The GaP (Grocery and Produce) Beer Experiment

McKBrew said:

Here is a link for ways to culture wild yeast. Any one want to give the last one (Other options) a go?

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Other sources
You probably don't need to the know this, but in the interest of
intellectual honesty, you can also get yeast cultures from moldy hay,
bird droppings, feathers, insects and soil

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Flashbacks of craigtube. "shudders"

Been reading this and it sounds like fun.

I haven't seen anyone suggesting malting popcorn kernels yet. Not much sugar but they do germinate well. (Not the bagged microwave type of course). This could help provide some enzymes. Maybe malt them then toast them bit for roasted flavor?

Apparently, old civilizations brewed potatoes (sweet or otherwise) and helped the process by spitting in the mash. :cross: Provided the alpha amylase enzyme, but they had no clue. Any takers??

Brew-Happy said:

Been reading this and it sounds like fun.

I haven't seen anyone suggesting malting popcorn kernels yet. Not much sugar but they do germinate well. (Not the bagged microwave type of course). This could help provide some enzymes. Maybe malt them then toast them bit for roasted flavor?

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This is exactly what I had planned, but more of the ornamental corn that's still on the cob, for some more flavor, and perhaps some homany.

In re: Malta Goya. The Malta Goya available in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states is, to the best of my knowledge, brewed at The Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, PA. I know for a fact they were brewing it in 2004, for I saw them bottling it.

A little bird in the brewhouse told me that, if I wanted to know what it tasted like fermented, I should drink a Stegmaier Porter. If I wanted to taste the unfermented Porter wort after it had been carbonated, I should grab a bottle of Malta off the line.

Shh! Don't tell anyone!

I'm getting in on this concept. I'm due to brew something anyhow. GrapeNuts. That's what I'm doing: GrapeNuts.

After all, GrapeNuts is a Hefeweizen mash, in that it's 50/50% barley/wheat. Hm. Just soak it like the Sumerians did with their liquid ode to Ninkasi and get some yeast in there. Hmmmmmm.

Cheers,

Bob

The Sumerians had grapenuts?

I have a question about using honey for fermentable sugar, what are the chances of botchulism?? It there any way to prevent it? My SWMBO was warning me baout htis last night, is there still a chance of it occuring even in pasterized honey?

dirtymike1 said:

I have a question about using honey for fermentable sugar, what are the chances of botchulism?? It there any way to prevent it? My SWMBO was warning me baout htis last night, is there still a chance of it occuring even in pasterized honey?

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I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that nothing could live in honey, pasturized or otherwise, including botulism...

That is the rational a lot of folk medicine types use to justify taking unpasturized honey for stuff. (I even had a doctor friend who swore by it...I think it was he who first told me nothing bad could live in honey.)

I heard the same thing from a mead make the other day, who doestn't even pasturize his mead...

http://diseases.emedtv.com/infant-botulism/botulism-in-honey.html

From the way I read it, botulism is in honey, about 10 % from the article, but humans over the age of 1 can handle the minumal amount.

This sounds like it could be pretty cool. I couldnt tell, but do the rules specify that you can't culture yeast from beer you buy at the store? My grocery store sells Rogue, Sierra Nevada and some random Hefes, all of which are unfiltered. I was also thinking you could collect yeast in a similar manner as you would to make sourdough bread...maybe a sour beer?

Quote from wikipedia on sourdough:

Biology and chemistry of sourdough

Two loaves of naturally-leavened (sourdough) bread.A sourdough starter is a stable symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast present in a mixture of flour and water. The yeasts Candida milleri or Saccharomyces exiguus usually populate sourdough cultures symbiotically with Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.[1]. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis (bacteria) was named for its discovery in San Francisco sourdough starters.

Often a starter will consist of basic items such as: water, bread flour, rye flour and a sourdough starter which can be purchased at certain grocery stores. Once the starter is made water and flour must be added in time increments over a period of days. Depending on the locale of the bakery and the type of bread being made, the starter can be either a relatively fluid batter or a stiffer dough; as a general rule, the more sour breads are made with a liquid starter. Firm starters (such as the Flemish Desem starter) are often more resource-intensive, traditionally being buried in a large container of flour to prevent drying out.

