Making at home: Wine, Ale and Mead

[glhs837]

keekee, I am not at the keg point yet, I'll most likely do another year bottling stuff before I move to kegs , I have six and a half cases of empties for that purpose. I bottled all my Mr Beer batches after the first one.


Ed, it's fun making your own beer. Takes about an hour or two to brew, wait two-three weeks, another hour or so to bottle, wait a few more weeks, and it's about 2-2 1/2 cases for the price of about three six packs of Dogfish:)

[spr1975wshs]

Another point about home brewing...I do not favor American IPAs, especially the really "hop forward" brews. I do not like the grapefruit taste of the C hops, although I will use the older Cascade breed in a couple of brews where it's taste is moderated by the malts.

My preference (and my wife's) is the taste you get from English, German or Czech hops. To drink what we like, we brew what we like.

[glhs837]

A couple of articles of interest. First discusses nanobreweries, which they describe as homebased, really, and costing in the five figures to set up, and making around 90 gallons a batch.


Nanobrewing: How tiny beer-making operations are changing the industry. - Slate Magazine

and this piece from STLtoday, discussing how the big guys are working the craft beer movement to sell mass market beers that are not really craft beers, but more of a halfway solution. As I said above, it's akin to having driven Chevettes (Budweisers/Coors) your whole life, a Mustang GT (Blue Moon/Shocktop) will be amazing, til you drive a Viper (Dogfish, or Troegs, or any of the microbrewerys like RD) or I dont know, say a Pantera:), and realize what you started out in was really a POS you dot want to drive/drink again unless you have to.

Craft or crafty? Consumers deserve to know the truth : Stltoday

That Mustang is still a pretty good car, and light years more fun than the Chevette, but you really want the top of the line all the time. I know, theres something to be said for a light beer for summertime and such, but I'm saying you can get that same lightness with real flavor, not just water driven quickly past the beer flavoring station

[Goldenhawk]

This is a great site with a ton of good info and recipes and tricks-n-tips for winemaking.

The Winemaking Home Page

[spr1975wshs]

Originally Posted by Goldenhawk

This is a great site with a ton of good info and recipes and tricks-n-tips for winemaking.

The Winemaking Home Page

Jack Keller's information has been a friend for a very long time. (especially in internet years )

[GURPS (Premo)]

Originally Posted by spr1975wshs

Basic Dry Mead

Ingredients: 12.5# light amber honey, 5 gallons bottled spring water (chill 3 gallons in refrigerator), juice and yellow zest of 5 medium size lemons, 1 c strongly brewed black tea, (5 each) 100 mg B-1 and B-6 tablets - crushed, (5) standard Calcium-Magnesium-Zinc tablets - crushed, 1 cup unfiltered apple juice (pasteurized with no preservatives), dried all-purpose wine or Champagne yeast.

whats that for ?

[spr1975wshs]

Originally Posted by GURPS

whats that for ?

The B-1, B-6 and CaMgZn tabs are nutrients for the yeast...

Honey is a wonderful source of sugar, but lacks proper vitamins and minerals for the little yeast beasts.

[glhs837]

Well, thanks to me gorking up my wishlist, looks like I will be going straight to grain brewing. A bit bigger step than I was planning, but not anything I dont think I can handle. Now to make myself a mash tun, luckily I have a 12 gallon cooler that has nothing better to do..

[spr1975wshs]

My wife and I use dry malt extract as the base for our brews and add in specialty grains to get the flavor and color profile we want from the malt.

I like to quip that I hired someone to do my mashing and sparging.

Good luck on building the brew rig, the gadgetry is half the fun of brewing I think.

[mamatutu]

Originally Posted by spr1975wshs

My wife and I use dry malt extract as the base for our brews and add in specialty grains to get the flavor and color profile we want from the malt.

I like to quip that I hired someone to do my mashing and sparging.

Good luck on building the brew rig, the gadgetry is half the fun of brewing I think.

Sounds like you are busy with your brewing. Are you still working on your book? I hope you are enjoying being in SoMD. Merry Christmas!