Anyone Home Brew beer?

[natemoen]

Todd- Even though I don't drink

Well, looks like Tod won't trust you either.....

[IanDMacDonald]

Haha, I did copy that quote into my ColorNote app.

[trbig]

Naw, Ian is OK, Nate. With your choice of professions, you just get a double whammy of mistrust! lol.

[trbig]

Bought my first actual wine kits today and have started a batch of Moscato and "Strawberry Sensation". Tomorrow, I'll get a batch of Kiwi/Melon going.. 6 gallons per batch, so 18 gallons in all.

Tomorrow I need to bottle up some "Beer" I threw together. I had a bunch of mismatched dry malt extracts and corn sugar laying around, so I threw it all together. Not expecting much from that, then have a small 3 gallon batch of Mexican beer that I'll bottle up before our trip next week.

I've got @ 14 gallons of pear wine clearing off that is pretty much flavorless.. just alcohol taste. I bought a couple different flavor concentrates to try, and we've decided that we're going to make it into a peach wine. At least part of it anyway. Still tossing other flavor options around. Not sure I'd like 14 gallons of peach wine. It's got a light yellow color to it and the strawberry I tried in it wasn't too bad, but the color being yellow and tasting strawberry just threw us off some. lol.

The brew shop gave me a small bottle of Black Cherry Pinot noir to try that she'd made. She said cherry reminds her too much of cherry cough medicine growing up. Brought it home tonight and it tasted like a cherry Starburst candy! Yummy.... until about the third drink when it started to taste like cherry cough syrup. Guess that's one kit I won't be making. Let's see... Oh. about a week into a batch of rice wine that takes a month.

I haven't been drinking much lately at all, but when I decide to, I shouldn't have a problem finding some somewhere. lol. Heading out on a short cruise next week with no internet, so you all will get a break from me. The cruise allows one bottle of celebratory wine (one 750 ML bottle each) per person or one 1.5ML. So, I got a green 1.5 bottle of Chardonnay, drank it with my wife and son's girlfriend, then filled it with Virgin Islands rum, re-corked it with a new cork and sealed/shrinkwrapped the top. That'll save on the 9-10 dollar drinks on board.

I think that's all my alcohol related news for now.

[IanDMacDonald]

Everyone older I talk to really dislikes Moscato. Says it's too sweet and a young persons wine. Kinda surprised ur brewing it.

[fredintoon]

- - - Heading out on a short cruise next week with no internet, so you all will get a break from me. The cruise allows one bottle of celebratory wine (one 750 ML bottle each) per person or one 1.5ML. So, I got a green 1.5 bottle of Chardonnay, drank it with my wife and son's girlfriend, then filled it with Virgin Islands rum, re-corked it with a new cork and sealed/shrinkwrapped the top. That'll save on the 9-10 dollar drinks on board. - - -

Hi Tod,
your banana wine recipe has got me out of my safe & easy 4-week wine-kit Gerwurtstruminer rut.
Got as far as preparing a shopping list for all those little packets of stuff.
About the hassle you had chopping up all those raisins, I plan to run my raisins through a hand-cranked meat grinder, we'll see how that goes.
About cruise ship bar prices, last cruise I was on, everything on the ship came with the ticket, so long as you didn't drink.
You didn't have to pay the bartender, just sign a chit and pay the purser at the end of the cruise.
Being cheap, I checked the drink prices and decided that we were going dry.
Those that didn't went white with shock when they finally saw their bar tabs.

[trbig]

Everyone older I talk to really dislikes Moscato. Says it's too sweet and a young persons wine. Kinda surprised ur brewing it.

Neither one of these new wines made is really my cup of tea. A glass every now and then is do-able, but it's my wife's favorite if/when she ever drinks, as well as many of her friends. Good gifting and brownie point material is all.

She lets me take off and ride all over the country at a drop of the hat without any grief. Figure I could at least help her celebrate me being gone?

Fred, the problem with the raisins is that they stick to everything.. gum up the knife, etc. Not sure how a grinder would be. Let me know how that goes.

[81xsproject]

Another homebrewer/winemaker here. Moved to all grain brewing last year doing BIAB, and am building a system now. I just moved my batch of a modified recipe of THIS into the Keezer last night for carbonation.

Just started a batch of cherry wine yesterday. Todd, you ought give cherry/blackberry a shot, better than ANY grape wine hands down. And, since you (like me) seem to be in it for the booze, you can add a few cups of good brandy to a finished batch to fortify it. Helps it keep longer in the bottle as well. Keep on brewing.

[trbig]

Kind of gunshy about the cherry now after this last round from the brew shop. lol.

I envy those that have gone to full grains. Lots of work. I did a partial grain batch of a double chocolate vanilla porter that didn't do too bad, though the vanilla flavor goes away with aging. When I first added it, I thought I ruined it, but it slowly just.. went away? Can't even taste vanilla any more.

Threw on a batch of American light lager last night just because I had an extra bucket and the mix. My two wine kits I mixed up are sitting on the counter here next to my computer and it sounds like a dueling symphony of bubbles through the airlocks. Always brings a smile to my face.

Been looking all day for a reasonable (Cheap) vacuum pump to make a wine filter with. The medical aspirators would fit the bill being adjustable suction, but they're a bit out of my price range still. Maybe I can talk Mr. Hughes into lifting one for me from one of the hospitals he travels to.. lol. I will say.. You might be surprised at the things that come up on Ebay when you type in "Suction pump".

[IanDMacDonald]

^ LMFAOOOOO! I just died laughing after reading that.