Comparison of Brewing Scales

Scale of Brewing

A quick comparison of two scales of brewing. There is no recommendation as to which you should go for, it does depend on the brewer and what they want to achieve. Each scale has its corresponding equipment.

1 Gallon

A very small scale of brew, which brewers often use for trying out experiments or refining recipes. 1 gallon brewing is simple to get started, you simply take a 5 gallon recipe and divide by 5. Precision matters however and small changes have a larger effect at this scale. Takes a bit more knowledge to work with, but you can jump straight into all-grain brewing.

Pros:

• Small equipment fits into small spaces
• Can cook on cooker
• Produces 8 pints
• Can be done in an evening

Cons:

• Produces 8 pints for an evenings brewing

5 Gallon

This is by far the more well trodden path with many guides and recipes online. Ideal for parties and for general consumption.

Pros:

• Various kits to choose from
• Well trodden path
• Same steps as 1 Gallon, but yields 40 pints

Cons:

• Bottling 40 pints
• Longer cooking and cooling times
• Might be able to do on cooker, otherwise use a gas burner
• All-grain brewing requires more planning
• More equipment

Vanilla Fudge MK3

2014-10-11

Third time round in the quest for a delicious fudge. This time round I used a heavier bottomed saucepan and kept the heat lower.

Lowering the heat slows down the rate at which the sugar cooks and allows you to avoid it burning and turning to caramel.

The point where the sugar reaches the soft ball stage (115C) looked identical to a few degrees before, the thermometer was essential.

When whipping it, it cooled to the point when it was quite viscous before adding the treaty to set.

Cheap Thermometers

Seems the glass the thermometer made from couldn't take heating and cooling. It survived the cooking, but the shattered when washing up.

Bottle Opener Project

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/09/20/how-to-make-a-handsome-and-handy-wooden-bottle-opener/

Autum Leaf Bowels

http://www.redtedart.com/2010/10/01/how-to-make-autumn-leaf-bowls-guest-post/

Vanilla Fudge MK2

2014-09-21

This, the third attempt, to make fudge has proven more successful. Still following the basic recipe and thinking about the cooking process.

This time I used a sugar thermometer to ensure it got to the correct temperature (115C) before allowing it to set.

Note: Use a low to medium heat and a non-stick saucepan.

In particular I noted that towards the end of the cooking sequence, the temperature rose quickly, but this could be a side effect the saucepan, heat or stirring.

The result is delicious though not completely smooth.

Velcro Blocks

2014-09-12

Thanks to chasing cheerios for this splendid hack.

Little else needs to be said other than - awesome!

Shave Stick

2014-09-12

Following in the foot steps of many before me, the question arose of what to do with ones shaving stick?

When acquired, it comes wrapped in a simple foil wrapper. Ideally it needs some better container to save it from general usage and make more handy.

It feels like it is also in such simple packaging to make users the world over ponder just this very problem.

My initial thought was some kind of tube, large enough to hold the stick, but catch on the green plastic cap. However that was too specific and I found nothing matching that diameter.

Instead the suggestions on the forum proved far more thought out.

The shave stick is very easy to grate and then compact into the chosen container. No heat or microwave needed.

An Aldi Sun Stick worked very nicely providing the obvious retractable mechanism.

An empty glitter pot (or film canister) with a hole drilled carefully in the bottom. Insert a 2p coin to act as a moveable base.

Both approaches work well and were easy to make. The standard 50g stick was split into both containers.

Homemade Vanilla Fudge

2014-08-26

This recipe is based on the one found here, and will be updated after tasting the results.

Note: Like making jam, the boiling mixture will bubble furiously, use a large pot.

Ingredients

• oil, for greasing
• 300ml semi-skimmed milk
• 350g caster sugar
• 100g salted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Grease 18cm square baking dish to store the fudge as it sets.

Warm milk, butter and sugar in a tall pot to dissolve the sugar.

Once dissolved, bring to a rolling boil for 15-20 minutes, stirring continuously. The mixture should end up looking reduced and slightly more viscous.

Allow to cool slightly (5 minutes). Add the vanilla then beat until it becomes thick and glossy.

Pour into the greased dish and allow to cool completely, do not cool in the fridge.

Chop into cubes and enjoy.

Fudge Failures

2014-09-11

In an attempt to make some fudge this evening I discovered two important lessons about working with sugar.

The first was about temperature. When sugar is heated to various temperature our changes state when it cools. in the case of fudge 115C is needed to produce the Soft Ball stage.

The second is the complicated question of chocolate. Adding chocolate to hot fudge appeared to make it seize, but it may have also been a side effect of too high a temperature when cooking the fudge.

Either way, over cooked fudge looks like this...

Admittedly I kept stirring it to get it to this consistency.

So in conclusion I should get myself a sugar thermometer.

Doom Bar (clone)

16-06-2014

This recipe is a clone of a beer that is famous in Bristol and the South West, Sharp's Doom Bar. There are a number of clones of this recipe, the one on Brewtoad I liked the look of is titled How Now Brown Cow?.

The recipe is a simple combination of malts and hops. Brewing it was a delight of solid hoppy smells.

