Beer from scratch

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808beer

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Is it possible to create a beer without using malts, hops and extracts?
Could I just go to a super market and purchase ingredients to make a decent beer? If anyone did, how did it come out and what did you buy?

Thanks
808
 
Short answer; no.

Long answer; the basic ingredients of beer are malt sugar, hops, water and yeast. You can suppliment them with other stuff, even replace them with something similar. But moldy bread soaked in ginger ale with bread yeast is not beer.

Go to a homebrew store, not Safeway.
 
808beer said:
Is it possible to create a beer without using malts, hops and extracts?
Could I just go to a super market and purchase ingredients to make a decent beer? If anyone did, how did it come out and what did you buy?

Thanks
808

Yes. Get the book sacred and herbal healing beers. They use corn (chicha) beer, and pretty much allot of things that are not grains. They use spices in place of the hops. Allot of recipes in the book rely on wild yeast to ferment, but I would go online and buy a couple of packets of beer yeast to start a batch. I made the chicha beer with stuff i had and a packet of yeast and it tasted damn tasty. experiment. Anymore questions just ask.
 
Go to the CO-OP and get some barley seeds and plant a few acres. Then, once you've got a good crop, set up a malting and kilning operation. Next, call a hop grower and get some rhizomes and plant those. Next, set up a yeast ranching operation in your house. Once all these steps are complete, not only will you have made beer from scratch, you will have made beer pretty much from dirt. Good luck.

In the meantime, it's hard enough to made a great beer from the best ingredients you can find. The best breweries in the country don't shop at Safeway, and neither should you.

Prosit!
 
This is mainly a matter of definitions. Beers are made from grains. You can make beer from corn, wheat, oats, rye, etc. Sake is a rice beer that doesn't use malt or hops. It depends on bacteria to convert the starches to sugar, which are then fermented by the yeast.

When homebrewers talk about beer, they mean malt, hops, water and yeast. That doesn't mean other ingredients aren't used.

Anything with sugar and/or starch will ferment eventually. If you are just looking for cheap alcohol, all you need is cane/beet sugar and bread yeast. This would be considered a wine, not a beer.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Basically, anything that grows can be mixed with water and fermented.:D

But would you want to drink it?:eek:

I WOULD!!!! GIVE ME A PINT!!!
 
Malt is the biggest ingredient, and Pearl Barley is only $.49# at the grocer. I tried malting it- sure smelled malty, some sprouted too, but it got moldy too. Maybe hulls help prevent spoilage while seeds are laying on the ground waiting for spring? Then, since there are seldom hulls on the grains in the store, sparging would be a PITA. But, I suppose 10 pounds of rolled oats, mixed up with five gallons of water, a couple tea bags, boil for a while for sterility, cool, add an envelope of Fleischman's, let it settle in a secondary fermenter, you would have beer. Probably good enough for the ancient Pelopenesians anyhow...or high school kids that can't buy Bud yet....makes me wonder what the recipe for "beer in a bag" is....
 
casebrew said:
Malt is the biggest ingredient, and Pearl Barley is only $.49# at the grocer. I tried malting it- sure smelled malty, some sprouted too, but it got moldy too. Maybe hulls help prevent spoilage while seeds are laying on the ground waiting for spring? Then, since there are seldom hulls on the grains in the store, sparging would be a PITA. But, I suppose 10 pounds of rolled oats, mixed up with five gallons of water, a couple tea bags, boil for a while for sterility, cool, add an envelope of Fleischman's, let it settle in a secondary fermenter, you would have beer. Probably good enough for the ancient Pelopenesians anyhow...or high school kids that can't buy Bud yet....makes me wonder what the recipe for "beer in a bag" is....

I wouldnt do oats though because of there high oil content. To find the recipe for beer in a bag would be "pruno", and you can find it at any fine correctional facility near you!!!
 
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