/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Quinces come along nicely, even the "bourbon" is getting better, albeit it still tastes funky, a pleasant but unexpected strong malty/cereal flavour, despite being double distilled and cut reasonably.

Also started recently, mid 2018 ish.
Just bottled a pear melomel.
I'm thinking maybe a traditional, or an acerglyn next.

All my fermenters are full so I started a batch of kimchi today

Well fellas, I've begun my foray into brewing mead. Started with the JOA recipe, here's to it coming out half decent.

>>1531201
>>1528159
whats your expected timeline for the fermentation? I've seen some reports that you have to wait up to a year for mead. Also what ABV are you expecting?

>>1531389
Depends on the weather really, it's going on to mid summer here so I wouldn't be surprised if it's done in 1.5 months.

From what I understand with mead, you dont want to vigorously ferment (4 month fermentation period is not uncommon), it gives a harsher alcohol taste. It's like a wine tho, so the longer it sits once its fermented the more mellow and subtle the flavours become. So that's why it takes longer. The flip side is I guess that you make a large batch and sample it along the way.

>>1531619
Isn't it always hot in 'straya?

>>1531664
Depends how far inland/north you live.

>>1528159
I have ten fermenters empty and two batches that need to be bottled. How do I regain the same zeal I had when I first started?

I made about 5l of plum wine in summer, fruit from our garden. I'm impressed how much the taste improved over time. It was rather sour first, pleasant, but like fresh juice. Its a lot more mellow now, tastes great.

Made some mead in a coke bottle with bread yeast before. Apparently there are 3 mead recipes generally used by the breweries in poland 1:1 honey to water 1:2 and 1:3. Do not know if this is bs. Left it for a week came back it was fuckawfully bad. Thought fuck it let the stuff settle. Came back later and it was absolutely delicious. Only used 4 things didnt sterilize the bottle at all just grabbed a random cole bottle that was clean and empty and yeast and honey and water. Degassed a few times i think. Literally that simple. Yeast water honey and time. Pretty much impossible to fuck up unless you somehow manage to contaminate it with god knows what.

>>1533206
Take a break, do other things.

You might find that you no longer care for brewing. You might come back to it with a new passion. Dont force yourself into doing it if you dont want to, because then you'll hate it more.

>>1533206
Invite your friends and neighbors and get them drunk. Half the neighborhood patting you on the shoulder and complementing you on your brew will help.

I've got an uninsulated garage and live in new jersey.
How badly would this fuck me if I were to put my brews out there to ferment?

>>1533733
Ale yeast will stop fermenting at 15°C, Lager yeast can ferment down to temperatures around 8°C. If the temperatures in your garage drop below this thresholds you either need to brew seasonally or build some heating/isolation for your fermenters.

>>1528159
Would it be possible to brew something. Distill it. And run my gasoline lawn mower on it.
Just for fun.

>>1533752
Yes, no problem.

>>1533743
Not that guy but 15° sounds like a very high lower limit.

>>1533755
Celsius dude.

>>1533752
Sure. It would probably cost about $25 a gallon but you could do it.

>>1533794
No, if you ferment sugar its more like $2-$3 per gallon, not including the work.

>>1533773
Of course, 15°F is below freezing.

>>1533807
Most wine and ale yeasts will go to sleep at around 15°C, the only commercial yeas that will ferment with lower temps is Lager beer yeast (Pilsner) and some low temp yeasts for fruit brandies, those can tolerate temps down to 8°C before they begin to hibernate.

>>1533819
From my personal experience prolonged temperatures that are significantly below 15° aren't an issue at all, not using fancy yeast strains either.

>>1533840
It won't kill the yeast, it will just stop it from working and producing ethanol. If your yeast worked at lower temps it likely was a modern beer strain (Lager), those are most common yeasts nowadays and they will ferment down to 8°C. The problem gets more prominent if you ferment to higher ABV's, like fermenting beer to 5% is less complicated than to ferment wine to 14%.

Anyone make their own beer? Not a fan of the local hop water dispensaries.

>>1533855
Lots of people do. Look into a Mr. Beer brewkit or similar.

Made some heffeweizen and used Wyeast Activator 3068 for my yeast, its been about 20 hrs scince pitching it into 80 degree wort and i dotn see any bubbles forming should i bee concerned?

if so i have some champagne yeast, should i use that instead?

Can anyone give me a guide on how to start brewing? infographics maybe?

>tfw I taste my mead after a year of aging and it tastes like ass

>>1533946
Your best bet is to visit a homebrewing shop and talk with the workers about your budget and desired brewing quantities. If you are on a lower budget and just want to try it out, there are reasonably-priced starter kits which will allow you to do hybrid extract/grain brewing from prepackaged kits which come with instructions and all the materials (except bottles) you'll need to brew 5 gallons of beer. If you enjoy it and have some more space in your budget, you can then move on to all-grain brewing.

>>1528159
In the process of brewing beer for my March wedding. I've brewed and bottled a barleywine, amber ale, and honey hefe so far. Currently lagering a Budweiser clone so we have something that doesn't offend midwestern palates. Final brew will be an extra juicy IPA.

>>1533946
unironically

>>1534549
enjoy your methanol

>>1533946
I basically learnt the process just by watching Youtube vids.

In the beginning I was a bit confused as there are a few different ways most homebrewers do it (brew in a bag, extract, all grain). Once you work out which is which, or which you think you would be most interested in, you can focus learning more about that particular style.

Personally I just went straight to all grain. After watching a few videos I knew thats what I wanted to do and is normally where most people end up if they start off with BIAB or extract.

>>1534698
>methanol
>from brewing
even if you drank all 5 gallons at once there wouldn't be enough methanol in it to matter, you simp

>>1534849
Enjoy your ethanol then

>>1534856
thanks, you too

>>1533297
Can you share your recipe? I'm about to try make some plum wine itself. I'm interested in giving it a go but have never made a wine yet.

>>1534955
I freestyled a little but heres the general process for my 12l barrel:
-wash all equipment thourougly (hot water, dish washer tablets, if you want to be extreme)
-destone enough plums to fill the container a little over the half
-mush them, but not to puree, just kind of chunky so you can easily seperate them later
-fill with water up to about 4/5ths of the container, so that it will not foam over (depends on your container)
I guess you could add some spices too here, if you are feeling fancy, maybe honey or something.
Here comes the "sciency" bit: I have an acid testing kit allowing me to read out the grams of acid per liter. Apparently 4-8.5 g/l is nice so I usually set it to about 6.5 using citric acid and/or lactic acid. I also add a yeast nutrient salt, which has its own dosage guidelines, so you would probably get different amounts from mine. You could probably also disregard these things and still get a fine result, its just stuff I found on the internet and subsequently used.
I then put 2kgs of white sugar in, which was eyeballed... The plums were rather sweet already (the wine is too). Then add the yeast.
Close your barrel and wait for it to begin fermenting. Might foam somewhat, mine cooked over two times. Put it in a larger tub to save your carpets. Have it ferment like a week and then filter out the fruit flesh using a cloth. Let it sit again for a few weeks or so until the bubbling has subsided mostly. Shake it daily to keep it well mixed and to get the CO2 out so you notice when the production has stopped.
Then separate the wine from the yeast sludge on the bottom. I have large bottles with reusable caps in which I transfer it. Usually I have to repeat this step another time to get the last sludge and fruit out. Watch out, it might still be fermenting slightly check for pressure buildup. Your wine should be ready then (apart from aging).
This... Is not a recipe at all... Still hope I can help you a bit with my rambling.

>>1534955
I made several fruit wines, plums amongst them. what this dude said is mostly right, just a few addons
>>1535052
>-wash all equipment thourougly
>-destone enough plums to fill the container a little over the half
2/3's if you want to max out
>-mush them, but not to puree, just kind of chunky so you can easily seperate them later
no, mush them to pulp and and at pectylase enzyme, every homebrow or wine shop will have this
>-fill with water up to about 4/5ths
>I guess you could add some spices too here, if you are feeling fancy, maybe honey or something.
meh
>Here comes the "sciency"
set the PH of your mash to 3.5, use testing strips and citric acid to balance it down slowly, keep it between 3.2 and 3.8.
>I then put 2kgs of white sugar in, which was eyeballed... The plums were rather sweet already (the wine is too).
2kg on 12L will kick your ABV by around 5%
>Then add the yeast.
select a red wine yeast, Port or Sherry yeasts work good.
>Close your barrel and wait for it to begin fermenting. Might foam somewhat, mine cooked over two times. Put it in a larger tub to save your carpets. Have it ferment like a week and then filter out the fruit flesh using a cloth.
Do not filter your mash at all during fermentation, use the enzyme, let it ferment for 2-3 months and the wine will get clear all by itself and the solids will set on the bottom. now you can filter.Also do not shake daily, but push down the solid fruit cake on top with a plunger once a week. Fermentation can take 2-3 months, 17-19° Celsius is recommended. When you stir it and it diesn't sparkle no more, fermentation is over.
>Then separate the wine from the yeast sludge on the bottom. I have large bottles with reusable caps in which I transfer it. Usually I have to repeat this step another time to get the last sludge and fruit out. Watch out, it might still be fermenting slightly check for pressure buildup. Your wine should be ready then (apart from aging).

>>1535083
>pectylase enzyme
pectinase, it's a natural enzyme that acts as an anti coagulant and with time will break down all the solids in the mash. You can get a pack for a $ or so at the homebrew/wine store. Like yeast it is temperature sensitive, so never drop it in hot water or hot mash.

>>1533806
>>1533794
>>1533752
You're distilling it. So, it'll cost about $10.70 per gallon of pure ethanol . That's a good bit cheaper than say denatured ethanol used for non-edible things like cleaning, thinning, or industrial purposes.

