Beer building - Anyone brew?

[jomeder]

I've done three non-alcoholic brews now. My first attempt was honey/sugar/yeast to make a plain soda/seltzer. That one actually turned out a bit alcoholic. It tasted ok, quite a yeasty front-taste, but wasn't very fizzy and it definitely had a bit of alcohol. Because I don't really drink now I've got pretty sensitive to alcohol and I was definitely getting the numb arms (my "first sign") :-). I think the problem there was I left too much air space in the bottle. This prevented the CO2 being taken up in the liquid and leaving it longer to build up pressure allowed the yeast to produce more alcohol without the absorbed CO2 slowing them down. The honey might have slowed things down a bit too. That's my theory anyway.

My second brew was just a sugar and yeast soda. That was much better, used a better bottle which was filled more. Only took a few days to get a lot of pressure. Couldn't detect any alcohol and while it wasn't fizzy like carbonated stuff it was pleasantly effervescent. Still quite yeasty but was nice mixed with lemon or mint syrup, which I also made, plus some bitters. Also very nice with good vanilla essence, just like the creaming soda I often buy and less sweet.

My most recent brew was a ginger ale done a few days ago more or less to this recipe:

http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/cheese/ginger_ale_ag0.htm

Very nice and super easy to make. Only took a couple of days to ferment although next time I might leave it a bit longer to make it fizzier, while watching carefully to avoid explosions :-). It really does ferment much more quickly with the ginger, the bubbles rocket up. It was still nicely effervescent though.

It's kind of amazing how quickly the yeast starts producing gas and that it can make quite a lot of large-ish bubbles.

I've been using a white wine yeast. It does leave quite a yeasty taste. I might try some champagne yeast next, apparently that has less taste. I'm also going to try plain bakers yeast. The yeast taste isn't unpleasant and doesn't last long, but it is quite a whack up front. Things like bitters help to mask it.

It's been very interesting so far, for what seems like such a simple thing yeast is pretty complex. And how about those fruity esters! It's not as full on as making beer but even when I did drink I drank more spirits than beer so I'd probably have been inclined to brew non-alcoholic stuff anyway.

Regards,

Jo

[Crackaig]

Some years ago I did a little home brew, nothing this serious. I did read that you can grow yeast from the dregs in a bottle of beer. Could this work for a source of yeasts you can't get?
Cheers,
C.

[Haggisboy]

Crackaig - it indeed could be a way of growing yeast that is "proprietry" in nature. I have abeer in the fridge that has this, pacman yeast.

[TheBadger]

We've just drunk the first bottle of our homebrew put down a few weeks back. Prior to bottling the alcohol content was a little down on ideal (can't remember the specific readings on the hydrometer). I don't think it gained too much alcohol in the bottles, but it carbonated nicely. The result was a very drinkable Bitter Ale that was a little low on alcohol (est. 3-4%) and a little low on flavour (possibly a result of using a packet mix - next time I think I'd dilute it just a little less). My guess for why the alcohol content was a little low was that the temperature we stored the barrel during the initial fermentation was just a little too high (around 25 degrees celsius) and thus we didn't get optimum performance out of the yeast. Anyone able to shed some light on this?

[Haggisboy]

Jack,

My initial thought would be that the sugar content was too low, do you need to boil it at all? Start all grain brewing, it is a lot easier than you would think.

I finally got my mits on on eof those 8 Wired Hopwired beers, it was super tasty.

My first batch of American style IPA is now ready to drink and it is delicious.

Campbell

[TheBadger]

Thanks Campbell. Looks like we're going to put together an all grain batch once this week of pain (uni, that is) is over. Is anyone able to point me in the direction of a decent (read: beginner) recipe for an IPA or some other beer that would be good to start with?

P.s. Glad you liked the Hopwired!