Fermenting my first batch using K-mart ingredients...

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HickoryMike said:
If you are under the age of 14, I applaud your determination to get trashed. If you are older than 14, I feel sad for you. If cheap alcohol is all you really want, Sams sells really big bottles of mouthwash.
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I'm 24, lol.

I saw that hops tea is sold...I'm reading ginger makes a good substitute for hops?
 
techrunner said:
will this do well over time without the hops preservative effect? i just thought that was part of why hops were in there? just curious.
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It will probably sour in a couple days, if it's not already. Have you ever made a starter in the summer, and noticed the starter beer smells sours after only a day. The yeast is fine, but the beer above is sour and you decant it off beforer pitching the yeast. Some folks add a couple hop pellets.

There's a basic brewing video where they were testing different grain teas, and they had soured pretty quickly because there was no hops in there. It was actually a funny video, watching them realize their experiment went off.
 
Boerderij_Kabouter said:
I don't understand the aversion to going to a homebrew store and making actual beer???
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Lol no doubt. I don't think homebrewing is a good hobby for those who just want a cheap buzz. Go buy some Natty Light or something. What you're presently making is gonna taste far worse than any of the cheapest malt liquors out there. There really is no point of going through all this if you don't want to make actual beer.
 
Boerderij_Kabouter said:
I don't understand the aversion to going to a homebrew store and making actual beer???
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Maybe he is preparing for the coming zombipocalypse and wants to be able to become king of the sacred barleywater. So he wants to be able to brew with whatever is available? And the grocery store is closer than the lhbs, and therefore he'll have to fight through less zombies to get there. :D

celebrity-pictures-bruce-campbell-zombie-killa.jpg
 
revvy said:
maybe he is preparing for the coming zombipocalypse and wants to be able to become king of the sacred barleywater. So he wants to be able to brew with whatever is available? And the grocery store is closer than the lhbs, and therefore he'll have to fight through less zombies to get there. :d

celebrity-pictures-bruce-campbell-zombie-killa.jpg
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lol true dat!
 
Lordsoth said:
Lol no doubt. I don't think homebrewing is a good hobby for those who just want a cheap buzz.
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Dunno about that. Ted Danyluk tried to make the cheapest beer he could, and ended up at $1.26 per sixpack. That's cheaper than most beer out there, and probably a lot better. (And that's not as low as you can go; you can reuse yeast for example.)
 
MANY years ago, I brewed a batch with a couple friends. We had 0 clue what we were doing. Somehow, we scrapped together some ingredients, NO sanitation, NO hydrometers.... just a pot and some ingredients. We used baking yeast. The stuff tasted awful. Like putting some wonder bread and water in a blender. We bottled in anything that would hold pressure.... 2 liter bottles, 3 liter bottles, etc.....

We kept the stuff for parties. Well, for after we ran out of the store bought stuff and nobody was in any condition to drive. "bring out the gimp (as we called it) !!!!" calls would start to go out. It turned into somewhat of an event. By that point you aren't really tasting much. I see your point in what you are trying to do here, but there has to be a little better way. In the end, if it sucks you are out, what, $20?

Reminds me of a joke about an old bull and a young bull sitting on a hill......
 
O_16581_72452_5 said:
Why would i be a troll...? :eek:
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These are usually the kind of posts people post just to get a rouse and the fact that your username appears to be a random assortment of numbers doesn't help either. Sorry. Read John Palmer and visit a homebrew shop. Stop trying to buy brewing ingredients from kmart and visit an online shop.

O_16581_72452_5 said:
As long as it's alcohol, chances are, i'll love it. :tank:
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And this seems to be the point your going for so this forum won't be much help to you. We're about crafting beer, not making hooch. If all you want is alcohol, boil a pound of DME with .5oz of hops for an hour with a couple pounds of sugar, top off to 5G and pitch bread yeast. You'll get drunk. But don't come back here asking why it's gross :p
 
IrregularPulse said:
These are usually the kind of posts people post just to get a rouse and the fact that your username appears to be a random assortment of numbers doesn't help either. Sorry. Read John Palmer and visit a homebrew shop. Stop trying to buy brewing ingredients from kmart and visit an online shop.


And this seems to be the point your going for so this forum won't be much help to you. We're about crafting beer, not making hooch. If all you want is alcohol, boil a pound of DME with .5oz of hops for an hour with a couple pounds of sugar, top off to 5G and pitch bread yeast. You'll get drunk. But don't come back here asking why it's gross :p
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lol, it's all good, i love a good beer too. For my first batch, i just wanted to get the idea of how to make alcohol in general, i learned a huge amount with this crap "beer" i've made. I'm going to keg it tomorrow and let it carbonate to see what i come up with. I didn't see a reason to spend a ton of money on my first batch and have it come out wrong (moldy, skunked, etc). Assuming this does what it should, i'm going to pursue better beer making techniques. Kind of like buying a first car, start out with crap so when it's wrecked it's a shrug rather than a "****!"

