Hypothetical Homebrewing question

[JBrady]

Ok if the world as we knew it ended tomorrow and we were all back to having no electricity, cars, etc. etc, how would you make your beer? I would think it would be easy to come up with our own fermentable sugar, but where would you get your yeast from? How would you make a fire hot enough to acheive a 10 gallon boil? How would you cool 10 gallons of beer in the middle of a florida summer? Dumb questions yes, but I am interested in hearing what kind of techniques you guys would use if we all were back living in huts, where you can't just buy everything from brewmasterswarehouse.com, lol. Hopefully this will make for a interesting discussion.

 

[Daddymem]

Well, I grow Amaranth so I could use that for my grains. Saps from birch, maple, and pine could be used to supplement the sugars. Plenty of cranberries, apples, rosehips, blueberries, crabapples, blackberries, huckleberries, and strawberries I could use as fermentable adjuncts. I grow my own vegetables and save seed so plenty of squashes also.

I've got a lot of beer bottled with different yeasts, some washed yeast and a bunch of dry yeasts. I could keep that stable going for quite a while. I could do some small batches of open fermentation and capture some wild yeasts, hopefully some acceptable tasting ones then wash them.

I've got lots of pine around here so I could use the needles from them to bitter. I have lots of oak around here so I could use the acorns from them to bitter.

I'd boil with the steinbeir method. Get some granite cobbles from the beach to use.

 

[Netflyer]

What is left? Are there seeds for Barley or do we have to use wild vegetation and is it radiated? Or, did a comet or something hit that didn't radiate stuff?

I'd probably grow barley and hops right next to my herbs an spices

And, of course you could get honey - if there were any bees left and make you some mead.

They should have a reality 'Man in the Wild' show where the goal is to make an alcoholic beverage out of the wild.

As for Yeast, there are wild yeast you can breed. In the old days they didn't know about yeast and each brewer had a 'brew stick' they would use that would just make the beer work. It was passed down from generation to generation. It obviously contained yeast.

One of the amazing things you would find out is that all this talk about sanitation while important is over stressed as you would turn out 'wild brews' that probably would be made in hollowed out tree trunks covered with large palm fronds or whatever. I'm sure the brew would turn out. I bet if you were stuck on a beach you could ferment seaweed and make beer using sea turtle shells (Obviously don't put me on that reality show)

 

[Willie3]

Any fruit you find has natural yeasties on it. Even in your house. Just pick up a grape look at the connection to the stem and you will see (or may not) a white powder. That is yeast. Juniper berries were notorious for containing it and other than bittering were used to jump start free form fermentation.

I think most of us would find a way to make a Sugar fermented goodness.

 

[brewmonk]

you would have to focus first on boiling enough water to drink and cook with FIRST.
(I'm gonna go have a beer.)

 

[david_42]

This is an easy one for me, as my neighbor's grandfather grew both barley and hops, plus it is possible to hand-dig wells around here. Yeast is everywhere. Plenty of wood for the chopping, although it's been decades since I took one down with an ax.

I keg and most of my beers of choice are fine with low carbonation levels.

 

[JBrady]

thanks for the great responses so far guys, it would be fun to do a brew like this one day, with a open flame fire and fermentable sugars aquired somewhere other than the grocery store or brewshop.

 

[Revvy]

We have an entire thread devoted to alternative beer making methods for when the zombipocolypse comes and we declare ourselves kings of the sacred barley water.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/ga...r-experiment-69313/?highlight=Grocery+Produce

But pretty much in terms of cooling and things like that...we wont be..we'll be doing it like they did in Colonial times...



Or we'll be doing "no-chill" brewing and seal stuff into aquatainer cubes til it cools enough to pitch the yeast.

 

[masonsjax]

The hardest part of brewing is hitting mash temps. That's with a digital thermometer. Im not sure how we would figure out how to hit and hold precise temps just guessing.

 

[Jumbo82]

The hardest part of brewing is hitting mash temps. That's with a digital thermometer. Im not sure how we would figure out how to hit and hold precise temps just guessing.

I think I would go about this by taking 2 parts boiling water and mixing it with one part water at room temp, or some other similar ratio to get me to a respectable strike temp. It wouldn't be precise, but long as I mashed within 10 degrees or so of 150 it'll make beer. As for holding the temp, any pot packed on all sides by wood chips would probably do the trick.

 

[Guntr]

I guess it would entirely depend on the specifics of this post-apocalyptic world you're describing and where you live. Up here in Canada we would probably have to spend most of our time growing food, raising animals, and chopping wood to prepare for the winter.

Once daily survival was more or less achieved it would probably be more productive to ferment anything readily available (potatoes, corn, certain weeds, tree sap, fruits, etc.) and then distill into moonshine. Definitely not as tasty as beer, but gets the job done, and would be more valuable and portable for trade.

