Winemaking/Homebrewers

[Budget]

Just wanted to see what people are doing out there. I have been doing the wine and mead making for about 1 1/2 years now and its one of my favorite hobbies. In that time I've bottled about 200 bottles.

So really what's your:
Favorite recipes
Favorite beer/ or winemaking
Past experiences
Current batches
Future plans
Or are you just interested

I think in the future it would be great to get to gether for a tasting

Thanks guys

 

[Budget]

The most recent batch I made produced 88 bottles and the flavors were:

Blueberry merlot
Sweet blueberry
Blueberry port(fortified)
Muscadine
Watermelon merlot
Tutti fruity
Strawberry rush(fortified)
Hobo merlot

 

[gunforumfan]

Just started home brewing beer. Got a european ale and an australian ale in bottles right now. Also trying a kornelius keg.

 

[Aaronious45]

I've been doing wine and mead for several years now. I don't really use recipes though. The last batch of mead I made shielded 14 months and my buddy knocked out 3 bottles in about a month. Made some black cherry 15 months ago but I over sweetened it and its now going to be used for meat.

 

[CCHGN]

Beer brewer here,,,,,I've brewed Pale ales, American Ales, Red ales, Red Stouts, Wheat Lagers, Pilsners, Amberbachs and now have a batch of hard Cider ready to bottle.

 

[hukdizzle]

I used to be really big into home brewing about 5 years ago and then I just kind of stopped. I was part of the local brewers club and very active. I haven't brewed in a while but I can't go but a couple of weeks without thinking about getting back into it. If i do get back into it I am gonna keep it simple and probably only bottle and maybe do partial mashes. I spent entirely too much money on kegging and my 10 gallon brewing setup previously.

 

[Budget]

Well I'm suprised to see so many responses in just a couple of hours. Does any one know of any up and coming tastings around the Pensacola/Milton area? I go to the quarterly one put on by the Shady Lady, but that's not coming around till December.

 

[Budget]

Well I'm suprised to see so many responses on just a couple of hours. Does one know of any up and coming tastings around the Pensacola/Milton area? I go to the quarterly one put on by the Shady Lady, but that's not coming around till December.

 

[hukdizzle]

Best thing to do is join the escambia bay home brewers club and go to their monthly meetings. Everyone brings beer and wine for tasting.

 

[CCHGN]

I used to be really big into home brewing about 5 years ago and then I just kind of stopped. I was part of the local brewers club and very active. I haven't brewed in a while but I can't go but a couple of weeks without thinking about getting back into it. If i do get back into it I am gonna keep it simple and probably only bottle and maybe do partial mashes. I spent entirely too much money on kegging and my 10 gallon brewing setup previously.

well, I find that I brew more when it's cooler. Keeping the fermenter and bottles bewteen 50-70deg is a challenge in the hot Summer.

 

[no woryz]

www.pcbeer.com

 

[Drauka99]

I make a little muscadine wine (both golden and red) This year the muscadines didn't get ripe before the rains and fell off so none this year.

 

[hukdizzle]

well, I find that I brew more when it's cooler. Keeping the fermenter and bottles bewteen 50-70deg is a challenge in the hot Summer.

If you want to spend a little money a ranco digital therm controller and a small fridge makes a great fermentation chiller and you can crash cool your beer to really clear it or brew lagers. If you prdominately brew ales you can get away with what they call a swamp chiller. Basically find the biggest rubber maid tub you can find at walmart and fill it with water and control the temp with bottles of water that are frozen. It fluctuates a bit and you can't do lagers effectively but it definitely helps with temp swings and keeps them down.

 

[CCHGN]

If you want to spend a little money a ranco digital therm controller and a small fridge makes a great fermentation chiller and you can crash cool your beer to really clear it or brew lagers. If you prdominately brew ales you can get away with what they call a swamp chiller. Basically find the biggest rubber maid tub you can find at walmart and fill it with water and control the temp with bottles of water that are frozen. It fluctuates a bit and you can't do lagers effectively but it definitely helps with temp swings and keeps them down.

yeah, as part of our "getting off the grid" program, I need to lessen power consumption, the( brewing) fridge is out.. I like the tub idea and have plenty of them, so.....

 

[Burnt Drag]

A wealth of information on what Tickle does.

www.homedistiller.org has a link to a forum as well. Interesting stuff, just not legal.

 

[Drauka99]

A wealth of information on what Tickle does.

www.homedistiller.org has a link to a forum as well. Interesting stuff, just not legal.

I found that site while learning a bit about the whole fermenting thing and they sure do hate "that show" as they refer to it on there.

 

[DragonSlayer]

I've only done some "Mr. Beer" stuff. Its not bad, and easy for me to do. I've been told to start slow, before really doing the complete brew process.

 

[Budget]

Has anyone ever tried making beer thru a champagne method. What I mean is basically making a hop, barley, or wheat wine and use champagne yeast to carbonate. I have seen some commercial beers/wines that were kind of like that, but haven't seen anyone do it or advertise a method. Just curious. An example would be like Sam Adam's New World Ale. It comes in champagne bottle and is about $12 a bottle. Good stuff.

 

[hukdizzle]

Has anyone ever tried making beer thru a champagne method. What I mean is basically making a hop, barley, or wheat wine and use champagne yeast to carbonate. I have seen some commercial beers/wines that were kind of like that, but haven't seen anyone do it or advertise a method. Just curious. An example would be like Sam Adam's New World Ale. It comes in champagne bottle and is about $12 a bottle. Good stuff.

New World isn't brewed with a champagne yeast, it's brewed with a belgian yeast which gives off a lot more esters than clean ale yeast such as Safale US05 or Nottingham or something like that. Basically New World is just a belgian tripel beer.

 

[Budget]

I'm sorry I wasn't saying that it was done like that. I was just using it as an example of what I kind of wanted to make a beer wine like.