Most lawn mowers shouldn't use a higher rating than E10 for the gasoline. Using pure ethanol in them means you'll need to swap out the original motor with one rated for ethanol use.

>>1534549
Stop posting this shit.

>>1535091
96% pure is max for distillation ethanol.

>>1535097
No one claimed it would taste good, but it will get you shitfaced.
Besides you don't even need a proper airlock, just something that requires a light overpressure for the gas to escape is sufficient.
Also what this >>1533364 anon did doesn't sound radically different from the "troll" image.

>>1535083
Ah, yes I forgot to mention the enzyme, I use it too. Tanks for adding. Can you really let the wine sit with all the fruit inside for 2-3 months? I always hear that having the fruit and "solid" yeast inside for too long will promote bad, yeasty tastes

>>1535307
That depends on a lot variables, yeast selection is one of them, sugarhead the other. In my experience, if you aim for a normal abv in the 12% ballpark and use a suitable wine yeast you should have no problems taste wise, no need for nutrient salts, no need to bring in your sugar head in 2-3 charges and just the normal contamination problems you get with wine making. Once the wine clears itself, the yeast taste will be completely gone. With this abv it is recommended to filtrate sooner and the storage life of your wine won't be that high, but this is a simple straight forward method to make fruit wines. I'd recommend this for a beginner, you can get all ingredients for cheap nearly everywhere and it takes like 2 months.

If you aim for Turbo strength, 16-20% ballpark things get complicated, You won't have any contamination risks as the high alc will kill most problematic micro fauna, but you need to calculate the nutrients, add the sugar head in different charges, select a suitable yeast, keep the temperature in a tight band, and even if you do everything right it will end up sharp with an acetate finish that will only fade off after 2-3 months of maturing. Most Turbo yeast on the market won't work and leave a bad yeast taste behind. The gold standard for high abv fruit yeasts is Prestige Fruit Schnapps yeast or Prestige 8kg Turbo yeast, both from Gert Strand AB, those yeast are already spiked with the required amount of nutrients for a 25l batch size. Only do thisif you know what you're doing, get the right ingredients and have 6 months time to wait.

Hey guys,

I work in qatar and booze is super expensive here. I just bought a package of super yeast from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064O77LQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I see that the package says it can make 25L. Can I half the dose into the fermenter to stretch it further to like 50 or 75L? I brew in easy-to-manage 1 gallon water jugs.

I can keep the package closed and in the fridge or freezer.

BTW I am a chemical engineer and I used to manufacture my own amphetamine, MDMA and 2c-b back in my home country. So I'm not a novice to making things. I don't have much time here though - its a 6 day week and every minute I'm not building this fuckin refinery is a precious gift to me.

>>1536701
A bottle of vodka is about 40-50USD now (recently a 100% tax was put on booze, tobacco etc).

Brewers yeast isn't sold here and I'm hoping to minimize how often I have to ship it in with a whole lot of other amazon ordered products.

I'm hoping to make strong, shitty grog, just like I've been doing, but there's S.F.A brewing supplies in this country.

I was using bakers yeast for the last 6 months, and honestly it does the trick fine. But I don't like drinking a lot of residual sugars so I want a higher conc booze.

I have an idea for a 5 or 10L still I can run in my bathroom and vent out the 2nd story bathroom fan.

Suggestions for beer/spirit mash ingrediants, considering my limited time and resources where I am?
Basically, I have access to sugar and cartons of juice. Fresh fruit isn't super cheap and nor is my time, so I'll probably be sticking with cheap grog. No hops anywhere.

>>1536702
can you get tomato paste? if so look up birdwatchers wash, meant to distill nice (note i haven't tried it personally)

>>1536703
>>1536703
Yes I can get tomato paste. I will look into this:
http://www.distillate.org/recipe/Vodka/Tomato%20Paste%20Wash%20%28TPW%29

I'm thinking what I'll do is get a 20L bucket with a lid, some molasses/honey/sucrose and dextrose (if available). Do a pint yeast starter with honey or molasses and a tsp of yeast.

Then do a mash with 300g sugar/L using apple juice and whatever sugar syrups or honey I can buy to make it up. I'll add the sugar in increments. Looking for a 15%+ alcohol content.

I think I'll leave the lid off for the primary fermentation. I was just reading that a mash which is fermenting in a clean bucket isn't likely to be contaminated in primary ferment. The oxygen supposedly helps the fermentation kick off.

There's no malt extract here either.

>>1534849
It was a bit harder to find out about methanol production during fermentation. You always hear people ask about "going blind" when they drink homebrew, lol.

Pectin is a poly-saccharide; methyl esters of galactose. Methyl esters aren't too hard to hydrolyze into methanol in general. Pectin occurs in plums and berries in highest amounts.

More concerning are the fusel oils you get when making spirits. Butanols, pentanols and other longer chain alcohols. These things are toxic and will worsen your hangovers significantly. That's why you discard the early heads component during spirits distillation.

>>1535052
This plum wine looks real nice. I wonder if I can find pectinase here.

>>1535342
This is an interesting opinion. But what about running a 16-20% mash and then distillation in a pot still, followed by carbon filtration? The carbon will absorb the heavy odor and flavour components, leaving a nice neutral spirit. That's what I saw a friend of mine do with his reflux still and vodka that came out of it. The activated carbon left it as smooth as silk!

>>1536702
Fruitjuice of your choice and sugar will result in some kind of brandy. The yeast you bought is a turbo yeast, it is meant to ferment sugar water into cheap alcohol in 96h and for this it is already loaded with yeast nutrients. Normally this will leave a bad yeast taste in the alcohol and most shiners will distill to maximum 94-96° and filter their product over active coal for a neutral product. this is fastest, but you need a distillation column still

If you work with fruit juices (unfiltered preferably) and sugar you can use normal wine yeast and a tablespoon of yeast nutrient salt and end up with around 15% in 3-4 weeks and something that actually tastes brandy like and doesn't need additional filtering. distill in simple pot still once or twice

If you want to push your fruit mash abv into the 18%-20%, follow the Schmickl method and use Gert Strand turbo yeast strains. this yields best/quality/quantity and takes a shitload of time. distill in simple pot still once

A cheap way for grain based is get yourself ht amylase and glucoamylase enzymes and mash whatever grain or starch veggy you have and turn that into vodka/whisky. calculate the gravity of the mash so you end up with 10-11%, mashing grains is additional work, but the mash ferments rapidly in 72h. needs double distillation in pot still, but the resulting product is usually pretty good.

Choose a path that fits your production methods and the equipment and ingredients you can get and start from there. Pro tip,check out "Prestige" brand yeasts (Gert Strand) they are preloaded with enzymes and nutrients for specific products (sugar, fruit, grain, molasses) and work well for small batches. and yes, you can break 25l batch packages down to smaller batches.

>>1536732
If you carbon filter then really go Turbo all the way, use 8kg Prestige Turbo Yeast, make a 25l pure sugar mash, ferment that in 5 days, run it trough a column to 94%, active carbon the shit out of it, dilute it down and you'll end up with ~ 8 liters of 45% neutral vodka every week. it is probably the most efficient way work hours and money wise and what most of Scandinavia does to get a cheap drink.
Get yourself one of those 30L fruit juice barrels, get a column still, get the yeast, get 8kg of sugar and you're set.

>>1536736
It's almost illegal to even look at a still where I'm from, could I get away with active carbon filtering the wash without distilling it?
The idea is to have a base fermented product that additional flavor and sweetness will be added to later. Because flavor isn't a worry it would be pasteurized beforehand to kill the yeast.
Or would I be better off using normal high tolerance yeast and just waiting longer?

>>1533940
NVM it sorted itself out

What are some good online resources I can use to learn more about homebrewing? I bought a kit from brewdemon and it came out fine but I think I want to get into all grain in the future

>>1537018
Dont be a pussy

>>1536735
For yeast nutrient I think I will get some diammonium hydrogen phosphate DAP and see if there's some other stuff I can get as well. I cant find any sellers on amazon that ship to Qatar that have fermaid K or fermaid O which is popular on the brew sites.

I can ship these to qatar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WT20TL2/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WRPPUJC/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A1510WIMZY1W1R&psc=1

The first is DAP, vitamin B, mag sulfate and yeast hulls.
Second is diammonium phosphate, dipotassium phosphate, magnesium sulfate and autolyzed yeast cells.

Cant find any Qatar shippers for those yeasts you mention on amazon.

I see a surprising number of people talking about using bread yeasts for wines and meads even up to 12-15%. I wonder if this is because of added nutrients, rehydration and starting the yeast in a low sugar environment. So, more about the treatment of the yeast and rate of fermentation than the strand itself.

This website here talks about home made yeast nutrients.
https://denardbrewing.com/blog/post/Nutrient-fruit/
Quite interesting.

>>1537018
In that case simply make wine or pruno. You can make real delicious fruit wines with little work.
>>1537285
No need to buy nutrients if you buy a Turbo yeast as those contain a pre-measured dose of nutrients for the desired strength. They are designed to ferment sugar water, fruit or grain mashes will contain most essential nutrients needed and normally don't need additional nutrients, and fruit juices will only require reduced charges. Most yeast will kick the bucket at around 12% max, wine yeast will go to 14-15%, sweet wine yeast 16-18% and some select ultra high gravity strains will kick it up to 25% they all produce different flavor profiles and will take their sweet time to completely ferment and even longer to lose certain undesirable flavor profiles.

Could fermenting pumpkins produce anything drinkable? I have so many and cant cook them all

>>1537875
a quick google turns up a few pumpkin wine recipes and one pumpkin wine sold by a winery that reports it's made only from pie pumpkins. https://commonsensehome.com/how-to-make-pumpkin-wine/
this recipe kinda makes it sound like pumpkin beer with no hops. if you've got that much extra, might be worth taking a stab at.