A fresh culture begins with a mixture of flour and water. Fresh flour naturally contains a wide variety of yeast and bacteria spores. When wheat flour contacts water, naturally-occurring amylase enzymes break down the starch into complex sugars (sucrose and maltose); maltase converts the sugars into glucose and fructose that yeast can metabolize. The lactobacteria feed mostly on the metabolism products from the yeast. [1] The mixture develops a balanced, symbiotic culture after repeated feedings.

There are several ways to increase the chances of creating a stable culture. Unbleached, unbromated flour contains more microorganisms than more processed flours. Bran-containing (wholemeal) flour provides the greatest variety of organisms and additional minerals, though some cultures use an initial mixture of white flour and rye flour or "seed" the culture using unwashed organic grapes (for the wild yeasts on their skins). Using water from boiled potatoes also increases the leavening power of the bacteria, by providing additional starch. Bakers recommend un-chlorinated water for feeding cultures. Adding a small quantity of diastatic malt provides maltase and simple sugars to support the yeasts initially.[2]

The flour-water mixture can also be inoculated from a previously kept culture. The culture is stable due to its ability to prevent colonization by other yeasts and bacteria as a result of its acidity and other anti-bacterial agents. As a result, many sourdough bread varieties tend to be relatively resistant to spoilage and mold.

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dirtymike1 said:

http://diseases.emedtv.com/infant-botulism/botulism-in-honey.html

From the way I read it, botulism is in honey, about 10 % from the article, but humans over the age of 1 can handle the minumal amount.

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Warning: Geek info ahead from my microbiology days...

The bacterium Clostridium botulinum is a spore forming bacterium, meaning it can survive in a dormant state in conditions not suitable to growth for a long time. There are two types of disease acquired by humans from this bacterium: infection and intoxication. You hear about "infant botulism"... that's an infection. This means the bacteria are actually feeding on and reproducing in the body. It can be caused be eating raw honey or even being exposed to soil dusts (construction, farming). Healthy adults can easily resist an infection by this bacterium. Foods high in sugar or fats have a lower moisture content and don't support the growth of bacteria. Honey, jambs, jellies, etc fall into this category. But if the honey has C. botulinum spores in it (dormant), they can infect the human body (infants).

Intoxication from C. botulinum is when an individual gets sick from a toxin already produced by the bacteria, not from the bacteria itself. Production of this toxin requires conditions suitable for growth for the bacteria. The infamous "swelled cans" are a sign of C. botulinum growth.

Pasteurization doesn't kill C. botulinum spores, but a healthy adult won't get sick from it and it won't hurt to brew with it since fermented beverages aren't suitable for growth of the bacterium either. Just don't put it in your infant's bottle.:cross:

Yes you can culture from a bottle from the store

Ok, so strolling through my local grocery store and I decided to see what was there, I wasn't at my usual one, so I was a bit unfamiliar with the possible beer-making supplies this particular Albersons had to offer, and I learned a few things, first of all, there is a $hit selection of beers, and there was only 2 live-sediment beers in the extensive beer/wine/liquor section, Hoegaarden Wit (which is apparently Wyeast 3944 Belgian White) and Chimey (apparently Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey). So I devised the following one-gallon recipe from what was there:

Ingredients:
1lb 8 oz grape nuts cereal (one box)
4 oz "instant" couscous
4 oz rolled oats [oatmeal]
? oz Sugar (to get the OG to about 1.050)
1/8 tsp corrander
1/4 tsp orange peel
1/2 tsp wormwood (or other bitter herb, to taste)
1 capsule beano
(Starter from a hoegaarden wit)

Method:
grind up the package of grapenuts (which is 50/50 wheat/barley roughly) using whatever method, to the constancy you'd normally have malt. Put grape-nut grinds, oatmeal and couscous into water and "mash" at 150F with beano tablet added for 40 mins (or untill starch conversion is done) Add herbs and spices at flameout, and sparge like normal. Boil for 60 mins, add sugar to get to desired OG. Wait untill blood warm, pitch yeast, etc.

