home brew
 

yes, the penny pinching has hit new levels and i am looking into exploring the murky world of home brew, specifically home brew spirits (not a big ale fan).

has anyone any experience with home brew kits for spirits? do they even exist? ive seen a few on the net, im sure... but i am a complete novice at homebrew etc ;)

i have a a-level in chemistry if that helps :dunce:

Re: home brew
 

Mate, after i get my mum's recipe you'll need nothing else, her wines and whiskeys are dynamite, both in taste and punch ;)
I'll be seeing her tomorrow, i'll ask her, plus i can get some more plum whiskey.
She ( don't like that word ) has a batch of something nearly ready, its ben going 5 years :Yikes: can't wait.
Some years ago, we had a get together at my mums house with a ' sampling session ' ;) ....... magic ;) :p:

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i will look forward to it ;)

do home brewing kits still smell awful when the fermentation is going on? i remember my neighbours used to brew wine and the smell was nasty... :erm:

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Couldn't speak for the ' norm ' but my mothers does :shocked: if your after quick an' easy try your local " hop n grape " if you have one, they have all the kits

Re: home brew
 

afaik............we aren't allowed to produce spirits ourselves in this country.
My grandfather used to distill his own here though :D
I brewed a batch of pilsner a few years back that did me in after only one bottle.......decreased the amount of sugar in it these days :erm: :D

Re: home brew
 

see, that's why i'm not sure, cos if you go to http://www.art-of-brewing.co.uk/acatalog/Dtl0004.htm as you can see, you can buy spirit and liqueur kits :erm:

i don't really want anything too complex, just something that i can make that can sit in the cupboard under the stairs for a couple of weeks/months and be like knockout gas when it is finally ready :)

students, eh? ;):disturbd:

Re: home brew
 

correct rammy, its illegal to distill spirit in this country


As a comparison its also illegal to grow cannabis in this country but you can buy the equipment to do it in this country

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ooops, Ma, time to hide the stills, thats gotta be a mistake !!!! :shrug:

Re: home brew
 

you could try making rice and raisin wine. My experience of making that stuff is that the volume of alcohol that it generates kills the yeast off so you end up at around 15%

heres a link

http://www.woodstick-wines.ca/Recipe...AISIN_WINE.htm

even mentions you students!!


there are other recipies around that take a lot less time

Re: home brew
 

cheap chemistry set would do it but you might soon need a visit to the opticians ;)

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Doesn't home distillation come with a risk of explosions?

Re: home brew
 

yes but if you do it long enough you will have gone blind first

Re: home brew
 

so, as i understand it, assuming i am making beer..... the more sugar i put in, the more alcohol percentage the beer will be? up to a point where the yeast poisons itself...?

Re: home brew
 

Yes, there is that as well. Good old Methanol :erm:

Re: home brew
 

Yep, my mum heardthese ' popping noise ' one day, it was the bottles of :shrug: whateverthe flavour of the month was, exploding under the pressure, ahh the early, learning days :p:

Who said that ???

Ahh Methanol, now thats a whole new story.... nice with fresh orange though :D :angel:

Re: home brew
 

Try carrots :D

Re: home brew
 

:confused: :confused: :confused: you mean carrot juice ???? :shrug:

We used to get it at about 20,000 litres a delivery where i used to work, thats a lot of carrots ... lol

Re: home brew
 

Rather than oranges, try carrots with your methanol: Carrots, good for your eyes. Methanol, bad for your eyes. They might cancel each other out.

God, you have to explain everything round here :rolleyes: ;)

Re: home brew
 

How / why is Methaniol bad for your eyes, it used to go into a pharmacutical product we made, I'm just asking by the by, as we never were told anything, baring don't drink it, hard as to get a hold of it as well, but worth it IMO

Re: home brew
 

One of the dangers of distilling your own alcohol is they you can end up with Methanol, (as opposed Ethanol, which is drinking Alcohol). Both are alcohols, but Methanol can make you go blind.

An ex of mine spent some time in India, and she said it was not uncommon there for 50-100 people to go blind from drinking dodgy booze at a wedding.

I think the problem is specific to distilling, rather than brewing.

When you say 'worth it', I hope you took the advice and didn't drink it?

Re: home brew
 

OOPs, I got it wrong again, I was thinking / meaning Ethanol, not methanol, easy to forget... i've had a few too many me thinks, sorry mate your dead right :tu:

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img][img]Download Failed (1)[/img][img]Download Failed (1)[/img] white flags of peace :p:

Re: home brew
 

Ah it makes sense now, I was starting to think you were taking the p*ss ;)

Re: home brew
 

MMMM it would have looked that way, speaking of which ;) :p:

Re: home brew
 

Alcohol kills yeast at about 15%. Dont put too much sugar in or you will end up with some horrible barley wine type stuff which is very sweet

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Re: home brew
 

Correct......sort of

Re: home brew
 

Got to agree with that, I have tasted excellent home made wines, I have never yet tasted a decent home brewed beer. Its so cheap at the local supermarkets it doesn't seem worth the effort.


