EN World hombrewers...and I'm not talking about rules

[jezter6]

So, after a friend introduced me to the hobby, today my roommate and I unofficially 'founded' our new brewery by brewing our first batch of homebrew red ale.

We definately made a few mistakes, which is ok. (Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew.) Mistakes that should definately be fixed next time around. As far as I know, the brew is not contaminated and will hopefully become good fermented beer within the next few weeks.

So, anyone else here do any homebrewing (preferrably the legal kind)? I'm hoping some people who share one of my main hobbies can share my new hobby with me. If you're a homebrewer, give me a shout. Link me to your local club website. Drop me a recipe.

Let's just talk beer.

 

[Aurora]

Per my friend who has made many of his own homebrews:

So long as your air-lock is bubbling within about 10 hours, it should be fine. You'll know if the yeast has taken control. Be sure to put it in another container after 3 days. I'll get a hold of a recipe for you and send it to you.

Are you interested in making mead? Homebrew mead is a thing of beauty! I have had some of my friend's mead and it was damn good. I can get a recipe for that for you too if you want it. His recipe is for Strawberry mead and he put it in a Ohio homebrew competition and got honorable mention. It takes a little longer to make than regular beer.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Speaking of which, does anyone know of a site where I could find instructions on how to build a still?

 

[Warehouse23]

I've been home-brewing mead for about four years now with excellent results. Recently, I've moved into beer brewing because it has a much shorter life-cycle (about a month to brew a solid batch of ale, versus a year or more for mature mead). On the mead front, I do traditional ("show") mead, sparkling mead, melomels (made with local fruit, including strawberries, sour cherries, and apples, which, technically, is a cyser). On the beer front, the highlight of my short career is a Belgian Witbeer flavored with summer rhubard (think sweet/tart heffewizen) called "Rhu-Brew."

A really good starter recipe and instruction set for mead can be found at:

http://www.blue-n-gold.com/halfdan/meadrecp.htm

As for stills, folks should be aware that while homebrewing is legal in most US states, home distillation is still frowned upon by the authorities, and should be entered upon with caution. That being said, anyone who knows how to put together a simple boiler and condensor can make their own distilled fluids for any application.

 

[jezter6]

As far as I know, home distilling is not legal. But, there are plenty of site around if you look up homebrew distilling. Basically, they're just 'water purifiers' where you put more than water into it.

Thanks for the advise. I was going to keep my beer in the primary pale for a week before bottling. Any reasy why I need to change tanks after only 3 days?