consistantly alcoholic liquid

[bracconiere]

so i was wanting to post more here, because i've been drinking my own beer for 14 years. But don't really make 'good' beer, it's drinkable, but not top notch. i can make a batch of 10g's for 7-8 bucks. that's why i do it, InBev can suck it with 17 dollar 12 packs...and yes they own all the "Micro people too", the new beer cartel!

just wondering if making cheap beer qualifies you as homebrewer instead of good beer....I don't make 'good ' beer but it's consistently drinkable, and a nickle a glass for 8%...and it's always alcoholic, lol

 

[SanPancho]

And what exactly is this nickel-a-pint recipe?

 

[day_trippr]

Um....7-8 bucks for a 10 gallon batch?
One can only imagine why the beer might not be all that great.

Even using ranched yeast and always buying in bulk, the 10 gallon batch of Juicy Bits neipa I'm doing tomorrow comes in at over $80, with over $40 of that in hops...

Cheers!

 

[bracconiere]

12.99 for 50lb's whole barley from the feed store, 23lb's get's me 20lb's malt...get's me 10g's 8% beer, yakima valley hops sells year old hops at a discount, pick it up 4lb's for about 20 bucks...i resorted to malting my own back in 2015 when inbev bought miller-coors too, don't want to get cut off again, have to go back to before it was 'legal' methods....like the original homebrewer said, if i can brew my own for 20 cents a quart i should be able too!

 

[bracconiere]

took me a while to calm down...but why is wine yeast cheap and beer yeast so expensive....? i do reuse my yeast though....

 

[day_trippr]

Ok, so the proposition is not totally insane
Doesn't explain your perceived quality problem though.

fwiw, as part of their 2016 SABMiller acquisition InBev divested itself of MillerCoors by selling its stake to Molson Coors.
So it's safe to go back

Cheers!

 

[ba-brewer]

so i was wanting to post more here, because i've been drinking my own beer for 14 years. But don't really make 'good' beer, it's drinkable, but not top notch. i can make a batch of 10g's for 7-8 bucks. that's why i do it, InBev can suck it with 17 dollar 12 packs...and yes they own all the "Micro people too", the new beer cartel!

just wondering if making cheap beer qualifies you as homebrewer instead of good beer....I don't make 'good ' beer but it's consistently drinkable, and a nickle a glass for 8%...and it's always alcoholic, lol

the way you make your beer you qualify as a homebrewer and a homemaltster.

 

[thehaze]

One of the questions that pops in my head upon reading your thread, is " Do you want to make better tasting/looking beer? ". You are still a homebrewer, just like many craft breweries are still craft, although their beer is not very good.

If you have been brewing and drinking your own beer in the past 14 years, it can't be all that bad. Some times, good beer can be a relative thing, just as bad beer is. It's all about your taste. If you are happy with it, then you should continue brewing ít your own way.

 

[ba-brewer]

Terms like good and bad mean different things to different people. I had to take a quality class once, one thing that stuck from that class was quality is meeting the requirements. If your requirements are inexpensive and drinkable you have a quality product.

 

[divrack]

I like the dedication, but for the cost of getting a sack of great malt im not sure id be going to the effort of making it myself.
I have been getting bulk fresh hops and selling them on local forums meaning I can make a top notch hoppy beer for (translating from UK measurements sloppily) 25 bucks... So lavishly expensive by your standards, but if it saves hours of work and electricity/gas and results in something great, then worth it?

 

[corax]

My only question is, do you enjoy doing it? If so, carry on. If not, reconsider.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

why is wine yeast cheap and beer yeast so expensive....?

Actually if you compare like for like, there's not a huge difference - here in the UK I can get unbranded dry beer yeast for about US$0.80 and basic branded dry wine yeast or beer yeast for about US$1.30, with fancier dry wine yeasts like Bioferm for ~US$3, about the same as say S-04. Liquid wine or beer yeasts cost the same. But brewers like playing with more different yeasts, so the volumes can be smaller on beer yeasts, and brewers are more likely to "trade up" to the next level - so they will often use liquid yeasts, whereas winemakers tend to stick to (cheaper) dry yeast.