I haven't heard of a local brew shop, but we do have a local brewery which might be able to further help me.
 
O_16581_72452_5 said:
lol, it's all good, i love a good beer too. For my first batch, i just wanted to get the idea of how to make alcohol in general, i learned a huge amount with this crap "beer" i've made.
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In that case, welcome and good luck. In this forum, we mostly strive to make good beers; often the cost is comparable to store-bought sixers of craft ales ($7.99 or more), so this hobby won't save you any money, really, and you may be loathe to share your good beer with friends that pound down BudLight like water.

Before you go much further at all, read How To Brew. It explains the process well, and you can decide if you want to get into 'real' brewing. Correct sanitation processes, temperature controls, yeast variants, barley and hops options - there really is a lot to this.
 
Hang Glider said:
In that case, welcome and good luck. In this forum, we mostly strive to make good beers; often the cost is comparable to store-bought sixers of craft ales ($7.99 or more), so this hobby won't save you any money, really, and you may be loathe to share your good beer with friends that pound down BudLight like water.

Before you go much further at all, read How To Brew. It explains the process well, and you can decide if you want to get into 'real' brewing. Correct sanitation processes, temperature controls, yeast variants, barley and hops options - there really is a lot to this.
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Yeah, totally understood, i have a long way to go before i try making a batch of really good stuff.

I really need to get some iodine based sanitizer is what i'm reading, it doesn't require rinsing.
 
Kegging it now, went to get a wiff of the batch to see how it smelled and got a face full of CO2. **** felt like wasabi, lol.

After the CO2 smell died off a bit, it's kinda eh. Smells a bit like beer, i guess, lol.
 
Aaaand, i'm drinking it. It wasn't fully fermented, while i was sealing the keg it was pressurizing itself. :|

I have a relief valve though, so it's all good to finish in the keg.

It really doesn't taste half bad IMO. Yeah, it's far from good, but it's definitely drinkable and almost enjoyable, still gotta let it fully carbonate.

I'm going to use the same LME and yeast again. I'll add some more ingredients next time (like ginger i'm thinking).
 
Of course it's not done...it's been less than a week!

Read more!!! www.howtobrew.com is free AND worth the time.

Next time add more ingredients...like anything that was suggested in the SEVERAL pages before this one. Hops and real brewer's yeast would be a fantastic start.

If you're only interested in brewing K-Mart hooch, we are not going to be able to help you further.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
Of course it's not done...it's been less than a week!

Read more!!! www.howtobrew.com is free AND worth the time.

Next time add more ingredients...like anything that was suggested in the SEVERAL pages before this one. Hops and real brewer's yeast would be a fantastic start.

If you're only interested in brewing K-Mart hooch, we are not going to be able to help you further.
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It's been the longer part of 6 days, i started around 3pm on Tuesday. I was reading for what i was doing 3-4 days should've been about enough, then another 3 to carbonate...but no big deal, i'll know next time to go longer.

There's definitely alcohol in it, i'm on my 2nd cup and feelin' pretty good.

This is neat as ****, lol.

I'm kinda wanting to shy away from hops though honestly. I keep seeing ginger is a great substitute and there's a few others. It's not cost related, i just like doing things against tradition, i'm weird like that i guess. Coffee in what i made i think would be delicious. It already has a really similar aftertaste to Coffee.
 
O_16581_72452_5 said:
Aaaand, i'm drinking it. It wasn't fully fermented, while i was sealing the keg it was pressurizing itself. :|

I have a relief valve though, so it's all good to finish in the keg.

It really doesn't taste half bad IMO. Yeah, it's far from good, but it's definitely drinkable and almost enjoyable, still gotta let it fully carbonate.

I'm going to use the same LME and yeast again. I'll add some more ingredients next time (like ginger i'm thinking).
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Why go through all that trouble just to get something not even close to beer and more or less disgusting tasting just to get probably less than 10% alcohol? Just spend the $7 or whatever to buy a fifth of Popov and call it a night.
 
Here's some light reading on aging beer:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/aging-beer-facts-myths-discussion-84005/

There are a lot of suggestions about how to get beer on the "fast track" in that thread. None of them include drinking it after 6 days.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do some more reading.

