Topic: Anyone else out there doing some home brewing?

[spotty]

you forgot to mention the other thing not to do is get on ebay/gumtree/facebook bike sales/etc

thats how you end up with 22 bikes apparently

[Terry in Australia]

you forgot to mention the other thing not to do is get on ebay/gumtree/facebook bike sales/etc

thats how you end up with 22 bikes apparently

Ha ha, don't exaggerate Spotty, I've only got 21! Unless you know of a nice bike for sale, going (burp) cheep?

[spotty]

i was going to tell you about a buell my mate was selling the other day, just in case you needed one for the collection

it was the first of the fuel in frame models with only 6K km on it

but i thought you were more than happy with your current stable

the only problem i have with that model is being a bit taller than what is considered normal ( by the generally short-arsed inhabitants of this planet ) is that when you're riding the bike it is completely invisible to you, its so short and little theres nothing actually visible from the pilots position, very strange feeling

[Terry in Australia]

Nice! Jeff at Ace had a very early Buell sitting in his workshop for months, I can't remember why, but it was virtually hand built by Erik himself, according to the owner who I met when I took the Sporty over for it's roadworthy inspection. I loved the idea of a non-Italian V twin sports bike but I took a new Buell for a test ride in 2010 and it just felt weird.

I've thought about one a few times now, but what I really want is a "Sporton", an XLH1200 engine in a Norton featherbed frame, that would be my ultimate sports bike, not particularly fast, but dripping with character.

[Terry in Australia]

So back to the booze. It was Fathers Day here in Oz on Sunday, and my two boys gave me a fancy bottle of whisky/whiskey each, which was nice. I haven't drunk much in the way of spirits for the last couple of years, so my booze cabinet (a fancy term for one of the kitchen cupboards that I store my booze in) was so full I couldn't fit any more in it.

I started to re-arrange it as best I was able, but there was no way I was getting any more in. Then I had a brain-fart, what if I tipped some of my surplus, least favourite booze that was taking up space in the cupboard into my current Ginger Beer brew? I mean, a couple of litres of various spirits wouldn't have any effect on the overpowering ginger taste, but might up the alcohol content favorably, while adding a little more flavor?

So I ended up tipping in a litre of vodka, 1.5 litres of Jagermeister, .5 litres of Canadian Club, and .5 litres of port. Add that to the 4 bottles of another brand of ginger beer and 2 cans of very alcoholic apple cider, and I've named this brew "Ginger Rocket". I did a quick taste test, it tasted fine, but I immediately got the wobbly legs after just a quick glassfull, so I'll need to be mindful of this when it comes to finally drinking it after the carbonation period. Should be interesting..........    

Terry's Ginger Rocket 9 Sep 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[onepieceatatime]

Would you mind sharing your current version of the Ginger beer recipe Terry?

No problems mate, keep in mind this recipe is for a 28 litre (7.5 US gallon) batch, so you'll need to adjust it to suit your own batch size:

1.25 Kg (2.75 pounds) of fresh ginger root, washed.
6 lemons
250ml (.5 pint) lemon juice
4 pounds of dark brown sugar
12 pounds of cane or corn sugar
2 sachets (14 grams) (.5 ounce) of bread yeast

Method:

Cut the ginger and wash it in room temp water to scrub off any dirt. Place it in a food processor, and chop it up fine, adding a little water (a couple of cupfulls) to turn it into a slurry.
Put a large pot on your stove and dump the ginger slurry in, and bring it to a simmer, adding a pint or two of water, as necessary.
Pour the lemon juice in
Grate the 6 lemon's rind (zest) into the ginger slurry, don't allow any of the white "Pith" to go in, as it adds bitterness
Cut and juice those 6 lemons and tip the strained juice (no pips) into the slurry.
Add more water as necessary, I use a 2.5 gallon stainless steel pot so there's no chance of overflowing
Add the 4 pounds of dark brown sugar and stir in well with a wooden spoon. This adds a "Malty" flavour.
Add enough water to completely dissolve the sugar
Add as much (if not all) of the corn or cane sugar, and continue to stir as it simmers, so nothing coagulates or burns in the bottom of the pot.
Allow to simmer for an hour, continually stirring, and enjoy the fragrance. Turn the stove off, and allow to cool as long as you like, I used to leave it to cool overnight, but I now dump it into my fermenter pretty much after an hour or so of simmering.

BE VERY CAREFUL NOT TO SCALD YOURSELF!!!!!!

Filling your fermenter:

Using a large, fine mesh strainer (I found one at a 2 dollar shop that fits into the top of my sanitised fermenter perfectly) CAREFULLY tip the slurry into the fermenter. Some of the juice will immediately run through the strainer into the fermenter.
Boil your kettle and repeatedly pour the boiling water through the slurry in the strainer to wash the sugars and juice through the strainer. Hot tap water is fine, as long as it's hot enough to dissolve the sugars and push them through the strainer into the fermenter.