The 1 gallon converted recipe is as follows:

Marris Otter (Pale Malt) - 668g

Caramal Malt - 48g

Roasted Barley - 36g

1/2 Ale Yeast (Safale-S04)

This brew like all non-cloudy ales calls for protofloc (1/4 tablet) which always looks interesting.

Looking forward to bottling this one.

American Wheat Beer (with Orange)

13-05-2014

This recipe was based around the ingredients we had left over from other brews and what I could find on Brewtoad. In this case I found American Style Spiced Wheat which fitted what we had left over.

The recipe I ended up with was:

Wheat Malt - 577g

Honey - 165g

Caramel Malt - 41g

Pale Wheat Malt - 21g

Zest of 1 Orange

1/2 Wheat Yeast sachet

The brew is using honey to provide the extra sugar. On brewing this I thought it was a little on the weak side so I did a little extra sparging.

31-05-2014

Racked it to secondary. There isn't as much of the brew as I would like so added 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to the demijohn to get a little extra C02 to push any air out. Swirling the brew around also appeared to have the same effect. In hindsight, the extra ferment (albeit slight) was not necessary and only served to leave a tiny amount of sediment floating in the brew.

16-06-2014

Bottled into 9 275/330ml bottles. From a brief sample I managed to try it was a very promising taste. Strongly orange, wheat beer flavours. A slightly stronger than usual alcoholic punch as well.

Homemade Chilli Sauce

31-04-2014

This recipe is based off The Hot Sauce Addiction recipe. It is surprisingly simple to follow and is very enjoyable. I made a minor addition of the cinamon and nutmeg to see how that worked out.

Ingredients

400g Canned Tomatoes

5-6 chillis

175ml Cider vinegar

2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Coriander

4 large Brown Onions

1 tbsp Brown Sugar

6 Cloves Garlic

1/2 tsp cinamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Instead of boiling for an hour, I boiled for half the time. Taste is excellent, with a range of flavours and a medium warmth that will make any sandwich more enjoyable.

Let’s Make Fermented Blackberry Soda!

Original Article: andhereweare

Fermented fruit sodas are so fun to make, simple, and delicious. I am working through my freezer right now– it needs to be defrosted, so I am using up the remaining bounty from last summer’s foraging walks. The blackberries we gathered have a lot of flavor, but are really not very sweet– so turning them into fermented blackberry soda is a great option. You can use this method for any fruit, really, and it’s very similar to my method for making fermented rhubarb & honey soda.

How to Make Fermented Blackberry Soda This method is very adaptable. There is a reason I don’t give exact measurements– you don’t need them! But I will offer some guiding principles.

How to Make Fermented Blackberry Soda

What You’ll Need:

Blackberries– either fresh or frozen (I used about 5 cups)

Raw, local honey (or at least raw– you can order it here if you need to) or sugar– brown or sucanat would be nice

Some kind of culture– you can use sauerkraut juice or whey from strained yogurt– you only need a tablespoon or two

a demijohn, an airlock, a funnel and swing-top bottles.

What to Do:

Put the blackberries into a pot, and cover with water. I used about a liter of water. Bring to a simmer.

Simmer for about 30 minutes over low heat, then cool. I have left mine overnight before, but you don’t need to.

Strain out the blackberries. To extract more flavor, you can blend them up first– it will just take longer to strain.

Add the honey or sugar and stir until dissolved. I used about 3/4 cup, which made it very, very sweet. Keep in mind that the sugars will be digested to create the fizz, so you do want to start with it much sweeter than you would like the soda to be. You can also just save this as blackberry syrup! This is a nice way to make another batch later– you can freeze, then dilute when you want to make another batch, quickly. Dilute the syrup with water to get a good juice flavor and consistency.

Pour the “juice” into a sterilized or very clean demijohn, pour in your whey or sauerkraut juice and add your airlock. (I have a small swing-top container that I used for making a smaller batch than usual. An airlock fits in the top. Some people have had success with putting a balloon over the top of the demijohn with a pin hole in the top to mimick an airlock. Worth a try in a pinch!

Let it sit for about three days, and taste it. Mine fermented pretty quickly, but there are some variables– the temperature of the room, the strength of the culture you used, etc. Taste it and let it ferment until it’s only a little sweeter than you would like it to be.

Pour it into your swing-top bottles, and store in the fridge. (The type of bottle is important, as they allow the ferment to give off some small amounts of Co2 and won’t explode.) You could leave them out at room temperature if you’d like to drink them sooner, but I usually pop them into the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. You will want to drink them within a few weeks, or risk losing most of your Blackberry Soda to the “geyser effect.” With this batch, I popped into the fridge as soon as I bottled it. If you’re storing it for a while, I’d just check in now and then to see what kind of pressure is building up. Your beverage will get drier, more tart and fizzier the longer you wait. It will eventually develop more of an alcohol content, too, so you might want to taste it before giving it to your kids if you’ve been storing it for a while!

Enjoy!

You may find some pulp in the top of your fermentation vessel– you can scoop this off, or just ignore it.