I can appreciate your desire to do things your own way. However, in some cases, there's a fine line between original and foolish.
 
That's pretty bizarre. Most beer companies have brews for 20-30 dollars and that'll make a 5 gallon batch.

What you made sounds pretty terrible.
 
marubozo said:
Why go through all that trouble just to get something not even close to beer and more or less disgusting tasting just to get probably less than 10% alcohol? Just spend the $7 or whatever to buy a fifth of Popov and call it a night.
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I have two half gallons of that in the freezer, lol.

Here's some light reading on aging beer:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/aging-beer-facts-myths-discussion-84005/

There are a lot of suggestions about how to get beer on the "fast track" in that thread. None of them include drinking it after 6 days.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do some more reading.

I can appreciate your desire to do things your own way. However, in some cases, there's a fine line between original and foolish.
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Yeah, i know i shouldn't be drinking it right now, it's not carbonated and i'm sure it's actually not finished. But there's definitely quite a bit of alcohol in it, i'm on my 3rd or 4th cup and feeling pretty nice. :drunk:

But doing it more properly next time is definite. I'm happy with the results of this...but pretty much tastes like a 40 of malt liquor with an aftertaste similar to coffee.

I'm reading a bit, i think i will probably follow the first recipe for the ale in the "howtobrew" website.
 
I for one applaud your efforts
but that doesn't mean what
everyone else said isn't true
ya might look around for some
Mr Beer kits
 
Not quite a cheap as what you made but will turn out much better for your next brew and doesn't require any more equipment that what you already have...


Graff

Will only cost about $20 or so (apple juice the most expensive part). The rest you can order from austinhomebrew.com when you order the iodofor...
 
tulsashag said:
Not quite a cheap as what you made but will turn out much better for your next brew and doesn't require any more equipment that what you already have...


Graff

Will only cost about $20 or so (apple juice the most expensive part). The rest you can order from austinhomebrew.com when you order the iodofor...
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Too many new recipes to try, lol.

Regular ol' store bought apple juice...i don't know what i'm doing at all with fermenting, but i'd think the preservatives wouldn't agree too much with this?
 
When I made it I used "Simply apple" brand, it's kinda expensive though ($3 for 64oz). Check the label, most will say %100 apple juice that needs to be consumed within 7-10 days "normally" doesn't contain any preservatives (like Mott's) and usually cost about $4/gallon. If you have a Sam's Club you can probably get a better deal also...
 
Hemsworth said:
...am I the only one here that kinda wants to try this bastardized brew?
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Probably, actually for myself, I probably tried something like this in the beginning, it wasn't worthy. Doesn't everyone try this? Store bought molasses, grocery store malt, corn sugar, brown sugar, crunched up corn stalks, .. . .... . oh wait . . . that last one was just me maybe.
Keep on brewing my friends.:mug:
 
And the verdict of someone that doesn't just love any kind of alcohol in general...

"Eww, that **** is nasty, tastes like apple cider" (while it still wasn't carbonated at all).

lol.

I can't really get it to carbonate, my pressure regulator will only allow about 7psi in the keg. :( My understanding is i need about 30. Granted i should get more and more bubbles in the next few days. It's got alot more than it had yesterday in the bubble dept.

Next time, i'll prime the keg...or get a better pressure regulator, it's a non adjustable one that came with the kegerator. Like i said, this "brew" was for learning, not for taste.

Edit: It kind of has an unusual smell and taste, like a hickory smoke...
 
tulsashag said:
Here ya go, will make a bit easier for ya (just don't try to make all 10 gallons at once)....

2 LB Amber DME $7.98
2 LB Light DME $7.98
1 lb torrified wheat (you only need 2 oz) $1.50
1 oz Cascade Hops $2.99
2 packs Nottingham Dry Yeast $3.18
5 Sams Apple Juice (2/96) $19.90
2 2/3 gallons water = free i hope
One time cost for Large re-usable grain bag (for steeping) $4.99
$7.99 for shipping

Grand total for 10 gallons = $56.51
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Not bad at all for what sounds like a decent brew, especially considering bud light (which IMO kinda sucks), is $80 for 15 gallons.

I think i'm most intrigued by doing this for my next batch.
 
I know I'm late to the party, but I want to throw in my two cents. This site is a fantastic resource and I would be lost without the knowledge and expertise of the members.

With that knowledge and expertise comes with a certain level of... elitism. Most here are concerned with brewing a quality beer to style and using good homebrew equipment to do so. To most, anything less than that is not worth doing.

