I don't know what the crap to call this but I sure hope it tastes good.

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Homebrewtastic

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Being in Waco there's no LHBS. I hadn't brewed in over a month and it was driving me insane. What I did have was some bottle dregs of Wyeast 3711 that I managed to build up to a pitchable quantity, a couple pounds of two row, and a grocery store that has a great organic/bulk section. So here's what I brewed.

3 Gallon Batch

2lbs Two Row
20 oz. Himalayan Red Rice
2.5 lbs. sugar
1/2 lbs. brown sugar
1/2 lbs. medjool dates
1 quart organic concord grape juice
1/2 lb. honey
1 oz. dried hibiscus flowers
Peel of 1 large navel orange
2 tbs. fresh ginger.
1/2 tsp. alpha amylase enzyme (help convert the rice)

OG came in at 1.052. Should be interesting.
 
Dicortes sucks out loud as a LHBS. They have some way over priced DME and LME. I only go there when I need bottlecaps.

They do however carry some great beers.
 
I think with all of the different types of fermentables this beer should be pretty cool and some pretty complex alcohols. It also smells freaking incredible. While there's no hops, everything in there (sans the brown sugar and maybe the dates) is extremely fermentable. So that should leave it pretty dry with the ginger orange peel and chamomile the dominate flavors.

I'm kinda stoked.

Also we have official visual fermentation. I freaking love Wyeast 3711.
 
I thought Waco might have been big enough to have a LHBS, too bad.

There's no LHBS for me either, so I have to treat Austin Homebrew like one. Even with the flat rate shipping option, it still gets to me in a day so i can't complain.
 
No worries Wacko. I appreciate the effort.

I'm surprised too Spartan. A buddy of mine who brews said that there used to be one but it closed down a couple years ago. I like AHS well enough, but I hate not being able to just go there and get what I need whenever I want to.
 
I'm surprised too Spartan. A buddy of mine who brews said that there used to be one but it closed down a couple years ago. I like AHS well enough, but I hate not being able to just go there and get what I need whenever I want to.

Yeah, I've got the same problem. I always triple-check my orders to AHS just to be safe. I can't really drive 2 hours to Austin during the middle of a brewday if I forget something.
 
Just thought I'd update on this project. We're on day 12 of fermentation and this thing is still bubbling pretty strong. I never had a very vigorous fermentation. I think that was a lack of nutrients in the wort from having so little actual grain. But the fermentation has been very very steady.

I tasted it after 6 days and it was still very sweet.
I just tasted it again and took a gravity reading. It's now down to 1.009. It's obviously pretty darn dry and quite boozy. But the fermentation has been relatively slow so the alcohols are not too hot. The dryer it's gotten the chamomile and the ginger flavors have gotten stronger. Still not too sure if this will taste good when it's done. But it's tasting decent at the moment.
 
So I just took a little sample. The thing that's the most amazing is how much the color has changed. It went from deep purple (concord grape juice) to vaguely purple orangish color.

I still see a CO2 bubbles rising to the top, but very few. So I know it's not done. It tastes very dry, faintly of grape juice, and has a certain tart pucker to it. The ginger is all there, but not so much on the chamomile. The big thing though is that the alcohols are very hot. I'll take it to bottling, but it will probably require some serious aging to be drinkable.
 
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