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Speaking of wild side, transferred what I will now call my "Sour Lemonade Extra Blonde Ale". No idea what I was thinking when I brewed it. Just gave me chills thinking about it. 2-row and corn sugar were the primary ingredients. It almost glows. Fermented simple sugars with a hint of grain and hops. No idea what I was thinking except was out of ingredients and felt the need to brew anyway.
 
Speaking of wild side, transferred what I will now call my "Sour Lemonade Extra Blonde Ale". No idea what I was thinking when I brewed it. Just gave me chills thinking about it. 2-row and corn sugar were the primary ingredients. It almost glows. Fermented simple sugars with a hint of grain and hops. No idea what I was thinking except was out of ingredients and felt the need to brew anyway.
Maybe dry hop something? The strong alcohol taste and aroma from the sugar usually condition out after a couple months.
 
BobbiLynn said:
Speaking of wild side, transferred what I will now call my "Sour Lemonade Extra Blonde Ale". No idea what I was thinking when I brewed it. Just gave me chills thinking about it. 2-row and corn sugar were the primary ingredients. It almost glows. Fermented simple sugars with a hint of grain and hops. No idea what I was thinking except was out of ingredients and felt the need to brew anyway.

Put it away, it will probably be delicious by the summer. May I suggest using recipes? ;)
 
Maybe dry hop something? The strong alcohol taste and aroma from the sugar usually condition out after a couple months.


Like blueberries and turn it into a weird type of wine? Or I have some extra northdown hops in my freezer. Tastes like a mix of bud light and cheap white wine.
 
Bobbi this is your winging it coming back to bite you in the ass. Brew for deliciousness, not just to have something to do.

Yeah, yeah, ouch, this one hit hard. Awful!! Happens a lot when I cook too, even the dog won't always eat my soup. What not try this? Then I find out later why not.
 
How can you learn almost nothing? Have you never experimented or done any smashes?


For 4 years, never did any experimenting, just followed recipes to the T, worrying about every step. Mostly extract kits. But now my eyes are wide open. I have been learning, since I started experimenting a few months ago.

:eek:
 
Like blueberries and turn it into a weird type of wine? Or I have some extra northdown hops in my freezer. Tastes like a mix of bud light and cheap white wine.
That's not a bad idea. I haven't had a great amount of luck getting a lot of blueberry flavor without a lot of berries though. IMO, juice is better for blueberries.

Hmm, maybe something tart? Cranberries come to mind, or black cherries. Both are pretty flavor dense, so it isn't going to take all that much to adjust the flavor. I would stay away from tart cherries though. You tend to get a cough syrup flavor with those + alcohol.
 
Hey, shoot for the moon and hit the ceiling. Happens to the best of us. Experimentation is great and all but throwing too many new variables in the mix makes for trouble...or more likely something you don't want to drink.
 
For 4 years, never did any experimenting, just followed recipes to the T, worrying about every step. Mostly extract kits. But now my eyes are wide open. I have been learning, since I started experimenting a few months ago.

:eek:

Perhaps a more calculated experimenting, just changing on variable at a time from a known starting point, would work. Rather than throw this all together and see if it glows. ;)

Better yet, get with a group of people and everyone brews the same beer but with one change. My club did a single hop experiment where we ask breed the same ipa but each with a different hop. Leaned a lot real quick.
 
Well I got lucky:rockin: I popped the top of the fermenter and no infection. I guess it is true that you really have to work at ruining a batch to ruin it.

When I started brewing I was winging it from the get go. I took my first recipe and cut the fermentables down wanting a lower abv. It was not great but not bad either.

I have been working on consistency as of late. I am tired of having one batch taste great and then brew it again and it not so good. Mash temp control and fermentation temp control is what I am striving to maintain now. But I changed mash tuns and mash procedures and have been chasing my tail trying to hit my temps all right on the money.

The more you learn the further behind it seems I get :eek:
 
From simple minds come simple pleasures. I was in walmart yesterday pretty much hating life when out of the corner of my eye I saw a 18 gallon recycling bin. You can stack them and since the front is angled while they are stacked still get into them. I bought one to insure I can fit a full bag of grain into it and shazam it works. Best part though is they were only 12 bucks :rockin:
 
Glad your beer was not infected, v-man, and congrats on the find.

I got a picture of my sour lemonade extra blonde ale, but it looks sort of normal in the pic, in real life, it doesn't look that dark. I saved a gallon of it to experiment with and dumped the rest(taste was terrible and wanted to free up the larger fermenter). Was a small batch, about 3 gallons. I'm kind of leaning toward adding cranberries to it. Would canned cranberries be okay?

100_0908.JPG
 
Ended up buying a bag of frozen strawberries instead of cranberries while out picking up hubby's prescriptions. And I have a little wine yeast in the fridge, might add a little of that too. See what happens.

I am following recipes still about half the time, so have more great batches going than bad ones!
 
Leadgolem said:
If you brew that much at 5 gallons a pop, I hope so. Otherwise you would have probably destroyed your liver in like a year.

I brew that much at 12 gallons a pop! ::rockin:: (don't do the math)

All in the name of recipe development.

