Brew your own...

[dmccarty]

I somehow surfed into this guy on YouTube.

YouTube - Meet CraigTube - An Introduction

Craig Tube.

He has a bunch of videos on making wine/cider/beer. His approach is shall we say,.., cheap. Which is good since he is keeping it simple. :thumbsup:

He made apple cider with a 4L plastic jug used to hold a juice. He added three liters of apple juice from a CAN. The apple juice was from concentrate. He added 1 cup of sugar, except that it looked like 1.5 cups to me. :laughing: He tested the gravity and threw in another cup or two of sugar. Then he went to add the yeast, which was bread yeast, and he figured he would use half of pouch but said what the heck and threw it all in. :laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:

I would love to have tasted that stuff.

I think he is just trying to show how easy it is to brew so he was keeping it simple and cheap. :laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I did a search on "Blue Ribbon Malt Extract" and found the following amongst other stuff:

Stout Guy Brewing and Computer Consulting - Blue Ribbon Malt Extract Instructions

Chuck

Love it.

A few years back, I found an auction for a set of homebrewing beer instructions from Blue Ribbon, printed during prohibition. For the modern homebrewer, it's a cringe worthy look back in time.

W A R N I N G. Be sure to comply with your prohibition laws. If your territory is dry, do
not add yeast; yeast will create alcohol; without yeast you will have a snappy, healthful non-alcoholic, hop-flavored drink.

Later,
Dan

 

[RobertN]

I had made a couple nice beers, and then did not brew again for 3-4 years. A new roommate asked me about it, so we decided to try. Our first brew was an Aussie kit, "Kangabrew" I think it was. Pretty sure we did not boil it, but did get the water hot enough to boil. Added a couple pounds of sugar. Cooled, topped water to 5 gallons, and added yeast that was included with the malt.

It was an ok beer. We did that twice, and one other hopped malt kit. Then I moved up to individual ingredients, and then on to all-grain eventually.

I did try my Grandfathers Prohibition beer. It was mediocre. Better than nothing, and definitely drinkable. Only did it once though.

First beer I ever made was with PBR hopped malt extract. It was sold in grocery stores back before it was even legal to make homebrew. I would imagine Pabst made the malt extract all through prohibition as a food, though I wonder how they justified adding hops. I started brewing in the early 70's and we sure thought it was illegal....don't remember if it really was or if we just thought that. Is PBR malt extract still around?

Chuck

 

[forgeblast]

Apple cider is real easy to ferment, just get cider that was uv pasturized and put it in a carboy and put in wine yeast, air lock it and your done.

 

[RobertN]

A couple pictures of my system. My cooler/mashtun is getting a little old, but the rest works great.

 

[forgeblast]

real nice RobertN. Is the system all gravity?

 

[dmccarty]

A couple pictures of my system. My cooler/mashtun is getting a little old, but the rest works great.

Wish I had a garage to store all of that stuff. Cool setup. :thumbsup:

Looks easy to build too.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I was watching Craig on Craig Tube again last night. YouTube - Meet CraigTube - An Introduction

He is worth watching if starting to brew. :thumbsup:

Though he does make me cringe from time to time. :laughing: Last night I was watching him brew and he had a floating thermometer in the beer. To see the temp he had to put his finger in the beer. Now he did say his hand was sanitized and you should not do this but it still made me cringe.

He is fun to watch since he keeps it simple. The brew I was watching last night was just sugar, water, yeast, and a liquid malt extract. Pretty simple.

Since he was brewing beer he was drinking beer, , and his beer looked really nice. Good color and foam head. I wish I could taste it.

Funny thing is that he is in Canada and having trouble keeping the beer warm enough. My first brew I was having trouble keeping it cool enough. A wet towel finally got the beer under 70 degrees.

Later,
Dan

 

[Chuck52]

Dan,

Don't worry too much about the temp. You're brewing an ale and those yeasts are happy enough at the warmer temps. You might get some extra esters, but they'll just remind you that it is homebrew! Relax. Have a homebrew!

Do your instructions tell you to add sugar to the bottles, or to add sugar to the bucket of brew and then bottle? I only added sugar to bottles once, and I guess my half teaspoons (or whatever the amount was) weren't very accurate. Fortunately the bottles were in the basement when they went ballistic. One went right through a fairly heavy cardboard box. The ones that didn't blow got treated with great respect before being opened.

Chuck

 

[RobertN]

My system is all gravity. It is kinda tall in regards to the upper burner and kettle for mash water. However, the lower shelf height is perfect to drain the fresh wort directly in to the carboy.

Four friends of mine went in together; we bought a bunch of the expanded steel from Graingers some years back.

Once I did 3 batches in one day, long day. While my first mash was starting, I did an extract batch in the boiler. After the extract batch was done, and the first mash had lautered in to the boiler, I fired off a second mash. 30 gallons on my system, another friend who was over did 20 gallons.

The day those pictures were taken, four of us brewed. It was a 60 gallon day! Most of that was extract; I had the only all grain setup.

I keep the system in the shed; I use the tractor loader to move it(it is light weight, but bulky to carry). The frame has wheel, but it is too much to roll through the yard to the shed.