Ive made up some washes using boiled lentils, sugar and fruit juices.

I put a few tbsp of turbo yeast into 500ML of water in a 4L jug, and let it rehydrate for 30 min. Then I poured in juice and lentils. After another 30min I added sugar.

Orange juice seems to be bad for yeast early on, due to acidity.
Pineapple juice is really bad, with both acidity and digestive enzymes.

However, grape apple lychee and other non-acidic fruits seem to do really well.
I bought some cartons of guava juice. Its more like guava pulp though. Very thick. The yeast loved it and started foaming up within 3 hours. Blew the top off my bottle too.

I'm going to start building my own water cooled condenser this weekend using copper fittings.

How do I clear my mead without bentonite clay

I fucking hate that clay, it never wants to dissolve and just fucking sticks to everything

>>1538527
I've used gelatin finings, and chitosan and kitosol to decent effect. a lot of my meads just clear after a couple months in secondary too, I dunno what yeast you're using.

>>1533551
>>1533206
this actually does help. I used to brew beer every 1.5-2 months and took a break for about a year. Got back into it because friends and family kept asking me to make more since they liked it so much.

I've made 3 batched since September and have the ingredients, minus the yeast, for an IPA that I want to brew once I've transferred my current batch from my fermenter to my keg.

How about a recipe for sour beer with a ABV of >7.5%?

I have 21 lbs of red currants I can use in my freezer from this summer

>>1539143
never brewed a sour myself but what I've done in the past is go to Brewers Friend and looked at their recipes for inspiration. You dont need an account to browse the recipes or use their recipe calculator if you just want to dick around with with a recipe.
This sour has good ratings but is ~6%. You could always increase the base malt or add corn sugar to increase ABV and switch out the mango for your red currants
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/561275/hoppy-mango-kettle-sour
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

>>1533206
Make some apfelwein. It's super easy and let it ferment for a year. That way your fermenters are used up and you feel better

>>1538527
Just wait, mine got clear as water after a couple of months

>start making cherry wine in june
>rack it in like july
>forgot you made cherry wine in june
>find it in your closet
what are the chances it's not super fucked up? The airlock never evaporated and there's nothing growing in/on it

>>1539345
probably very good. especially if you racked it once already.

>>1539345
only one way to find out

>>1539261
Thank you so much
>>1539345
It has a good reputation (true or not) for responding well to long rackings/ time in bottle

I haven’t been on Chan in about a year and I get this idea to start a stilll and make shine and wine. I look on the diy bored and it’s already a thread. Saved me a lot of trouble but Does any one have blue prints or have made a still with a low budget

>>1539769
I'm working on one now. The plan is to get a 5 or 10L aluminium pressure cooker or stock pot, and then use refrigeration copper tube to connect that to a water cooled condenser.

A 60cm condenser made of copper fittings soldered together will cost about $70 in parts.

Keep in mind that if you need to buy tools (e.g drill, tube cutter, blow torch, drill bits) then it will be better to buy one second hand off ebay if you're in US. Will probably cost 150-200$ second hand and is way better option.

So I bought a Morgan's starter kit at my local brewery place. I got home and it was missing a temperature strip and a bung on the 30litre container. I called up and told the lady that I was missing it. She told me to fill it up with 2Litres of hot water. Then fill it up with tap water until it was at the 23L mark. After doing that she said let it sit for 1 hour before I add the yeast (as there was no thermometer)

Now after that I sealed the airlock grommet and tightened the lid. And i have now waited 29 hours and I have no seen a bubble. I left it in a room temperature room with the blinds down so it was dark. Is that okay that I haven't seen any bubbles? There was obviously foam over the night as you can see in the picture. Thanks in advance

>>1539911
Okay weird. So I tightened the tap harder (video told me not to tighten it too hard) and I saw 2 massive bubbles which actually pushed the water to the right of the airlock. You can see where the water used to be by looking at the condensation. Is this okay? I've just un-tightend (if that's the word) the tap a little. Should I keep it tight it leave it? How regularly should i be seeing bubbles?

>>1539912
Did you put in all the malt extract and sugar as per instructions?

Air lock should be bubbling relatively frequently for the first few days. Id recommend you put vodka in the air lock as it lets gasses pass better and its an antiseptic to kill the nasties. I havent used a kit like that in 6 years though.

Keep the airloc in there tight.

>>1539912
Picture looks like theres a significant amount of gas in the barrel. It looks fine.

>>1539926
Yes I put all the extract and stuff in. Everything mixed and dissolved as directed

And I just flicked the airlock and every time I flicked it LOTS of bubbles came out. Thanks for the help

>>1535097
You're retarded. I made mead in two weeks using a plastic water bottle, honey, water and a pricked balloon as a cap. And no, it didn't turn out to be vinegar.

>>1540205
It's actually quite funny how quite a few homebrewers who think they're hot shit can spout so many bullshit.
If i had to take a shot everytime i read baker's yeast can't get a decent ABV i'd need a new liver by now.
quite a bit of broscience circulating in this hobby

>>1540205
>pricked balloon

You didn't read the image. It specifically states that you should at least need a pin-pricked balloon. Which is an AIR LOCK.

>>1540280
Brown noser.

>>1540425
t. salty bro scientist
And yes multiple napkins can serve as an air lock as well, do you really think the egyptians and vikangs used 'proper' airlocks?

>>1540437
I dont use airlocks. They are convenient though.

>>1540280
I have switched from bakers yeast to turbo yeast for my homebrew grog crap that I make. The alcohol content has doubled. Now Im getting 12%+ instead of 6-7%.

Sure, doesn't taste great, but I just want to drink when I come home and I dont really care what it tastes like when im smoking.

>>1540437
Do you think their rot gut was any good at all?

>>1540588
When I used Fleischmann's Active Dry bread yeast I was getting a consistent 15-18%ABV. It is very similar to using Lalvin EC-1118. I tried pushing the breast yeast really far once and got 19%, but it was horrible tasting. I'm sure if I filtered it with a pump and aged it 10 years that would have been fine, but I tossed it out since it was only a test.

I still have wine I made with the bread yeast and they are 10-11 years old now and taste amazing. Some that were terrible before have turned out really well.

>>1540601
If it wasn't they probably wouldn't have bothered.

>>1540588
If you're only getting 6-7% i think you're doing something wrong. Might depend on the brand but i've gotten to 15%-ish in the past.

>>1540622
You underestimate humanity's want to get drunk. Kilju and pruno still exist for a reason after all. I'm sure it was a range of rot gut to really good in ancient times, as it is today.

The main thing for an airlock is when the yeast is going dormant. While it is fully active, the head on top and the yeast's active state help defend it against infection from bad bacteria and bad wild yeasts. If you don't use an air lock, just make sure to stabilize the brew prior to the yeast finishing off and your brew should be quite fine.

>>1540628
When I was getting my really high %ABV with bread yeast I was also pureeing a single banana and putting that into the brew as the yeast nutrient. It made a massive difference, though the chance of a blow out was raised to about 10,000% so I had to use large diameter blow off tubes and dispense with all other types of air locks. The better solution was to use larger containers and allow a bit more headspace for foam expansion. Otherwise, I was coming home to the house smelling like a frat party the day after.

Then again, if you go overboard and decide to make an all-banana country wine, I highly suggest a larger container, don't fill it up like a tard, and install a large diameter blow off tube then keep it in your bathtub for extra precaution.......

>>1540631
>be competent enough to get proper equipment
>but fill up the container to the brim like a tard
Am i missing something?

>>1540635
>I highly suggest a larger container, don't fill it up like a tard...

That part.

In my defense, I had a fever of 107F that night and don't even remember driving to the store to get the bananas. The wine turned out really good though.

>>1528159
Lads a question, first timer here, trying to make some ginger ale or beer, whatever, still need to decide on that, at the moment I'm still only cultivating my ginger bug, but I'm not sure on what to use afterwards when I have to brew the thing. I've read glass bottles aren't recommended because they might explode from the pressure, but I've also read that plastic bottles aren't the best to use either because of the chemicals being leeched into whatever is brewing inside
So what the fuck am I supposed to use?

>>1540970
Your'e talking about bottling afterwards and not fermentation, right? what kind of beer are you thinking about brewing?
Glass bottles are fine as long as you dont add excessive amounts of sugar during bottling. Your typical brown beer bottle can safely hold pressure for 2.5 volumes of C02. 2.5 volumes is a pretty good number for a lot of different types of ales. I think bottle bombs become a concern when you get to >3.5 volumes of C02.

>>1540631
Literally looks like fuckin diarrhea
Probably doesnt taste like it though!

Im going to do a 10 or 15L apple cider brew this weekend. It must happen. I want cider. I have to see if the local Qatari supermarket has non filtered apple juice.

I still havent gotten an DAP. And i'll probably use turbo yeast. I am aiming to get some EC-1118 yeast to see if the flavour profile is superior to the turbo im using.

Guava juice also makes an OK cider, ive found... the juice is more like a pulp out of the carton.

>>1540588
>>1540606
>>1540628
>>1540631

You know, just because bread yeast can produce 12% alcohol doesn't mean it's ethel alcohol.

Enjoy your headaches and blindness with all those fusils and methanol fags.

Im new to this and im trying to make my first mead, i used bread yeast, i left it rest for a night and just took a look, how can i know it's going good and fermenting? i see some bubles inside and a little bit of foam but idk.

>>1542428
based retard

>>1542485
Bubbles and foam means it's producing C02 (and that's a good thing).

I like dogs I truly do but when it comes to being men's best friend my vote goes to the beer yeast.

>>1542488
What now? should i let it rest for 2 months straight?

>>1542516
Dunno, never made mead.

>>1542516
keep it bubbling at around 20°C room temperature for a couple weeks, you can stir it every week, bubbling itself will go down over time but it it still sparkles when you stir then the yeast is still fermenting. Once it stops sparkling fermentation is done and you're basically good to go.

