Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

Everything I read on research into watermelon wine or brandy people mentioned to not bother and that it never turns out. Decided to buy and blend 6 watermelons and give it a shot anyways. I must say, my apple pie brandy was my go to crowd pleaser, but this? This easily overtook it! (Aside from the 3 hours of cutting watermelons, that was a pain)

I opened first two bottles of my #cider the test batches with hops and spices.

The one with hops needs another month in bottles - it smells amazing but it still has too much bitterness. I don't know why it is noticeably darker and why it makes foam like beer.

The one with spices tastes too much like Christmas (I just don't know how to describe it better). So it is good but not exactly the season for it. I can imagine it will be good with some Christmas cookies or something like that.

I like more the Christmas one (because it is ready to drink now), my boss on the other hand likes more the hopped one. (Yes I drink at work)

I am excited for the batch with oak chips and the basic cider, which I will probably taste next week.

@[email protected] @[email protected] #homebrewing

Short writeup on homemade cider. It is easier than it looks.

I heard from my boss that on Czech FB brewing group was discussion about US-05 from Fermentis.

Someone had issues with them, even commercial brewerys. We had to throw out 2 batches of IPA so it was probably because of that - same flaw both times.

So it got me thinking if it is only local issue or if it is more wide spread.

Hey has anyone considered making a wine from peppers like jalapeno and sweet pepper?

You'd probably need to add extra sugar, but I bet it could be an interesting flavor.

Been wondering about this. I read somewhere that drinking mead while its fermenting was common practice in the old days.

However wouldnt it make you susceptible to developing a illness where your stomach begins to brew its own alcohol which causes you to be perpetually and mildly drunk?

I will probably make another 1-2 batches of #cider . I would like some other suggestions what to add.

I was thinking about some herbs and wood chips. Is there anything else I could try?

@[email protected] @[email protected] #cidre

I'm particularly fond of heather ales and spruce beers. The only sahti (which has juniper) I've had was made by me, so I have no idea if I got it traditionally right, but I certainly enjoyed it. No disrespect to all you IPA lovers out there, but the hops-forward style isn't my thing, so for those of you that are in the same camp, where do you like to turn?

So it begins, this year about month earlier. Tomorrow I will get it juiced and expect ~100 l of juice. It was little bit unexpected to do it today but somehow I managed to do it, in 4 weeks I should have something finished if I won't drink it partially fermented.

@homebrewing #cider #homebrewing

This is meant as general discussion thread, so share everything related to brewing - questions, ideas, what's fermenting etc.

As discussed in my recent post here I will pin it for about a week and do another thread in a month and we will see how it goes.

First cleanup - I just don't think that the pinned posts are necessary, they are linked in sidebar. But it has some problems with federation (it wants to open them in browser). So I wanted to ask for your opinion on this.

And suggestions:

• is there audience for general discussion thread once in ~3 months or something like that?
• should I add some thumbnail picture?
• what else?

Just to be clear I don't think that this community needs more engagement - quality over quantity. Since my hobby became my job I didn't homebrew for about year, so I don't have much to post here (but I try to be active in comments).

So I want to hear your opinions on this and some suggestions.

Edit: mentioning @[email protected]

Hi!

I noticed that I don't get anywhere close to the gravity Brewfather estimates for a given recipe. Latest example is a SMASH IPA with a good 5 kg of pilsner malt that, which on my BrewZilla Gen 4 should have landed me somewhere around 1.054 pre boil. Everything went according to the recipe: 71 °C strike water, 64 °C mash for one hour (even a tad longer than that due to being interrupted by having kids), nice recirculation all along, no visible dough nests. What I got though was a pre boil gravity of 1.037 (forgot to test for starch being still present with iodine though).

This is only my fourth brew on the system, the first I forgot to measure and two were rather experimental, but I am still noticing a pattern here in that my efficiency is rather consistently sub par. I now wonder where to find room for improvement. For me, there's no need to squeeze every last bit of sugar out of my grains, yet at a mash efficiency of only 54% where in theory I might even get 80% does not only strike me as unnecessary wasteful, this way I don't know if I could even make anything bigger than an IPA at all without stretching the limits of my system.

