Any home brewers out there?

[Fred Sherman]

Been experiementing for awhile and recently upgraded to a full two-stage fermentation system with wort chiller and a kegging system. Just finished my very first Irish Stout. Just a touch sweeter than Guinness, and slightly less bittter. At 13.7% alcohol by volume, its 4 times as strong with a nice creamy head. Easy drinking and easy to get drunk!

Going to let it condition a bit longer, probably until St. Patrick's Day.

My next batch is an Irish Red, my first all grain/no extract brew, so I'm a bit apprehensive of that. At only 6% ABV, I should be able to condition that one for a shorter period and tap them both for one hell of a St. Patrick's Day. 10 Gallons of quality home brew.

Anyone else brew your own?

 

[Peggy]

.... does coffee count?

 

[Jethro]

Everytime I try to brew something it turns into a complete shambles for some reason During my student days our flat (apartment for the North Americans) decided it would be less expensive to brew our own than continue supporting our local Pub. After much research, i.e a quick look in the Library, we came up with a recipe for something called "Foul Black Ale". It certainly lived up to it's name, with the smell being able to drop a drunk at about ten paces. Naturally we bottled it and wanted the requisite time before the ceremonial uncapping to sample our nectar of the gods. Egads! It tasted worse than it smelt! A couple of months later we had a party and some desparado found the bottled Foul Black Ale out in the back shed and knocked it off, I'm still waiting on legal notices for that one.

 

[iTuN3r]

Rice wine (aka Saki in Japnese)

 

[Carlos]

Here I was thinking you were talking about homebrew for video games. O_O

 

[leftie]

I've been doing home brew for about two years now but not to the extent you have gone to. The malt i can get is spot on, especially the Austrailian malt. I would dearly love to have space to make mash and brew but alas i have to ferment and then transfer to pressure vessel, then enjoy.
I am drinking bitter and have 5 gallon of stout and then 5 gallon of porter ale to come. English Porter ale was the forerunner of Guiness so it is not as irish as you thought lol.

 

[Jo.]

haha we tried home brewing at school, in science club but what we ended up with was probably not far off moonshine lol

Needless to say our teacher wouldn't let us try it.

One of the boys' houses had a brewing enterprise going on in the tunnels under the boarding houses and made a bit of money selling it to other students right under the teachers' noses hahaha

 

[leftie]

One of the boys' houses had a brewing enterprise going on in the tunnels under the boarding houses and made a bit of money selling it to other students right under the teachers' noses hahaha

That Jo, sounds very, very Harry Potter'ish.

 

[Jo.]

That Jo, sounds very, very Harry Potter'ish.

lol I guess so. I think they managed to make quite a good supply of beer down there and as far as I know they didn't get shut down while I was at school.

 

[leftie]

On another note.... i have just made some Sloe Gin.

 

[Fred Sherman]

I just finished the second fermentation ont he stout and kegged it. I thought something was seriously wrong because my hydrometer reading came back at 1.030 specific gravity. That couldn't be right since it began at 1.202. If those number are accurate, the alcohol content would be 22.9% or almost 50 proof. With the final month of conditioning, it probably would hit the 25% range.

So I drew off a small amount and tasted it. It was warm, slightly sweet because of the final alcohol to convert for carbonization, so obviously also flat. It turns out the measurements were about right. It was an Irish Car Bomb in taste (Guinness + shot of Jameson).

This is going to be an interesting St. Patty's. I do have to wanr the guys, right? It would be cruel to just let them tap the keg, thinking its just beer?

On the other hand, I could pick them all up and bring them over to the house and make sure everyone takes a cab home or staggers back to their house for those close enough to walk.

Yeah, we need an evil grin smilie, Kier.