>>1542531
>Once it stops sparkling fermentation is done and you're basically good to go
So i just filter it and let it rest? or filter and str8 to bottling?

>>1533752
Sure, if you have a lawnmower that can run on ethanol fuel.

>>1542531
You only stir it for the first three day to introduce oxygen and get the c)2 out of solution since it's toxic to the yeast. Also your mead isn't going to fully ferment since you didn't use a wine yeast or much needed nutrients. You'll still end up with alcohol though.

I think I finally got the grain and hops bill for a special pale ale.

>>1528159
pro brewer here. will answer questions if anyone cares... been brewing beer for about 10 years now, dabbled in mead and cider.

>>1542599
do you like dick?

>>1542558
if you want to flavor it in any way, siphon it into a secondary container and let it sit with whatever flavors. if you ust want a show mead, give it a good stir to degas it and go to bottling. you might want to drop in some campden and/or wine stabilizer to be sure absolutely all the fermentation is done, but it'll be good to go otherwise.

>>1542599
do you have any advice for cider? I made a batch of six gallons and it had a kind of weird sulfury scent to it. I made applejack out of some of it and it had the same scent at first, but it aged out in a few weeks. I've opened a couple bottles of the cider and it's nowhere near gone.

>>1542592
How would the taste be?
Also noted, thanks

>>1542592
Since when is CO2 toxic to yeast?

>>1542755
what's your process/ingredients look like? for a simple cider it's almost always best drank fresh. Apple juice and yeast (don't boil) is all it takes, and once you have that recipe/procedure down it's easy to infuse with spices or condition on fruits.

>>1542599
how difficult of an industry is it to break and is it an over saturated industry? (possibly interested in going legit)

>>1542859
I made six gallons in a bucket fermenter that was part of a cider kit. the kit was from concentrate and was a little too sour. I bought the juice from a local orchard last fall. I threw some capden tablets into the juice once I dumped it in the bucket and added some nutrient and sugar before the yeast a day or so later.

>>1542813
Since always since it increases the pressure in an already high gravity environment. You need to stir meads and wines the first three days to off gas and introduce oxygen to help the yeast synthesize sterols. Especially since honey is low in vital nutrients like free available nitrogen.

>>1531201
>Well fellas, I've begun my foray into brewing mead. Started with the JOA recipe, here's to it coming out half decent.

They have modernized JOA recipes that are way better. That one is dated and crappy. If u want to drink it sooner then make sure to ferment slower at a lower temp so not to get as many fusels.

>>1543026
>Since always since it increases the pressure
How?
>You need to stir meads and wines the first three days to off gas and introduce oxygen to help the yeast synthesize sterols.
When i quickly read through the wiki page i thought yeast will go through an aerobic phase where it muliplies, then switches to anaerobic when the oxygen is gone.
So basically by stirring it for three days you're just speeding up the fermentation? I've never bothered doing that and they still ferment dry within weeks.
Not that guy who's making mead btw.

>>1543168
They need the oxygen to synthesize sterols for their cell membranes. Without it they're going to multiply and have weak cell membranes that will rupture due to the high pressure and later on high alcohol. Not only will you not get a good alcohol yield, but you will also get some off flavors from the esters they produce while stressed out and all the waste that spills from their ruptured cell.

>>1543206
Should have googled "fermentation oxygen yeast" a bit sooner desu.
https://www.morebeer.com/articles/how_yeast_use_oxygen
Seems to agree with your post, but still, i've gotten no issues to get double digits ABV with just an initial aeration.
I'm under the impression it's beneficial but not a necessity.

>>1543244
some of it will depend on specific environment and cell counts too. if you have enough yeast for 1 gallon and dump it into 5, they can eat all that sugar, but they're going to have to reproduce a bunch, and additional aeration and nutrients is important. on the other hand, enough yeast for 5 gallons dumped into one is going to burn through the sugar in no time and probably not multiply enough before the alcohol content gets intolerable for the oxygen concentration to be as much of a problem.

I am entering a homebrew competition however it seems that I have stuffed up both of the brews for it.

1) my milk stout hit gravity that would fit within the style guildlines for it but it wasn't the gravity that I planned for and I had fermented this out for an extra week and all that as well. I think it developed a strange taste to it as well... I am not sure though so I will pop a bottle in two weeks and see. --- the taste seems yeasty?

2) My NEIPA had a really shit brew day and it spat out all my first dry hop matter but still smells good.

I am not sure if I should still enter if the beers have gone bad and just use the feedback to improve.

I bought a brew kit for my dad at Christmas and he's really taken to it, but I wondered if you guys had any ideas for the following.
We live in Northern England, and it's pretty cold here. Recent nights have been below 0C, or around there. The beer and wine he's brewing at the moment are in the kitchen and it gets quite cold 10Cish or so.
Is that an issue or will it just take a little longer?
If it is an issue, he has a shed I could do some stuff to.

>>1543630
Cold temperatures will put yeast into hibernation, but certain beer strains like lager will tolerate colder temperatures than for example ale strains. In general you want to have a constant room temperature that fits the temperature range of the yeast strain and beer type you're making.

I used potassium sorbate and corked my gallon of mead for a month with no visible issues and now now Im adding potassium metabisulfite to kill the yeast.
Can I still do this or is it important that I add the sorbate and sulphite together and not seperately by some time?

>>1543805
you don't need to add them together, but the sorbate works by binding to yeasts and disabling their ability to reproduce. if there were enough living yeasts when you added it, it's possible for all of it to bind, but excess yeast to continue reproducing, making it relatively pointless to add early.

>Want to brew alcohol
>Don't drink

>>1544176
onions

>>1542755
You didn't add enough yeast nutrient and the yeast were struggling through fermentation.

>>1544176
Nonalcoholic beer and ginger beer etc etc. Just made some ginger beer and it was fun. Alcoholic though.

should my next upgrade be a jaded wort chiller, a tilt hydrometer, or a grain mill?
right now it takes me an hour to chill 5 gallon batches with a 20' copper wort chiller, so i'd like to cut that off my brew day. a tilt would just be fun to screw around with, i could diy one but it looks needlessly complicated to build in the US. i also have a diy brewpi setup i could interface it with. a grain mill would save me more money

>>1544769
how much time would you save with the chiller?
is the extra time/effort(if manual mill) needed to mill your own grain worth the grain savings?
there is a german site (3d mechatronics) which sold ispindel (diy tilt) kits with everything you need that ships international

>>1544769
i'd hope to cut that hour down to ~10 minutes to chill, but i'm not sure how honest everyone is about their chill times. People claim that a regular chiller takes them only 15 minutes but even with stirring and recirculating ice water, mine takes at least an hour every time.
I would set up a mill with my drill so I wouldn't worry about manual grinding, but it wouldn't pay for itself until >12 batches or so

>>1544820
what diameter pipe is the copper chiller compared to the jaded one?
do you make the same brews multiple times? I would probably go mill if so, to get a consistent grind and repeatable results
if you do different brews every time, I would go for the chiller to cut down brew day

>>1544828
I've been remaking the same blonde ale just because it's easy and I don't have time to fuck around with liquid yeast starters for specialty beers, although I've been itching to make a stout or porter

Is it just me or does mead taste better with cheap as shit honey? I made some batches with expensive and dirt cheap honey and the ones I made with the cheap honey tasted better. The mead I made with the organic raw bullshit came out with really bitter and earthy flavors. I mean, I guess I can see why some people would prefer that. But IMO the normal mead was much more tolerable on top of being significantly cheaper.

>>1544872
I'm still a relative neophyte with meads, but depending on what exactly your cheap honey is, it may not be purely honey, and any kind of extra sugars or syrups might be easier for the yeast to go through, or just generally give a finish you prefer. I've never used raw honey, but more expensive honeys are probably going to come from specific flowers, whereas the cheaper honey is either going to be clover, or unlabeled. It's possible that the specific character of the honey is expressed in the mead, and using differently flavored honeys might improve your results depending on what you like.

I bought two six-pound jars of honey at the local renn faire last year, both had very notable flavors and I brewed mead out of them to see how the honey flavor translates to the mead flavor for basically this exact reason. They're only 2 or 3 months old at this point so I can't say what the results are, but it would make sense if the impurities and flavor components of the honey doesn't get broken down by the yeast.

I'm making a simple sugar and juice wine right now. I had to replace normal white sugar for brown sugar. Will that make a difference in the fermentation?

>>1544898
probably not, packaged brown sugar is just white sugar with molasses mixed in. it might affect the final taste slightly, it could have a rummy hint to it.

>>1544902
Isn't molasses uses as a nutrient?

>>1539769
>have blue prints or have made a still with a low budget
https://youtu.be/M5PuGJ0ULhI

>>1543001
depends on your model. if you start small and focus on taproom sales (where all the margins are) it's pretty easy - assuming you know how to make good IPA.

the days of starting a production brewery that cans/bottles are gone. too much competition, too much desire for new beer, too high of cost/low margins.

>>1543001
I think if you actually give a shitload you still have a good chance. Something like only 5% of craft breweries have a sensory program, so just establishing that would put you ahead of the curve

Im kinda curious, can i make alcohol out of passion fruit?

>>1546407
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/passion-fruit-wine-has-anyone-made-it-from-the-actual-fruit.62538/

seems to make good wine

>>1546417
Thanks man, i tried searching but i only found recipes for drinks rather than alcohol

Here’s a hint when making mead or any wine: get a bag of maltodextrin to add to the boil. It will retard the yeast’s alcohol production, resulting in a lower ABV, sweeter product. Dry mead isn’t really all that great.

>>1546952
>i don't want a high ABV, i want diabetes in a bottle!
Why don't you mix it with some onions while you're at it.