My grain milling is one of the things that I suspect might contribute. So much so that I already wish I hadn't bought a three roller mill but one that I can adjust with simple advice from the internet, it seems everything in this field is geared towards two roller mills.
Also I started thinking about pH. Until now I never tampered with it, does it really have the potential to make such a huge difference?

All other suggestions are welcome as well. Cheers!

Chocolate hazelnut porter, first tasting. Good porter. Medium chocolate flavor. No hazelnut. Sigh. Needs more nut extract. Not much head or carb.

Ran across this. Brewing with tea?

Has anyone tried this? Any good? What about over extraction? I've made plenty of over brewed tea.

I've been interested in making a ginger bug. Seems easy enough and can carbonate soda. Went to buy some this weekend and it was $4/lb. That seems like a lot! For reference, I usually buy fruits for the family or fermentation when they're $1/lb and never go above $2/lb.

I plan on growing my own, prelim researching says it's easy enough, but until then, where do you get yours and how much is it?

As my latest batch is already quite the experiment, I decided to even go a little further and not use a traditional bubbler to vent off CO2 from my bucket this time, but opt for a keg to do that.

The rubber seal in the hole of the bucket‘s lid takes a 9.5 mm hose snugly, which connects to the gas intake of a keg filled with a good 5 litres of disinfectant. The keg’s liquid out has a line attached to go into the depicted 5 litre can.
This way, at the end of fermentation, I’ll have a sanitised keg & can, and the keg is already full of CO2. Also, should I experience suckback from changing temperatures (mind you, my setup lives in my garage), there is a buffer of CO2 in the keg for that, and the line into the can is the one I use to package from the bucket, so it’s nice that it gets sanitised along the way too.

What do you think? So far, my only concern is how much pressure buildup is required to displace the disinfectant from the keg and if the bucket's lid with the attached hosing is tight enough for that.

I bought several of these beer shanks back in 2015. I took it apart recently to clean.

Since the description says it's stainless steel I figured I could clean the rust off of the barb insert. Looks like it wasn't made of stainless steel.

Should I just reuse this thing or get a new one? If so I need the specs on this part so I will know what I need to buy.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

EDIT #1: Would this be a suitable replacement?

LitKiwi 2PCS Keg Coupler Barb Connector,Stainless Steel 304 Beer Kegerator Sankey Couplers,Hex Nut 5/8"G Thread x 1/4" Barb Beer Line Tailpiece Nipple Fitting with Sealing Gasket Washer https://a.co/d/g6HhP2c

EDIT #2: I emailed the customer support at MoreBeer and I got this response. They have great customer service.

Hi Casey,

Thanks for reaching out. This looks like a standard shank tailpiece. Here is a straight version, along with a curved version, in case it makes things easier.

Feel free to send me the invoice number after you order. I'm happy to refund the shipping cost for the inconvenience. Thanks!

Cheers! Zack

Zachary Marin Customer Service Representative | MoreFlavor! Inc. | 1-800-600-0033 Hours: Mon - Wed, Fri | 7:00 am PST - 4:00 pm P Visit Our Sites MoreBeer.com, MoreBeerPro.com MoreWine.com, MoreWinePro.com BrewmasterWholesale.com

Also, my mug works as a grain scoop nicely. https://files.catbox.moe/sdesos.jpg

So I recently visited brewery with 100yo technology and what struck me most was how little has changed.

Now you basically have only differences in driving the brewery - electromotors instead of steam engines and transmissions.

Basic technology like 2 tanks - one for boiling and mashing, other for sparge and leaving decoction parts (with perforated bottom) - is same to this day.

Other thing that's different is cooling, you now have coolers for quickly cooling wort and cooled tanks. Instead of shallow baths where the wort is pooled to cool and putting ice to cellars.

So did you checked some historical brewerys with copper tanks and stuff like this? Did it make you change or adjust your brewing setup? Did you learn anything?

Someone did this before so I am going to try it. I used a hibiscus 🌺 tea and left it unattended for most of the year. So I wonder if it will taste any good.