This is loosely based off of a Hoegaarden clone, kinda a ghetto, psuto-probation Belgian wit beer, for full probation effect, use bread yeast. I shall be starting this one as soon as my Hoegaarden starter is done.


Comments? thoughts?

Very cool. I like the recipe. Be careful with the couscous, beware of stuck sparge.

This sounds really cool, unfortunately I havent stepped past extract yet so I dont think I could tackle it. I would like to hear how these brews turn out though.

IMHO using Goya and bottle-cultured yeast seems to take a bit of the challenge out. But I guess post-apocolyptical brewing is different than stone age/bronze age brewing.

I think I am in for a gallon for experimentation - but will try to use only non-perishable food items, raw produce and naturally occuring yeasts... things that would be found around the neighborhood and not rotting in a grocery store. I'll think up a recipe and post.

Maybe using fresh off the tree apples for some fermentables and yeast - and I will look into canned goods, somebody mentioned hominy.

NWernBrewer said:

IMHO using Goya and bottle-cultured yeast seems to take a bit of the challenge out. But I guess post-apocolyptical brewing is different than stone age/bronze age brewing.

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Yeah, I was going to go a different route, but wild yeasts are really fickle and I'd probably get more bacteria and other air-borne stuff around here (downtown in the city). I rationalized it for post-apocalyptic brewing because yeast is alive in beer for 6 months, and I'd think if you were brewing in such conditions you would have grabbed yeast when you still could, and keep a stockpile of whatever you could get your hands on, by means of starters and yeast cakes.

Freezeblade said:

I rationalized it for post-apocalyptic brewing because yeast is alive in beer for 6 months, and I'd think if you were brewing in such conditions you would have grabbed yeast when you still could, and keep a stockpile of whatever you could get your hands on, by means of starters and yeast cakes.

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That is a good rationalization... but I think I still want to play with the wild stuff since I am not making a lot of this stuff. If it's bad, I'll choke down what I can and toss the rest, we are talking only a gallon.

Freezeblade said:

Yeah, I was going to go a different route, but wild yeasts are really fickle and I'd probably get more bacteria and other air-borne stuff around here (downtown in the city). I rationalized it for post-apocalyptic brewing because yeast is alive in beer for 6 months, and I'd think if you were brewing in such conditions you would have grabbed yeast when you still could, and keep a stockpile of whatever you could get your hands on, by means of starters and yeast cakes.

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Plus you can keep harvesting from your batches until that yeast strain becomes too mutated.

Revvy said:

Plus you can keep harvesting from your batches until that yeast strain becomes too mutated.

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Mutated...

like ZOMBIES!?






Seriously, now.

I admit I haven't been following the thread that closely, but has anyone considered cider or cyser? (It's probably in the GaP Roolz somewhere and I missed it.)

Even after the apocalypse, the apple and other fruit orchards will be producing wild, and harvesting the honey from surviving hives is relatively easy. Our Colonial forebears often fermented cider with the microflora resident on the fruit. No reason why we couldn't do the same in our mountain retreats.

Cheers,

Bob

BobNQ3X said:

I admit I haven't been following the thread that closely, but has anyone considered cider or cyser? (It's probably in the GaP Roolz somewhere and I missed it.)

Even after the apocalypse, the apple and other fruit orchards will be producing wild, and harvesting the honey from surviving hives is relatively easy. Our Colonial forebears often fermented cider with the microflora resident on the fruit. No reason why we couldn't do the same in our mountain retreats.

Cheers,

Bob

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Yeah we've considered fruit...the challenge is to make something beerlike...

Gotcha. I'll shut up now.

Still contemplating something with molasses. There are dozens of Colonial-era recipes with molasses and spices.

Hmm....

BobNQ3X said:

Gotcha. I'll shut up now.