>>1528159

>>1546952
Here's a better idea. Ferment to dry. Rack until clear. Back sweeten. Like every winery ever

I am putting my first IPA into the fermenter today, wish me luck bros. Going for a juicy, hazy IPA like Ninkasi's Prismatic Juicy IPA. So far the wort smells amazing, and citra hops have a very tasty aroma. i've never been so excited for a batch.

What would happen if I followed a lager recipe like a märzen perfectly, but instead of pitching lager yeast, I pitch an ale yeast?

>>1528550
are you making hard alcohol? that's spooky stuff anon

>>1533206
give ur equipment to an anon for free - myself, for example

>>1533855
yes, it's ezpz

>>1533946
i will give u a high level overview. you want to do 5 gallon batches. so you need an 8 gallon kettle, a burner that can boil 5 gallons, a brew in a bag bag, a thermometer, star san, a siphon, bottling wand, bottle brush, bottle caps, an airlock, a hydrometer, and a 7 gallon fermenting bucket. a wort chiller is opitonal, but extremely helpful. start looking for bottles (yes, old, previously used beer bottles), you will need 48.

>look up recipe for a beer u like, buy the ingredients
>buy 10lbs DME too in case you fuck up the first time (you'll see later)

The next part is like making tea:
>put 17 liters of water in kettle, get it to 167 degrees farenheit, turn off heat
>stick grain in bag, stick bag in kettle, stir grains, wrap blankets around it to insulate and hold temp
>go away, come back in 30 minutes to stir gains, right after start heating up 12L of water to 170
>after 30 minutes, pull bag out. stick in fermenting bucket, pour 12L of 170 degree water on it, start burner again, let bag sit in bucket for ten minutes
>pour 12L into kettle, liquid in kettle (called wort) should be hot by now

now u add hops
>once boiling, add hops as instructed on recipe

now cool it down and ferment it
>cool wort, sanitize bucket w/ star san, aerate, pitch yeast,
>move bucket to 70 degree location, don't touch for two weeks
>ur done basically, u can figure out bottling on ur own, it's ez, just mix sugar in wort and squirt it into bottles that u cap

>>1548039
oh, yeah you got the DME because my water volumes were fast and lose. after u pour into bucket but before pitching yeast, check volume. if below 5 gallons, top off with aerated tap water to 5. if over, wait a minute. now bust out the hydrometer and take a reading, if it's where the recipe says it should be, great. if not, sprinkle DME in, mix up, and take another reading until it is.

>>1537226
read a book, nigger. John Palmer's is good

>>1533206
>Dont making infinite beer to enjoy

>>1548013
You’d get an ale instead of lager.

>>1548013
that's what people do to make moktoberfest beers

>>1548013
If you fermented at lager temps the ale yeast would struggle

NEIPA's are just bottled yeast slurry with hops.

>>1531619
Never thought to put in cinnamon, I’ll do that next time. I had oranges and blueberries in my last batch, should be aged enough right around the time I graduate college, conveniently.

>>1548475
But flavorwise? Are there ale yeasts that are similar in flavor profile to lagers?

I assume >>1548516 means it would be pretty alright tasting.

>>1549138
Ale vs Lager is one of the genuine distinctions as far as beer yeasts go. Ale is synonymous for all the top fermenters that prefer higher temperatures and Lagers are bottom fermenters witch prefer lower temperatures.

>>1534856
based

>>1538527
>rerack wait another week
>dry a broken eggshell in the oven then drop it in
>wine filter last resort

>>1528159
>>1547305
Nicotine is poisonous to cats

I was drunk and making a second batch of grog and I didn't wash out the bleach I used to sanitize properly, or I added too much sugar, and now the yeast has died

:'(

much sadness

>>1550465
who cares? cats need an ego check every now and then.

Currently fermenting some blackberry wine, Ninkasi Prismatic Juicy IPA clone (basically a hazy, juicy or NEIPA) and Rogue's Dead Guy Ale (an ale take on Maibock's).

Currently drinking Coor's Banquets and I'm about to go down to the liquor store and buy some Black Velvet, fml.

>>1548559
NEIPAs are the best IPAs, way less bitter and more piney, floral or fruity.

does anyone else who uses co2 experience huge leaks between the tank and regulator when turning the gas back on after having it off for a while?
I had all the valves to the keg open so I don't know why it would overpressurize. The issue goes away after turning it on and off a few times but I feel like it's wasting a shitload of gas

why are these threads always filled with mead makers? Nothing wrong with that, it just seems disporportionately popular here.

>>1534024
What recipe did you follow?

>>1551023
because they are just pleb tier mixers and its easy, not real brewers like us all grain folks.

I make batches of 20,000L of cider at a time. Ama

>>1551453
Is your cider as good as this cider? If not, why?

>>1551453
do you drink all of it?

>>1548268
Haven't been drinking as much lately and don't have enough people to share it with.

>>1551502
Not often. We wouldn't make much profit if i did.

>>1528159
>any recommendations?
proper mead (apple juice + honey) is good, way better than honey+water if you can get cider apples.
mulsum (honey + grape juice) is also nice, but not as good as true mead.
elderberry is worth trying too - while it tastes terribly, it has medicinal properties.

>>1552199
>proper mead (apple juice + honey)
that's a cyser

>>1552199
>mulsum (honey + grape juice)

That's a pyment.

behold

>>1552621
looks tasty! what is it, ale?

7 lbs honey, zest and fruit of 2 large oranges (no peel, no pith) 50 raisins, 1 cup dried currants, 2 sticks cinnamon, 2 whole cloves, 2 vanilla beans, a small pinch of ground allspice and nutmeg and a smackpack of wyeast 1388.

How's that for a first mead recipe? It's for a 2 gallon batch

>>1552675
Biermuncher's blonde with S-04 yeast. Finally gets a good head on it

Am i overthinking this whole process? cause i got a few large bottle next glass jugs in my cooler. So is it literally just pouring water and fruit into thos bottles and waiting? Do i have to burp it? What do i do with the leftover sediments from all that fruir and stuff. do i just pour it through a sift to drink? I dont have any cork stoppers but i seen those glass cork stoppers on amazon. Does that mean i wont have to burp it if i buy those

>>1553063
you should get some yeast. brewers yeast is optimal but bakers yeast will produce alcohol. if you don't add yeast your mix might not ferment at all, or it might grow mold or bacteria, and end up as something very different altogether. if you do grow yeast it will produce CO2 and you would be best advised to release that gas. burping is one option, but an air lock is relatively cheap and easy, and doesn't require you to actually do anything to avoid an explosion. actual airlocks are cheap, a blow off tube can possibly be improvised with things you have and a simple balloon with a hole in works in a pinch.

you'll likely want to rack your brew into a different bottle to get it off the yeast cake and fruit particulate, any food safe tube can work to siphon it off. you can try to pour it off the stuff, but you're likely to end up with more yeast in solution than you want that way, with anything short of like an activated charcoal filter.

>>1553063
Add baker's yeast and loads of sugar or you won't get any alcohol.
And fermentation produces massive amounts of CO2 so i wouldn't advise burping, just don't screw the cap too tight and you're fine.

>>1553063
water + sugar + yeast = alcohol + co2
I recommend a yt tutorial on making fruit wine and making diy air locks. If you just put a little effort into it you can make decent fruit wines and mead.

>>1550901
You're probably not leaking gas, you're just dissolving more in to the solution. As the temp of the wort goes down, which can continue to happen for several days, the amount of dissolved gas that the solution can handle goes up. Also, if you serve beer from the keg while the tank is turned off, the pressure will drop until you turn on the tank again.

Otoh, if it's happening to a keg that has been in the fridge for over a week, and you know that you have dissolved enough co2, you may be losing some gas from the keg; either a slow leak around the main gasket or one of the gaskets on your input or output ports.

Try spraying the outside of a pressurized keg with some soapy water. If you see even a single bubble form, you have a leak. Gasket kits are cheap, so you should just replace every gasket on the keg at the same time. Also, try spreading some keg lube on the big gasket to help it seal correctly.

If you can't find a leak on your keg, then it's a leak somewhere else in the system. Check the gasket on the output of your tank, check all of your tubing connections, spray everything with soapy water and look for bubbles.

>>1553453
it's not a slow, subtle leak. its a huge, loud leak at the regulator and cylinder when i first open the cylinder to hook the keg up.

Any tips for ginger ale?

why is force kegging so fucking hard

>>1553949
what's hard about it? beats bottling that's for true

Tfw like brewing but don't drink often and also don't have enough glass to bottle much. What do?

has anyone here used eggshells to clear a brew? about how long would you expect it to take for a gallon?

Where do I buy more serious equipment for larger scale brewing?

What are some things to keep in mind?

>>1554123
every time i keg i fuck up my beer. i made an ipa and tasted it before carbonating and it fan-fucking-tastic. nailed it. fast forward two frustrating days and now it’s shit with no aroma. it’s like a coors banquet with a couple hop petals sprinkled in

wtf happened?

>>1554557
do you purge your keg excessively? all that co2 could be carrying aromas out of the keg

Made a gallon of rum wash (~1.5lbs raw cane sugar, 12fl.oz brer molasses) last month on the 20th, however I put it in a dark green glass jug so I couldn't see into it very well. It was still cloudy as of a week ago with so noticable settling, so I got some SuperKleer and added it Monday night. As of last night, I noticed some sludge on the bottom and some bubbly scum on the top. Does this mean the clarifying agent is working? And will the stuff on top eventually sink to the bottom, or should I go ahead and siphon from the middle?

anyone else fucking amped to make some free wine this summer with all the free fruit in season?

>>1554650
i guess i wouldn't really know what excessive is here, but I wouldn't think so. I think next time I'm just going to set it to serving pressure and wait two weeks for it to reach equilibrium

>>1554891
Almost 48 hours after adding Super-Kleer

Do I just need to wait more?

