Home Brew

yes it makes you happy.

but also you don't have to drive to buy it, you can make it chemical free from organic products, you can recycle your bottles for the next batch, and you will save money. You might even MAKE money if you start selling it to your mates.

Hi,
 
I have been making a few batches of home brew now, and I believe that it must be better for you, than mass produced beer. The home brew is probably made in a similar way to get the brew, but the action of "fizzing" the beer must be better for you. In a mass produced beer the CO2 is injected into the beer just as you would for a bottle of lemonade or a sodastream drink. With home brew the extra sugar reacts with the yeast to make the CO2. Who knows but sounds good.

Hello,
this is my first post here. I'd like to add that I made Apple Cider earlier this year and we have been drinking it recently and it is wonderful. Dry and mostly clear with a beautiful apple aroma, the more sedimenty dregs I used to cook a roast pork in, was sweet and jiucy.
This was made using apples collected from wild trees on the side of the road near where I live. I bought a plastic barrel, an airlock and some suitable yeast and sterilising agent. I don't have a press so we used a friends juicer, it added a lot of pulp toi the mix but it didn't matter. A top drink and I will do it again!
cheers
Dayla

Hi Dayla, thanks for joining and sharing your fermenting experiences. Your apple cider sounds yum. I've heard that pear cider is really easy too as it has alot more juice. How many apples did you need? Did you have to add any more liquid of some sort?

I've made alcoholic coconut water and pineapple wine, but the recipes need refining... This was when we were in the Solomon Islands so there were coconuts and pineapples galore...

Hi there, only just discovered your reply to my post.
We picked 53 kg of roadside apples. Put them thru a juicer as we don't have a press. Got 23 litres of juice with pulp in it. Put into barrel, added yeast and sugar to make it 6% alcohol (using a hydrometer tells you where it is alcoholically). Sealed with airlock. It started bubbling later that night and stopped after a couple of days. I thought something was wrong as all the books say it should bubble for a week or so. I put a heat mat under it as the temperature had dropped, but no more bubbling.
So about 2-3 weeks later I decanted it into an smaller barrel and discarded the pulp, which smelled divine. Still no bubbling so a week later I racked it off into bottles. I used champagne bottles as they are fortified and a crowner to suit.
I put a teaspoon of sugar into each before adding cider and this made for a nicer drop than the 6 I forgot to do that, they are stronger and dryer. They were the first I decanted so I don't know exactly why they were different.
Anyway a few months later we started drinking it and it is lovely.
Any leftovers go into cooking some pork. I made fritters with cooked pork and corn kernals and used cider to mix the batter, they were fab.
I should like to try pear ciderr but pear trees don't grow wild here and my tree is small still.

I have made rubarb champagne, that was lovely and so easy to do.
Just cut up rubarb, about a kilo put into clean container add sugar, can't remember how much sorry, maybe half a kilo. A chopped up lemon and fill with water about 4 litres. Leave for a few days, strain and bottle. The pinker the rubarb stems the pinker the drink but no different in flavour. Watch it as it will put pressure on the bottles. I used bought pet screw top plastic bottles. They held it in but the ends distended. It is very bubbly and has a soft perfume. It is good as a mixer with whatever you want to try it with. We mixed it with regular bubbly and it was very nice. If you want to know the exact amounts for this recipe let me know and I will find them for you.
cheers
Dayla