Walmart had 3qt bottles of Apple Juice on sale pretty cheap...

Walmart had 3qt bottles of Apple Juice on sale pretty cheap, so I threw 7 bottles into my fermenter and pitched in a packet of Red Star Premier Blanc yeast. Should have some downright passable hard cider in a few weeks.

My last batch was Sake, made with the special rice yeast cakes (they contain mold spores to convert the rice starches into sugars, since rice won't actually malt) - I added a little honey at the end to clean up the overly tangy finish and help break down some of the more complex sugars. Came out absolutely fantastic (and ridiculously high ABV, probably 16-18%).

Any other home brew fans around here? What are your most amazing successes (or abysmal failures)?

Don't do that it makes nerve gas.

Won three home brewing medals

Bronze for a honey wheat saison
Silver for a semi-sweet mead
Silver for an oud bruin

What abv are you expecting for your cider?

I've done the same before to run through my still.
How come you didn't add any sugar?

You should pull it off the yeast cake if primary fermentation is done. You'll get off flavors from the yeast if you don't and it will help keep the final product more clear

Well, this particular yeast really only tolerates up to about 15%, but I'll be happy with anything above 10.

...

Several times I threw five cups of sugar into a gallon of water and pitched in alcotec 24 or 48 turbo yeast and got a pretty stiff result that worked as a great laxative and got me pretty hammered. Oh and I did the same with cheap apple juice once and after quickly drinking about 32 ounces of the bad tasting finished product I realized I was way more intoxicated than I had planned to get and dumped the rest.

Got a couple of gallons of mead aging right now, such a long process but can't wait to try it in 3 months time.

>14
>wanna get drunk
>remember that wine is just aged grape juice
>steal last half bottle of grape juice from fridge
>hide really well in my closet
>take off cap (don't remember why)
>leave and forget about it
>remember it when I'm 16 and want to get drunk again
>find it
>take giant swig
>throw up everywhere
there were ants in it

Mostly because I prefer it tart and dry. I'd rather have a lower ABV than drink something syrupy sweet.

No hydrometer to know for sure?
What was your original gravity of you do?

That pic is not actually my rig - mine is more of a big white plastic bucket. But I figured beer brewers would recognize that pic better... :)

Far enough. I was just treating mine as mash for the still.
It turned out pretty good but I'd rather just run a sugar wash and make apple pie when it's done.

Oh well you should move to glass, it's cleaner becuase it doesn't scratch like plastic and you can see what's going on during you fermentation...watch craigslist you can get them cheap there

I laughed, I lost.
I made home brewed bitter ages ago and it was fiercely strong but surprisingly good. Since then I've made ginger wine, that turned out quite well considering I pretty much made it up as I went along.

I will keep an eye out. This was pretty much just a wild-hair weekend project that turned out pretty awesome, so I kept doing it.

Nah, this is more like a duck-tape and frosting-bucket level of redneck/ghetto science. I do at least have a nice bubble tube rigged, compliments of a jelly jar, bendy soda straws, and a hot glue gun! XD

Nothing wrong with a crude set up, especially if you are expecting loads of krausen...foamy yeasty layer on top of brew during primary fermentation. Here is my blow off set up

I'm a pretty experienced brewer and a biochemist. AMA

I home brew, just finished off a pale ale of my own design. My all stars we my marzen (I even decocted it, even though you don't need to, for added complexity) and a vanilla foreign extra stout. Both of wich were around 7%. I have never used a recipe or a kit, I make my own grain bill and only brew all grain. I love it.

Hi Lisa

>brown bottle
>Sup Forums
I instantly thought this was a cum collection thread.

Lel...me too

Same, pretty disappointed...

kek

If you haven't made sake before (and if you don't hate the taste of sake) - it's crazy easy to make.

You just get buy these yeast cakes from pretty much any Asian food store (just ask for the yeast cakes for making rice wine). Cook up a bunch of plain white rice (I used a rice cooker). Toss it into a bucket (I filled up a 5 gallon bucket about half way). Let it cool.

