd be steadier. Watch Northern Brewer doesn't put you out of business

>>2794518
I dont know of any breweries in the central Idaho sticks
all the breweries are probably closer to spokane or cour dalene which is where the closest supply stores are

>>2794482
that's nearly 20L. how much booze do you need?

55 out of 65 gallons of corny kegs full. Feels good. Separate kegerator not pictured. Planning to ferment another 10 gallons of cider soon, and a 15 gallon batch of hefeweisen. Most of that will go into bottles.

Picked this guy up for less than half price, brand new out of the box. Overkill but nice throwing some one-step in there and walking away. Heats the water to 167°F

I saw a Mr. Beer at the second hand store for $9. Just the tank and bottles, no flavour syrup cans. Is it worth it?

>>2792725
>>2789607
Down to 1.038
It is super sweet, but I think it's passable as it is as a desert wine
racked it into another carboy for aging

If I wanted to grow hops which varienty would give me the most millage? I prefer amber and irish red ales

>>2795544
We only grow noble hops since they're usually the biggest hop expense. Centennial, cascade, chinook, mount hood. Growing is easy, you won't get a lot your first year but after that as long as you take care of the rhizomes you'll get good yields. Drying is a pain, as is using them. You won't get max utilization if you use a hop spider and just throwing them in a pot will clog everything. Wish there was an affordable pelletizer

happy pascha, brothers<br>Christ is risen!

>>2795542
>aging that
lipstick on a pig desu

>>2795777
I'm mostly concerned about it not actually being done fermenting and exploding in the bottle

my local grocery store has about 2 dozen chinese and japanese crab apple trees in their boulevard. do you think they'd mind if some dumbass came and foraged all their fruits in the autumn. I highly doubt they mean for them to be anything but ornamental

>>2796070
You could easily ask the manager instead of being a nigger

My mead has been going since january. Think it’s time to rack into another container? I want to bulk age this one until next year at least.

In the meantime, I was thinking about starting a strawberry mead. Any recipes?

>>2796535
Have you tried degassing it?
Is it kept in a cool place?
Did you take SG readings?
I am wondering if it is just releasing trapped CO2.

>>2796549
no need to degas it if he's aging it
it's done fermenting, but the flavor of mead changes pretty signiciantly over the course of 1-2 years post fermentation

>>2794788
i was actually strolling around in the hardware store just now, to see if they sell buckets with a lid to explore my options and to my surprise i found one with markings on the side up to 25L but 30L total capacity, exactly what i was looking for
PP on the bottom with a glass and fork sign so i presume that means it's food grade
only €14 as well. i'm not buying that anytime soon but if my alcoholism deranges even further i know where to go

>>2796599
Best I ever made was aged three plus years.
I still have a few bottles left.

>>2796037
perhaps you can fortity it a bit to make sure the abv limit has exceeded
i absolutely hate sweet wine but when it's stronger like porto or becherovka i don't mind it that much

>>2793159
>>2793177
I said fuck it and did it anyway, just a three cups shy of a gallon test with one pound of the cheapest sugar available and only leaves from plants I know to be benign. The blending and pasteurizing of the leaves was kind of messy but not horribly so, the end result was basically a herbal infusion I'd actually drink no problem. The rest of the process was pretty standard, and after just three hours of pitching it's bubbling like crazy. It's a bit frothy but I kind of expected it since I intentionally sought leguminous plants for the leaf infusion, and the blending was to make sure the cells spilled their protein rich guts. I'll post back when the bubbling slows down.

bros I want to bottle straight from the spigot in my 5 gal but it's got a ton of sedemint
how should I got about this? It's my first time brewing a 5 gal batch
I have a second bucket with a spigot but I'd prefer just bottling straight from primary if possible

>>2797324
You need to add a sugar for the bottle to carbonate. If you want to bottle straight from primary you'll have to measure the right amount into each bottle, then you can put your beer in and cap it. If there's a lot of sediment just let it run slowly into another bucket until it starts to come out clear, then fill your bottles. A little sediment is fine and should drop out after a couple days anyways, just go slow on filling for minimal disturbance

>>2797346
aight, thanks brother
I already know 1/2 tsp per 500 mL bottle is about the carbonation I'm aiming for since I've done that level with cider before
I'll try pre-draining it until it runs clear
I'll probably put it in a cup and drink it while bottling

>>2797324
Sounds like you already know what to do. Pour into bucket 2, then the sediment transferred should be below the spigot and you can bottle from bucket 2. You'll likely have to wait a few days for it to resettle though.

>>2797292
sounds like a lot of effort for a questionable source of nutrients when tomato paste is proven to work and they sell it everywhere

>>2797361
if i were you i'd measure the actual weight of a teaspoon of sugar first. using teaspoons instead of the actual weight in my opinion is already burger retardation but using that unit to carbonate is just bad
brewing is one of the few things where i never guestimate. a bit of extra sugar in your cake, fine, it will be a bit sweeter, but a bit of extra sugar in your bottle and you'll find out the hard way

I want to make wine. Problem is, I live nowhere near where grapes grow. Where can I get some good wine grapes?

>>2797470
the bottles I use are rated to 100 psi
there is absolutely no way I could blow them up with an extra half gram of sugar

>>2798049
just use juice from the store, or you can order concentrates if you want to make a specific kind

my first beer
it's a bit cloudy, didn't add anything to help clarify it though, definitely will next time
Tastes pretty good though, once I'm down to a couple litres of it I'll order some stuff to try an all grain batch

>>2798516
How well do those twist-off bucket lids work for you? Do they hold an air-tight enough seal for a CO2 blanket to form over the ferment? I thought of getting a couple and adding grommets for airlocks.

>>2798541
yeah it worked great
you gotta tighten it down real hard to get a good seal though

>>2798541
doesn't really matter in my opinion. i have a couple of stoppers that don't perfectly seal either with a dead airlock but it doesn't matter at all. just make sure bugs can't get in and you should be fine
>my seal isn't perfect
>oh no!
>anyway

>>2798839
That's why I said air-tight enough for a CO2 blanket to form. You just need to keep the bugs and drafts out so oxygen can't hit the surface.

>>2797470
>Measure your sugar to three decimals cause "brewing is one of the few things where i never guestimate"
>>2798839
>Proceeds to guestimate
>>2798847
If you're trying to make the best beer possible then you should strive for a completely sealed fermentor. Simply preventing drafts doesn't matter since it's convection you're up against; cold air from outside will naturally want to replace the warmer air trying to escape from inside. The "CO2 blanket" is not some impermeable force field

>>2791157
have you bought it or are you still shopping around? I did some more research since then, and that might not be the model to go with. a lot of people say thumper boxes are outdated and are more likely to cause problems, and then also that thumper box is smaller than it should be. so this would presumably be the one to go with, if you still went with vevor, 50 or 38l
https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-50L-Di<wbr>stillery-Condenser-Pump/dp/B09L7YKY<wbr>97
https://www.amazon.com/Moonshine-St<wbr>ill-Stainless-Distiller-Thermometer<wbr>/dp/B07TNR4QF1/

>>2799495
my bad I should've said what I did afterwards
I bought the 50L, my dad also wants to get into it so he was just get it and we'll see
lurking a bit more I've noticed a lot of people here are ''intermediate or advanced level'' and I understand very little so I'm just gonna fuck around and find out
I still stand by my point that the OP should have at least some basic guide/info to get started but it's fine, I know it takes work

>>2798874
there's a difference between a leaky seal and blowing up bottles left and right because properly measuring the priming sugar was too much work
i can't and won't stop you from making potential bottle bombs, it's just my suggestion
>Simply preventing drafts doesn't matter since it's convection you're up against
what kind of open fermentation do you think we're talking about here. the leaks act as a pressure relief valve, no way oxygen is getting in there unless maybe from diffusion when it's done but that is going to take a very long time
when you reach that point you should have bottled it long ago

>>2799581
Research your arguments first. Try varying the CO2 volumes in the bottle conditioning calculator of your choice for a 500ml batch so you can understand that small variances have little effect. 2-3 volumes is the sweet spot, which is between 2-4g depending on the sugar. This is larger than the margin of error in a kitchen teaspoon: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/378<wbr>75630/

>the leaks act as a pressure relief valve, no way oxygen is getting in there
I don't even know where to begin when you're starting things off at this level of brown retardation

>>2791501
In the US it's difficult to just open up a brewery or winery or distillery.
Most people just do it as a hobby like baking.
It's cheaper than going to a craft brewery but more expensive than your shit beer like bud light.
Mead making is actually worth its time and effort.
Let us know if you have any other shitty questions.

