Blasphemaster
New Member
I love to cook. I've been cooking since I was six, and I have pic of me stirring a wok at said age on a 3 foot stool to prove it. Eventually I stopped needing hours to perfectly chop my veggies (familial anxiety) and lately I can essentially make whatever anyone desires from intuition alone. Drinks now elude me though, given that I can't chop and cook beer and wine and such.
Ive been using the Mr. Beer kits to make drinks for about a year with great success but intermittent usage. Eventually I tried using the kegs to brew a blueberry 'wine' using a disaster involving a 2 QT Tupperware weighed down by a steel wok which oddly turned out tasty but a bit alkaline thus very nice with a bit of added lemon juice (and tasty), so...good times.
My first real experiment involved 4 Lbs of Dark Brown Sugar dissolved and then brewed with a mash of 8 Lbs of fresh raw strawberries. I used baking yeast for this, and it was hell to strain but the bottled result was thick, tasty, and incredibly hangover-inducing. Altogether I consider it a success for an initial attempt to see if this whole process would work.
I've since learned more about the fermenting process (so I hope), and I've been gathering supplies and know-how to give a try to several things.
Process -> Blenderize everything -> Various sifting and manual fining (eventually tried sticking the gunk in a cheesecloth bag during fermenting)-> tasty drinks.
Given that I had 3 of the 2.5-GAL Mr Beer Kegs, I ended up using one for a Green Grape, Kiwi, Peach, Plum combo that worked nicely when aged for a month with some midwest oak chips. The result was very satisfying, 25+ proof with nice fruit notes but largely dominated by the oak, the way I prefer. Good taster comments from this one.
The 2nd batch I did involved far more citrus, which inevitably resulted in souring. It turned out to fit my tastes considering that I enjoy a good sour, which oddly works very well in a spicy red sauce. Otherwise it is quite blah. I expect if you fermented Sour Patch candy you'd end up with this. Yum.
My 3rd batch was my most ambitious and a complete failure. I had moved recently and lost track of my lid for the 3rd Mr. Beer fermenter, and you can pretty much guess the rest. I tried cheesecloth the keep the outside crap out and allow the internal CO2 to be released, but I ended up dumping it in the backyard because I had no campden tabs available to combat the resulting infection. A day later, and there is an impromptu infinity symbol of dead grass in the lawn. Good thing I chucked it.
ANYWAYS, I feel that I've learned enough to scale up and try simpler, but larger scale projects. I've talked this over with friends and family, and narrowed it down to three projects, which is fitting since I've acquired 3 5-gal carboys and the necessary accessories. (Airlocks and bungs, siphon, sanitizer, funnels, strainers, test tube + gravity checker thinger, pressing bag etc.)
My father cannot safely ingest significant alcohol content due to psych/neural meds, but absolutely loves Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, so I aim to reproduce this without much alcohol if possible. There are enough farmers markets nearby that the cherries are no trouble and I can get the wheat malt off Amazon easily enough.
If you want to give advice, focus on this. He misses it and deserves it more than most. 14 years volunteer firefighter, 2 as chief, 28 as a dad. <--reward that guy with carboy 1
I plan on using carboy 2 to make cider for my sister, who is extremely picky. She has a love affair with Strongbow, but my impromptu wine press (2 5-gal buckets, with one crushing the contents of the other) would not work easily. Should I buy apple juice and maybe blenderize and then press some granny smiths or something?
Carboy 3 I think I would use enough of whatever grape is available and just do a straight, dry grape wine, and add some citrus fruits after primary fermentation is finished to even it out and sweeten it. Probably will end up with a blush.
:rockin: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxcYlFaOjM]I would use Shub-Niggurath as my fermenter if possible.[/ame] :rockin:
Ive been using the Mr. Beer kits to make drinks for about a year with great success but intermittent usage. Eventually I tried using the kegs to brew a blueberry 'wine' using a disaster involving a 2 QT Tupperware weighed down by a steel wok which oddly turned out tasty but a bit alkaline thus very nice with a bit of added lemon juice (and tasty), so...good times.
My first real experiment involved 4 Lbs of Dark Brown Sugar dissolved and then brewed with a mash of 8 Lbs of fresh raw strawberries. I used baking yeast for this, and it was hell to strain but the bottled result was thick, tasty, and incredibly hangover-inducing. Altogether I consider it a success for an initial attempt to see if this whole process would work.
I've since learned more about the fermenting process (so I hope), and I've been gathering supplies and know-how to give a try to several things.
Process -> Blenderize everything -> Various sifting and manual fining (eventually tried sticking the gunk in a cheesecloth bag during fermenting)-> tasty drinks.
Given that I had 3 of the 2.5-GAL Mr Beer Kegs, I ended up using one for a Green Grape, Kiwi, Peach, Plum combo that worked nicely when aged for a month with some midwest oak chips. The result was very satisfying, 25+ proof with nice fruit notes but largely dominated by the oak, the way I prefer. Good taster comments from this one.
The 2nd batch I did involved far more citrus, which inevitably resulted in souring. It turned out to fit my tastes considering that I enjoy a good sour, which oddly works very well in a spicy red sauce. Otherwise it is quite blah. I expect if you fermented Sour Patch candy you'd end up with this. Yum.
My 3rd batch was my most ambitious and a complete failure. I had moved recently and lost track of my lid for the 3rd Mr. Beer fermenter, and you can pretty much guess the rest. I tried cheesecloth the keep the outside crap out and allow the internal CO2 to be released, but I ended up dumping it in the backyard because I had no campden tabs available to combat the resulting infection. A day later, and there is an impromptu infinity symbol of dead grass in the lawn. Good thing I chucked it.
ANYWAYS, I feel that I've learned enough to scale up and try simpler, but larger scale projects. I've talked this over with friends and family, and narrowed it down to three projects, which is fitting since I've acquired 3 5-gal carboys and the necessary accessories. (Airlocks and bungs, siphon, sanitizer, funnels, strainers, test tube + gravity checker thinger, pressing bag etc.)
My father cannot safely ingest significant alcohol content due to psych/neural meds, but absolutely loves Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, so I aim to reproduce this without much alcohol if possible. There are enough farmers markets nearby that the cherries are no trouble and I can get the wheat malt off Amazon easily enough.
If you want to give advice, focus on this. He misses it and deserves it more than most. 14 years volunteer firefighter, 2 as chief, 28 as a dad. <--reward that guy with carboy 1I plan on using carboy 2 to make cider for my sister, who is extremely picky. She has a love affair with Strongbow, but my impromptu wine press (2 5-gal buckets, with one crushing the contents of the other) would not work easily. Should I buy apple juice and maybe blenderize and then press some granny smiths or something?
Carboy 3 I think I would use enough of whatever grape is available and just do a straight, dry grape wine, and add some citrus fruits after primary fermentation is finished to even it out and sweeten it. Probably will end up with a blush.
:rockin: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxcYlFaOjM]I would use Shub-Niggurath as my fermenter if possible.[/ame] :rockin:
