Homebrewing thread!

[khu]

Hi guys, is it safe to make homemade beer? I've read of many cases where people died after consuming homemade toddy. Perhaps toddy is different from the brew you are making?

Yes, it's safe! There are no known pathogens that can survive in beer because of its alcohol content. In the old days ale was the preferred drink over water because beer was guaranteed to have killed all unhealthy organisms. The worst that can happen is that if you practice bad sanitation some mold might grow on your beer. You would be able to see and smell these molds or bacterial contaminations, and it would then taste awful -- no one would drink it, and even if you did, it wouldn't kill you.

Home distilled hard alcohol fermented from fruit juices is a different story because fermentation of material high in pectin (mostly fruits) tends to create more methanol rather than the safer ethanol fermented in beer, and then the distilling process concentrates the methanol.

[llewellyn]

But the taste, the taste? I have a good friend (originating from Canada which probably explains it) who makes home made "wine" that is beyond words: you probably could use it as rat poison - the sheer smell itself kills insects... That's my only experience of selfmade stuff, so I am a bit suspicious. Is it genuinely good stuff, or just good considering it's home made?

[DAL]

Just for fun and in case no one reads the other post, would hate to see somone get methanol posioning after making distilled alcohol from fruits:

There are three types of commonly used alcohols:

Ethyl alcohol (ethanol or grain alcohol) being the most widely used (arguably) drug in the world. Ethanol is the by product of the fermentation process with distillation enhancing the amount of ethanol in a beverage.

Isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) is commonly used as a disinfectant and germicide with any concentration less than 70% considered an ineffective method for germicide.

The one to watch out for is Methyl alcohol (methanol or wood alcohol) as it is used in industrial applications. The reason that methanol is a bad choice for human consumption deals with the fact that methanol is extremely toxic. The metabolic process will produce formic acid and formaldehyde. Signs of methanol poisoning include vomiting, severe abdominal cramps, blurred vision, which can proceed to blindness, coma and ultimately death.

Just throwing that out there, I never knew that methanol was bad for you until I took a class …

[khu]

But the taste, the taste? I have a good friend (originating from Canada which probably explains it) who makes home made "wine" that is beyond words: you probably could use it as rat poison - the sheer smell itself kills insects... That's my only experience of selfmade stuff, so I am a bit suspicious. Is it genuinely good stuff, or just good considering it's home made?

It's genuinely good. Beer is not magic, people have made it for hundreds if not thousands of years with simple equipment at home. If anything, beer was invented by homebrewers. If you can make food at home that is just as good as an average restaurant (and plenty of people can), you can make beer that's just as good. People are just used to buying certain things and therefore find it hard to believe it can be made outside of a factory.

So if you're ever in Joensuu, I invite you to try a bottle

[llewellyn]

It's genuinely good. Beer is not magic, people have made it for hundreds if not thousands of years with simple equipment at home. If anything, beer was invented by homebrewers. If you can make food at home that is just as good as an average restaurant (and plenty of people can), you can make beer that's just as good. People are just used to buying certain things and therefore find it hard to believe it can be made outside of a factory.

So if you're ever in Joensuu, I invite you to try a bottle

Well, that does sound good, maybe I even could experiment... - would there be any good web links for beginners? It has always seemed to me (and I suppose it really is) like a very complex craft which needs long traditions and experience to work, but in a way it would be quite tempting to make the try. Joensuu is in the Far East where rarely an honest Ostrobothnian ventures, but should that happen I would definitely have a taste of your product!

[Hank W.]

Feh. Just ask your mom how to make "kotikalja" thats how you make beer. And you can try making mead as well. Age-old tradition. Then if you get a bit more experimentive you can do the old beer with the malt and juniper whisks and whatnot. The key is the temperature and not letting strange bacteria in; but then again thats what the Belgian stuff is all about.

And for anyone reading - distilling stuff is illegal and will get you in jail.

Whiskey is just "zipfile" of beer

[khu]

Well, that does sound good, maybe I even could experiment... - would there be any good web links for beginners?

Absolutely. http://www.howtobrew.com is the best single organized resource, basically a free online book. The author also has the same material in a very popular book form. There are plenty of great online forums, also: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/index.php is one such.

I can list one one hand the equpiment you need to buy (one-time purchase):

1 Two plastic fermenters, attached airlocks: 22e
2 siphon hose and bottle filler: 6e
3 Empty glass beer bottles: comes free with your beer purchases
4 Bottle capper, bottle caps: 14e

Total comes to 42e here.

A big-ish stew pot would help (2 gallons or bigger).

Then ingredients, about 3 kilos of malt extracts for 5 gallons of beer (55 12oz bottles): about 15e.

15euros / 55 bottles comes to 27 cents per 12oz bottle of quality ale for those ingredients.