Re the ethanol, my brother who is a Dr of Microbiology used to supply a small bottle of 100% proof pure alchohol from work to any friends who were making a punch for a party.:shocked:

Re: home brew
 

Re: home brew
 

Sounds like hangover material to me :erm:

Re: home brew
 

might have just been better to buy a bottle of absinthe from Tescos at 80% alcohol not 80% proof you would have had much more fun and that tastes of aniseed too

Re: home brew
 

Indeed, HMCE will take an extremely dim view of it. However, (and I await with interest any further details), I'm not sure what is the legal position on freezing your home-brew. If you freeze it, more or less pure ice will separate out and the alcohol content will increase; I don't really know how high you can get the alcohol content and, as I said, I really don't know whether or not it is legal. A downside is that, as well as increasing the alcohol content, you will also increase the concentration of everything else. If you start with a sweetish brew, you'll end up with something sickly sweet. If there is some initial acidity, you'll end up with something that will dissolve your teeth as you drink it.

Re: home brew
 

I have a bottle of vodka in the freezer right now and that just goes a little thicker than normal. On that basis I'd guess if you put wine or beer in you wont seperate much out

Re: home brew
 

by the looks of that, the best you will get is something about the strength of Port which will easily do you in on half a bottle. It does say "It is possible" to brew to 21% but doesnt say you will get that and i thought yeast died in alcohol of a lower strength than that

Re: home brew
 

Off hand, I can't recall (translation: I never really knew and I can't be bothered to try and find out :)) what the water-ethanol phase diagram looks like but, at 40 v/v% ethanol, it may well be that the alcohol separates first from vodka. But, for beer or a wine, the water will definitely separate out first.

Re: home brew
 

absolutely will but i dont think you get much above 20%

Re: home brew
 

Can you get methanol from a home wine producing kit?

Re: home brew
 

Well, 20% is about par for fortified wines such as sherry or port, so I suppose it's not to be sneezed at.

Re: home brew
 

Off hand, I don't know, but I suspect, yes. The point is that methanol has a lower boiling point than ethanol, which has a lower boiling point than water, which means that when you distill the mash, you're going to get methanol and ethanol off in higher concentrations first. IIRC, you also get higher alchols (fusil oils?) which, I believe, are an important cause of bad hangovers.

Re: home brew
 

if in doubt dont bother , i used to work at a factory that produced methanol , some idiot decided to nick some and put it in the xmas punch , 1 dead , 1 blind , as said before , nasty stuff :disturbd: :disturbd: :disturbd: :disturbd:

Re: home brew
 

some info in this link, Theo

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...5727.Ch.r.html

and a quote from another one

The source of methanol in fermented fruit juices is the methyl side chain
attachments on the pectin polymers. If you can get your fruit juiced
without getting to much soluble pectins in the extrudate, or better still if
you can knock out the pectin degrading enzymes which will break down
those chains and liberate some of the methyl groups then you will minimise
on the methanol content of the brew. The business of heating/pastuerising
the juice, to kill off wild yeasts etc. also knocks out all those rogue
enzymes as well. Happy brewing! Ken C.

quite interesting :)

<edit> just read paulyoung666's post - OMG :disturbd:

Re: home brew
 

Very good advice there

Re: home brew
 

Dont know about sherry but port is made as wine and then brandy spririt is added when its barrelled

Re: home brew
 

It was just the alcohol content I was comparing, not the methods. But, yes, they add brandy to port as well and, IIRC, madeira (that's the one that they heat in the attic first).

Re: home brew
 

heat in the attic? on Bopdudes still? :D

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:LOL:

- this is one of the reasons I love this forum, how else would I have been prompted by Theodoric's post to find the following quote, and learn something in the process..

- taken from
here

Madeira looks like a lovely place to visit, too :tu:

Re: home brew
 

Oooohh can we have that as one of the options for the next forum meet? ;)

Re: home brew
 

absinthe reacts badly with me :sick: along with wine and gin :angel:

i just want to try home brewing for myself and see what happens, part of the fun is in the experiment :)

Re: home brew
 

It looks lovely, I have a colleague who goes every year, she showed me some photo's and a menu from a local restaurant, that looked brilliant - it would be nice, wouldn't it :tu:

<edit> oops, topic drift :erm: the most interesting result we ever achieved, was some 'rose hip wine' made to some ancient recipe, with loads of sugar & mashed up, stewed, rose hips - it fermented for ages & was very similar in taste & potency to sherry. Really bad for the headaches, though, so we havn't tried again - and I have a friend who makes very good bramble or plum or damson, 5 gallons at a time, so why bother :drunk:

Re: home brew
 

It's an amazing place. I spent the "New Year" week at the end of 2002 / start of 2003 in Madeira. Beautiful island. Good for people who simply like to sunbath & relax by the pool, but also good for people like me who like to go off & see stuff, & go walking, & so on. Very good food, too.

Re: home brew
 

Oh, I dunno, absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

Re: home brew
 

So do beer googles but hmm is that the point of the thread?

Re: home brew
 

Thats how Whisky is matured in Kentucky, ooppsss or should i say bourbon, well i guess that all depends if it has additives in. Anyway, the bonded stores that the whisky is matured in generally have many floors, the expsensive stuff comes from the base of the store as it is slower maturing and the higher the floor in the store the cheaper the whisky is as it has matured quicker due to the heat. As a result of the speed of maturity the Angels share is less and therefore there is more in the barrel for bottling.

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:erm: :confused: did i miss something :shrug: i re-read the thread and saw no mention of me in attics :D :p: and it was just a rumour :disturbd:

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Was because of the reference to heating madeira and your mums still ;)

Re: home brew
 

D'oh, I missread the post, thanks mate, thought for a second the county sheriff was comin' a knockin' :p: