Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

I've been planning to brew a beer with spruce tips and did some research to decide how to go about doing it. The gold standard in spruce tip syrup making is half a glass jar of tightly packed fresh spruce tips with the top half of the jar full of white sugar. This goes on a south-facing window and the sun supposedly melts the sugar and as it runs down, it captures the taste and healthiness from the spruce tips better than any other method.

Looked up the melting temperature of pure white sugar: 160 °C. Got a bit doubtful of the aforementioned method (wife has also tried and failed). So my plan would be to pack the tips and sugar on top in a tall kettle and melt the sugar in the oven. Tips go in a mesh insert, so after the sugar has melted, I could pour hot water into the kettle, dissolve the sugar in the water and lift out the mesh insert with the tips.

Today was the time to act it out. Spruce tips from the back yard, 1 kg of sugar. In the oven set at 160 °C, and yes indeed, sugar melts and the aroma from the spruce tips is amazing and appetising!

The beer has 4,75 kg of Viking Sahti malt mix, 1 kg Viking wheat malt, 1 kg Viking Munich Light and 250 g Simpsons Premium English Caramalt in a 19 liter mash. For hops I used Challenger from the start of the boil and some Simcoe for the last 20 minutes. It all came together to make a lovely pale brew.

The spruce component ended up as 2 litres of surprisingly dark green-brown liquid. I made sure all sugar was dissolved and dunked it into the fermenter first, followed by the wort. Both were filtered with reusable coffee filters.

My last doubt was that the spruce tips might contain stuff that would kill the yeast, so I made a starter with some of the spruce-sugar liquid. Sure enough, it got on bubbling like a champ!

Second hand fridge with an inkbird thermostat.

I don't have a heater in there, but from my brews before the fridge the problem was keeping it cool, not warm. Does anybody with more experience than me have thoughts on why I might need a heater?

Looking forward to trying this out in a few weeks.

The one on the left is my first batch, the right my second (just bottled).

I'm very happy with the colour improvement and the sample tastes were better too. Fingers crossed I'll have a much less bitter batch.

My changes to the first run were blocking any outdoor lights (newspaper over window -my wife loved it) and keeping it in a water bath to regulate temperature until sampling time.

In the next batch, or the one after, I should have an under counter fridge to keep it in so this'll help even more.

I have these bottles which I've already used once.

My question is if the lids/caps should be refused with beer? I'm concerned that the seal may not be strong enough without the anti-tampering loop attached (as they break when opened).

Thanks for any help!

It's that time again. What's everyone brewing? It's May so depending on where you live there might be some interesting herbs available right about now.

I've been chasing more maltiness with this recipe and it's now getting to be in the ballpark of a couple of favourites - Plevna Dry Stout and Sinebrychoff Porter. This 21 l run had 6,7 kg of malt of which 500 g was 1300 EBC Black Malt and 1 kg was 400 EBC Chocolate Light from Viking Malt. The chocolate in particular is a great find with strong and unique taste.

Active malts in the mix are 1085 g leftovers of Simpsons Maris Otter Pale and Viking Sahti malt for the rest. 75 g Challenger and 15 g Citra hops for the duration of the boil. The recipe calls for 90 g of bitterness and of course I forgot to buy hops, so I had to fill in with the Citra.

Yeast was the Sahti standard fresh yeast, so I can call this a sahti-stout. Friendly, smooth mouthfeel as it always delivers. Next go at the recipe will need a new moniker though, as I want to try Alzymologist's malty lager critters :)

I'm so glad the fermentation succeeded the sample tastes like apple cider with a sour kiss. The smell is extremely sweet. The alcohol kicks 🤙

I used the traditional honey mead ratios and added dried dates with yeast. Proper cleaning is the most important part.

I've been brewing lemonade with a ginger bug and water kefir for quite a while. But whenever I try to incorporate lemon peel it seems to completely halt fermentation. I have tried normal and organic lemons without success. Currently I have a small batch of kefir with lemon juice going. Half of the batch is with lemon peel and that half shows no sign of fermentation after 30 hours (I have already bottled the other half because it was ready). Did any of you have similar experiences? I would really like to include peel for the taste 🙃

EDIT: Thanks for the many inputs! Summarizing the responses it seems like lemon peel doesn't inherently stop fermentation and the cause is more likely to be whatever pesticide the lemons were treated with. So I got myself a very expensive (supposedly) untreated lemon which I will use in my next brew (after washing it thoroughly) and continue from there.

Now that it’s no longer dreary winter I’m finally getting the motivation to do something that isn’t fly virtual aircraft every waking second of my day. I decided to make two wines, one that’s a mixed berry (blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, not sure what else it’s just the berry medley pack from aldi) and a strawberry banana. Sometimes no matter how good or experienced of a brewer you are you make dumb mistakes. Did I get annoyed when my strawberry banana starter foamed over and caused a small cleanup? Yes. Did I think to add a blowoff tube to the fermenter filled with it? No. Did I spend most of today mopping the ceiling? Yes. Originally I wanted to do a lemon brandy rather than strawberry banana, but lemons were stupidly expensive. The plan is for the mixed berry wine to be the girlfriend tax and the strawberry banana to be turned into a brandy for a camping trip I have going on next month.

This is a Rewarewa mead started over the long weekend

• 7.5kg honey
• made to 20 L
• fermaid at
• champagne style ec1118 yeast
• est to be a og of about 1.113

SOLVED: I was stupid. One litre less water in the kettle meant my temperature probe wasn't touching the water and strike temperature ended up being higher than intended, which obviously obliterated the enzymes and no sugar was produced.

First total failure of my homebrew journey, and I have no idea why... I was really looking forward to this brew, a pitch-black stout with smoked wheat, chocolate malt and black malt. For yeast, I was anticipating to try Alzymologist's speciality.

However, it's been four days in the fermenter and I've pitched three yeasts – first the Alzymologist (made a starter), then my usual fresh yeast without a starter and for the last desperate attempt some dry wine yeast – I can only come to the conclusion that my wort is poison. Not a sliver of CO2 has been produced. First yeast did produce heat in the wort for a day, but no CO2. Tried heating the wort, agitating and all, but it remains dead.

Some little changes in my process were made – 18 liters instead of 19 for mashing so that I could fit 900 grams extra malt in, and strike temperature up by one degree to 72 °C due to less water and more grain. Tomorrow evening I'm going to have to dump 20 litres of fine wort down the toilet and plan another brew day. Damn, this loss hits like having to bury a pet...

Hello Brewers!

I am still a noob to this, but I want to brew my wife something that she'd like.

I don't yet have the equipment to do an all grain, and I am reliant on extracts.

I was wondering if anyone has experimented with adding flavour ingredients, like cherry for example, to an extract? If so, when and what have you added? And is this going to be an expensive process of trial and error?

Hey everyone, time for the monthly post.

What's everyone been up to? Any special spring/easter/your local flavour of holiday brews?

Cheers!

The jar is filled with:

• 1/5th dark bastard sugar, stirred;
• 1/5th bread yeast and some sesame seeds;
• 1 date for aroma;
• clear water

Set for a month now 1 week left and it is bubbling on the surface so the reaction has set. Can I consume this to test the results or should it be refrigerated first? What kind of tools other than glass jars with valves should you have to make fermenting better?

I know a lot of members here are in Finland so I figured I'd share this event here (sorry for the FB link but that's all I've got). Mika Laitinen (of brewingnordic.com and author of Viking Age Brew) is giving a traditional sahti brewing demo/course on Saturday April 24

Here's what he wrote on FB about it:

I'm giving a course on brewing sahti and other ancient ales on Saturday, April 26. Bircalaiset organizes the course in Pirkkala and is also open to those who aren't members of this Iron Age society. It will be a practical one-day hands-on course where people brew their own sahti or ancient ale in small groups. Handling farmhouse yeast such as kveik is a special theme of this course. I have learned a lot of new things about these yeasts in 2024-2025, although I have used Norwegian and Lithuanian farmhouse yeasts since 2015. Of course, you'll also learn to brew a tasty high-gravity sahti and flavor it with juniper, hops, and other ancient beer herbs.

Brewing up an APA with WHC Labs High Voltage dry yeast. It's insanely quick - I put it in at 3pm and by 8pm there was CO2 coming out of the fermenter. 2 Days later and it's down to FG. That was fermenting at 30 C, which is as high as my fermenting fridge goes. You can ferment at up to 36 C.

From brewing to keg within a week - what a world we live in!

Hello

I recently restarted beer brewing after a pause of some years. I like to drink and brew bitter, so I restarted from there. This in the picture is the second brew in my "second era", an e+g beer brewed in a 10 l fermenter (I don't want to manage bigger volumes).

