Lockdown booze recipes

[bwana]

Okay great, look with warmth and lots of sugar you should be fine. If you cant check the gravity then just taste how sweet it is, if you bottle and still slightly sweet its probably too short.

Considering the amount of sugar some people are putting in I'm not sure how accurate the taste test might be.

I use 125g/l but I've seen plenty who use double that, if not more.

 

[SykomantiS]

Hi all, hope the lockdown is treating your brewing skills well.

I have managed to get hold of quite a nice size watermelon and want to start a brew today using it. Could anyone advise the process if they have done it before and how much water, sugar and yeast etc to add.

Thanks in advance

I have. I wouldn't. It's still in the fermenter, I haven't scraped together the courage to process it- will probably dump it, as it was rather nasty. Not sure if I had an infection, which is possible.
I juiced mine. Be sure to pasteurise (I usually don't when working with fruit or honey- it's a gamble you have to decide on) and I think this time it might have come back to bite me- or maybe watermelons just make really kak cider. It wasn't sour or rotten (like you usually get from spoiled fruit), just didn't smell good at all and the taste was... not sure how to describe it, but bad.

 

[Toxxyc]

Watermelon breaks down completely when you heat it. Cut it up, heat it in a pot to a still juice and use in lieu of water in a brew with complimentary flavours. It contains very little fermentable sugars on it;s own.

 

[binloud]

Considering the amount of sugar some people are putting in I'm not sure how accurate the taste test might be.

I use 125g/l but I've seen plenty who use double that, if not more.

True, but the yeast should eventually make them all non sweet at some stage. Unfortunately its very difficult to just thumb suck if its working or not and time doesn't always mean its working.

Anyways making best of a bad situation for guys without the tools. As long as its clean and they bottle around 5-7 days in all should be good.

 

[Steamy Tom]

If you get a good colony going in your intestine you can get drunk by just drinking some sugar water. No need to do all this brewing

loool

 

[Steamy Tom]

Is this normal? Too much yeast? Not enough sugar?

normal

 

[BigAl-sa]

Don't forget, most people here pour their beer into bottles from the fermenting vessel. By pouring the beer, you are adding oxygen to the beer, and whatever sugar you add for priming will start the aerobic brewing process all over again (bottle bombs). The ideal is to syphon your beer into the bottles, so anaerobic fermentation can continue during the secondary stage.

 

[Tacet]

I used the recipe @Toxxyc started this thread off with, with instant yeast in place of brewer's yeast. It stopped bubbling a few days ago, and I don't see the balloon picking up even a bit of pressure, so I think the fermentation went as far is it will. It is a bit sweeter than I expected, but fairly dry and a bit sourish.

I don't have enough bottles for all, so about half are in Consol bottles and the rest still in the original container.

So a few questions:

• If I don't add more sugar, can I put the bottles in the freezer with their caps on tight?
• Is the idea to get all the CO2 out - should I shake the bottles to flatten it? Any possible bad stuff that may happen if it is not flat? At the moment it is somewhat bubbly, but not enough so to bother me.
• Possible consequences of leaving that I don't have bottles for in the original container for a week or two? I've tried to keep oxygen ingress to the minimum, but for some reason the container is reluctant to let mead out without replacing it with something, which in this case is unfortunately air. Would the CO2 layer between the mead and the air be enough to prevent the mead from becoming vinegar?
• If I want to make it clear, how much gelatin, diluted in how much water, would be necessary for a liter of mead?

 

[Tacet]

Oh, and:

 

[rietrot]

All this talk of bottle bombs and no evidence of the damage?

 

[LinuxMan]

Plastic bottles FTW, opening th first one later. Will report back.

 

[bwana]

I don't have enough bottles for all, so about half are in Consol bottles and the rest still in the original container.

I've been using 440ml sprite bottles.

• Is the idea to get all the CO2 out - should I shake the bottles to flatten it? Any possible bad stuff that may happen if it is not flat? At the moment it is somewhat bubbly, but not enough so to bother me.

Most people want the effervesce.