When it's room temp, crush (into a powder) and stir in the yeast cake - I used a metal spoon and a saucer to crush it. Then cap, seal, and wait. Basically it grows mold on it, that turns everything sweet and starts dissolving it, then the yeast take off. When it was all fuzzy and sweeter than hell, I filled it up with water and let it go. As noted before, a little honey at the very end cleaned up some tangy notes, and it was easily as good as some I've had in restaurants.

Is that safe or another Sup Forums trick?

No, that's the real deal. Google making rice wine.
It really is just about that simple.

To be clear, I am leaving out some minor details that you should probably already know - like, sterilize everything with bleach before you start, and buy one of those little burp valves (or ghetto rig one like I did) so that CO2 can exit but nothing nasty can get in.

SakeFag, what else do you make?

Making your own booze is ridiculously simple. That's pretty much all there is to it. You could even make yourself a still and turn it into liquor.
Powers that be want you to think it's poor quaity or poisonous so you keep paying tax on store bought shit.
Truth is, you can make better, stronger stuff yourself for a fraction of the cost.

Well, I've made a bunch of different fruit wines. I also (on the advice of someone who was incarcerated for almost 20 years) tried out a tomato-paste based wine that he swore up and down would turn out tasting exactly like a screwdriver (vodka & OK). Lesson learned: people who are incarcerated for almost 20 years don't remember what the fuck a screwdriver tastes like for shit!!1!

I also ran a still for a while, designed to run "dirty" (i.e. let more of the flavors from the mash into the final product). So I was a lot more careful what I put into the mash: I only brewed up stuff I wanted to taste. Net result: some of the most amazing moonshine you ever did taste, including a hellacious watermelon 'shine... :)

Few weeks? You already have a heavy thick trub. Fermentation is over. Bottle condition now or rerack onto some good fruit.

I'm in the process of making a still right now. I got given an old pressure cooker and I'm a plumber by trade so the worm was free too.
Think I'm gonna start with running some cheap and nasty wine and see if I can't produce a decent brandy before I start trying to make my own mash.

Nyet. I put the juice in *today* - literally a few minutes before I started this thread. That pic is someone else's (considerably more classy) beer rig. I was too lazy to snap a pic of my ghetto rig.

The give-away is there isn't a child's toy embalming in it.

What? If you use quality yeast you can ferment up to 15-20%. This is way beyond what regular apple juice will provide with its natural sugar content. It doesn't become sweeter just because you have more sugar to begin with. That means the fermentation process stopped prematurely. I've fermented stuff up to 18% that is completely dry. If you want sweet cider you'll have to either use shitty yeast (unreliable solution) or add potassium sorbate/similar chemical before adding the sugar.

What would you recommend making on a first try and how?

Thought most yeasts died off at 15% or are there skunk strength yeasts for these end times? Been a while since I looked in earnest.

>leroy jenkems

Lost

Well, if you want it to taste like brandy, you need to run a dirty still: tube coming off the cooker bends over almost immediately and heads down to the chiller. And if you run a dirty still with nasty wine, you will get nasty brandy.

Alternative is to run a tower: tube goes straight up for a few feet before bending down to a chiller. That lets the steam "wash" so almost no flavors make it out the other side. Then it doesn't matter what you put in the mash, it's just going to be neutral spirits on the other side.

Other alternative: use a dirty still but put things that taste good into it. That is what I did. It was very rewarding.

im makin my first batch of blind done cider 4 litres of apple juice 450ml of bottled water and 600g of dark brown sugar im hoping itll turn out I read somewhere that if you put in a oak block a week before bottling it helps make it taste better and helps remove impurities can anyone confirm this?

The highest I've used are 20% under lab conditions. You can easily get those up to 18. I've seen 22% yeast but it's expensive and I'm guessing you need good temp control and stuff like that to get over the 20% mark.

...

Well, according to the manufacturer, the one I used (red star champagne yeast) - only tolerates about 15%. I chose it for minimum "extra flavors".

This is the first time I'm trying a cider for drinking and not stilling, I was expecting the natural sugars to be sufficient to get to at least 10%, with the intention of there being little to no sweetness left when it quits. Am I deluded?

I could add some sugar or honey I suppose, but I will be sorely disappointed if it comes out all sickly sweet. I really do not like sweet beverages.

I'm just looking to practice running the still and making the cuts before I start making my own from scratch. I'm just thinking of it as premade mash. Might do the same with some scrumpy cider the local budget supermarket does.
When I've done a few practice runs like that I'll move on to either a corn/sugar mash or just a straight sugar wash for making apple pie/cherry bomb and stuff like that.
If I git gud and want to start experimenting further down the line I'll upgrade my rig and try out some different techniques. I want it as pure and clean as I can get it for now.

It's unhealthy for even a 14 year old boy to be that stupid

You didn't calculate the percentage before you started? Apple juice contains approximately 10g sugar per 100ml. That converts to approximately 6% alcohol by volume. You could easily add 2 kilos/4 pounds of sugar and the yeast will handle it fine.

That's some fierce yeast man. Basically you can make port or sherry in one shot.
remember the prime directive. Don't hinder natural selection. The spice must flow.

Also don't get memed by sweeteners. Regular white sugar that you dissolve in water is the cleanest and most easily fermented substance that you can find. If you want to minimize the risk of the yeast dying prematurely, use regular refined sugar.

Too much civility in this thread so fuck you niggers!

Not so nice to drink, a 6% cider is tasty and a few pints will have you talking the most absurd bollocks ever, and suddenly you need a piss and your legs don't work. Ove 6 or 7% it's a bit harsh and folks get a bit fighty on it. Not so much fun.

...

I take a gallon of water, add 2 cups raw sugar, two frozen apple juice concentrates, pitch lalvin 1118 champagne yeast, and let it ferment down. Then I put it in a gallon jar with another concentrate to back sweeten. I bottles a little bit at a time in a corked bottle with carbonating drops. Its pretty gud.

>That's some fierce yeast man. Basically you can make port or sherry in one shot.
Well percentage wise, yes, but it probably won't taste great.

Yeast won't eat lactose. Anyone still making milk stout?

If only I knew how to make fun of you..

That was my worry. More a biofuel thing I guess.

You're only going to get to 5%ish on store bought apple juice without adding sugar, and thats if you let it dry out. They usually start out at around 1060. I've tried a few different yeasts and prefer Nottingham for ciders. I dont bother with secondary and go straight to a keg.

Hey, thanks for the tip. I guess I really should have mathed instead of just winging it. I will definitely toss in some table sugar tomorrow.

A couple of pints of 6% would definitely *not* put any sort of wobble in my step - curse my germanic/lush heritage. I always ran lots of sugar in my still mashes, because I wanted max % and knew most of the sweet wouldn't survive the distillation process - so I never had to care about the maths, just kept adding a couple pounds of sugar every week or so until it stopped working, then cooked that shit out.

HOW TO MAKE A PINT OF MOONSHINE FOR 50¢
=======================================
1. get empty milk jug
2. add 3 cups sugar + packet of yeast + fill with water
3. balloon over mouth of jug with pinholes poked in
4. wait 3 weeks
5. put in freezer
6. pour off hard ethanol liquor
???
PROFIT

I've only ever tried lalvin and red star, prefer the lalvin

Any reliable tutorials for making dark rum?

I'm looking at this tutorial on Youtube but the guy sounds like he might literally be retarded.

Jizzus will never return

Most of the time you don't need to do the math. In some cases it's critical though, like if you're doing secondary fermentation on the bottle which you may want to do if you're making cider.

> I'm a pretty experienced brewer and a biochemist. AMA

For what length of time have you been a faggot?

>oud bruin
BE or NL?