Recipe is: 1 kg dry light malt extract; 50 g crystal dark (ebc about 270); 20 g Challenger for 40 min; 15 g Challenger for 2 min; 10 g Challenger in dry hopping; Mangrove Jack's M36 yeast. ABV 4.2%, IBU about 34.

I should change the 50 g crystal dark for, let's say, 60 g crystal medium. I'll think about it. In order to spend less I used a dual purpose hop. Maybe in the future I'll use some Target for the bittering, but for now I'm quite happy. I use a single fermenter, so the result is a bit opaque. I don't care so much about that, other than try to cool down the beer for a night before bottling.

Also I would like to resume my production of porter and maybe try some barley wine. Since a friend beekeeper gave me some honey, I would like to try mead making, but I know precisely nothing about that.

Lemmitor @A_[email protected] in this community tipped that if the process serves and luck is on one's side, fermented birch sap can be better than champagne. Right now is the time when sap can be collected, so I'm giving it a shot!

The tree isn't terribly bothered, the tap hole is only a few millimeters deep. I only do one tap per tree.

Plan is to empty these tap bottles off several trees once a day into an intermediate container, use a Campden tablet per container and keep the intermediates in the fridge until I have enough, five liters maybe? Then one liter yeast starter, possibly with some cane sugar to lend a little extra aroma and colour (the sap is clear). Ferment fingers crossed. Serve force carbonated. Wish mi luck :D

Came out not bad. But the starting temperature was a little high and it has a slight tangy flavour.

I'm trying to find a way to better control the fermentation temperature on the cheap. Any tips appreciated!

One question I do have... After leaving in the bottles for a couple of weeks I've noticed a white residue is settling on the bottom of the bottle. Is this normal? (Pic of sediment in comments)

... great time to get a brew going :D Yes, Big Brew is getting struck by a week-long strike starting today. Sure enough I hope the workers will get what they are going for. I know what I'll be getting, this is the fourth run of the lemon + ginger recipe and it's guud:D

I'm sharing this mostly to show my malt grind station ideas: making it operable by power drill (hand crank replaced with just a regular bolt) and having a vacuum cleaner positioned where the output falls so that it picks our the lightest dust. Helps with keeping the room clean as well as hopefully makes the beer a bit clearer. The hoover collects a fair bit of dust every run: I weighed it once and now adjust the amount of malt going into the grind up by 2 % to account for the lost dust: 1000 g -> 1020 g.

The Simpsons Maris Otter Pale Ale & caramel malts and the Viking Munich Light will be joined by a small amount of smoked wheat. Viking Malt says that this stuff can be used just like regular pilsner malt, being active and all, but it's going to add a very gentle smoke aroma. I'll be using more of it in my next dark Sahti x Stout batch, but I'll try a little bit on this one to get a feel for it.

I brewed two rough versions of this sahti recipe over the winter, the only difference each time being the yeast that I used (and any mistakes that I made). The first batch used Mangrove Jacks M42 ale yeast, the second used a sourdough starter made over the course of two weeks with Bioreal fresh organic yeast and some basic bread flour. Each one was clarified with fungal chitosan, although I can't say I was particularly impressed with the results - it seems to have killed the ability to form a head without really clarifiying it much. Each also got a small amount of priming sugar in the bottle and at least a couple of weeks before drinking (save for a pint for me during the bottling process).

Appearance: Basically identical.

Process: The brewer's version fermented for two weeks, the baker's for one. I would have left it for the full two weeks, but it had clearly stopped any significant activity by that point.

Alcohol content: The brewer's yeast went to about 5%, the baker's to about 2%

Scent: The juniper is predominant in both, but significantly more present in the baker's version.

Flavour: The situation with the scent is reversed here, surprisingly, and the brewer's version has a much bigger presence of that fresh and resinous juniper. tasankovasara on this community described their own experience with baker's yeast as being banana-like, which I think is a reasonable description. It's not a powerful presence, but it's definitely there.

Mouthfeel: I was surprised by how different this was. The baker's one is far more astringent. Not unpleasantly so, by any means, but significantly more. Additionally, it has done far less with the priming sugar, having only the faintest hint of carbonation. I assume that was simply a case of the yeast not tolerating the level of alcohol and having virtually nothing left to work with on the sugar.

Overall it was a worthwhile experiment, but I think I will keep doing it the non-traditional way with brewer's yeast. Sorry Finland. I promise not to do it in your country. I would be interested in trying out kveik yeast as a halfway point, though. I used an ale yeast simply because I wouldn't have been able to keep the demijohns as the higher temperature that kveik wants, so that may have to be a summer project.