 

[Toxxyc]

I used the recipe @Toxxyc started this thread off with, with instant yeast in place of brewer's yeast. It stopped bubbling a few days ago, and I don't see the balloon picking up even a bit of pressure, so I think the fermentation went as far is it will. It is a bit sweeter than I expected, but fairly dry and a bit sourish.

I don't have enough bottles for all, so about half are in Consol bottles and the rest still in the original container.

So a few questions:

• If I don't add more sugar, can I put the bottles in the freezer with their caps on tight?
• Is the idea to get all the CO2 out - should I shake the bottles to flatten it? Any possible bad stuff that may happen if it is not flat? At the moment it is somewhat bubbly, but not enough so to bother me.
• Possible consequences of leaving that I don't have bottles for in the original container for a week or two? I've tried to keep oxygen ingress to the minimum, but for some reason the container is reluctant to let mead out without replacing it with something, which in this case is unfortunately air. Would the CO2 layer between the mead and the air be enough to prevent the mead from becoming vinegar?
• If I want to make it clear, how much gelatin, diluted in how much water, would be necessary for a liter of mead?

Aight. So the sourish note will die down with a bit of age. You can try to flatten the stuff when bottled. I simply shake the bottle and burp it until no more gas comes off, and then give it a few more days to settle. You don't need to make it flat. Some people enjoy their meads sparkling, and that's just fine. Sparkling does introduce a bit of a sour note though. To answer your questions:

1. No need to store them in the freezer. The pantry is just fine (just like a bottle of wine).
2. As above. I like my meads still, clear and similar to a good wine. Other people like it sparkling. Taste yours both ways and see how you like it, then you decide.
3. If you bottle some, you should bottle it all. I would even bottle it in empty 2l coke bottles at this stage if you don't have anything else. The CO2 "blanket" only works when fermentation is active. As soon as fermentation dies down, the CO2 will dissipate into the atmosphere and your drink will probably get infected (unless you preserve it).
4. Mead isn't beer. I haven't had a lot of luck trying to fine my meads with gelatin. It also removes some colour and some flavour, so for mead, the only thing I've found that works is time. Let me explain more.

So, stuff is cloudy because there's stuff that floats around in it. That stuff is all kinds of stuff. Can be residual sugars, colours from the original product, yeast, unfermentable stuff that was in the honey when you made it, etc. etc. One of these things is proteins. Now, clarifying agents work in different ways. You get some that work on the polarity of the particles, and some just work through absorbing the bad things. In mead, it's a large number of things, including proteins. Proteins is one of the harder things to get rid of. It can also be pectic haze, etc. etc. I've tried clarifying mead with cold crashing, gelatins, bentonite and combinations of the lot. None have worked. Mead is a bitch to get clear, and therefore the only thing I've found that works, is time. Months. More than a year, to be exact, has worked best for me. The mead then also REALLY opens up. Floral and sweet notes return, leaving sour and bitter tannins in it's wake. I can highly, HIGHLY recommend you let at least one bottle age for a few months. You'll be surprised how it looks when you're done.

PS: If you're aging, remember to rack off the lees in the bottom of the bottle after a few months. Otherwise the yeast starts decomposing in a process called autolysis, resulting in yucky flavours in your mead.

 

[Toxxyc]

All this talk of bottle bombs and no evidence of the damage?

Google it. Also, have you watched Breaking Bad yet?

 

[netstrider]

What is agar and where do you get it?

 

[Toxxyc]

What is agar and where do you get it?

Use gelatin instead. Agar is some fancy gelatin substitute, IIRC.

 

[rietrot]

Google it. Also, have you watched Breaking Bad yet?

From what I remember the cooked Meth and not pineapple beer.

 

[Toxxyc]

From what I remember the cooked Meth and not pineapple beer.

Yep, but in one scene Hank's bottles started popping their tops. That's absolute "best case" scenario. Worst case is you pick up the bottle and it explodes in your hand, sending pieces of broken glass into your face.

 

[Tacet]

Thanks, @Toxxyc, for the detailed reply! I'll beg/borrow/buy a few more bottles (I don't even have plastic bottles in the house, but Checkers is pretty close).

 

[Toxxyc]

Buy cheap sparkling water. If you can, buy "treated" water and not "spring water". It's cleaner and you should be able to bottle straight into those bottles without having to sanitize them first.