They seem like strange recipes to me.

Don't you add extra water?

Or is that a given?

 

Way back in the 1960's I wrote a booklet on home brewing. It accompanied the other one on cultivating canabis.   Unfortunately I have no copies of either.

The water is s given.

rgren2 wrote:

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I make spiced rum, does that count?

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Works for me, just need to do some plumbing to the shed and I will be making my own Bourbon. What method are you using for the rum?

Heil,

Do you have any probs  with brews that are still fermenting (green/in the fermenter) WHILST  travelling??

cheers Bilbo

My funniest (funny for some that is) home brew story relates to a batch in my early brewing days.

It seems that I bottled it too green or put too much sugar into the secondary fermentation process.

 

My brother had just returned from a Vietnam tour and was sleeping in our guest room.

 

In the early hours of the morning there was a succession of explosions & he took off, literally walking on water (or perhaps beer & broken glass) and by the time I stumbled out of bed he was out in the back yard crouched, dazed and wild eyed, behind a raised garden bed.

 

Yep.. I had stored the brew under his bed & as one bottle blew it set off the one next to it until the whole box had exploded.. What a mess it made & he never stayed at our place again.

Cupie wrote:

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My funniest (funny for some that is) home brew story relates to a batch in my early brewing days.

It seems that I bottled it too green or put too much sugar into the secondary fermentation process.

 

My brother had just returned from a Vietnam tour and was sleeping in our guest room.

 

In the early hours of the morning there was a succession of explosions & he took off, literally walking on water (or perhaps beer & broken glass) and by the time I stumbled out of bed he was out in the back yard crouched, dazed and wild eyed, behind a raised garden bed.

 

Yep.. I had stored the brew under his bed & as one bottle blew it set off the one next to it until the whole box had exploded.. What a mess it made & he never stayed at our place again.

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 Only ever had that happen once. A lively stout stored in the loft of a steel garage. About 15 went off on a 40c day. What made it worse was after 3 or 4 I decided to spray them with water to cool them off. Then the rest exploded.  You live and learn.

I have an artist friend who used to travel the NT with a fermenter of home brew sitting on his caravan draw bar, yep, it was alcoholic, its only redeeming feature, worst beer I've ever tasted.

Hi guys,

I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road.
I have just spoken to him on the phone and what he used to do was ferment the beer for generally about five days and then plan travel to stop and let the ferment finish and settle in the fermenter for a few days.
He would then use finings which is a clearing agent to help the sediment settle out and then bottle the beer in brown plastic pet bottles.
He said apart from them being lighter to carry he could buy a special cap that fitted onto the bottle and he could carbonate the beer with a soda stream bottle.
After a while he found the soda stream bottle to be a bit expensive so he bought a small 2.5 kg bottle of C02 which was economical and lasted quite a few brews. He still used a C02 regulator.

This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away.
This description is very basic but he said he could go into more detail if anyone was interested.

From my husbands point of view and with many others, they all said his beer was quite good. From memory he had some good recipes as well. He has been brewing for many years and when he was at home he had quite a detailed array of equipment.

Regards

Angie

Angie said

"I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road."

Not at all.....

This next part however doesnt sound right...

"This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away."

After a week ??,,,,(depending on climate/temperature) in a fermenter the beer would still be green and taste like ?hit...........if he left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks that process might be possible.....ie fermentation would be complete and the CO2 would give carbonation.

Would you mind clarifying that with him next time you talk to him.

cheers Bilbo

 

 

If they are exploding you screwed up.

Bottled too early before fermentation has been completed in the barrel is the common mistake.

If staced together u can get a chain reaction because usually all the bottles have too much pressure.

bilbo wrote:

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Angie said

"I hope you dont mind a woman commenting in what may be considered more of a mans subject but when my brother was travelling in a caravan he used to brew beer on the road."

Not at all.....

This next part however doesnt sound right...

"This is the procedure he used and by gassing up with the C02 he saved the two weeks in the bottle with the risk of bottle bombs. His words lol. He could virtually drink the beer straight away."

After a week ??,,,,(depending on climate/temperature) in a fermenter the beer would still be green and taste like ?hit...........if he left it in the fermenter for 3 weeks that process might be possible.....ie fermentation would be complete and the CO2 would give carbonation.

Would you mind clarifying that with him next time you talk to him.

cheers Bilbo

 

 

 

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 Hi Bilbo,

I have been trying to convince him to come onto the forum but he doesnt want to at this stage.

I read to him your quote above and his reply was that many home brewers have little to no understanding of yeast health in brewing.

As he pointed out the big breweries dont wait three weeks or more for fermentation to complete but rather have a time frame of a few days. This time frame is difficult on the home brew scene due to a couple of conditions.

He claims, yeast health, oxygen into the wort or beer when pitching yeast, fermentation temperature, and the amount of yeast being pitched being to small or not having enough healthy cells. Most home brewers rely on a little packet of yeast under the lid of a tin of goo and this quantity is not enough for a healthy fermentation. He says, yes, it will ferment the beer but the fermentation will not be healthy. There are apparently not enough yeast cells in a 5 gramm packet of yeast for a 21 litre brew at  average alcohol of 4.5%

He says what is happening is that the yeast when pitched into the beer has to start multiplying cells to ferment the brew and this is where those off flavour you get, comes from. He also said that temperature control is important for reducing off flavours in beer as if the fermentation gets too cold the yeast stops and the unknowing brewer bottles the beer and this is one reason how the bottles explode.

Both he and I agree that this repeating what he is telling me and posting it on a forum is difficult so he suggests if you want to make great beer start off by doing some research on the internet.

He suggested you might start with this link on yeast health.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2019/11/19/the-importance-of-healthy-yeast-for-beer-brewing/

He did ask me to add that brewing while on the road is quite challenging when trying to achieve a good result.

Regards

Angie