>>2799642
someone here is completely clueless about CO2 production and CO2 saturation disolved in liquid and it isn't me
you're a mongrel i get it but try to keep the insecurity about you being mystery meat to yourself instead of projecting your browness onto others
and if a bottle goes off in your hand perhaps there won't be much of a loss here if it hits one of your arteries. darwinism doing its thing i suppose

>>2799642
also, try reading your own link, perhaps try bringing one up that is relevant. and this isn't about small variances, this is about using sloppy units where you'd better be accurate instead and responding to >>2797361 being off by 100%, more or less, who knows :)
maybe you'll end up with a fountain instead of a bomb, good for you, but i'm trying to avoid that

>>2799740
or am i supposed to interpret 1/2 as 0,5 instead of 1-2
use decimals ffs you fucking animal. and real weight units while you're at it

>>2799741
>>2799740
1/2 is 0.5, retard
why the fuck would I specify a range when talking about a measurement?

8 liters of store bought “natural” apple juice (from concentrate but no preservatives or anything added on the ingredients, I checked).
2KG of sugar
2 grams of EC-1118 yeast (activated in warm water with sugar)
A handful of raisins disinfected with booze.
Now bubbling away happily. Was concerned that the high initial sugar content would hamper the yeast but it seems to be fine.
We’ll see where this takes us, first time brewing with actual brewers yeast and not live breadyeast

>>2800214
Nice dude! You gonna backsweeten or go dry?

>>2800300
I’m honestly not sure, I I’ll probably test it around 12% ABV and judge the sweetness then. I bought some yeast stopper and a hydrometer along with the yeast

>>2774824
I had a great time as an amateur homebrewer when my mom went to the local brew-pub and asked if i could shadow for a day.
I learned about all the ins and outs and did some labor like brooming all the used barley into cans for the local countryside farmers pigs. i got to walk into the hop fridge and see boxes of hops that were 1000$+ each
Added some hops. the brewmaster was a traditional dude and soft spoken. I got to drink a beer after the day ended,
"You brew one, you drink one!"

Does /hbg/ have any noob frenly how-to info graphs?<br>t. New lurker and I would like to into brewing

>>2801315
well what do you want to brew?

>>2801382
Anything I'm not picky but mostly interested in kombucha and mead.

Walking Corpse

I'm making beer, wine, and liquor out of black hensbane and blue lotus and I can't be convinced it's a bad idea.

Anonymous

>>2797459
>a questionable source of nutrients
That's actually how I'd describe the tomato paste they sell near me, and while I have no problem looking a little harder for the genuine, organic stuff, it still costs more than zero pesos, which works against my original objective.

That being said I don't deny the leaf paste is kind of a pain to work with, though. The foaming got pretty ridiculous the day after pitching the yeast, so much so it spilled over like three times, I'm glad this was just a small test. On Thursday I thought it was going to do it again in the distiller but fortunately it behaved pretty well.

The end result was pretty good if I do say so myself, at least compared with the two other times I did it with molasses. Aside from that it was actually fun to experiment with this stuff, the yeast seemed to love it and it didn't produce any off flavors, so I'll definitely try more leaf concoctions in the future, hopefully less foamy ones.

I can get my dirty slimy hands on horticulture grade nutrients, would that be fine or is it not good enough since it's not food grade? What could be the worst that would happen if a lower grade was used?

Are there any good books or guides on sake making? I want to isolate each part of the process and try all available techniques so that I can make the best homebrew possible.

>>2801719
its not purely about sake but consider reading Koji Alchemy if you want to do every step of the process by first growing koji mold for amazake, good book for koji fermentation in general but havent done any of the sake recipes in it yet.

just bought antibacterial sanitiser. i just have a simple question, what's the difference between soap and antibacterial desinfectant soap? isn't soap inherently antibacterial?<br>checked the label and there's some acid in it apparently but other than that dunno

>>2802599
they put like 0.5% of an ammonia biocide like bac or ddac.
squirt some kitchen spray into your pump soap and shake it, now it's antibacterial soap.

>>2802611
>squirt some kitchen spray
yeah it's kitchen spray
read the label and it list 0,1% benzalkonium chloride in the ingredients but the rest is very vague shit like non-ionic surface active stuff, parfume, lemons, and "desinfectants"
thanks guys, the desinfectant contains disenfectants, very useful information
it says antibacterial on big letters on the label that's why i bought it like the gullible idiot i am but for the price i could also have bought 3L of bleach
that might have been overkill and damages your clothes so i went with that instead.
>just get star san bruh
relatively hard to come by here and i like to buy everything physically in nearby stores

>>2802643
don't buy the big jugs of bleach.
bleach gets weaker while sitting in the jug; in 2-3 months it won't even smell of chlorine, and after a year it's just blue piss.

>>2802657
they only sell it by 2 or 5L
probably because if they only sold them in smaller units they wouldn't make any profit and instead make you buy enough to guarantuee 90% goes to waste, it's not exactly expensive

>>2802599
answering my own question here, perhaps i should google it first but i suppose asking anon's insight can't hurt, that' why we're here init
>Yes. When you wash your hands, you transfer a thin film of bacteria, skin flakes and oils to the bar of soap. A 2006 study of 32 dental clinics found bacteria growing on the soap in all of them – after all, standard soap doesn't kill bacteria, it just dislodges them
maybe i didn't got memed into buying more expensive antibacterial cleaner after all

>>2791501
There was one Germanon who posted in these threads ages ago who sold mead at farmers markets and made some money off it. Sounded like an insane hassle from the documentation he had to fill, sanitary inspections of his brew place and taxes he had to pay.
Commercial brewing is all about economy of scale. Making 5L of beer is more or less the same effort as making 20L, which is the same as making 100L etc. What costs more is storage, equipment, transportation etc. Because of this you'll never outcompete commercial brewers who have their production, storage and distribution lines set up unless you have the capital to rent a factory space, buy commercial brewing, fermenting and bottling equipment etc. and somehow negotiate distribution with vendors who are already up to their ears in local craft beers. Even then your hope as a fledgling craft brewer is that your brand name makes it kind of big and one of the giant conglomerates offers to buy you out to expand their product range.

>>2802946
Still doesn't mean you can't make a few million, even if craft brewing is 25% of the market share or whatever. I think where a lot of retards end up going out of business is when they try to expand too soon or stop paying attention to their customers. In my area we just lost 2 breweries because of this, though they blamed it on SBA jewry and customers not patronizing anymore

>>2803048
The point of the post is that you have to already be a millionaire to afford the scale of production that could make you a few million in the first place.
Nobody's making money selling a couple dozen bottles of oatmeal stout brewed from all grain out the back of their car
The only conceivable way to make money off of homemade alcohol would be illegal in most countries (moonshining), especially if you can distill stuff stronger than 40%

>>2803076
Of course if you have a few million saved you could start a brewery outright, but for the rest of us you save up a couple hundred thousand dollars, look at what grants your local municipality offers, take out SBA loans and finance the rest with a good bank. Brewer's bonds are usually <5% of bond amount as long as you have good credit, brewer's notification is free, and then hopefully you live in a reasonable enough state like Ohio where a liquor license is $1500. After that it's real estate, equipment cost, and ingredients. You make it sound like it's impossible when it's not, you can start a brewery on a skeleton budget and after a year or two be in the black. You don't have to start a full-fledged fucken factory in Golden Colorado

>>2776074
Juniper could work, but I'd experiment with wormwood and gentian first.

Thoughts on foraged ingredients? Where I'm moving there's plenty of crabapples, hawthorn, wild hops, and other fermentable ingredients. I want to make something dry and floral for later distillation.

>>2803620
>>2803624
Related to this, any joggers here made their own vermouth before? I have an empty 5L carboy and my family loves vermouth. Do you just heat up plunk wine with some sugar and botanicals and then let it sit? What kinds of herbs do you add to it?

>>2803624
supremely based, efficient, and just all around cool. I'm taking notice of all the crabapples around me that I was oblivious to previously. there are like a dozen large ones in a nearby park, so I'll definitely be out there with a tarp shaking them off the tree once they're ripe and falling off on their own
also some hackberry trees, currant bushes, and (small) hawthornes. I'll definitely be adding around 10-20% crabapple juice to my ciders this autumn, the other stuff will depend on how fruitful they are.
not foraging, but I've got a friend with some apple trees in his yard. hopefully they produce fruit this year so I could make a fully local cider. it's really tempting to harvest and isolate wild yeast so it's truly local
definitely not an issue if you plan on distilling, but crabapples are often highly concentrated. specific gravities of 1.080 aren't uncommon