I use a potato masher to push the juices and sugars through the strainer. By the time you have almost filled your fermenter, the slurry should be much lighter in color. You can either keep it to make a nice ginger cake, or like me, throw it out because I don't like fcuking ginger cakes..........

Make sure there's enough room between the top of your brew and the lid (2 inches is good) so that the gases can escape through your bubbler. I've had a couple of occurrences where mine wouldn't start to "burp" until I reduced the level of liquid in the fermenter.

NOW THIS PART IS REALLY IMPORTANT:

Let the mixture cool, preferably overnight, to room temperature (it ranges a bit but I use 24 deg C or 75 deg F as an average) then add the yeast. I stir it in with a special tool (okay, it's long plastic shoe horn, but it works for me) but you don't really need to, I just like to.

Put the lid on your fermenter, and shove your bubbler in it's bung, and fill it halfway with water, and put the cap on. It won't start bubbling for a few hours so don't worry when it doesn't start right away, but it will happily bubble away for as long as you want to leave it in your fermenter. I've left mine in for a minimum of 2 weeks, but I find the longer (within reason) I leave it, the better it tastes, so I've stretched it out to a month, which I find to be just right.

If during this time the bubbling stops, don't panic, give it a stir and add another satchet of yeast, and it'll start again.

BOTTLING TIME! :

You'll need enough bottles to bottle all but the last pint of mud in the bottom of the fermenter, and enough caps. Glass bottles are best, brown glass bottles are better, plastic bottles aren't great, but if that's all you've got, fair enough. Put your fermenter up on the bench and give it a stir, and then leave it all day for the dregs to settle on the bottom.

Sanitise all your bottles and drain them.

Place a teaspoon of corn or cane sugar in each bottle, then fill with the ginger brew, (leave an inch of space between the top of your brew and the top of the bottle) and cap tightly. Once you've done all of them, place them in cartons (to keep the sunlight out) and store them at room temperature. My wife makes me store mine in the garage due to an earlier explosion for which I haven't yet been forgiven, so be careful in the hotter months as it doesn't take kindly to to much heat during the "Carbonation" stage. 

Leave your bottled booze at least 2 weeks at room temperature before you start drinking it. Carbonation time is determined by temperature, so in cold climates, it'll take longer. By then it will be very flavorful, and fizzy, not to mention extremely alcoholic, so don't drink it then ride a bike, operate machinery, practise your trick shooting skills, apply for a loan, demonstrate your singing/dancing/skateboarding/nunchuck skills, or call an old girlfriend (or boyfriend) on the spur of the moment.

Always wash out and thoroughly sanitise all of your brewing gear, I use a "No rinse" sanitiser, which should be available from most good brewing shops.

Enjoy!  

Ginger beer bottling 14 Jul 2020 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Thank you!
I'll gather ingredients and give this a shot.
I have only made Root Beer in the last couple years usually around a 10% ABV, but I am still adjusting that recipe to get the desired flavor. I have 6 gallons ready for bottling, just need to stop being lazy.
I also have several gallons of mead that I made between 4 and 10 years ago that I should probably drink.

[onepieceatatime]

The Ginger Rocket seems like it could lead to some fun times and more bikes in the garage! Careful with the ebay when you are consuming it!

[BigJimG]

The Ginger Rocket seems like it could lead to some fun times and more bikes in the garage! Careful with the ebay when you are consuming it!

I've made a couple batches of this using the earlier recipe using liquid malt extract.  This last batch I cut the sugar down to make it closer to 4.5%ABV so I can enjoy a few more pints before I really shouldn't be working on anything... 

I keg my homebrew because I got sick of messing around with bottles.  I currently have 52.5 gallons of total keg space, with an additional 30+ gallons of fermenting space if I filled everything up.

[Terry in Australia]

The Ginger Rocket seems like it could lead to some fun times and more bikes in the garage! Careful with the ebay when you are consuming it!

I've made a couple batches of this using the earlier recipe using liquid malt extract.  This last batch I cut the sugar down to make it closer to 4.5%ABV so I can enjoy a few more pints before I really shouldn't be working on anything... 

I keg my homebrew because I got sick of messing around with bottles.  I currently have 52.5 gallons of total keg space, with an additional 30+ gallons of fermenting space if I filled everything up.

Wow that sounds like a rally professional setup Jim, I'm really just an amateur, but I've got so many bottles it'd be a crime not to use them, and I do like pulling one out of my beer fridge in my garage and drinking it straight out of the bottle. It is a pain in the arse to fill 52 bottles at a time though, for sure.  

[Don R]

 I once had a friend that made Margaritas for our group after the Drag races using a gas engine blender.  In his honor Sat. I got some Bud light Mango Seltzer and took a drink. I refilled with Tequila and salted the can top.
 Not really beer but I thought you guys would appreciate it.

[Terry in Australia]

Ages ago Spotty gave me his secret recipe for Alcoholic apple cider (Hard cider) so today I found a suitable container and dumped in 4 litres of apple juice, some sugar and some yeast, and in a week or two’s time I’ll have some delicious apple cider to compliment my ginger beer. Lockdown sucks, but at least I have plenty of time to indulge my alcoholic endeavours.....