Left a message for the sanitary welder. I'm thinking if he isn't ready to go full blown yet maybe buying a Chinese 5bbl system and having him modify it when we take delivery. Hes pretty excited about building though, and seeing as he builds dairy tanks and equipment a brewery should be easy.
 
That made me laugh Hoppy. I needed that, been working on my friend's computer. Thing was trashed. Finally cleaned it up enough to work on it and discovered it had a system restore. But, of course, it was passworded and they didn't know what it was. I found a write up on how to go in and retireve the PW though. Pretty cool, and it actually worked. Guess what the PW was..........enter. Geeez. And the moral of this story? Don't lose your laptop. PW's don't mean $hit.

Now you got me in techno mood. I'll have you know that song is now stuck in my head. Thanks hoppy :p

 
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Ended up buying a bag of frozen strawberries instead of cranberries while out picking up hubby's prescriptions. And I have a little wine yeast in the fridge, might add a little of that too. See what happens.

I am following recipes still about half the time, so have more great batches going than bad ones!
That should be good too. Unless you want it sweet and plan to pasteurize a little yeast wouldn't hurt. That should take care of the sugar that you will get from the strawberries. With how clear that is, I'm not sure you would have enough yeast in suspension to drop the sweetness.

I brew that much at 12 gallons a pop! ::rockin:: (don't do the math)

All in the name of recipe development.

Left a message for the sanitary welder. I'm thinking if he isn't ready to go full blown yet maybe buying a Chinese 5bbl system and having him modify it when we take delivery. Hes pretty excited about building though, and seeing as he builds dairy tanks and equipment a brewery should be easy.
....Ok. It's your liver.

That made me laugh Hoppy. I needed that, been working on my friend's computer. Thing was trashed. Finally cleaned it up enough to work on it and discovered it had a system restore. But, of course, it was passworded and they didn't know what it was. I found a write up on how to go in and retireve the PW though. Pretty cool, and it actually worked. Guess what the PW was..........enter. Geeez. And the moral of this story? Don't lose your laptop. PW's don't mean $hit.

Now you got me in techno mood. I'll have you know that song is now stuck in my head. Thanks hoppy :p
Yeah, if you have physical access to a system all the security in the world means nothing.
 
That should be good too. Unless you want it sweet and plan to pasteurize a little yeast wouldn't hurt. That should take care of the sugar that you will get from the strawberries. With how clear that is, I'm not sure you would have enough yeast in suspension to drop the sweetness.

A day later the strawberries are floating near the top with tons of foam/krausen. Added a pound of strawberries with added sugar plus a little wine yeast. Original yeast used was mauribrew ale yeast, but it's used up. Maybe the new yeast can feed on the old yeast? I should rename it "Barley Strawberry Pruno?".
 
So...you added sugar and wine yeast too? Here I thought you were fine with just the fruit addition.

You definitely have something there, not sure what it is but it's something.
 
So...you added sugar and wine yeast too? Here I thought you were fine with just the fruit addition.

You definitely have something there, not sure what it is but it's something.

I thought I was too, but the yeast looked dead, not a single bit of it floating, it ate the corn sugar until the remainder was sour, fermented corn sugar with some malted barley, no sugar left. That's why I thought extra sugar and wine yeast too. No idea how it will turn out. Tasted like sour liquor before the additions.
 
Mmm...sour liquor. Just saying it leaves my insides warm and fuzzy.

Unless you have a very thorough filter there is always yeast in beer. Killing it and the yeast taking a beer nap are different.
The addition of wine yeast is going to make this drier than it was before. Another active fermentation will cause some of the fruit flavor to be lost, sorry to say.

What are all the ingredients in this beer/wine?
 
I'm out of breath, sweaty and covered in soil, I hope I don't die. Hosed myself off. Enough about beer, time to work in the garden. Gonna go lay in the sun, with a slight breeze, and dry off, it's 72 degrees and sunny, nicest day we've had in a while...
 
Mmm...sour liquor. Just saying it leaves my insides warm and fuzzy.

Unless you have a very thorough filter there is always yeast in beer. Killing it and the yeast taking a beer nap are different.
The addition of wine yeast is going to make this drier than it was before. Another active fermentation will cause some of the fruit flavor to be lost, sorry to say.

What are all the ingredients in this beer/wine?

Catching my breath already, all oregano repotted and 2 rows ready to plant some basil seed. Back to beer...


I did not follow a recipe, just added stuff for about a 3 gallon batch.

5 pounds 2-row- one pound of it slightly roasted on a cookie sheet. Worried about burning so barely roasted it.

9 ounces powder corn sugar

about 1.5 cups light brown sugar

about 1/2 cup honey

pint of washed US-05- or maybe mauribrew fresh yeast, don't recall precisely.

First fermentation at this point. Then added....

1 pound strawberries along with about a 1/2 cup of table sugar.

Wine yeast, small amount-leftover saved- not sure exactly what it is. Yeast I save from about 4 months ago when I tried a little wine making.

By sour liquor, imagine a sweet liquor but with all the sugar sucked out of it. I called it sour lemonade at first because of the very light yellow, almost glowing, color and tartness.
 
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