So, how many homebrewers or winemakers do we have out there ? What is your favorite fermentation ?
Mine would be a wheat ale brewed with maple syrup. Has quite a kick and has been known to blow the lid off of the fermenter. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
I tried homebrewing beer once about 10 years ago, but with no luck...it was all bad when I drank it. Probably contaiminated during the bottling phase...anyway, this winter I plan on trying wine this time...actually, have been planning it for quite some time (I have about 20 cases of empty wine bottles saved up!), but looks like I'll finally have some time this year to give it a try.
Any recommendations for a no-fail, quick to drink wine as a first test? [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
<font color="blue"> </font color> Any recommendations for a no-fail, quick to drink wine as a first test?
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I would recomend finding a homebrewing/winemaking store in your area, and asking for advise/assistance there.
<font color="red">Any recommendations for a no-fail, quick to drink wine as a first test? </font color>
Do you like hard apple cider? This is the time of year to get decent prices on good cider, and it's fairly easy to make hard cider. Most of the commercial hard ciders are too sweet for my taste, and if you make your own you get to choose how sweet or dry to make it. However, if you like it sweet, and also want it carbonated, it can get interesting unless you keg carbonate. I use Grolsch style bottles for my brews, and for my last cider I wanted it slightly sweet and carbonated. I used a sweet mead yeast and let it go in the secondary fermentor until completely dry. I then racked it to my bottling bucket and sweetened it with frozen concentrate before bottling. After a few days (5?) I checked a bottle and was happy with the carbonation and residual sweetness, so I refrigerated the whole batch to stop further fermentation. It didn't last long.
I've got an experiment percolating now. I've developed a taste for port as I've aged myself. A nice glass of port before the fire is great on a cold evening. I tend to prefer the ruby ports, which are pretty sweet and fruity, and I started wondering what an apple wine of port strength would be like. I had a couple gallons of a really nice cider I got locally which was squeezed from 100% Jonagold apples. It has a good acid balance for my taste, but two gallons didn't seem like enough to bother with, so I added another gallon of a store-bought cider (Pasteurized, and no preservatives). Champagne yeast will ferment to as high as 18% alcohol by volume. That calculates to a starting specific gravity of about 1.14. After adding three cans of frozen concentrate and 2.5 popunds of sugar, my cider was at a SG 0f 1.10. I've got it burping away now and plan to feed it more sugar, gradually, until the yeast gives up. That should take about three more pounds of sugar if the yeast goes to 18%, but it likely won't. When it's finished, I'll sweeten to taste, and if it seems light on buzz, I may fortify it with brandy. Applejack is taken, so I have to come up with a new moniker for this stuff which might be entirely undrinkable. Applechuck comes to mind. That kinda sounds like upchuck, which may be appropriate, but I can always use it to start fires or something.
Ed, I haven't brewed anything yet, but will be finishing my brewery up during welding class during the next couple weeks.
A friend of mine teaches the night welding class and is a home brewer. He is pretty good friends with some of the guys that run area micro breweries.
I am building a three tier system with 15 gal kegs. Another guy in class may have a salavged stainless cylinder with a conical bottom that I am going to try to turn into a fermentor. If I can't I will just use carboys.
I will be doing a practice batch at Bryans in a couple weeks, then I'm going to do the same batch on mine so I hopefully can do it right.
Give me some ideas on your recipe and maybe a picture of how you brew.
I have a 3-tier system. My boiler, and lauter warming containers are 15g kegs. My mashtun is a 48qt cooler with an upper sprinkler manifold, and a lower collection manifold. I made mine out of expanded steel.
When you cut the kegs, go to Wal Mart or K-mart and get a lid that will fit inside the handle rail on the top of the keg. Kut just the top of the keg around the tap area. The lid works to keep things covered and clean.
If you leave the "handrail" on the keg, it is a lot easier to handle. I see folks that cut the whole top of the keg off, and then have to add handles later. That's a pain.
Also, With material still reamining inside the Handrail area, it is curved(towards where the tap used to be). This really helps contorl boil-over too.
I got into homebrewing about 12 years ago, with the malt extract kits, moved into all-grain brewing a couple years after that. It's a great hobby. I haven't done that much in the last couple of years (too many other projects). One thing I can recommend is if you are remotely serious about it, move quickly into kegging your brews. Washing, sterilizing and filling (and capping) all those bottles gets old pretty quick. There are several kegging systems on the market now, but I started with (and still use) regular 5-gallon soda kegs. Easy and cheap to find, quick to clean and fill, and there's nothing like coming in after work and drawing off a tall draft of your own brew (good to take to parties, excuse me I mean "tastings" too).
If you get into this, keep an eye out for a used refrigerator. The CFO may not be nuts about several 5-gallon kegs taking up space in the kitchen frig. Also, unless your climate is very cooperative, you need fairly strict temperature control to make lagers successfully. I keep my spare frig in the shop, which is handy, but does require a certain amount of self-control when working on projects with power tools [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
I'm intrigued. I used to homebrew quite a bit, but haven't done so recently, mainly because of all the work involved with bottling, just too much time. How do these keg systems work particularly your soda kegs? I assume some sort of tap is needed. Where do you find your soda kegs, surplus from the bottling plant? A keg system sounds very attractive, and I've been looking for an excuse for an extra fridge in the shop [img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]
The kegs are plain old soda kegs. They have a removable lid, which facilitates cleaning. They have a simple gas in connection, and liquid out connection. The liquid out conection hooks to a tap just like any other delivery system. No modification of the "corny keg" or corneilius(sp!) is needed.
There are two types, a pin-lock, and a ball-lock. One is Pepsi products, one is Coca Cola products. I don't remember which is which [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I have all ball-lock style. Most brew stores have them available. They are available over the web too. Sometimes you can get them from soda suppliers...
A short apartment fridge can hold one or two of these, depending on the fridge. That's a popular way to do it. Otherwise, a regular fridge can hold a bunch of them.
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