You can't ignore overall volumes either - in the UK at least, a company like Lallemand view themselves as a bread yeast company that sells some beer yeast on the side.

 

[bracconiere]

got a lot of comments on this...Yes i LOVE doing it! yes i finally got to my dream price point of a 99 cent twelver, so now i can try and see how good i can make it.

and here in the good ol' USA a pack of Nottingham beer yeast goes for almost $6, and a `10 pack of wine yeast goes for about $5, even figuring the difference in weight 11g's vs. 5g's...and it just happened recently too...or at least in the past few years...

anyway just drunken rambling on my part, i need to do more searching of these forum on my 'new' quest to make good beer...At the same price point..

i think most drunks would love a 8% .99 twelve pack at the store, no matter how bad it was...And i think my beer has a more robust flavor than MilWaukee's BEST....and they want 8-9 bucks for a twelve pack of that...i was at the liquor store watching some bum count out 5.5 in change to get a 6 pack of it, felt bad for him...

and as far as elec/gas goes malting my own, only takes about 1kWh to run the box fan for a day to dry it, and in the oven it doesn't seem to affect my gas bill. So i don't know....

 

[SanPancho]

Holy crap. That’s amazing man.

My only advice/critique would be to ditch the wine yeast. In general it doesn’t make great beer. (Not on its own) Splurge on a pack of dry yeast and reuse it. Keep it in the fridge if you brew more often than 90 days. If not, There’s info on this forum about drying yeast for long term storage. If you are malting your own you’ve got time to dry yeast for reuse. “NorthernBrewer” who posted above can likely tell you how.

You are definitely a homebrewer. Time to expand your horizons a bit? You could be making your own Vienna,Munich, victory/brown/roast malts, crystal malts, maltéd wheat, oats or rye, etc.

Keep the 99c brew by all means if you like it. But maybe try 5 gal of something new?

 

[corax]

As a next step, you could grow your own hops. It might be a little pricy to get the first rhizomes, but after a few years you might have more hops than you know what to do with. They grow like weeds, pretty much anywhere.

 

[bracconiere]

lol, already done that! but after the move to AZ, don't think they'll grow well...Now i get year old stock from yakima valley hops, get about 4lbs for 20 bucks...use about 1.5oz's for a 10g batch...works out to about 40-60 cents a brew...now with my quest for quality, seems like PBW is the thing i need to make cheaper, even the homemade PBW is expensive....

didn't see the other post first...ALL i can make is a munich style malt, that's why i can't make a 'light' beer...my oven only goes down to 170f, and bumps up to 200f while kilning...and my homemade crystal, comes out dark like a ...i'd guess 180-200 lovibond no matter what i try....i just mash it in the kernel at 150f, dry it then roast...

and i brew about 3 times a month, but do keep the dredges of yeast i take from the fermenter in the fridge...i tried using bleach to sanitize but the residue i think ****** up my yeast and it's not flocculating, but being it fermented fine, i was thinking about maybe using an eyedropper to add just 1-2 drops to my harvested yeast slurry to kill any bacteria...

 

[SanPancho]

Oh No. Never add anything like Chlorine or bleach to the yeast. No no no.

Boil a mason jar and lid to sterilize and put the yeast in there. The alcohol in the beer will keep bugs from infecting if you keep it in the fridge. No need to add anything else. Just clean sterile container, the yeast and some of the beer to keep it covered.

As for your stove, thats a bummer about the temp control. But you could still try using rye, oats and wheat as your base grains in a Munich type roast. Definitely sounds interesting.

I’d try the crystals too. Crystal rye is pretty dark and it’s delicious. There’s a dark crystal wheat too I think. Never seen crystal oats darker than golden, but why not give it whirl on something small like 5-10 pound batch?

