Did a raw ale with heather tips foraged from the forest that turned out pretty good.
And now fermenting a raw pumpkin ale. Added around 3 kg pumpkin mash to the mash. A bit difficult to work with and had an OG of around 1.055, bit on the low end there. Fingers crossed it’ll be drinkable. Assuming it’s going to come in at session strength.
Loving the goblin fermentation vibes you re giving off there. Never stop.
Mostly beer brewer here, so dumb things I’ve done were mostly process related. Fermenting beer with unsanitized wood chips - turned sour. Adding too much rye or pumpkin - took me 12 hours to get the damn thing made - stuck mash.
Fermentation wise, not brewing, messed around with some koji with varying degrees of success.
If you’re doing things like spam alcohol, have you also considered miso as an ingredient?
that link returns a 404 error for me
taking this opportunity to not double post and comment on your post as well
don’t remember where I heard this from, was a long time ago (perhaps during some sort of botany class or another) but hop compounds should exhibit some surface tension action (like what soap does to water), so that might be the explanation for the foam
christmas-y cider sounds awesome.
edit - ninja’d on 404 comment - ignore that part
Oh brother, where art thou?
Man of constant sorrow. Nuff said
In addition to everything else suggested here already, I would say maybe cloves or tonka beans, if they suit your palate. Careful though, they might be overpowering. Maybe a vanilla pod or two, depending on the quantity.
Planning on trying my very first raw ale. So far, was thinking of doing a 3ish hour mash, finishing for about 30 minutes at 80 C, and adding something like 60g Simcoe (14.4%) to the mash. For laziness reasons I’d like to avoid doing a hop tea. Has anyone tried this before?
Sweet. Are you planning on using any spices or just the apple juice?
I’d say we could probably remove the sticky from the intro posts around this time, to clear up the landing when coming here from ‘subscribed’.
I would also be pro a periodic general discussion like what have you brewed / tasted / whatever related to homebrewing.
slightly off-topic - sorry to hear the job’s bumming your lust for brewing. have you considered doing funky stuff like raw ales or using weird ingredients at home?
I mean, you already have 12 phalanges on one hand (3 each, from 4 fingers) and you can use your thumb as an indicator.
Why are you heating your strike water to 71C? is it enough when adding room temp grain to cool down to your target mash (I wonder if you’re not accidentally destroying some enzymes)? What about the age of the grain? Enzymatic activity drops the longer grain is stored. Maybe you got a very old batch?
Using and AIO system, it should have the ability to control temp during the mash. I use one myself and a general all rounder mash program would be this: add the grain at around 45-54 C, then let it ramp up to 63. Hold for about an hour, ramp to 72, hold 10-30 minutes and then mash out at 78. Sparge at 78. I’d rather start too cold than too hot. Plus, there’s some other enzymes in there that work at low temps but get denatured at 63+ (like proteases and beta-glucanases).
I think the full phrase is De gustibus non disputandum in contradictorium (declinations might be off somewhere)
mmm, this seems painfully accurate
still, I wonder how many spouses of homebrewers actually participate in the activity but are not identified within the survey
Fully agree with you there. I can never fully relax around family and it’d probably be a nightmare living with them.
Right back at you, fellow hobby and eldricht horror appreciator!
Aside from the Shub-Niggurath worship (I’m more of an Azathoth person, myself), I agree with most things here. I’d just add to the list, group B I guess:
I feel these are more ‘apex’ hobbies, wherein you need a bit of everything (chemistry, electronics, an artistic sense, lots of patience) and they will occupy most of your time. You’d think electronics and aquaria are not the closest things, but just you wait until you feel the need to build an LED lamp with simulated day/night cycles and moonlight, controlled by an arduino.
The barrier to entry is fairly low - there are starter sets available and I’ve found that hobby shops of this sort are usually staffed by very knowledgeable people, eager to help newcomers. And, you can go as deep as you want and still have fun. You will also learn an absolute fuckton of things about what you choose to model with your hobby.
An honorable mention for homebrewing, which I don’t even regard as a hobby at this point, but more of a necessity, like cooking.
I’ve no experience on wine, but I can tell you I’ve once messed up the amount of citrus peel extract (just some dry citrus peel macerated in whiskey) I added to a beer and it was mostly undrinkable. The citrus peel bitterness did not go out after about 2 months and it was quite unpleasant. Ended up dumping the rest of the bottles. That particular batch also finished quite high on gravity, and I blamed it on adding the extract in primary fermentation.
I’d be curious if you’re trying to age it, though, maybe something will happen after a longer while?
If all else fails, you could use it as cooking wine, I guess.
They look unused. I never thought of re-use, but I would assume that if you’re just opening a bottlecap without much care for preserving the cap (like when they sort of get bent down the middle) you’d be deforming it beyond re-use. It needs to be able to form a uniform seal around the bottle opening when capped and any bend will prevent that.
Never thought of trying out some bottle caps I tried not to damage when opening because they were pretty though.
I can suggest a mead with some fruit juice (i forget the name for that style). Honey, water, fruit juice and some spices and you should have a nice base. I’d think possibly currants or blue/blackberries might work well. Or cranberries, but add less, just enough for acidity and colour. Then the tannins you mention shouldn’t overpower the batch.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can caramelize some of that honey beforehand. Not a lot, just enough to bring some walnut/hazelnut flavour. Add some cinnamon maybe and I’m picturing a drinkable christmas cake.
Glad to see you found a way to improve it. Cheers to that!
In retrospect, I should have saved it, but it was my second beer ever and went for an overly complex recipe also. Knowing what I know now, it would have probably aged nicely.
I’ve discovered boiling is not fully necessary to get a good brew and that heather tips make it awesome. I’ve just added maybe 1-2 handfuls now to the mash. Next autumn I plan to go nuts on collecting the thing and will try to fit maybe half a kilo in there, see how it comes out.
Honorable mention to red yeast rice, I have this notion of doing a rice mash for maybe a week with it and then plopping that into a raw ale mash to get enzymes and flavour of red yeast rice wine in a beer, as I’ve noticed that its enzymes also work up to 70ish Celsius.