Still contemplating something with molasses. There are dozens of Colonial-era recipes with molasses and spices.

Hmm....

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Oh yeah, if you can find it, dig up the Dec/ Jan issue of Zymurgy (all about porters) there's a great article/recipe about the Colonial Williamsburg Porter...It uses a burnt sugar/molases mixture....

So here I am 30 mins into the 40 min mash for the recipe I posted earlier, and I'm rather concerned about the converting ability of beano, as I can smell no sweetness in the mash, looks to me like this batch of gruel might be a dumper. I'll leave it on for another while to see if it converts, but it's looking like attempt #1 is a failure

I wasn't thinking about doing this experiment, but I just so happen to have picked up a book on medieval beer wine mead and cider recipes. I can browse through that and see what kind of items I can get from a zompocalypse grocery store

Here in SA we've got King Korn (malted sorghum and yeast).
it's availible in the shops and the instructions go like this:


Bjala bja setso: African beer
1kg King Korn Mtombo (ready-crushed sorghum malt with yeast)
500g maize meal (flour)
13 litres water
Mix 500g of King Korn Mtombo with 500g of maize meal. Add 2 litres of boiling water and stir until well dissolved. Cover with a lid when cool. Allow to stand overnight to sour.
Boil 2 litres of water in a pot and add the sour mixture, stirring continuously until boiling. Cook the mixture for about an hour then allow to cool.
Add 8 litres of cold water and another 500g of King Korn Mtombo to the mixture and stir in the bucket or calabash.
Leave for 1-3 days to ferment.
Strain the mixture by pressing the liquid through a sieve, then leave for 20-30 minutes.
Enjoy the beer!

i wonder if in the "Allow to stand overnight to sour." step there are any enzymes present that convert the maize into fermentable sugars?

might as well try this, doubt it's gonna taste good!

jaydventer said:

i wonder if in the "Allow to stand overnight to sour." step there are any enzymes present that convert the maize into fermentable sugars?

might as well try this, doubt it's gonna taste good!

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That was my first impression reading the instructions...a long mash...I would do it in a cooler or something to keep out any nasties...

Also, an I reading it correctly, it has yeast already added to it???

Freezeblade said:

So here I am 30 mins into the 40 min mash for the recipe I posted earlier, and I'm rather concerned about the converting ability of beano, as I can smell no sweetness in the mash, looks to me like this batch of gruel might be a dumper. I'll leave it on for another while to see if it converts, but it's looking like attempt #1 is a failure

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DId you try an iodine test??

Revvy said:

DId you try an iodine test??

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I didn't have any iodine on hand, so no, I didn't. I did however add some honey in the end and took a gravity reading (1.05ish) the wort was very gruel-like, but after some research I decided to just go with it, then after the first bit of fermentation goes, throw in another bean-o capsule if the gravity hasn't moved much, which should give the enzymes PLENTY of time to de-branch the carbs, I saw a few people who added the bean-o into the secondary or after primary fermentation started.

I woke up this morning and saw that yes the fermentation had started, but the amount of what appeared to be trib that separated out is astounding, nearly taking up half the carboy, I'm hoping that the enzymes and time will work on this stuff a bit, whatever it is.

Picture of the starchy-trib mess:


I figured this must be because the main "grains" used were pre-ground into flour then reconstituted as cereal (grape nuts) so the particals were smaller, or something to that effect, what do you guys think?

Go carefully with the Beano, it will not stop eating sugars. This article has some decent information.

So freeze...you're saying that the entire bottom half is all trub??? OMG...ANd it hasn't even flocculated yet??? WOW... I' really can't wait til ferms over...You might want to consider cold crashing it afterwards...it might help clear it up...

I'll say it again...WOW! Kudos to you for doing it...I still haven't figured mine out yet.

Revvy said:

So freeze...you're saying that the entire bottom half is all trub??? OMG...ANd it hasn't even flocculated yet??? WOW... I' really can't wait til ferms over...You might want to consider cold crashing it afterwards...it might help clear it up...

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From yesterday the amount of trub at the bottom is now 1/3 as much as it was (it is now only 3 inches of the bottom, instead of 9 inches). I can think of a few things that might make it do this, either it just compacted, which would be strange to compact that much, or the bean-o enzyme survived the boil and is eating away at the carb flour slowly, either way it's crazy. I'll throw an updated picture up when the primary fermentation is over, I'm thinking that a bit of secondary might help clear it up, along with a cold-crash.

Well, mine was a dumper....A wasted half day, wasted money, I had to scrub scorched gunk off the bottom of my kettle twice (A trick I learned is that a fine wet/dry sanding sponge, is great to get the last burned bits off the bottom, without scratching the metal)...My right hand is slightly scalded from plunging it into my mashtun to reattach the braid...My house has this burned sugar/barley/rice/malted milk smell to it...

Boy that was fun!!!

I don't know if I'll try again...we'll see...I may post pictures of the disaster up until I dumped the stuff....

I was planning to see it through, but after it scorched before it would even get up to a boil, I gave up....

k1v1116 said:

whatever you do dont use wormwood for bittering, I tried that once and it tastes like cough syrup. In some asian stores you can get the mold that converts rice starch into sugar for rice wine, is this cheating?

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i like wormwood as a bittering agent, personally
just started my second batch of wormwood ale

don't expect it to be like hops - wormwood's bitterness hits you on the back of the pallet with ferocious astringency - but I dig it

Revvy said:

Well, mine was a dumper....A wasted half day, wasted money, I had to scrub scorched gunk off the bottom of my kettle twice (A trick I learned is that a fine wet/dry sanding sponge, is great to get the last burned bits off the bottom, without scratching the metal)...My right hand is slightly scalded from plunging it into my mashtun to reattach the braid...My house has this burned sugar/barley/rice/malted milk smell to it...

Boy that was fun!!!

I don't know if I'll try again...we'll see...I may post pictures of the disaster up until I dumped the stuff....

I was planning to see it through, but after it scorched before it would even get up to a boil, I gave up....

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Yeah, the only reason mine didn't burn was because I did the brew in a bag method, and my bag was a little small, so it never touched the bottom of my brew kettle, although it had me worried quite a few times. Mine's still bubbling strong, so I must have done something right.

Also, am I reading it correctly, it has yeast already added to it???

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yep. so essentially its a bit of a waste of product, instead of just including a packet of yeast, they just mix it with the malted sorghum. that means, you probably kill the first half of the yeast when you mix it with the boiling water in step 1)...although, when i came back from work the next day, it was already bubbling..like some witch 's grool, hehe.

tonight i strain and put into 5lt plastic bottles.


when i bought it the black lady at the till looked at me funny and asked me: "who's gonna help you with that?" as if she thinks because i'm a whitey i can't brew zulu beer?... well just followed the instructions, so hopefully i can!

Alright, here's a few photos and the story of my attempt...My first ever brewing failure...hopefully the only one.

The ingredients.



2 1.1 pound boxes Cracklin Oat Bran Cereal
1 pound Box of Malted Milk Candies (ground in the food processer- Yeah I know it's not malted barley, I just wondered what would happen with all the chocolate and sugar.)


1 pound of Pearl Barly
1 pound of Wild Rice/Brown Rice Blend (Barley and Rice mixture went into a cereal mash before being added to the tun with the cereal and the candies)
Mollases was to be added to the boils.
Beano for conversion

For bittering, I was going to use Angostino Bitters...
Pacman Yeast from bottle conditioned Rogue Beer.

(in the background, you will see that I blew the dust of the "old brown jug) Mr Beer keg, to do a 2 gallon batch...Think I'd attempt five gallons of what could be the most vilest brew known to man? NAH!

