Home Brew

[MaC]

We don't have a Home Brew thread here, yet

Anyway, I'm going to have a go at Elderflower champagne.

I have had two disasters (yeah, I know, my propensity for blowing things up ) with elderflower champagne, but I really like the stuff It's one of the joys of Summer.
So, Himself is not quite convinced, but he's prepared to let me do it, outside and I have saved plastic (note plastic) coke bottles this time round.
Got to be safer than glass exploded everywhere...no ?

Anyone else brewing good stuff ?

M

 

[Beachlover]

We don't have a Home Brew thread here, yet

Anyway, I'm going to have a go at Elderflower champagne.

I have had two disasters (yeah, I know, my propensity for blowing things up ) with elderflower champagne, but I really like the stuff It's one of the joys of Summer.
So, Himself is not quite convinced, but he's prepared to let me do it, outside and I have saved plastic (note plastic) coke bottles this time round.
Got to be safer than glass exploded everywhere...no ?

Anyone else brewing good stuff ?

M

I've been looking at our nettles on the allotment. So far they are rotting in a large bucket to make fertiliser (the stink is foul), but I've four empty demijohns here in my shed and nettle wine is one of my favourites.

 

[Saint-Just]

A good friend of mine does a few things when she has time (not often - busy lady) and I’m trying to convince her to make mead ( she has 5 or 6 beehives). Her brother (in France) is quite adept and makes a mean walnut wine.

 

[noddy]

Occasionally I go through phases of making ginger beer. Might be that time again

 

[MaC]

I'm "NoT AlloWed!" to brew ginger beer any more. I gave a bottle to my neighbour who loved it, but only drank half and put the rest of the bottle into the cupboard. He said he was saving it for his weekend bbq .....it blew up his kitchen.
Literally punched a hole straight up through a 2" worktop, took out a piece the size of a dinner plate and bounced it off the ceiling.
His missus used to bully me, big LoUd lady, she came to the door shaking like a leaf. Funny now, wasn't then.
He knew it was live, he had been clearly told that he must release the gases (it was in a glass Irn Bru bottle) and he had to keep it cold.
He listened but he didn't pay heed.

 

[E. By Gum]

If you recall, last summer I used the elderflower growing in the garden to make elderflower wine. Can't go wrong somebody said, possibly Woody Girl. It was awful, had to throw it away.
You are NOT going to hoodwink me into this kind of thing again.

 

[E. By Gum]

How do you make ginger beer? I love ginger.

 

[MaC]

How do you make ginger beer? I love ginger.

Ginger beer is live.....and I do mean live. I wasn't joking about blowing up next door's kitchen. It really happened.
So, with that clearly in mind, brewing ginger beer is pretty straightforward, and it makes a lovely drink, it really does.

There are two methods, and you can either use fresh ginger or ground dried stuff. Up to yourself on that. The ground stuff is inclined to be hotter, while the fresh stuff is softer but I think the nicer version.

The quick method makes a drink you can have the next day. It's not meant to be kept, it will blow up; I repeat, It Will Blow Up! if left in a sealed bottle while it's still live. You must release the gas every day until the bottle is empty....and I do mean empty.

I know I'm rabbiting on about this, but if it had gone off in Billy's hand it could have killed him, the glass was literally exploded into lethal shards that wrecked a kitchen.

The better method is to create a 'plant' and to feed it daily for a week, increasing the volume as you do so. This makes a real beer and is the better if you add malt to the mix....but malt's not always easy to find, and it can be expensive.

The Quick Method
Ingredients;
1lb or 450g of sugar.....plain granulated works fine, if you're after richer darker taste use something like soft brown.
1/2 oz yeast.....wine or beer yeast is best, but who has that to hand ? just use bread yeast, it's fine. A good baker makes a good brewer
1oz of Cream of Tartar
1.5 oz of Ground Ginger
I gallon of boiling water.
Method;
Mix all but the yeast together, and stir until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid cools to lukewarm. Then add in the yeast and stir.
Cover and let it sit until it cools down.
Take a sieve and line it with a couple of sheets of paper towels and strain the liquid through it.
Bottle and set aside overnight.

This recipe is nice cold, and good the next day, but it's live, the yeast will slowly eat up the sugar and produce alcohol....so that's the good bit, the bad bit is that it produces gas as it does so. The fizzy is desirable but it will not stop until all the sugar is used up and then it's not always such a nice drink anyway, so use this one up quickly. Just be careful opening the bottles. Days two and three are the nicest I think.

This post is getting rather long. I'll put up the Beer recipe in the next one.

M

 

[MaC]

Ginger Beer
Ingredients:
To make the starter plant;
1/2oz yeast
3/4pt of warm water
2 teaspoons of ground ginger, or a bit the size of your thumb grated up.
2 teaspoonsful of sugar

To flavour;
1.5lbs sugar
Juice of two lemons (or work out five tablespoonsful of juice from a Jif bottle per lemon)
2 pints water

To feed the plant;
6 teaspoonsful of ground ginger
6 teaspoonsful of sugar

To dilute before bottling;
5 pints water

Method;
Mix together the ingredients for the starter plant. I use big jug and cover that with a paper towel held on with an elastic band.
Stir well and leave for 24 hours, then feed daily for the next six days.
Feed with I teaspoonful of ground ginger and one of sugar, and stir gently each day.

After seven days, strain the liquid through cloth or I find that a sieve lined with paper kitchen towels does a good job.

Put the flavour ingredients into a big pot and heat up while stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Let it cool to lukewarm, then add the strained gingery liquid from the plant.
Stir well, and then add five pints of water.

This is your final volume. Mix well, and then bottle.
Put it somewhere cool for seven days.....please, and I really mean this, please be careful where you put it. I put some in the coldest corner of my kitchen and four days later it blew up. It shattered sticky glass from one end of my kitchen to the other. Put it outside. Put it where you can check and release the gas daily.

Supposedly it's not terribly alcoholic and is, "suitable for all the family"..... maybe it's just me, but my booze is alcoholic, it's alive and it's like champagne.
It's rather good though and it's tasty and it's refreshing. I like it made with extra malt added, and I use soft brown sugar and some fresh ginger.

I've put myself in the notion for real ginger beer again, it's lovely at this time of year, though it's a real pleasure when it's cold and dark and Winter is dragging on.
I think that's a conversation with Himself and Son2 though

 

[E. By Gum]

I could just buy fentimans...

 

[MaC]

Or for the same price you could make a gallon......

 

[BorderReiver]

Or for the same price you could make a gallon......

That would make a very loud bang.

 

[E. By Gum]

Reminds me of a story from near ten years ago somewhere local, fire brigade called as a man stuck in a house where a upstairs floor caved in... Turned out to be under the weight of God knows how many years worth of bottles of his own piss he was collecting.
No before anyone starts, that's not what happened here.

 

[MaC]

That would make a very loud bang.

It's scary enough in a litre bottle !
Bloody lethal when it goes off too.

So far, I can testify to the explosive qualities in elderflower, ginger, blackcurrant and banana 'wine'

I'm not allowed to brew anymore unless I have cleared it, definitively and with every promise to fit gas burblers, with Himself and the Sons
My wee Bother says he's calling dibs on the next lot, my big Bother says he's glad he's in Oz.

It's Son2's fault the blackcurrant exploded; he was releasing the gas for me every evening but forgot one night.
I was on the phone to Son1 when something went BANG! behind me in the kitchen, and stuff rattled down the hallway.
I said that something had exploded and Son1 just exclaimed, "Again !???"
So, I'm banned.

M

 

[BorderReiver]

It's scary enough in a litre bottle !
Bloody lethal when it goes off too.

So far, I can testify to the explosive qualities in elderflower, ginger, blackcurrant and banana 'wine'

I'm not allowed to brew anymore unless I have cleared it, definitively and with every promise to fit gas burblers, with Himself and the Sons
My wee Bother says he's calling dibs on the next lot, my big Bother says he's glad he's in Oz.

It's Son2's fault the blackcurrant exploded; he was releasing the gas for me every evening but forgot one night.
I was on the phone to Son1 when something went BANG! behind me in the kitchen, and stuff rattled down the hallway.
I said that something had exploded and Son1 just exclaimed, "Again !???"
So, I'm banned.

M

Ach, Mary, some folk have nae sense oh adventure.

 

[noddy]

 

[CaptainBeaky]

Spoilsport!

 

[MaC]

The problem is that the burblers don't fit in a dozen irn bru bottles.
They're great for demi-johns, but those are for brewing, not keeping, iimmc ?

Best advice really is to make it and drink it fresh and treat the bottles like champagne.

M

 

[Templogin]

For sale: Residential Bomb Factory. A few holes here and there, but at least the neighbours are quiet (frightened half to death!)

And to think that this used to be my safe space!

 

[MaC]

No, no, no, that's my wee Bother

 

[Saint-Just]

No, no, no, that's my wee Bother

It’s obviously in your common genes

 

[MaC]

It has been a long running family theme. Thankfully we were never politically minded

I do mind my big Bother being taken to hospital with a blood soaked towel wrapped around his head. Something had blown up in his face. I must have been about five at the time. The other Bother's exploits are legendary.

Family tales say that they were gunmakers to the King.....and no, they didn't build the one that blew up James11....that bombard was Flemish made.

 

[BorderReiver]

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