Mathsfag, what abv should my 2 cups sugar, 2x12 oz can concentrate in one gallon of water come to?

I did the math once but I dun forgot.

Haven't brewed on two years. Bought new house and have been slowly redoing a room into a brew room. Like 2 years slow

I bought an RV and set up a moonshine distillery out in the desert with the help of a guy who knows how to sell it. After our first batch, the dumbass invited a couple mexicans over for what reason I'll never know. They were gonna kill me but I made a deal with them that I'd show them how to make it if they let me live. During the processing phase, I added some vinegar to the mix to create mustard gas and quickly ran out and held the door shut. One of the mexicans is still alive, locked to a pipe in my basement.

Wat do naow?

Question for the moonshiners:
5 gallons of water, 5 lbs corn meal, 5 lbs sugar.
How much baker's yeast should I add?

Melt body in tub

5 lbs dry yeast

Cum in his sandwich

Damn that's a good idea.
Luckily my school has gallons and gallons of hydrofluoric acid in the storeroom.

Buy a 50 .cal machine gun, set it up in the trunk so when you hit a button it'll shoot through the wall and kill all the mexicans in there. Then tell them you'll sell your entire moonshine supply to them and get them all in the room. Then fake a fight with Jesse but really just wrestle him to the ground so he lives and the machine gun kills everyone in the room. But get shot atleast once so when the police come to respond to the gun shots you die in the moonshine RV and Jesse gets away unscathed in a classic muscle car.

>AMA

Is there a benefit to fermenting upside down is a blowoff hose?

>your pic very related faggot

I can't be bothered to convert all that to reasonable units.
The baker's yeast won't be able to take care of all that sugar, you need to add more water or use better yeast. How much you use isn't really that relevant, just use a standard package made for 5-10 gallon batches.

...

Currently brewing several batches of Kilju (Finnish sugar wine).

You get 250g of sugar and mix it into approx. 800ml of water to get a sugar/water solution. Add 10-15 raisins to serve as a nutrient for the yeast, as well as a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice to lower the pH.

I added a bit of fruit juice (all natural, no preservatives) just to see how it turns out.

All done using common, baking yeast: Allinson's Easy Bake, Allinson's Dried Active.

im a beginner that just does %100 apple juice + sugar + store bought sacc cerevisiae thingy with an airlock, so far i have produced alcohol but couldnt wait more than 2 weeks on secondary fermenter, smells yeast like shit (also i have to pasteurise them in a tightly sealed bottle or my shit smells exactly like it) what do you recommend?

>Australia

how fucking old is that irn bru bottle user ffs min?

What sort of yeast would you reccomend? I've checked on homebrew sites and there's shitloads. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible.

Recently bought it from the supermarket. uwotm8?

>Harambe a few years ago

btw that thing i mentioned is baking yeast + i didnt buy airlock i mean i did airlock with balloon

How much yeast did you add?
The hardest part of getting started with making your own booze seems to be finding the right type/amount of yeast to use.

Bakers yeast will also give a sour tinge that will smell like vomit. Trust me I know.

sorry that design was phased out here years ago...like 30 years ago.

Niggers can't even make the drugs right

Where is that? US?

I could swim in 6% not even notice.

I can make a decent red table wine fairly consistently with plain old bread making yeast. Shitsux when I try to make white wine though.

Scotland.

What kind of yeast would you reccomend for it?

brewers yeast ffs!

  ▲
▲ ▲

It's hard to say, really. You could add too little, but adding too much yeast? That shouldn't be a problem if you have a clearing agent/finings.

I tend to overdo things with upto a *tablespoon per 2l*. That is exceedingly high, but at worst the yeast will begin this process of autolysis where they basically use themselves up as nutrient.

As such, pitching a fuck tonne of yeast *may* be a substitute for proper nutrients like DAP -- as long as you don't mind the yeasty flavours (which can be easily removed, afaik).

Finally someone gets it

Wish I lived up there. Here in the North-West, I get the fucking rain but no good views.