[Terry in Australia]

Well I think I've just invented diet alcoholic apple cider! The more sugar I added to the cider, the more the yeast converted it to alcohol, so no matter how much sugar went it, it still ended up slightly bitter. No biggie, no sugar is not a bad thing, but being something of a sweet tooth, I needed to make it ever so slightly sweeter, so I poured myself a generous glass today, and dropped in a couple of artificial sweetener tablets, gave it a stir, and it's not bad. Definitely not as good as some commercial ciders, but not horrible either, I'm quite enjoying it. Sweet! (sort of)

[ken65]

Well I think I've just invented diet alcoholic apple cider! The more sugar I added to the cider, the more the yeast converted it to alcohol, so no matter how much sugar went it, it still ended up slightly bitter. No biggie, no sugar is not a bad thing, but being something of a sweet tooth, I needed to make it ever so slightly sweeter, so I poured myself a generous glass today, and dropped in a couple of artificial sweetener tablets, gave it a stir, and it's not bad. Definitely not as good as some commercial ciders, but not horrible either, I'm quite enjoying it. Sweet! (sort of)

Hey Terence. When I worked at the brewery, Just before Id transfer the apple cider into the stainless keg during the   filtering  process...
I'd throw 2 liters of apple cordial into the brewing container which was 50 liter of liquid.

[Terry in Australia]

Well I think I've just invented diet alcoholic apple cider! The more sugar I added to the cider, the more the yeast converted it to alcohol, so no matter how much sugar went it, it still ended up slightly bitter. No biggie, no sugar is not a bad thing, but being something of a sweet tooth, I needed to make it ever so slightly sweeter, so I poured myself a generous glass today, and dropped in a couple of artificial sweetener tablets, gave it a stir, and it's not bad. Definitely not as good as some commercial ciders, but not horrible either, I'm quite enjoying it. Sweet! (sort of)

Hey Terence. When I worked at the brewery, Just before Id transfer the apple cider into the stainless keg during the   filtering  process...
I'd throw 2 liters of apple cordial into the brewing container which was 50 liter of liquid.

That's interesting Ken, I presume the apple cordial was very high in sugar?

[ken65]

Hehe, Most likely mate. Never did check the label. But it sure did taste nice.
But keep in mind. If 2 litres of cordy was 10% sugar which was combined with 50 litres of nearly zero % sugar content alcohol.
That would be about , #$%*ed if know what the sugar content was. Would be less sugar than coke   ,ha

[Terry in Australia]

Yep, a PTI told me once that normal Coke has 7 teaspoons of sugar per 375ml can, so my new Diet Cider is positively healthy in comparison!

[RAFster122s]

Nah, way more sugar in a Coke Terry.

[Terry in Australia]

Nah, way more sugar in a Coke Terry.

Really? How much David? When I was in Canberra I stacked on 40 pounds in 18 months, because I was drinking 2 cans of coke per night, with whatever whiskey/whisky I was enjoying at the time. Good old days, and bad old days, all rolled into one great experience.........

[RAFster122s]

39g of sugar/9.2857 teaspoons per 12 ounce /355 ml can of Coke
 
Or 41g of sugar (9.75 teaspoons) per 375 ml of Coke


The 0.5L / 16.9 bottle of Coke has 52 g of sugar or 12 teaspoons

[Terry in Australia]

Wow, that's a lot of sugar David, and another good reason to switch to "Doctor Terry's patented Diet Apple Cider", the ale to cure what ails you!

[RAFster122s]

Does it surprise you now you had that much weight gain in so little time. It is like Crack for building fat.

[Terry in Australia]

Does it surprise you now you had that much weight gain in so little time. It is like Crack for building fat.

Well the coke was a contributing factor, but my diet (or lack thereof, was equally destructive, huge meals of fatty meat and fries, not to mention pizza and mexican food, and no one to tell me to slow down (living away from home during the week) certainly took it's toll. If not for the grace of God, I'd probably be dead by now, if I'd stayed in Canberra any longer.

[spotty]

If you'd stayed in Canberra any longer you'd probably want to be dead

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, no I actually loved it Spotty, I lived in a little apartment above a double garage, 20-odd Km from work, so I could ride my VFR750/BMW R1100GS/Yamaha FJR1300 to work and back every day, in very calming traffic (as opposed to being murdered here in Melbourne) then riding to Yass, or Cooma, or Goulburn for dinner most evenings. There were some great pool competition nights at the Kingston Hotel too, and a good bunch of folks to work with. The extra $50K (tax free) "living away from home allowance" was pretty handy too.........

Also I didn't have to ask my wife to move her car so my son could move his car, so I could get my fcuking bike out of the fcuking driveway every time I wanted to go for a ride.........

[RAFster122s]

https://backpackersbrew.com/2023/04/24/the-benefits-of-homebrewing/amp/

Zombie thread , kickstart