Making a crude brew: questions

[TadhgODalaigh1990]

Hi all,

I have just joined today. I am a student teacher from Ireland on my summer break, i was away most of the summer but have returned home and am penniless and fairly idle until college begins again. So I decided to try some crude hard brewing based on some very simple cheap recipes I came across.

I put together a cider mix in a gallon plastic bottle (with bread yeast, only thing that was available in my town) and also some dandelion wine (also with bread yeast) in two glass wine bottles.

I used balloons to make the wine airtight then when I heard a hiss coming from the top of my cider bottle (which was sealed only with its original cap) I replaced the top with a balloon. The balloon began to fill with gas fairly quickly. I have attached three pictures in cronological order to show the process.

Anyway as is the nature of an amateur recipe, both recipes neglected on several fronts. Long story short, I am unsure whether the various bottles of my lil brewery should be airtight or not. Is airtightness a necessity or does the must need to do a little breathing?

Should I be fearful of explosions or crappy results? I'm not expecting professional standard produce, I'm mainly just practicing and experimenting.

Please share any thoughts.

Thanks

Tim

the balloon atop the cider is filling slowly but surely and im afraid it might burst and stop the process.

 

[BennyDarko]

First, welcome to the hobby!
Second, since it's your first batch, I wouldn't worry too much about how airtight your fermenters are. One of the really cool things about your first few brews is discovering how easy this whole process is and how delicious of a product you can make with very crude equipment and not a lot of effort. I started out in 1 gallon apple juice bottles too and I just used a loosely fitting cap instead of an airlock. If you're worried about the baloons popping off you can just bleed them out periodically. If they do fly off it won't hurt your ferment too much. Remember that in a lot of places open fermenters are the norm.

Eventually you should get an airlock, a better fermentation vessel, and some proper yeast, but for now I promise it'll turn out fine.

 

[Stretch1991]

I have been there and done that with both balloons and bread yeast. It is no beer yeast for sure but it will do its job. It is not going to taste top of the line but will be drinkable and be very unique. My suggestion is to not ferment them super long. Let them sit on the yeast cake with the balloon for 3-4 weeks then if you can transfer it over to another sanitized contained do so or bottle and boil them to pastuerize them. bread yeast is tricky for carbonating but pastuerizing worked on keeping it from further fermenting for me

 

[cmybeer]

If you don't have any good products/ingredients in your town it might be worth it to pay shipping from an online dealer.

Something to think about to improve quality. Otherwise, welcome and hope everything goes well.