Trading moonshine for food, and supplies would free up some time and resources to work on beer for personal consumption and possible high-end trade.

As for the actual specifics of brewing... Being in Canada I think it would be worth while to reserve brewing beer for the winter months. There would be more free time, and waste heat from the brew fire would help heat the house. With practice you can learn to make and maintain almost any constant heat you desire from a wood fire. Using air control and/or a billows can even allow you to raise/lower the temperature rather quickly. For chilling you could easily work out a gravity fed CFC fed by melting snow.

All in all, I think day to day survival would actually be the hard part. Once that is achieved, I think brewing beer would be relatively, especially with the trading profits from moonshine.

 

[Photopilot]

I could survive on Apfelwein.

I am assuming Wallmart will still be around. Cockroaches and Wallmart should both survive Armagedon.

 

[Freezeblade]

Dang, where's bob, our brew historian, when you need him? I remember him saying something like, if you "cascade" or let boiling water "fall" at a certain rate from a height of like 10 feet, that the cooling would bring the water close to 150 degrees, IIRC. As for chilling, we'd probably do no-chill. Out of necessity adjuncts or other grains would probably be used to conserve barley, wheat, un-malted grains, sugars, etc. Lots of session stouts and cream ales!

Also, most of us have enough yeast from bottled batches or in the fridge that if $hit did go down, we'd be good for quite some time with washing/reusing yeast, creating a house strain. Hell, they used to do it back in the day right? why not?

 

[weirdboy]

The hardest part of brewing is hitting mash temps. That's with a digital thermometer. Im not sure how we would figure out how to hit and hold precise temps just guessing.

It wouldn't be hard to build an analog thermometer that is accurate within the range of mash temps, especially if you can find a copy of CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics.

 

[Pick]

Find a cool running stream to cool the wort in. That would also be your source for brew water.

The thing to do is figure all this stuff out NOW, then write it all down.

My uncle used to make wine without adding sugar or yeast. He would crush the grapes, then press them. Used the sugars in the grapes, (concords at 16 brix) Just barrel it and let it go!

 

[Netflyer]

The hardest part of brewing is hitting mash temps. That's with a digital thermometer. Im not sure how we would figure out how to hit and hold precise temps just guessing.

Dude, I was reading about these old brewers, I think from Kai's wiki where they could tell the mash temps by touch! I guess you had to apprentice for a long time to get 'Temperature Finga'

 

[ohad]

Dude, I was reading about these old brewers, I think from Kai's wiki where they could tell the mash temps by touch! I guess you had to apprentice for a long time to get 'Temperature Finga'

The sense of temp at you fingertips is actually quite accurate, up to +-2 Celsius.
the way to know if water is at 65C , is this: hold a flask with water in your hands. If you can hold it ~10 sec before it feels too hot, its around 65 so you can mash.
My cousin is a biologist, and 65C has some relevance to agar, so he uses this a lot.

as to the main problem - boiling wort.
Do a stone beer! heat large, clean stones on a fire, and throw them into your wooden kettle (assuming humanity was attacked by aliens, who took all the resources and we no longer have metal... or you just don't have a kettle)

 

[twoodward15]

Here's my take on the situation. I'll use what I have on hand (enough for about 10 beers) until it's gone. I'll rob the LHBS in the first couple days. That'll provide ingredients for a couple years. Now I can focus on staying alive. First step, go through the dead peoples houses and get all the food I can. Find a generator. Find a good chest freezer. Steal all the gas I can. Collect as much bottled water as I can. Steal all the firewood I can for the first winter. Coming into this as a farmer from the country that now lives in the suburbs of Philly helps out. It wouldn't be easy but I wouldn't have too many problems staying alive and brewing with hot rocks

 

[rustynuts]

After reading this thread...I'm a little depressed. I have no "old school" brewing skills and am too lazy to put forth the work to brew in that fashion. That being said, I think once I drank the 40 gals I have stored I would find alternative means to get beer. The first thing that comes to mind, and I'm not proud of it, is to prostitute myself out to female brewers who have the skills and know how to continue brewing in this new age we would find ourselves in. I'm sure a chubby, middle aged, lazy, balding man would be quite marketable to female brewers if this scenario ever comes to fruition. Right??? If I'm wrong, I'll just quit drinking.

 

[HairyDogBrewing]

If the zombies don't sell StarSan and EKG, I'd rather be part of the mushroom cloud.

 

[bnmir]

Break out your y2k propane stockpile? Be the best armed in the neighborhood?

