Home-brewing is one of my favourite past-times. Back in the late 80,s as a young buck, I started with the Coopers, brewed in a willow garbage bin and bottled into long-necks(king browns). The beer was ok, but there wasn't the choice of today. Then I bought a proper brew-keg. When I was working around Broken Hill, as a wool-classer in the early nineties, I got a bit more serious. The local brew shop was extensively stocked, and I was spoilt for choice. Of all the tinned homebrews my choice-by far is Black Rock(NZ) East-India Pale Ale.
The next evolution was mixing recipes from scratch. I bought a book called "Brewing beers like those you buy". It was very informative, but sadly not one recipe tasted like the bought stuff. It was written by a Pommy fella and their beer is quite different to ours, being cold-brewed ales (generally), as opposed to our lagers. I was buying 20kg of light malt powder at a time, and hop flowers and pellets of all descriptions. I never outlayed for a heating pad, and still use the single-bed electric blanket I started with- the one in the bottom of my mini-greenhouse at present! All the beers were drinkable, just some more than others. At one stage I had 288 dozen long-necks bottled! I won second prize at the Broken Hill show for my Nut-brown Ale. I did other brews as well. The best ginger beer was Jads-with a picture of a parrot on the label. The "Old-fashioned" brand ginger beer tasted like muddy water, however their lemonade was superb! I made up a brew of that to about 6% alcohol, and it still tasted like Leed or Halls lemonade. Clear, fizzy and very easy to drink....Too easy!. The girls loved it, but they got MESSY!!!!
I made Horehound beer once, but it was that bitter it was un-drinkable. I will have another crack at it though, using 5g dried, rather than the 30g (1oz) in the Green and Gold cookbook recipe.(Old school cookbook).
Eventually I went the next step, doing away with the bottles in favour of 22L post-mix kegs. By doing this you avoid the carbonation step, and the 2-4 week wait for the bottles to gas up. Just brew (7-14days) decant into the keg, cool and gas. They say 40psi of CO2 for 2 days at 3-5C, but I found 20psi for 24hrs was enough. So given ideal temps you were 14 days from mixing to drinking !! You must purge the oxygen. (co2 will sit below it)
The next evolution was brewing 2x 22.5l brews and putting them into a 50l beer keg. I bought the keg-tap off ebay for about $40- they are $140 from Arndale(commercial) suppliers. Then removed the one-way valves so as to allow water/steriliser to be pumped into the keg. Then just blow it back out with the air compressor, rinse, blow out etc. Gas is expensive to set up, and bottle hire can be too. I just used soda-stream gas through a home-made, dismantled soda-stream fitting, regulating by judgement alone. But it would be better to have a proper gas/reg system.
Even so, the new screw-top plastics are probably time/energy efficient. If you judge it right you can bottle before the brew has quite finished and avoid the "priming".
From there I experimented with malting my own grain, but never got the yield, probably because of the available grades of grain. So even though powdered malt can be expensive, it's still the best way to go. Boil your hops/essences, strain and add to your malt/sugar mix. That or discounted, good quality (e.g. Coopers) tins. 700gms of sugar gives you 5% alcohol.Despite the estimations on the tin.
The next evolution was when a mate got me to set up his double reflux still.(Off Ebay). 2x22.5l brews of 13kg fermentables, then decant into a 50l keg( a beer keg with the valve removed, and a 2200 watt element mounted in the bottom). You NEED to take off the first 200-350 mls. Or it will KILL YOU OR MAKE YOU BLIND, or put you in a permanent coma. Methyl compounds are Nasty Stuff.
Once the nail polish remover smell has gone you get 93-96% pure alcohol. Still deadly. Mix it with water back to 38-40%, and there is your spirit. Clear,tasteless spirit. He used expensive dextrose, expensive turbo yeast and expensive carbon cleaner, then flavoured it with(expensive) spirit essence. The next brew we used white sugar- half the price of dextrose. The yield was similar. 22-23 x 750ml bottles at 40%
I was so impressed I bought one. My first batch was 50/50 sugar and molasses from the stock feed store. Fermented with (cheap) beer yeast. Molasses is harder for the yeast to convert, so it was 12 days vs 7 for the top-of-the-range mix. I just let it finish and settle, rather than buy the carbon. Gelatine or beer finings will also work. Once distilled and diluted, I put just enough of the "back-set" (What's left behind in the distilling keg) to colour(and flavour) it like Bundy, on the pale side. After sitting in bottles for a month it was identical in look and taste.
Then I bought a 20kg bag of maize/corn from the stockfeed store, germinated it in 2 wet hessian bags and made a sour-mash. Put through an electric mincer then carefully simmered at 40c,45c and 55c . Fermented, distilled. White Lightning. Clear bourbon. Nowhere near the yield, only 3x750ml bottles, but with practice the yield can be increased.Addition of sugar can mass the yield. Flavour can be enhanced and colour added by oak chips in the final (40%) distillate. Expensive again. I used Redgum and Gidgee(Acacia). Hand-split. Gidgee was no good,turpentine-ey, but Redgum was exquisite.
This is another art the guvment scum would rather we were denied, therefore ignorant of, in lieu of filling their coffers and supporting their extravagant lifestyles at our financial and intellectual expense.
The next evolution was mixing recipes from scratch. I bought a book called "Brewing beers like those you buy". It was very informative, but sadly not one recipe tasted like the bought stuff. It was written by a Pommy fella and their beer is quite different to ours, being cold-brewed ales (generally), as opposed to our lagers. I was buying 20kg of light malt powder at a time, and hop flowers and pellets of all descriptions. I never outlayed for a heating pad, and still use the single-bed electric blanket I started with- the one in the bottom of my mini-greenhouse at present! All the beers were drinkable, just some more than others. At one stage I had 288 dozen long-necks bottled! I won second prize at the Broken Hill show for my Nut-brown Ale. I did other brews as well. The best ginger beer was Jads-with a picture of a parrot on the label. The "Old-fashioned" brand ginger beer tasted like muddy water, however their lemonade was superb! I made up a brew of that to about 6% alcohol, and it still tasted like Leed or Halls lemonade. Clear, fizzy and very easy to drink....Too easy!. The girls loved it, but they got MESSY!!!!
I made Horehound beer once, but it was that bitter it was un-drinkable. I will have another crack at it though, using 5g dried, rather than the 30g (1oz) in the Green and Gold cookbook recipe.(Old school cookbook).
Eventually I went the next step, doing away with the bottles in favour of 22L post-mix kegs. By doing this you avoid the carbonation step, and the 2-4 week wait for the bottles to gas up. Just brew (7-14days) decant into the keg, cool and gas. They say 40psi of CO2 for 2 days at 3-5C, but I found 20psi for 24hrs was enough. So given ideal temps you were 14 days from mixing to drinking !! You must purge the oxygen. (co2 will sit below it)
The next evolution was brewing 2x 22.5l brews and putting them into a 50l beer keg. I bought the keg-tap off ebay for about $40- they are $140 from Arndale(commercial) suppliers. Then removed the one-way valves so as to allow water/steriliser to be pumped into the keg. Then just blow it back out with the air compressor, rinse, blow out etc. Gas is expensive to set up, and bottle hire can be too. I just used soda-stream gas through a home-made, dismantled soda-stream fitting, regulating by judgement alone. But it would be better to have a proper gas/reg system.
Even so, the new screw-top plastics are probably time/energy efficient. If you judge it right you can bottle before the brew has quite finished and avoid the "priming".
From there I experimented with malting my own grain, but never got the yield, probably because of the available grades of grain. So even though powdered malt can be expensive, it's still the best way to go. Boil your hops/essences, strain and add to your malt/sugar mix. That or discounted, good quality (e.g. Coopers) tins. 700gms of sugar gives you 5% alcohol.Despite the estimations on the tin.
The next evolution was when a mate got me to set up his double reflux still.(Off Ebay). 2x22.5l brews of 13kg fermentables, then decant into a 50l keg( a beer keg with the valve removed, and a 2200 watt element mounted in the bottom). You NEED to take off the first 200-350 mls. Or it will KILL YOU OR MAKE YOU BLIND, or put you in a permanent coma. Methyl compounds are Nasty Stuff.
Once the nail polish remover smell has gone you get 93-96% pure alcohol. Still deadly. Mix it with water back to 38-40%, and there is your spirit. Clear,tasteless spirit. He used expensive dextrose, expensive turbo yeast and expensive carbon cleaner, then flavoured it with(expensive) spirit essence. The next brew we used white sugar- half the price of dextrose. The yield was similar. 22-23 x 750ml bottles at 40%
I was so impressed I bought one. My first batch was 50/50 sugar and molasses from the stock feed store. Fermented with (cheap) beer yeast. Molasses is harder for the yeast to convert, so it was 12 days vs 7 for the top-of-the-range mix. I just let it finish and settle, rather than buy the carbon. Gelatine or beer finings will also work. Once distilled and diluted, I put just enough of the "back-set" (What's left behind in the distilling keg) to colour(and flavour) it like Bundy, on the pale side. After sitting in bottles for a month it was identical in look and taste.
Then I bought a 20kg bag of maize/corn from the stockfeed store, germinated it in 2 wet hessian bags and made a sour-mash. Put through an electric mincer then carefully simmered at 40c,45c and 55c . Fermented, distilled. White Lightning. Clear bourbon. Nowhere near the yield, only 3x750ml bottles, but with practice the yield can be increased.Addition of sugar can mass the yield. Flavour can be enhanced and colour added by oak chips in the final (40%) distillate. Expensive again. I used Redgum and Gidgee(Acacia). Hand-split. Gidgee was no good,turpentine-ey, but Redgum was exquisite.
This is another art the guvment scum would rather we were denied, therefore ignorant of, in lieu of filling their coffers and supporting their extravagant lifestyles at our financial and intellectual expense.
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The ants had moved in by the time I got back. Consequently I never use an air-lock with any of my brewing. I just put the lid on and throw a clean tea-towel over it. 
