Brewing

[Bates]

I feel the need for a road trip back to the East Coast...
I would probably not make a good meadmaker... I come from the "Alcohol's a disinfectant, innit?" school. But thanks for all that, Sleip, it should help a lot when I decide to give a go. Chances are I'll probably stick with the smithing and just trade ironwork for mead when possible. (Sometime after my skills catch up with my idea of them )

 

[Tyra]

Obviously, it doesn't have to be that clean (back in the good old days they brewed their stuff in open vats), but as Anglorfin said, it affects taste. It can also mess up your fermentation process, and the thing is that today, we have it down to a science, so that we can fix things like how much alcohol content and how long a fermentation etc. You cannot be as exact if you get any impurities in there. You can make mead without being super clean (someone Runesinger and I know is proof of that - he didn't even sterilize the damn popbottles he used for bottling his brew), but then you cannot be as specific with your flavour and so on.

On a sidenote, Ibn Fadlan and others have described the Norsemens' mead as black and thick. The archaeology of this is really interseting to an archaeology nerd like me, since the Norse back in the day left spices like medesweet and angelica and chunks of flavouring stuff in the vats, and then used sieves to strain that "guck" out when they poured the mead (and ale). This leaves interesting traces in the full horns that some were buried with, and the sieves became status objects that went with the women into the graves. Anyhow, this is why it tends to look black and thick - it was really more like a soup than a clear mead like we get today. Under such circumstances, you cannot assure alcohol contents and so on.

The words for mead and ale are used interchangeably in the ON and AS texts, depending on the rythm and rhyme of the stanza. This is because ale was not "hopped" until about much later on, but both mead and ale were spiced with hops and medesweet. Mead is made with honey and flavoured with hops, while it was common to flavour ale with honey. So the two drinks tasted quite similar while the breweing process differs. Mead was a holy drink, and after conversion, the use of it dies out. To top it all off, hops were added to the ale, then it turned into beer, so then beer and ale took over. The difference between beer and ale didn't become law until much, much later in history.

 

[Sleipnir]

Btw, cool pics Sleipnir. Gorlith has a very similar setup. Do you do it all in your kitchen?

Yup.

Thanks for the detailed information Sleipnir, but is it really neccessary to use all that bleach? Why does it have to be so clean?

When you think of it, 2-4oz bleach per 5-6 gallons of water is minimal. I guess I need to clarify, I dont use the whole gallon, but only 2-4oz per bucket/carboy.

 

[gnoff]

Teach us how to brew beer then! Let's bring Systembolaget down!!!

Just come by Gothenburg when I start brewing in September/October again and I'll teach you how

Now the brew season is over, the drinking season has arrived


Though I do enjoy the fast that Systembolaget has some 240 different beers + a few hundred in the ordering section. Also they have great service on getting the beers for free to the store you choose and the prices and reasonably low if you disregard the price for alcohol tax.

 

[TheLastWithPaganBlood]

That is true. But still, there's shouldn't be anything wrong with doing a little HB in your shower once in a while. Do you have a license to brew?

Oh and I will take you up on that offer to visit you in autumn.

 

[gnoff]

That is true. But still, there's shouldn't be anything wrong with doing a little HB in your shower once in a while. Do you have a license to brew?

Oh and I will take you up on that offer to visit you in autumn.

I brew at home for personal consumption, that's legal without any license.

I've made one commercial beer, but on a license brewery so to speak, I was only resposible for the recipie and the time spent on brew day.

I'll try to remember to post my brew schedule closer to September/October

 

[kingcarcas]

Sweet, i'd love to try this some day

 

[Blodørn]

I make some crappy brewage that reaks of a mixture between alchohol and a dead weasel.

 

[Anglorfin]

I make some crappy brewage that reaks of a mixture between alchohol and a dead weasel.

As long as it does it's job uke:

 

[Blodørn]

Aye.. Well.. it tastes like death incarnate, I can't say that I enjoy drinking it

 

[TheLastWithPaganBlood]

What about leaving some applejuice open for a couple of weeks (months)? Would it be dangerous to drink that stuff?

 

[Anglorfin]

What about leaving some applejuice open for a couple of weeks (months)? Would it be dangerous to drink that stuff?

I've heard of that before. It sounds like an urban legend. I doubt it will actually ferment or anything but it might get you fucked up anyway.

 

[Bates]

Depends on if it had any yeast from the skins in it, which is unlikely with any modern packaged juice. But cider's pretty simple in theory, just have to remember to not wash the apples before smashing and pressing them, as the yeast is generally on the skin. Supermarket apples are unlikely to have yeast left on the skin, so you'd really need to pick your own.

 

[Tyra]

Eeewww, I just had a flashback! One time I was on Gotland with a friend. We were cycling around the island, and since I have many allergies, I have to be very particular with packing what I need to eat before I leave well stocked grocery stores behind. So, I had picked up a bunch of expensive pure grape juice, poured it into several field canteens, and distributed those in all the little nooks and crannies where such a small item might fit. About a week later, I found a bottle, and didn't realize that it was not one that had been re-filled. In other words, this bottle had been sitting in the hot august weather without refrigeration for the better part of a week. Not paying attention (I think I was all of 16 at the time, on an island full of 18 year old boys in uniform...need I say more) I guzzled back about half the bottle before I realized that A. It was fermented and contained alcohol, B. it tasted horrid, and C. it was body temperature. Apparently you can make grapes ferment in a sterilized filed canteen in the back of your bike. It does not taste good, but it does not make you ill. At least it didn't make me ill...but you'd have to pay me a million bucks to take another swig of anything that tastes like that ever again. I have suffered from Post Trumatic Grape Distorder ever since. I still hate pure (blue) grape juice.

 

[Blodørn]

What about leaving some applejuice open for a couple of weeks (months)? Would it be dangerous to drink that stuff?

Without a bacteria trap, yes it would be dangerous. Just use a punctured baloon.. Tastes like shit, but does the job

 

[TheLastWithPaganBlood]

I've accidently left a pet-bootle of apple juice and found it some months later. It smelled like alcohol and was bubbling, but that might have been because it was one of the apple/mineral water mixtures so popular in Germany (apfelschorle)

 

[Knarfi]

Holy shit i love that stuff! They dont sell it here in the Netherlands though

 

[gnoff]

I brew beer, so far no mead by myself.
Been breweing for some 3 years and made 46 brews so far.
Won a few awards, so I seem to make beer rather well, I like to think so anyway.


Friend of mine made mead a long while back, last summer we tried a couple of different ones that's been stored for 10+ years, amazing stuff.

Just found me a honey "supplier" willing to trade honey for home brewed beers, so will try my first mead come fall.

I was thinking about opening a new thread, but I sort of remembered one about brewing, so here goes some recycling...



I was wondering, pretty much as the original question, how many of the visitors on this forum brew beer, mead or something else on their own?

Also how long have you been doing it for, and other geeky info you can give me

I'd like to hear now and then also regarding what you're brewing at the moment


Myself, did beer number 56 today, a porter that will come out at about 5% ABV.

Also put an APA in secondary today that I brewed 2 weeks ago.

All beers (part from one) I make are all-grain, adding hops myself, and using special brewers yeasts.


Have also made 3 meads since the old posting in here, 2 neutral braggots and one yellow plum mead, planning on making a new mead tomorrow.


Also have plans for a smoked porter, an imperial porter and a strong mead as from a recepie from 1750, all during October and early November perhaps.

Later on, though still in 2008, I will make 2 beers from old Swedish hops, a smoked ale and a strong spiced up Christmas beer.

Perhaps also a saffron mead, not sure.


Wife brewed a cider today, with a little help from me, based on a recepie from the 17th century.


So how about you, any fermenting going on?

 

[gnoff]

That is true. But still, there's shouldn't be anything wrong with doing a little HB in your shower once in a while. Do you have a license to brew?

Oh and I will take you up on that offer to visit you in autumn.

Oh yeah, I'm in brewing season now


Let me know if it's still interesting and I can post my remaining brewing schedule for this fall.

 

[Spanish_Lass]

I've accidently left a pet-bootle of apple juice and found it some months later. It smelled like alcohol and was bubbling, but that might have been because it was one of the apple/mineral water mixtures so popular in Germany (apfelschorle)

Even fruit in light syrup can macerate into alcohol in less than a week. Give it a month and you have what could be applejack in the making. That is why in Spain some fruit like peaches and pommegranates is pickled directly in red wine. It's gonna happen anyway!

I am happy I found this topic as I have a lot of time in my hands lately, and I am bored with pie and preserve making and always been curious about home brewing- beer mostly because I am not big on mead. Maybe I never tried the good stuff to get hooked.

Gnoff in particular, but other homebrewers help- Is there anywhere in the internet where you can get your "brewing beer 101"? In metrics if possible?

In the UK you can buy some homebrewers kits, but first of all they are expensive (they come with a keg and tap type of thingy, which by the looks of this thread is not really essential for brewing and inflates the price) and secondly everything comes in sachets, so it reminds me a bit of making Tang when I was about 8, no much learning in the process, just add water, stir, let it sit for months rather than minutes, and drink.

Although maybe a small kit it is the way to go considering the size of my kitchen, any brewing attempts may have to take place in the attic... And that is not the most hygienic place... Spider and dust bunny brew anyone