 

[demonrichie]

Here's my take on the situation. I'll use what I have on hand (enough for about 10 beers) until it's gone. I'll rob the LHBS in the first couple days. That'll provide ingredients for a couple years. Now I can focus on staying alive. First step, go through the dead peoples houses and get all the food I can. Find a generator. Find a good chest freezer. Steal all the gas I can. Collect as much bottled water as I can. Steal all the firewood I can for the first winter. Coming into this as a farmer from the country that now lives in the suburbs of Philly helps out. It wouldn't be easy but I wouldn't have too many problems staying alive and brewing with hot rocks

all homebrewers should do this... after the post apocalyptic chaos resides we will have the easiest going living as we will have the biggest bargaining chip around. without commercial breweries we will be the powerhouse of the biggest non necessity of all time. we wont need to find food or generators...people will trade us for the greatest resource ever

 

[Photopilot]

... after the post apocalyptic chaos resides we will have the easiest going living as we will have the biggest bargaining chip around.

That is what we are all looking for the excuse to quit our real job and open our own brewery.

Price list:

1 beer - chicken
1 case - cow
1 keg - castle

 

[demonrichie]

That is what we are all looking for the excuse to quit our real job and open our own brewery.

Price list:

1 beer - chicken
1 case - cow
1 keg - castle

are you sure you want the castle? people may name you budweiser

 

[HSB]

This was a fun thread to read through. It's funny to think how inneffectual most modern skills would be in said poop hits the fan scenario. "Holy #$*&, we no longer have electricity or running water! Someone get me a C++ programmer!"

It's nice to think that my current hobbies could actually serve a purpose during the apocolypse. Hunting, gardening, brewing, and golfing. (Actually, golfing probably wouldn't be that useful).

 

[homebeerbrewer]

This was a fun thread to read through. It's funny to think how inneffectual most modern skills would be in said poop hits the fan scenario. "Holy #$*&, we no longer have electricity or running water! Someone get me a C++ programmer!"

It's nice to think that my current hobbies could actually serve a purpose during the apocolypse. Hunting, gardening, brewing, and golfing. (Actually, golfing probably wouldn't be that useful).

Your "poop hits the fan scenario" won't make that much of a mess without electricity.

Here's an article from BYO about this subject: http://www.byo.com/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/862-hot-rocks-making-a-stein-beer

 

[HSB]

Your "poop hits the fan scenario" won't make that much of a mess without electricity.

Here's an article from BYO about this subject: http://www.byo.com/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/862-hot-rocks-making-a-stein-beer

Ha, I suppose that's true if the only concern hypothetical me has is "How do I boil my wort", and not "How do I boil these raiding hordes of zombies".

 

[Photopilot]

Interesting read along this subject, is a book called "Dies the Fire" by S.M. Stirling. Its the first in a 3 part series in which electricity and gunpowder cease to work. It takes place in Portland OR, where I had just lived previous to reading this. After the "change" a somewhat medieval society evolves with different clans and types of society. In one of the clans a former homebrewer becomes the headbrewer. I don't remember the details of how they did the brewing, but the book was filled with lots of details of post-apocalyptic technologies and evolution.

I am not into Sci Fi at all and would not guess myself to enjoy a book like this, but I became totally engrossed in the series. Definitely a good read.

 

[artyboy]

I've heard about that series. It was written by one of those medieval re enactors (can't remember what they're called). Basically it's an implausible scenario that you're wasting your time thinking about. You want a plausible scenario that could have us all scrambling to figure out how to get by? Read One Second After or Lights Out. A nuclear weapon goes off a mile above the US and wipes out the electrical grid and most electronics (including modern cars electrical systems). Right now, the US government recognizes it as a threat that could end life in the US as we know it.

If it happens where we have to make it ourselves if we want to drink it then I'll probably just stick to wine. It's a lot easier to make. I got my hands on a couple of buckets of zinfindel wine juice that was sitting in the warehouse where I work for 6 months. It got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, it had completely fermented out in the bucket from natural yeast. I took it home, transferred to some carboys and within a month they had clarified. I ended up with 60 bottles of damn good wine for nothing but the time it took to a) transfer to the carboy and b) bottle. If it's the end of the world then good wine will be worth a lot more than beer to more people and you can literally make it out of anything. The ingredients in beer are pretty specific and you have to be a lot more careful when making it.

If I see the end of the world coming then I'm going to make a ****load of bigass beers with the last of my propane, hops and grain. Then I'll just save them for special occasions and stick to hooch/wine for day to day consumption.

 

[Cheeto]

This is an easy one for me, as my neighbor's grandfather grew both barley and hops, plus it is possible to hand-dig wells around here. Yeast is everywhere. Plenty of wood for the chopping, although it's been decades since I took one down with an ax.

I keg and most of my beers of choice are fine with low carbonation levels.

I am with David on this one.
Living in the Pacific Northwest affords us with many gifts that the others in the US do not have.

Taking in to account the abundance of raw grains, the never ending hop ranches and artesian wells I feel that my only concern will be sanitizing.

I do think that Star-San will take a bit of time to get used to not having.