>>1555009

>>1555011
i know for beer we store it cold (32-45 F) after fermentation is done so that the solids and haze settle out to the bottom. is there an analog for what you're doing?

>>1555021
I assume so, but I added a clarifying agent which should be doing it on it's own. Also, I'm not sure why it's floating. Maybe it's crystalized sugar?

This is my first time doing this

>>1555029
>>1555011
Swish it around and see what happens

>>1554895
I just moved out to the country and bulk honey, ugly orchard fruit, and various berries and sumac are plentiful and cheap. I am excite.

>>1544182
You mean s-o-y newfag

>>1555040
Swished it. The scum fell to the bottom and little bits began to rise back up, so either there's lots of trapped co2 or it's not done fermenting. It's been 3.5 weeks, but it's also been a little cold so that might've slowed things down

>>1553063
So about to buy all the necessities, opting for a 1 gallon batch. So i am gona be adding half a gallon of water? (Can i subsitute it for apple juice or other juice products?) to the carboy, and then putting 3lbs of honey into it (But i might be opting for 4lbs of dark sugar and 1lb of honey, or can I just add a shit ton of fruit in lieu of the sugar?) So after thats done i gona be adding yeast energizer/nutrient after i have it dissolved in some aside water before introducing it to the brew. After which everything should be done and all i have to do is let it sit for a couple days. A few questions, honey is ass expensive so does it matter with the amount of sugar or fruit i substitute it with? Will that just result in a higher alch content? Also if i wanted to flavor the batch with cinnamon sticks or vanilla beans i can add it that mixture before letting it sit right. So a few things i am unsure about but keep reading as a ingredient in some recipes are fermaid o and bentonite. What are the uses for that, are they essential? And am i to understand campden tablets are added after everything is fermented and ready for drinking? As in crushed and put into the container that will be used to pour drink. Gona be using
Red Star HOZQ8-529 as a yeast. So will my final product be fizzy.... So many questions but ultimately excited.

>>1555539
No, your recipe contains too much sugar and the osmotic pressure will kill the yeast and pretty much anything else.
Apple juice is a good base, a quarter pound of sugar or better honey is about the maximum you want per quart of juice, together with the sugar in the juice this should get you to 10-12 abv, which is suitable for your yeast and has a chance of being halfway decent in taste.
The quality of ingredients is key to the taste of the finished product. Cheap sugar mash ethanol tastes like shit and needs to be distilled and coal filtered first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWikcIGl3Pc

>>1555539
>A few questions, honey is ass expensive so does it matter with the amount of sugar or fruit i substitute it with?
No. Honestly I wouldn't use any honey unless you're a beekeeping enthusiast or set on making mead.

>>1555550
>>1555548
thanks for the info, i think this is getting a bit more clearer. Think i am gona be opting for a flavored cider then. Since i am doing it in a 1 gallon carboy, by my estimation i am gona need just 1lb of sugar of that whole batch? If i wanted to add some fruit flavours like apples/plums/peaches. Would I have to cut back on that 1lb of sugar? Or just dont overdo it with the fruit.... As far as spicing is going i plan on putting spices in the primary and secondary fermentation. Sadly i like my drinks bitch tasting sweet like a candy something.

>>1555594
a pound of sugar per gallon plus the sugar contained in the juice will give you around 12 abv, which is ok and if you ferment that halfway cool it will have a decent taste. Fruit mash sure helps with taste, but don't make the mash too think, it should be a slurry. one pound of sugar per gallon still stands, no matter how much fruits you add.
Once fermentation is done and the whole thing is cleared you can add sugar to sweeten it to your tastes, but during fermentation you shouldn't add more.

You can do a lot more wild things with fruit wines, tweak them to 20% and what not, but for your first ferment you should keep things easy, simple recipe, just to get the hang of it.

>>1555601
Fermenting halfway cool? Appreciate all the feedback, will post the results once i have everything setup. I understand that i should keep the mixture in room temperature if thats what your saying. The only other question is fermentation period, so the first period i would wait till the bubbles stop forming for it to be fully completed?(The first period being the shortest a few weeks) After which i can siphon to a new carboy and add further sugar if necessary (Do i have to attach the bubbler to the carboy during the 2nd fermentation period? Or will not that much gases be made. And can i just leave the drink in the carboy of the 2nd fermentation period and just drink from there or do i have to individually bottle it.

>>1530770
That looks like a white person’s kimchi... not that there’s anything wrong with that.

>>1554557
Dry hop in keg.

Had same issue, dunno what was going wrong but dry hopping with a hop spider in keg made a wicked improvement.

>>1555603
around 19°C is good, 25°C is bad, fermentation will be too fast and produces bad flavor profiles.
There is no "secondary fermentation" with wine, unless you plan on producing champagne.

I am adding woodchips to my beer at the rate of 1g per litre for a couple days to hopefully achieve a light oak flavour to a wild saison...

Do I steam the chips, and then put them in a weighted sanitised bag and then add that?

I tried this peanut butter and jelly Mead and it was pretty good. The peanut flavor came through perfectly. I want to try and make something similar but not sure how to get the flavor. probably just going to need a lot of trial and error

I have a stalled fermentation. OG 1.06, SG is now ~1.03. Not sure what the fuck to do, I was worried this whole time I didn't oxygenate my wort enough. Or maybe my yeast was old?

>>1555050
hell yeah anon. don't forget to forage too, I got enough blackberries for 5 gallons of blackberry wine absolutely free last year. of course, it took about 5 hours to pick all that, but it was fun.

>>1555911
Pitch 2l high krausen starter

>>1555970
how fucked would it be if I pitched a different strain?

alternatively, can I just bottom crop from the primary and propagate to make a starter out of that?

>>1556128
Different strain is fine, you will most prob get different characteristics depending on how far they need to bring it down to FG.
Not recommended to use yeast from stuck fermentation as it was already stressed and gave up they are quitters, but could still work if you make good starter with nutrient, proper oxygenation and a stir plate.

>>1555803
>peanut butter and jelly Mead
what recpie did you use

My fermentation was super vigorous, and the krausen was almost touching the airlock so I switched to a blow off tube. Did I screw up by switching mid-fermentation? I submerged the tube in star san solution before putting it in the carboy mouth.

>>1557576
nah it's fine

>>1557576
if your fermentation was that vigorous it was probably covered in CO2 at that point anyway, which would make it difficult for most things to actually grow on it. the airlock's more important for keeping bugs and solids out, and for when the fermentation settles down.

>>1556696
thanks anon, this confirmed what I had thought

I'm looking to make my brew day more hands off. I do BIAB and it takes 5-6 hours from start to finish, chilling with an immersion chiller. What should I upgrade to make things easier?
Does anyone use a whirlpool arm and is that worth it? It'd be nice if I didn't have to supervise the kettle and it automatically stirred.

>>1557823
Temp controlled ferment chamber if you haven't already got one.

>>1558227
Forgot at add, not much more you can do really for hands off unless you get a braumeister/grainfather type system or add PLC/PID controls to your existing setup.

When should I expect to see some activity in my airlock? 2 gallon batch of mead.

>>1558276
depends. dry yeast? liquid culture? did you make a starter? temperature? Is your airlock tight? If it doesn't bubble after 12-18 hours something is wrong, most of the time people pitched their yeast to hot, that or the lid isn't tight and everything is fine, just no bubbles.

>>1558282
Wyeast 1388 smackpack. I left it out of the fridge for an hour or so before pitching

I was supposed to brew today but didn't. Please insult me.

>>1558287
then within 24 hours, at most.

>>1558287
>>1558307
what he said, if it doesn't start within 24 hours, then either the lid isn't tight or your yeast was bad or it is very very cold in your room.

>>1558227
already got a brewpi set up my man and it's fabulous

>>1558307
>>1558309
That short of time? I've heard it can take up to 72 hours to see results

>>1558331
maybe in extreme cases, but that would really require the worst case scenario of like dry yeast, low nutrient must, and low temp. I would question any ferment with absolutely no signs in at least 48 hours.

>>1558345
How late would it be to add nutrients? I don't have any on hand

>>1558355
within a couple days and you'll probably be okay. I had a big batch of mead and I forgot to add nutrients for a couple days and it went fine. that said, there are some nutrients in a smack pack, so that's not likely your only problem.

is a 20# co2 tank really worth the price over a 5#? someone local is selling a couple 5#s for $25 each

anyone know of a cask you can buy online that is reusable? I fucking hate bottling

>>1558383
Get 2 5#, then when you run out of gas at the worst time you have a backup.

I have a 5 and a 20 but for 25 clams I'd just get 2 5's. Assuming they are full of gas.

>>1558388
Why not just use corny kegs?

>>1558394
Kegging seems complicated, don't you have to buy co2?

>>1558396
Yeah you will need co2, unless you are drinking that whole cask within 24 hours you will suffer from oxidation issues. Best to use a corney keg with a co2 breather.

Kegging isn't complicated, easy as fuck especially with all the info on the net. Once you start kegging you will wonder how you put up with so much work with bottling.

>>1558331
Longest for me to see activity was 48 hours in a cold room with a reused yeast cake.
With newly pitched yeast it usually takes off immediately.

>>1558331
You can have delays of a couple hours for a variety of reasons
old dry yeast with only few organisms alive is one, for this reason it is recommended to make a starter with some apple juice. but even if the yeast is oaf it likely would kick in within 12h
Another common one is temperature, be the worth to hot or the temperature difference between starter and worth to big, or its too cold. all of those will kill or paralyze the yeast.
Or you have too much sugar/honey in your recipe and the osmotic pressure is too much for your yeast, or you don't have any nutrients (fruit juice) in there and your yeast strain absolutely doesn't like it.
An then there is always the container seal, often everything is fine just the container isn't airtight and the co2 just goes out some other way.
If 24h after pitching your mead isn't at list slightly fizzy when you stir it, something is wrong.

