Erisian Brewer's Cadre. Or: How I saw the Goddess in the first place

[Richter]

So we don't threadjack Spagbook again with talk about what we're brewing and how, this is a rundown of various alcohol production endeavors I'm up to at the moment.

Add your own!  Whether it's super yeasting molasses and grape juice for imitation port wine, a gallon of apple juice in a jug with a sock, or several gallons of finer, calibrated brew, let us know what you're about to perpetrate!

[Richter]

So: last night:

1 gallon cyser with honey, 1 cup sugar, cinamon and allspice.  Pitched with liquid english cider yeast.  Was fermenting this morning.

4 gallons straight- up apple cider, unpasteurized.  Pitched with the same yeast.  Was fermenting within 15 min.

~2L Krupnikas.  (Lithuanian honey liqeur) with extra cinamon and dried chinese hot peppers.  Decanted, filtered out some of the crap. 

I'm guessing the ciders won't need to go very long, since they are starting so fast.  I'm decanting them to a secondary after 1 week, and seeing how they are.  The krupnikas I'll be continuing to decant and filter as crap from the honey and spices filters out, then it will sit in bottles to mellow out for a month or so.  Should be mellowed and better to drink around new years.

[Jenne]

So IF'N I want to make mead and cider, how long should I plan for?  Want them done by Xmas at the latest...

[Richter]

Look up a few recipes online.  Many meads require long term - bottling to mature, but "quick meads" or cider can be done very fast.  (NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

Cider is quicker.  (Warning: amateur barbarian brewer speaking)  Get it from a local orchard / farm if you can.  They often sell it without preservatives or unpasteurized.  Then you have options on yeast, recipe, etc.  A simple cider can be done in about a week or so of fermentation, and a week / few days or so bottled in the fridge to stop the yeast from working, and let the crap settle out.  You want to at least decant it into clean bottles every few days until the majority of the crap has settled out.  It's dead yeast and leftover plant matter that will give the cider a funny taste.

(You CAN get fanatic with fancy glass bottles and siphoning here.  I jsut move it between a few spare plastic jugs.)

Exactly WHEN it's done fermenting is determined entirely by taste and look.  If it's still bubbling in the carboy, it's still becoming more boozier.  If left too long though it can become dry / nasty.  Longer fermentation = less sugar in the juice flavoring it, so be aware, and try every so often.  You might be able to get scientific with a hydrometer to check the specific gravity and all.  I jsut drink some.  Any yeast also has a point where it's made enough alcohol to kill itself, which will stop it cold too. 

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

What Richter said.  A good mead takes a while.  If you start now, you can have one ready to drink for next Christmas.

You could make a cider or a braggot in the same amount of time it takes to make a beer of the same strength.  A braggot recipe such as this one would be ready in about 5 weeks -- about two weeks in the fermenter and then about three weeks bottle conditioning.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

[Suu]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

Well, sometimes brews don't go as expected. Sometimes your cider is so bad you HAVE to add whiskey to it to "improve" it.

[Suu]

I should probably add that right I am doing a short mead, which CAN be done before Christmas, but the alcohol content is low and I primarily do it for a lighter, drier flavor.

My current batch is technically a "methaglin" or spiced mead. It contains cinnamon sticks, fresh ginger, and a dried Chinese hot pepper. I boiled my spices in water with black tea and lemon to naturally help the pH, but over all it shouldn't effect the flavor too much.

It will have been in the primary 2 weeks on Saturday. Because I want it done in time for a contest, I'm going to secondary this weekend, and then bottle next weekend. That way it's in the bottle and refrigerated (to stop fermentation, unless you want your bottles to double as a bomb) for 3 weeks before serving.

[Richter]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

It's been done.  Ask Ratatosk.  The sort of stuff you drink one mug and wake up 2 days later in a weird basement dressed only in newspaper.

By comparison, the krupnikas is a bit milder, and is a very potent, flavorful drink.  If you like the idea of jagermeister, but get sick of the flavor, the this stuff is for you.  Some love it, some catch jsut a whiff, have their allergies annhilated, and rush off distressed they no longer have an excuse to ditch work.  (Like my aunt)

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

Well, sometimes brews don't go as expected. Sometimes your cider is so bad you HAVE to add whiskey to it to "improve" it.

Oh I completely misunderstood, I thought that someone had mixed honey and Everclear from the get go to make mead.  Sorry!