I attempted to do an overnight mash at 155 degrees...My Idodine test Sunday morning showed no, or very little conversion (I was concerned that I didn't actually hit 155 (I had issues with calculating the strike water temp, becasue I had hot mush from the rice/oat, and room temp cereal, so my numbers were all wonky)

I decided to try to re-mash...I started to drain my MLT and got my first stuck sparge. So I just dumped the goop from the tun into a pot (HSA be Damned) and brought it up to 160 and put it back into my tun for 2 more hours...(This resulted in my first scorching of my kettle...and an hour cleanup of it.)

I mis labeled the pic, but here is my attempt to remash...



I had rigged up a "brew in Bag" with my paint strainer bag inside my MLT, which kept falling into the cooler...I used a couple of spring clamps to finally hold it in place, but couldn't put the lid on the cooler, so I covered it with tinfoil and an insulated blanket, and left it alone while I scraped my kettle clean...(A fine grit wet dry sanding sponge I learned is an invalualbe addition to one's cleanup aresenal...you can get the last bits of scorching off the pot without scratching the metal.)

After 2 hours I sparged with another gallon and a half of 170 water and started to drain my MLT....And had another stuck sparge despite using the brew in bag method...I pulled out the bag of "grain" and used my mash paddle to swirl the liquor which seemed to help the MLT begin to drain, but I knocked my braid off and had to repeatedly soak my hand in cold water and plunged it into my 160+ degree cooler to reattach it (can anyone say multiple degree burns?).

This is what I finally pulled out of my tun....Ain't it tasty looking?
And what a nice somewhat burned smell to it from scorch #1...but I figured a little scorch would add a smoky nutty taste to it...



More to come...

Part 2

Here's the spent "grain" mush before going down the disposal...Appetizing ain't it?



Like I said, I was determined to see this thing out to yeast pitch...I figured Something good could come of it, right?...plus I had to justify my time, and the pain of my hand, right?

But I was wrong...Really Wrong...

Before it even got much above 190 degrees I started to detect another layer of "Roastiness" developing in the kettle....Nah, I'll call it what it was...The damn thing was scortching once again!!!

So that was that...If I couldn't safely boil it, then there was no point in proceeding...I guess I could have attempted to just pasteurize it and add the mollases and the bitters...but I figured the burned taste would render it un drinkable...

So into the sink with the grain it went...

Here's the second scortch in my kettle...



This one was harder to clean becasue it was nearly a quarter inch thick...I did 2 soaks with oxyclean, and a couple of heavy scrapings...and finally another round with the sanding sponge (I'd marry it if it had bewbies) but my brewpot came clean again...I even boiled a couple of gallons of water to make sure I got any burned "taste" out of it...

And for the last 2 days I've been soaking my cooler in baking soda/water to try to remove the sickly sweet burned smell out of it...

Like I said...even though it was painful, and frustrating...It was fun (sort of).

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer. I'm probably going to cheat and use a packet of dry nottingham I have laying in the fridge. Sorry about not follwing rules, Just consider it my own experiment based one the ideas of the OP. Or call me a cheater, I don't care.

IrregularPulse said:

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer.

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You got the premise of it pretty good...

I don't really know the amount of beeno to use...I just know that on chat, Eviltoj told me he used 10 beeno's for his "grainbill" and didn't get good conversion...I used 15 and didn't either....

IrregularPulse said:

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer. I'm probably going to cheat and use a packet of dry nottingham I have laying in the fridge. Sorry about not follwing rules, Just consider it my own experiment based one the ideas of the OP. Or call me a cheater, I don't care.

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First of all, the obligatory statement: cheater!

All in good jest. but to answer your question, I used 2 capsules of beano in my gallon batch, which I "mashed" for about an hour with all the grains, then boiled for 30 mins. The stuff's acting weird in the fermenter, it had about half of the carboy filled with trub (see earlier post) then it fell to about 1/6 of the carboy, now it's back up at 1/4, with bubbles coming through the junk on the bottom. I must have done something right, because fermentation is still going, although that could be from the honey I added. After it seems to have stopped I'll do a SG test on it, and if it's really high I'll throw in another beano cap right into the carboy, I read that that works somewhere.

In other news, am I the only one who's got this far?