Broke College Brewer

[Devo9]

Is there a cafeteria? You could talk to whoever is working there to see if they have any glass or plastic jugs they can give you. Be careful what they had in them before, I am sure that glass can be washed out, but not so much for plastic... A large Mayo bucket could work after being thoroughly cleaned; I don't think they shouldn't hold any strong scents. I'd probably stay away from a pickle bucket or something holding mustard.

Those large plastic water jugs should work in a pinch as well, just be careful not to scratch them, I hear that can turn out bad.

If you soak it with hot water and vinegar (I think 1/4 cup of vinegar per gallon should work) it should get a lot of the scents out. I've also heard oxyclean can work too, but I have never tried it!

 

[zacschmidt]

Sorry I didn't get to post this sooner but here is the recipe I wanted to use:

15 Lbs. Fireweed Honey
6 Vanilla beans, split
6 bags Earl Grey Tea
Lavlin EC-1118 yeast
Nutrient & Energizer
8OZ bottle Pure Vanilla Extract

Make a starter with 1qt. warm water, 1/4 cup honey, nutrient, energizer and yeast. Let this work until time to pitch.

Bring 1 gallon water to a bare boil, add vanilla beans and take off the heat. Add tea bags, let steep for 15 minutes, remove tea bags. Add honey, stir to dissolve. Add 1 gallon cool water, stir well then add to primary. Add water to bring to 5 gallon mark. Add vanilla extract, stir well, add starter.

Rack to secondary after 7-10 days straining out vanilla beans.
Rack after another 3 weeks, should be still in another 2-3 weeks.

I will probably use a different honey and will use a regular black tea ( more then likely Lipton) and will scale down as needed. My only concern is when reading it is said that most of your vanilla/ aroma and flavors are blown out of the air lock in primary, should I use less beans/ extract in primary and more in secondary to get a better flavor and vanilla smell to it?

Any other advice is gladly taken!

 

[bottlebomber]

Holy gods man that is a HUGE amount of vanilla! I would axe the extract altogether, and just add the highly aromatic vanilla beans in secondary. Im assuming a 5 gallon batch, so that will give you about 16-19% abv depending on the honey, plenty enough to do a good extraction on that vanilla. (And possibly enough to knock that champagne yeast out of the game, giving you a sweet sack mead kind of a thing). With a recipe like that I'm starting to take your "I'm on a really tight budget" thing with a grain of salt

 

[zacschmidt]

Well it's going to be scaled down to 1 gallon batches so 1 bean per gallon I figured would be plenty and about 3.5 pounds per gallon. I want to do 2, 1 gallon batch but I might only do 1 for now, well see.

 

[Jester]

Great thread... I'm a poor grad student that has been brewing for years, but have been humoring the idea of trying a one gallon jug of mead.

 

[Tomico]

Hind site is 20/20 but why didn't you ask for stuff for Christmas? There are so many times I've wished I could have some idea what to buy for some people.

Tomico

 

[turtlescales]

Heard from a friend of mine who says they tried the grocery store mead recipe, and it turned out pretty well and cost them less than $15.

 

[Bugeaud]

+1 on JAOM I mean it's it's just so easy. I like to double the oranges though, I find there isn't enough orange flavour. Also, not meaning to negate from the whole brewing aspect, and obviously your are set on making mead, but IF you were just looking for an easy cheap drink, U-brew would be the cheapest and easiest. (50 cents for a pint of beer, and you almost don't have to do a thing)

 

[Flumpy]

Do JOAM, make it in a 1 gal plastic water jug with a balloon airlock. The honey will cost more than everything else combined, and you'll still walk out of the store spending about $15. My friend made wine using prunes and natural yeast in a trash bag stuffed inside a toilet when he was in jail.