It has always seemed to me (and I suppose it really is) like a very complex craft which needs long traditions and experience to work, but in a way it would be quite tempting to make the try.

It's a craft but it's not like building a wooden ship or something. It's actually no more complex than cooking. Almost anyone can make a good soup with a simple recipe. Same with beer. One can make a BETTER soup, of course, if one studies 4 years under a top chef, too. But good soup is good, and good homebrewed beer is good.

Honestly I had the same thoughts as you do before I started. But after reading up thoroughly on the subject and talking with the very large online community of homebrewers, I realized that the feeling was probably because brewers played up the 'long complex craft and tradition' aspect of it to pitch their product. Some ales certainly have a long tradition. But the tradition is simply their trial and error which led them to their current recipe. The process itself is not hard; homebrewers regularly replicate their favorite ales just by finding out the recipe and doing it with the same ingredients and method.

[khu]

Feh. Just ask your mom how to make "kotikalja" thats how you make beer.

Kotikalja's made without hops, though, and only with rye apparently. You could call it beer, but it's a bit different from other European styles of beer. Plus it's not aged at all, so I would expect it to taste a bit raw.

And you can try making mead as well. Age-old tradition.

Feh. Are you talking about sima? Cuz that ain't mead! It's carbonated sugar water. Mead is made with honey!

[Hank W.]

Kotikalja's made without hops, though, and only with rye apparently. You could call it beer, but it's a bit different from other European styles of beer. Plus it's not aged at all, so I would expect it to taste a bit raw.

Well, thats more or less how they made beer in the mesopotamian and egyptian days... beer was siphoned through a straw...

Oh, and if you let kotikalja stay a few days in the warm as they did at our office it definitely wasn't raw

[khu]

Well, thats more or less how they made beer in the mesopotamian and egyptian days... beer was siphoned through a straw...

Certainly it's beer, but it's not the kind of beer that most of Europe drinks, so I was just pointing out that the process of making kotikalja and modern beers are different.

Oh, and if you let kotikalja stay a few days in the warm as they did at our office it definitely wasn't raw

You mean it was actually substantially alcoholic? I was considering making some kotikalja but using hops in it. I know your wussy palate can't handle the bitter hops :p, but it would be an interesting experiment for me.

[Hank W.]

Certainly it's beer, but it's not the kind of beer that most of Europe drinks,

Likewise, your concoctions may be beer, but not the kind of beer most of Finland drinks

[khu]

I can make tasteless Finnish style macro lager just by taking away most of the aroma hops from my ingredient, actually.

I don't even know how you could pretend to know what my homebrew is like without trying it.

[Hank W.]

Well, the minute you say hops I am getting a gag reflex the other minute you say homebrew I get a twist in the stomach and start clearing the route towards the toilet. I am not saying your stuff necessarily would be bad (just in a style not fit for human consumption like bitter and ale) - but in my student days we did a lot of stuff ourselves at home (there was a real boom in the 1990's for some odd reason) and I've drank a lot of stuff people have made at home, and since I got a job I've not drank anything homemade since. I mean people, like you obviously, who take the thing seriously and are at the "mad alchemist" stage know what you are doing. However guys like me & my mates who had a few canisters bubbling in the corner and siphoned the stuff out and had bottles bursting occasionally (1.5 liter plastic can hold an amazing pressure) have forever tarnished the image of "homebrew" in my mind.

1,5 liter bottle
1 liter of water
2 dl of sugar
2 teaspoonfulls of baking yeast

step 1. put 1 liter of water in the bottle (must be room temp)
step 2. crumble the yeast and throw it in bottle
step 3. add sugar, stir it 4while
step 4. flavor it with orange juice or grape or sumthin
step 5. close the cap but not too tight

put it somewhere where is normal room temperature (under your bed maybe?)
and let it ferment abou 4-8 days it will be about 6-16%

[llewellyn]

Absolutely. http://www.howtobrew.com is the best single organized resource, basically a free online book. The author also has the same material in a very popular book form. There are plenty of great online forums, also: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/index.php is one such.

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The process itself is not hard; homebrewers regularly replicate their favorite ales just by finding out the recipe and doing it with the same ingredients and method.

Cheers! I must admit that I am quite tempted... - I'm very unenthusiastic about Finnish lagers, and though you can get better stuff in the bars nowadays (one wonders how grim it must have been before these imported beers arrived), the shop prices for excellent foreign non-lager beers are not sensible, nor are they often at their best when in bottles or cans. I'll definitely have to think about it!

[Hank W.]

BTW as a sidenote, in Angleterre in Helsinki as well as a few other pubs they these days have ale from the cask coming with its own pressure. http://www.posbeer.org/php/ra-watch.php
and a pretty good selection on tap http://www.oluthuone.com/ravintolat/ang ... tlista.php