G'day guys. I'm going to be going down to the supermarket tomorrow to buy 10 bottles of juice which I'll water down and add sugar and yeast.

If all goes well, 20 bottles of ~13% strength wine/cider should be ready by early March.

Pic related is my usual setup. I don't use condoms anymore though, just balloons.

I'm starting up a blog about my hobby (I haven't registered the domain yet, still thinking of ideas). I've been brewing my own cider and making my own wine since 2013 so feel free to ask me any questions.

>>1558541
Basically you're doing >>1534549 ?

>>1544176
Home brewed root beer is less than .5% abv, give it a shot.

>>1558553
Pretty much, but with a few small differences here and there.

>>1535097
>The containers need sanitization
Even if it isn't completely sterile, it's likely that the added yeast will outcompete any other organisms present. I used to sanitize my bottles with bleach which I then rinsed out with water but nowadays I just use very hot water instead. I've made over 50 bottles of wine and cider so far and none of them have become infected. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but the risk of infection is a bit overblown in my opinion.

>There's no airlock or at least a pin-pricked balloon
That would be helpful, but the CO2 produced by the yeast will form a natural barrier over the fermenting juice anyway. CO2 is heavier than air, so unless disturbed, it will accumulate and prevent oxygen from outside getting in. That being said, I would still use an airlock/balloon just to be on the safe side.

>There's no racking, and no aging mentioned either
The picture says to wait 2 months. Usually my experience is that the alcohol percentage plateaus after about 2 weeks when brewed in a warm environment, but the liquid is still cloudy with suspended yeast particles which will negatively affect the taste. The yeast will continue to settle down to the bottom leaving the rest of the liquid clearer over time. In my experience, 2 months is usually enough time to produce a fairly clear drink.

The longer you wait, the better it tastes but I know most people probably won't want to wait months to drink their brew. That being said, I've drunk cider that was 2 weeks old and cider that was 8 months old and I was surprised at how well the 8 month old cider tasted. All of the yeast had settled to the bottom with very little disturbance occurring while pouring and the resulting drink was crystal-clear. If you have the time and patience for it, then it pays to wait a few more weeks/months for a nicer-tasting drink.

continued

>>1558596
>Otherwise you more than likely will end up with vinegar or bitter water
Unlikely. It will ferment. It will probably get to about 13-15% ABV. Taste-wise, it will probably be OK, but nothing to write home about.

Anyway, it looks like the picture is intended for an audience that isn't familiar with homebrewing or cider making. It's certainly simplified, but not incorrect. Could the technique be improved? Of course. But it's not a troll.

>>1558596
>>1558598
Forgot to mention that if you must drink it after only a couple of weeks, then it's a good idea to put the bottle in the fridge beforehand to make the yeast settle faster and then (optionally) strain it through a pantyhose. It will still taste a bit yeasty and it won't be perfectly clear, but it's much better than drinking it as-is.

On average, how long does it take a mead to finish fermenting? Using a Belgian strong ale yeast (Wyeast 1388)

>>1558821
2-4 weeks usually.

I have 3 corny keys and generally only 2 of them are in use, I was thinking about using the 3rd as a fermenter.
Has anyone had experience doing this? What are your thoughts?
Usually I use an ampi style fermenter or a coopers fermenter with a krausen collar without airlocks, I just tape over the bung hole on the ampi style lid.

>>1555603
So I finally put everything into the brew, used pasteurized apple juice. I think I underfilled it, but the before i put had the juice in there i premixed. 1 cup of sugar with 1 tsp of acid blend, yeast nutrient, and pectic enyzme. I am just kinda confused as to what I am making, at this point I think carbonation might be to much of a complicated process. So I guess I am opting for apple wine? Should I be adding anything else to this...or is carbonation not that difficult and i should still aim for cider. Pic related third day in.

>>1559359
csrbonation's no big deal if you plan on bottling it. you just either throw some sugar in the batch immediately before bottling, or put a little sugar in each bottle. you'll end up with a small amount of sediment and carbonation when you open it.

Ok, so this guy >>1555911, just checking in before I do it (shaking up my fermentor had no impact noticable impact on gravity, so I'm gonna repitch).

This guy >>1555970 implies I should make a starter, I have some DME, should I just mix that up and pitch some yeast? What quantities of DME to yeast volume?

Just a little nervous and could use some hand holding through the process.

>>1559408
To expand on my situation, what I did previously was 0) rack beer and leave an inch or so on top of yeast 1) skim as many hops as I could out of the bottom inch with a sieve and colander 2) swirl up the cake vigorously 3) pour into sterilized (yes, sterilized - I had jars of sterilized water left over from another project) jars 4) stick jars in fridge

They have now been in the fridge for about two days, and have clearly separated. The beer takes up about half of each jar, with the rest being a sludgy mix of yeast and hops. I need to know how to take these jars and turn them into viable starters for tomorrows brew.

>>1559408
>>1559441
nevermind figures it out

Hey guys /firstbrew/ here. so i just pitched my first batch of mead and i fucked up. I got excited and pitched the yeast straight out of the fridge into room temperature must. I know it probably won't start bubbling for 3 days or so, but what are the odds i killed the yeasties? Wyeast smackpack "dry mead" 4632 packaged 20nov18 is what I'm using.
I misread something on the internet and tossed it back into the fridge after popping the nutrient pack, spent all day at work thinking about my brew, came home sanitized everything made must pitched yeast hit internet and panicked. What do, anons? How bad is it? I did pitch the entire pack (6gal worth) into a one gallon batch, so that at least stacks the odds in my favor.
There's exactly 3 lbs honey in the must, along with a pinch of wyeast beer yeast nutrient. I intend to supplement with the remaining 2 lbs honey over the next four days (musted, pinch o nutes each time). According to the calculator i found online, I'll need 4.52 pounds of honey to reach the advertised 18% abv mark and I'm aiming for a sweet mead. Sorry for tilted pic.

>>1559814
>>1559814
You'll almost certainly succeed in making ethanol I can tell you that much. Pitching yeast straight from the fridge can affect its fitness but since you pitched so much it should still ferment very vigorously (as in, be prepared for a mess if you don't have a decent amount of head space in the fermenter). Unfortunately it will probably taste like rocket fuel for at least a few months. Fermenting too quickly will cause the flavour profile to be very rough, but for the most part it will age out eventually.
The things that will make a mead ferment too quickly are usually pitching too much yeast and adding too much yeast nutrient at once. Heat can also be a significant factor depending on the climate and your yeast.
Next time you should make sure you only pitch enough yeast for the quantity you're making
You've got the right idea with staggered sugar addition to achieve a very high percentage, but I'd suggest trying to master lower percentage brews first as they're much easier to get right and will help you learn all the things you need
3lbs of honey per gallon should probably make a good 10-12% depending on the yeast
Staggered nutrient addition is also very good way to keep fermentation nice and steady.

What's the best way to farm yeast?

>>1559842
Thank you, anon. That's a relief.

>>1559889
i used to do this method here
http://brulosophy.com/methods/yeast-harvesting/
but now i just use dry yeast because this is a pain in the ass

>>1559970
>>1559970
Will this still work if i'm doing a high abv cider with champagne yeast instead of plebbeer?

>>1560336
Also, how does one go about having both carbonation and some sweetness in the finished bottle? Having one or the other is easy enough, but getting both seems tricky..

>>1560344
i dunno us beer plebs just piss in the bottle you fucking cider-drinking faggot

>>1560352
stick to your 3% 'alcoholic' drinks like the massive queer you are

>>1559889
ask me again in a year

What do you guys so with the spent yeast? Is there a way to get it out and make marmite or something?

>>1560409

>>1560409
leave it in the toilet for my roommate to discover

>>1560490
anon tell me the secret to becoming a biological concrete mixer

Making elderflower wine right now. Found some concentrated juice for cheap, so i diluted 4L of it to round 23L of water (it was strong concentrate) and threw in 6kg of sugar and wine yeast. I'll let it ferment for around two weeks and see how it's doing.

so I've had a few pear ciders and it usually has a more mild flavor than apple, which I like. A while back I saw quart bottles of pear juice in the store and thought I'd try making my own perry. the juice is apparently from concentrate and/or puree, and it was really thick when I tried taking a gravity measure of the juice (the hydrometer was just barely not neutrally buoyant). I pitched it a couple days ago and not there's this really sharp divide in the bottle. is this fruit solids dropping off? is my yeast doing something crazy that I should be concerned about? I've never seen this before. I tried giving the bottle a bit of a shake to mix it back up but the line didn't really even budge.

>>1559889
store your culture as a master culture in distilled water. pull a very small amount each time and propagate from there, so your master culture last a lifetime.

>>1560779
>is this fruit solids dropping off?
Looks like they've floated to the surface, probably in my estimation by catching the tiny CO2 bubbles produced by the yeasties.

>>1560409
Dilute with a gallon of water and pour it onto my veggie patch.

made my first starter using bottom cropped yeast slurry and it's going great - it's so healthy that it exploded all over my desk this morning. reusing and pitching yeast is weird, because no one without a scope and a counting chamber has anyway to ballpark cell count estimates, it drives me crazy because all the guides I see presume a certain cell count in any given slurry volume. some of the more advanced ones use viability estimators and such, but it's all still crap. If you're going to go there, you need to go full boar with a scope and a counting chamber, otherwise just pitch an amount that 'looks good' (which will probably work just as well too, if not better)

>>1560409
I take a reasonable amount for reuse later and compost the rest

>>1560344
This is the hardest part of cider making at home. The easy homebrew answer is bottle pasteurization, though I'm not a fan DESU, too much exploding glass if your timing is off. If you've got a keg setup, you can bottle off of the keg and use splenda or similar for sweetness. What I've been thinking of trying from this years batch is filtering from one keg to another, sweetening and then carbing and bottling.