From what you’re telling us I’d think you’re actually set up to do malty ales and lagers, belgians, saisons, possibly some UK styles, and sours. That’s probably 50 recipes you could do in small 5 gal batches. None are typically hoppy or expensive to make. But you would need to buy different beer yeasts- Belgian, saison, lager, British, etc. But at $6-8 bucks for 5 gals that’s less than 25c per pint. And you can store and reuse.

Without dumping a ton of money it sounds like you’re actually in good shape to really do some exploration of classic beers.

 

[bracconiere]

i have tried malting oats twice when the feed store was out of whole barley, but had whole oats....i asked do they have a husk on them, they said yes...i figured i give it a shot...they were really too small to crush in my mill though and i didn't get good conversion ...they also tasted funny in the final product, but smelled awesome while they were boiling, not sure what was up with that...while they were boiling smelled like i was making some sort of cream liquor, but lost it once fermented and kegged...

 

[jack13]

I have nothing to add here, other than to say I am very curious about this beer and wish I could try it.

 

[bracconiere]

the guy at the feed store wanted to try it, gave him a bottle, he said it was alright and wouldn't mind drinking more...lol

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I recall there was a yeast washing thing using chlorine dioxide to kill off bacteria 'n' stuff that was purported to work well...

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/...ack-16paqupchrndxd20pcac/16paqupchrndxd20pcac

Cheers!

 

[bracconiere]

i think i'll close this thread with saying, i was just drinking and thought i'd ask/say, not sure if i'm cool enough to hang out with people making 'good' beer...But DAMN can i make a cheap one! lol

(you know if i didn't think it was cheating i could probably get the price down to 70-80c twelvers cutting back on malt and using table sugar!)

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

i think i'll close this thread with saying, i was just drinking and thought i'd ask/say, not sure if i'm cool enough to hang out with people making 'good' beer...But DAMN can i make a cheap one! lol

(you know if i didn't think it was cheating i could probably get the price down to 70-80c twelvers cutting back on malt and using table sugar!)

I will drink with you any day sir. I frickin' love this thread. Brew on!

Oh and I'm not cool either.

 

[bracconiere]

For some reason i had to search my first post. to say i've made some friends after ~9k posts, i think at this point most people just give me a face palm and leave it at that! learned somethings, and am trying to work on my elipses adiction. too all!

(i'm paid up to 2022, so count on more comedic relief. and i don't know why i suddenly had a surge of nostaliga of the past two years )

 

[jack13]

Well here's a good sign:

I was sad when I thought this was a goodbye message.

Prost!

 

[bracconiere]

I was sad when I thought this was a goodbye message.

damn man i think that's why i've been nostalgic. the last 3 or so weeks, has for some reason been non-stop excitment to brew again. but i allready drink as much as humanly possible, and gotta wait to try it all out!

before i started hanging here, i was lonely being the only one making my own, hanging around BMC, whiskey drinkers.

edit: and @day_trippr we'll see what @AJinJacksonville says about my $8 dollar beer if he ever brews with my homemalt! it's in his hands, lol

 

[jack13]

What about brewing more often, but smaller batches?

 

[Ogilthorpe2]

Am I the only one interested in Hearing more about his home malting process?

Break it down for us.

 

[bracconiere]

What about brewing more often, but smaller batches?

i have been thinking maybe doing 5 gallon batches. i laughed thinking about 1 gallon batches, and how i'd probably buy a couple 2 liter bottles to bottle it, lol

hell i could get carb caps for them and force carb it by wieght even! (one of the exciting new things over the last few weeks! it all started from me seeing a thread of someone that kept their kegs on scale to tell how much was left. never know what's around the corner here!)

 

[bracconiere]

Am I the only one interested in Hearing more about his home malting process?

Break it down for us.

i've broken it down in pictorial form in a few threads. i'd have to dig one up.