[Triple Zero]

So IF'N I want to make mead and cider, how long should I plan for?  Want them done by Xmas at the latest...

big soda bottle + apple juice + honey + yeast. leave the top 1/4th empty. screw on cap, shake a bit. then you turn the cap just loose enough so that carbon dioxide can escape. store in a not-too-cold place.

there. that's the simplest thing that could possibly work. should be done in 1-2 weeks.

- make sure there is no preservative in the apple juice, that would kill the yeast. also use clear juice, not the fancy cloudy stuff.
- yeast. I often use bread yeast, which works fine, but proper yeast intended for brewing (wine/cider/whatever) gives a bit cleaner flavour. a bit of time after it's done also cleans it somewhat, I find.
- as Richter said, dead yeast collects on the bottom and gives odd flavours when it's in contact with the booze for long. so when a decent layer forms (0.5 inch?) decant it into another container. as long as the yeast is active a littlebit will always be at the bottom, that's fine. the live yeast is generally found floating happily through the liquid, so don't worry about discarding the sediment dead yeast when decanting.
- how much honey? I'm not sure, I usually eyeball it, but it's supposed to taste insanely sweet that you barely don't like it anymore IIRC this one time I used one Kg honey on a total of 4 L of liquid. That's 2.2lbs on 1.06 gallon. somebody correct me if this is way off.
- 1250g honey has sugar-content equal to 1000g white sugar (said the Internet a few years ago)
- fruit flies love the smell of fermenting booze. you can wrap a plastic bread bag with a rubber band over the top of the bottle to mostly keep the smell in and/or confuse the flies.

Since it's done in two weeks, you can have a few tries before Christmas to get it right

[Richter]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

Well, sometimes brews don't go as expected. Sometimes your cider is so bad you HAVE to add whiskey to it to "improve" it.

Oh I completely misunderstood, I thought that someone had mixed honey and Everclear from the get go to make mead.  Sorry!

Nono, you heard right.  They were two seperate incidents.

One was a story of someone passing around honey + everclear as "quickmead".  (Really not mead by many definitions of the term!) 
The other incident was my brewing attempt from last year.  I let 3 gallons of cider go natural, and did 3 gallons with honey, cinamon, and a champagne yeast.  The straight cider was not so good.  Not the best year, so very bitter.  The mead wasn't much better.  A few months of devoted drinking / giving away / throwing away, I still ahd some of each.  It had gotten a bit of weird flavor form sitting in the jugs, with sediment, but had cleared and mellowed nicely otherwise from the bitterness.  I mixed them together.  To mask the weird flavor I added whiskey, and submitted it for the brewing competition at a small local SCA event labelled as "Faelan's Armor Cleaner".  It was pronounced "Surprisingly drinkable!"

[Suu]

I racked my brew into the secondary last night. The peppery finish catches you off guard. 

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

(NOTE: Honey in Everclear is NOT quickmead.  It's more akin to the Krupnikas I mentioned about, which is "Kill yo ass" booze)

I don't mean to threadjack in any way but that line was funny as hell!!!!  I am massively intrigued with who would think that and why....

Sorry!

Well, sometimes brews don't go as expected. Sometimes your cider is so bad you HAVE to add whiskey to it to "improve" it.

Oh I completely misunderstood, I thought that someone had mixed honey and Everclear from the get go to make mead.  Sorry!

Nono, you heard right.  They were two seperate incidents.

One was a story of someone passing around honey + everclear as "quickmead".  (Really not mead by many definitions of the term!) 
The other incident was my brewing attempt from last year.  I let 3 gallons of cider go natural, and did 3 gallons with honey, cinamon, and a champagne yeast.  The straight cider was not so good.  Not the best year, so very bitter.  The mead wasn't much better.  A few months of devoted drinking / giving away / throwing away, I still ahd some of each.  It had gotten a bit of weird flavor form sitting in the jugs, with sediment, but had cleared and mellowed nicely otherwise from the bitterness.  I mixed them together.  To mask the weird flavor I added whiskey, and submitted it for the brewing competition at a small local SCA event labelled as "Faelan's Armor Cleaner".  It was pronounced "Surprisingly drinkable!"

 

[Richter]

Contributing got me in on the judging too.  I had some GREAT stuff which made me fell bad about submittign blended, spiked dregs.  Then I also drank some stuff which had gotten a lot more care and time, but tasted like absolute shit.