I say bravo, however. My first brew ever was in college and I made a mead using honey and yeast from a grocery store, and lavender picked from an empty field - all fermented in a Lowe's bucket using a jerry-rigged airlock made from looping a length of tubing around itself that was hot glue gunned to the top of the bucket. I had a fantastic time and the whole process I thought was the coolest thing ever! I didn't care what it tasted like, I just wanted to make my own booze.

This experience started my affair with brewing. Make your swill (b/c it probably will be), love every last drop, work off your hangover, and do it again. Eventually, you'll want bigger and better.

To everybody who's taking shots at his methods or ingredients... relax. He's not entering a contest and he's experiementing a bit. Let him have some fun.
 
cimirie said:
I know I'm late to the party, but I want to throw in my two cents. This site is a fantastic resource and I would be lost without the knowledge and expertise of the members.

With that knowledge and expertise comes with a certain level of... elitism. Most here are concerned with brewing a quality beer to style and using good homebrew equipment to do so. To most, anything less than that is not worth doing.

I say bravo, however. My first brew ever was in college and I made a mead using honey and yeast from a grocery store, and lavender picked from an empty field - all fermented in a Lowe's bucket using a jerry-rigged airlock made from looping a length of tubing around itself that was hot glue gunned to the top of the bucket. I had a fantastic time and the whole process I thought was the coolest thing ever! I didn't care what it tasted like, I just wanted to make my own booze.

This experience started my affair with brewing. Make your swill (b/c it probably will be), love every last drop, work off your hangover, and do it again. Eventually, you'll want bigger and better.

To everybody who's taking shots at his methods or ingredients... relax. He's not entering a contest and he's experiementing a bit. Let him have some fun.
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You see where i'm coming from exactly. :mug:

The guy from Lowe's i talked to actually suggested i airlock with your method, but i was worried of the water just being pushed out from the air after i did it and pushed down on the lid. So i built from what he told me and discovered i could just run the tube in to a bucket of lightly bleached water to keep it air tight. The site i read told me to just set the lid loosely on top, ha, i know better now after talking to him and building on what he told me.
 
Good on you! Experiment away. I can't stress enough, however, that when you're done getting a taste, listening to the experience here is a life-saver.

I understand the desire for doing things your own way, but once you're trying to make a quality product, that desire needs to be trumped by doing things the right way. You can still be creative. But for example, trying to make a beer without hops doesn't make sense if you don't have a great grasp of what and how hops actually add to a beer - what you're trying to make up for not having.

There are so many directions you can take this craft, so many combinations, so many methods... It really does allow you to make what YOU like - as long as you know how to acheive that. And to think it all started in a bucket from Lowe's...
 
cimirie said:
Good on you! Experiment away. I can't stress enough, however, that when you're done getting a taste, listening to the experience here is a life-saver.

I understand the desire for doing things your own way, but once you're trying to make a quality product, that desire needs to be trumped by doing things the right way. You can still be creative. But for example, trying to make a beer without hops doesn't make sense if you don't have a great grasp of what and how hops actually add to a beer - what you're trying to make up for not having.

There are so many directions you can take this craft, so many combinations, so many methods... It really does allow you to make what YOU like - as long as you know how to acheive that. And to think it all started in a bucket from Lowe's...
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Haha, yeah!

I think i might actually just add some hops to my next batch and make the exact same thing and see what hops can truly do to beer.

This hobby is going to be the end of my liver, lol, it's so ****in' neat. :rockin:
 
I looked it up for you, there is a spot in Terre Haute called Herbs and Heirlooms. They have brew supplies there and you should be able to find all the hops you need. For a 4 gallon batch, I would say about an ounce of a milder hop at the beginning of the boil should do (Fuggles, Mt. Hood, Willamette, etc.) if you're not a big hop person. This should balance out the sweetness your current brew contains.

Good luck!
 
I have no idea how i've never seen this place, THANKS! I'm a delivery driver and have lived in this town for 24 years too! I Google mapped it, I have deliveries to the child day care two houses down from it, lol.

And oddly...my "brew" doesn't have a sweet taste? It's got a really bitter taste, but it was pulled before fully fermented. Reminds me of the aftertaste of Guiness.
 
I'm surprised your brew doesn't have a sweet taste... Could be the k-mart malt has far more fermentable sugars than standard brewing malt. Or it could be that the baker's yeast you used gives off weird off-flavors. Or it could just be that Terre Haut is a strange and mystical place where most rules don't apply :) In any case, using "standard" supplies will help you make your brew repeatable.

Having said all that, enjoy toying with your creations. Check out H & H when you have decided you want to jump in with both feet and continue to use this great forum for advice.
 

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