>>1561674
Tfw don't have a keg and the one time I tried bottle carb and pasteurize, it was way under carbonated bc I was a pussy and didn't want exploding glass taking my head off.

Apparently you can get a pretty decent taste by:
>I pair a non-fermentable sugar (usually lactose, but sometimes maltodextrose if I am serving those who might have tolerance issues) with xylitol.
>Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that adds a relatively non-descript sweetness but adds nothing to the body. Lactose and maltodextrose both have low perceived sweetness, but they provide body. A cider sweetened with normal sugar has both a sweetness and added body, and the xylitol and lactose/maltodextrose together simulate both quite well.
>I usually add at a 2:1 ratio by weight with the lactose/maltodextrose being the greater larger component.
So maybe that'd be worth a go

>>1560779
did you add any pectinase? if not that motherfucker is going to be a bitch to clear. the top is probably just floating solids from puree that will compact if you cold crash it when it's done. you're still probably going to lose quite a bit of volume to sediment though.

>>1560409
you can keep some and use it again for experimenting just to see if it alters anything favourably. or you can wash it and keep it as a yeast nutrient, boil it and add it to the next batch, live yeast will cannibalise dead yeast and harvest their vitamins / minerals.

>>1559359
you're making an apple table wine. apple juice has around 15g of sugar per 150ml. 4500ml in a gallon. 150ml / 4500ml = 30. 30 x 15g sugar = 450g sugar. + the additional 1 cup of sugar = 450g + 200g = 650g sugar total.

650g sugar in 1 gallon of liquid = 10.1% alcohol or around that.

I want to get started with home brewing. are those mr beer starter kits decent enough to get started with before I begin to go for anything slightly complex?

Can yeast survive in a 30g sugar / 100ml solution?

My cider is showing definite signs of a slow start..

>>1562372
>30g sugar / 100ml solution?
Whoops, 25g*

>>1562346
those things are a waste of time

I want a fermentation chamber but the only place i have space to do it is under my desk in bedroom (standard cheap wooden desk, about waist height, 4 feet wide by two feet deep or so). also, fwiw I already have a large oil heater (testicle height or so, and about 18 inches long in the room which i currently use in tandem with blankets as a janky fermentation area

the less i spend the better, monthly electricity included

>>1543605

Update on this post. My milk stout came in the middle of the pack, it just wan't extreme enough to really stand out. A lot of people said it was nice and well balanced but not a top 3 contender.

My neipa won the category and I came in second behind some guy who did some kind of meme milkshake stout.

>>1558541
As promised. I'll be going back to the store tomorrow to buy a few more bottles and more sacks of sugar.

Currently making these now.

>>1562570
Looks refreshing but adding sugar? Why?

>>1562570
I ran out of sugar so I was only able to make three bottles. Here's one of them.

>>1562575
Adding sugar increases the alcohol percentage of the final product. Without adding sugar, you would probably get something about as strong as beer (i.e. 4%). Adding sugar can bring this up to about 14% (i.e. similar to wine).

Anyway if anyone cares, here's my recipe...

Ingredients:

3L juice in a bottle
3L empty bottle
Yeast
Sugar
Airlock/balloon/condom

1. Pour half of the juice into the empty bottle so that you have two bottles that are each 50% full.

2. Add 1 tablespoon of yeast to each bottle.

3. Add 2 cups of sugar to each bottle.

4. Add 3 cups of water to each bottle (the bottles should be about 80% filled up by now).

5. Replace cap and shake each bottle gently for a few seconds until most/all of the sugar is dissolved.

6. Remove cap and put airlock/balloon/condom on the mouth of each bottle. If you are using a balloon/condom then poke some holes into the balloon/condom with a needle.

7. Place in a warm shaded area away from direct sunlight (e.g. in a cupboard) and wait at least 2 weeks (the longer the better).

Put it in the fridge before drinking. If it's cloudy, filter it through a pantyhose.

>>1562575
>adding sugar? Why?
Because some of us want more bang for our buck so to speak

>>1562570
>>1562596
>2/3 diluted reconstituted apple juice
>adding enough white sugar so barely 1/4 of the fermentables are coming from apples
How does this normally end up tasting? I've made ciders from reconstituted apple juice with absolutely nothing added or removed and it tasted like fizzy slightly alcoholic water. You'd be better off making kilju (fermented sugar water) and then backsweetening with apple concentrate for this kind of thing. That's how they make most quote unquote cider these days
If you want to make a more flavourful cider find a brewing shop and pick up some proper equipment (5L jug + airlock + a nice wine yeast like ec1118 if you want it dry or d47 if you want it a little sweeter) for like $30, get some nice cloudy apple juice (I think they call this soft cider in America) and add a pound or a pound and a half of honey. It'll come out about wine strength and tastes really nice after about a month. Very nice fizzy too.
Of course if you're happy with what you're making now that's great. You gotta make what you like. I guess you didn't really ask for suggestions but it's here if anyone wants it

How many days should a batch of cider take to start bubbling? I think it's been 4 or so so far and I'm getting worried..

>>1562619
If you leave it long enough, it tastes like store-bought hard cider but with more alcohol content, no fizz, and little to no sweetness. You could definitely tell that it was still cider though. The flavor is unmistakable.

Switching the apple juice to something like pineapple & guava juice (pic related) or cranberry juice also completely changes the flavor as well. Even after fermentation for months, the guava and cranberry flavors, while modified, are still unmistakable.

As for kilju, I've made kilju with a few raisins added to the mix but I found the taste to be kind of meh.

>>1562622
What temperature is it where you live? Normally only takes overnight for me but I'm in Queensland so it's very hot
You could take a gravity reading if you have the equipment or add some nutrients. Worst case you can just pitch more yeast

>>1562642
>What temperature is it where you live?
Melbourne, so it's been like highs of 25-low 30s
Thinking the yeast might just have mostly died since it's like a 3 or 4 year old pack of dry yeast

>>1562634
I've made batches with mixed juices like that and they turned out great. It's a really easy way to make something new. Making a normal cider and then adding some blueberries or raspberries in the secondary also turns out really nice. I've been mostly using lalvin yeast cause that's just what my local brew shop stocks. EC1118 is really good at bringing out the tartness in berries but D47 is nice if you want some of the sweeter notes too. It tends to ferment more gently so you get the softer flavours that more vigorous yeasts will wash out but you do have to baby it sometimes with nutrients and such. Less so if you overpitch a little but you risk making it ferment too fast

>>1562644
Yeah I'd say you need to re pitch. I'm not sure what the shelf life is on dry yeast technically speaking but I've even found that 6 month old packs can have a hard time. If they're open or kept in the fridge I find it makes it worse
If in doubt you can make a sugar water solution with a bit of yeast nutrient and pitch what you were going to into that. Leave it covered for an hour or two and if there's no foam or bubbles whatsoever it's dead. If it seems healthy you can just pitch that into your must

>>1562649
>Yeah I'd say you need to re pitch.
Shit. Don't think I have any less old packages of yeast..

>>1562654
I'd say it's time to go to the brew shop but in reality it's probably time to go to bed lol

>>1562570
>>1558541
>>1562596
If you've been brewing for 6 years then why are you taking such a disgusting ghetto approach? How tf are you gonna rack it with such small containers?

This is honestly an insult to homebrewing.

>>1562684
Admittedly, I took a big 4 year gap in between where I did very little to no brewing.

So while I did start brewing since 2013, I've only really been brewing non-stop for a few months.

I tend to brew many bottles at once and then forget about them. The first time was in late 2013. The second time was in 2017. This will be my third attempt.

The containers look small in the pictures but they're actually nearly gallon-sized (3L = 0.8 gal).

>>1562372
that would work out to be 17.6% alcohol. not unless you're using a high alcohol tolerant yeast like lalvin ec-1118 or k1-v1116 or gervin gv3 or gv4

>>1562769
This, also you shouldn't start with 30g/100ml, try with 15g/100ml and add another 15g after fermentation is well underway for a couple days, otherwise the osmotic pressure of the sugar is too high for the yeast.

I've got water and a few apples. What can I brew?

>>1562654
Just make a 2l starter with the old packet of yeast.

>>1562419
help me /diy/nos

>>1563183
But they're dead senpai

Dear GOD/GODS and/or anyone else who can HELP ME (e.g. MEMBERS OF SUPER-INTELLIGENT ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS):

The next time I wake up, please change my physical form to that of FINN MCMILLAN of SOUTH NEW BRIGHTON at 8 YEARS OLD and keep it that way FOREVER.

I am so sick of this chubby Asian man body!

Thank you!

- CHAUL JHIN KIM (a.k.a. A DESPERATE SOUL)

Yeast I ordered online arrived today, making a starter with some of the juice from the as-yet-unfermenting batch and it seems to be going. Yay

>>1563355
can you fit an under counter fridge? that set up with fermentrack is what i use in my room

>>1562689
>I've been brewing for 6 years!
>But 4 of those years I wasn't brewing

>>1564342
He never actually said "for 6 years" but "since 2013", other anon mentioned 6 years
Technically he's not lying to say he's been brewing since 2013

Just put a batch of kvas up for fermentation.
Poured in the last inch of a bottle of unfiltered beer for the yeast.
Really curious how it's gonna turn out.

>>1564361
Ey! Me too.
I'm curious to see how it turns out. My friends, not so much though.

>>1564293
This yeast doesn't seem to foam. Healthy fermentation confirmed tho

>>1564925
Speaking of which.. Is there anything I can drop in there in the way of spices to make this taste less like just apples and ethanol? Like cinnamon sticks, vanilla, cloves?