Based on this https://www.morebeer.com/products/chocolate-hazelnut-porter-jamil-zainasheff-grain-kit.html but scaled down to 3 gallons. Came closer to 2 tho. Lost more than expected to boil, I guess.

I started it in early march with the idea that I wanted a dry but fresh and somewhat complex wine for summer. I infused some oak chips with rum, but only had them in for a week something early on with the hope that the harshness would dissipate with gases and what is left behind becomes subtly integrated in the wine. I was going for notes and slight tannins as opposed to the super dry that was my autumn wine.

While fermenting it was about 19-21°C in the room with a cold draft by the floor that probably made it more like 16-18°C down there. I didn't think of picking a yeast ahead so I went with the generic one that came in the box.

It's been a very interesting ride in this relatively short period of time. The fermentation was very slow, as expected by the temperature and draft. It stopped bubbling but had plenty of sugar left in it so I racked it to oxygenate, added yeast nutrients and kept swirling it gently daily until I got it going again.

Last taste was a month ago and it was not good, hoping it would mature after bottling and otherwise make it a learning experience. Today, much to my surprise, it is young but damn delicious already. Great taste, great mouthfeel. Tannins but not overly so, hints of vanilla, oak and rum. Easy to drink and yet some interesting flavours to explore. It's all I was hoping for.

But now I have a new problem. While bottling it, I accidentally overfilled some bottles that I balanced into a glass, and then clumsy me spilled the last splash from the vessel into the glass too.

Now I'm sitting outside on a lovely warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, glass in hand, the wine is oxidized and can not be returned to the batch. I'm not sure what to do about it. Please advice.

I, uh, fit right in that main grouping, lol.

First off: Sorry for the link, apparently I can't upload images at the moment.

This is my first ride with a wireless hydrometer, so maybe this is just me not being used to having access to gravity readings all the time, having become a bit obsessed with the numbers. Looking at Brewfather on the other hand though, my gravity really hasn't changed for like 36 hours now, before reaching its estimated final value. Now I'm afraid that my fermentation has stalled, and as the gravity was never really high to begin with, I fear being stuck with something not only low in low in alcohol but also tasting thin & weak. This is supposed to be a "Klosterbier" (not a real beer style, but closest described as some sort of brown ale), with which I'd have preferred to err on the stronger side rather than on the weaker.

The main reason for the low initial gravity I believe is too little boil off: While pre-boil gravity was OK (Brewfather predicted 1.039, refractometer gave me 1.037, might even be considered to be within measuring tolerance), the post boil reading should have been 1.051 but was only 1.041.

After boiling, I took around half a liter of wort, chilled it down in a mason jar and added dry yeast, agitating it every now and then. The next day, I pitched now very agile yeast into the main bucket and fermentation started out perfectly. The ups and downs in the graph may just be results of krausen and/or condensate dripping back onto the RAPT pill or creating ripples in the wort surface.
Now, I'm really asking myself what went wrong. I don't think I caught myself any infection, the bucket was properly sanitized as well as the collection vessel & I was very careful handling all of it. The yeast also very happily ripped through the major parts of the sugars, so I don't think it's a yeast issue either. My grain bill looks as follows:

• 2.25 kg (50%) — BESTMALZ BEST Munich — Grain — 15 EBC
• 2.21 kg (49.1%) — The Swaen Swaen Vienna — Grain — 10 EBC
• 40 g (0.9%) — Weyermann Carafa Special II — Grain — 1100 EBC

The performed mashing steps:

• Mash In — 38 °C
• Protein Rest — 50 °C — 40 min
• Beta Rest — 63 °C — 30 min
• Alpha Rest — 72 °C — 30 min
• Mash Out — 78 °C

I'm not sure what to do, or if I should do anything at all. I can live with the beer having 3.5% ABV like it has now probably. My storage is dark and reasonably hygienic, so I don't think I have to elongate the beer's shelf life that way. The alcohol might then even overpower the taste of the grains if I added table sugar or anything for another percent of alcohol.
What I'm slightly concerned with though is overwhelming hop aroma because there apparently is not that much dissolved sugar to counteract the bitterness.
Any suggestions?