We stored ours in the fridge right after bottling, and when I opened our last one four weeks later, it was not too fizzy or over-fermented.

In the warmer months, I like to keep fermented sodas on hand. It’s a nice treat in the afternoon, and something to offer Amelia when we’re enjoying our home-brewed beers and wines. They are so refreshing, and I can’t get over the fun of creating really fizzy drinks through some simple kitchen chemistry. To take things one step further, you could also try making wild blackberry cider.

Homemade Cadbury Creme Eggs

Instructables: Homemade Creme Eggs

I've been wanting to make my own Easter eggs for a long time. This article gave me the inspiration to give it a go.

The sequence was surprisingly simple, and the results were very tasty though due to the size and richness; one is quite enough.

Melt Chocolate

When melting chocolate, finding an arrangement that works well can be tricky. In particular, allowing water to come into contact with the chocolate will cause it to sieze (don't throw it away, just let it cool and eat it - tasty mistake).

This is my preferred arrangement. A large bowl on top of a small saucepan.

Brush Egg Moulds

The concept for the shell is very simple. Layers of chocolate are built up to form a suitably thick layer. For this using the freezer to set the chocolate quickly worked very well. 350g of milk chocolate gave me 4 layers. 5 or 6 layers would be closer to optimum for a thick shell.

This time round I opted for cleaning up the edges of the shells once I had finished the process. Scrape off the excess chocolate as you are brushing it in would save time.

Make Fondant

The fondant recipe is very simple as shown in the article, however it is quite dense and handles like dough. I would adjust it to something slightly runnier:

58g Butter

170g Golden Syrup

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

200g Icing Sugar (instead of 375g)

This might be more runny and perhaps closer to the Cadbury's Creme Egg.

Join and Seal

The final step requires quickly painting chocolate around the edges of the filled halves, and then sealing another half on top. The neatness of the egg shell halves will determine how well they fit together.

Enjoy!

Easy Orange Mead

Whilst watching a Skyrim video, they made one too many references to mead...

Overview

Followed the standard Easy Orange Mead recipe.

I have attempted to follow the recipe in metric and with what I could get from my local supermarket and I am hoping that there will be something drinkable by September or December.

Conversion

The biggest issue was that I could not get a large 1 gallon bottle of water (1 us gallon is 3.79 liters). So instead I opted to divide the recipe into four and use four 1.5 liter bottles only filling each up to 1 liter. Each bottle would then be over by 55ml which should be ok.

Converting 3lbs of honey to metric we get 1360 grams. Dividing this into four is 340 grams which is exactly the weight of 1 jar of basic honey. That is rather handy.

07th June 2012

• Warmed 4 jars of honey by putting them into warm water for 20 mins.
• Washed and sanitised everything that was to come into contact with the mead.
• Sliced orange into quarters and then halves to fit into the bottles.
• Measured 10 raisins per bottle.
• 4cm cinnamon stick divided into four.
• 1 bakers yeast packet contents divided into four. I poured evenly onto 4 teaspoons.
• Measured 1l in each bottle, added honey, raisins, orange cinnamon. Used a measuring jug to pour carefully into each bottle.
• Shook each bottle for 5 minutes.
• Added yeast.
• Another quick shake.
• Attached balloons and secured with string.
• Completed at 2230.

08th June 2012

The yeast in each bottle started over night and a foam appeared on all four.

One observations was that by dividing the batch into four, there would be less gas released by each bottle. Two of the ballons did not inflate because I had put more than one hole in them.

Those ballons have been replaced and new faces drawn.

This evening 24 hours after starting the process the fermemt seems to be picking up. Listening carefully you can hear it bubbling.

27th June 2012

With fermentation slowing it was time to rack the mead into a demijohn that I had since acquired. I devised this racking technique which worked very well.

Racked mead and tasting:

Mead is a cloudy orange fluid. It smelled very strongly of orange and tasted like a strong dry cider. However on subsequent tasting there were more complex flavours including a zingyness which might have been the cinnamon. At the end of the glass was a more mellow deeper flavour which more closely reminded me of mead.

In the demijohn, tiny bubbles are still rising and the airlock is popping once every few minutes.

10th July 2012

The mead is still ticking over nicely. Tiny bubbles are rising and it looks considerably clearer now than before. A torch beam is visible when shone through the demijohn.

24th July 2012

The mead has been clearing nicely and now I think it has cleared completely so is ready for batch sweetening and bottling which I will attempt to work on this week.

26th July 2012

Racked the mead and tasted it at the same time.

Mead 0.994. Still tasted strong and the orange flavour was less prominent. There was a tangy taste and a bitter aftertaste. Sweetening with honey corrected the bitterness. Overall a nicer taste, with the honey giving it a depth of flavour and more pleasant feel. Still a bit tangy afterwards though which I guess will settle with age.

09th August 2012

The mead is clearing out nicely so I thought I would get things ready for bottling. Firstly, I wanted to sweeten the mead.

In this case I added 267g of blended honey to water, heated the solution to mix the honey and added this to the mead. I did this in stages adding progressively more honey until I got to the right sweetness.

Obviously if you are mixing the honey with the mead this will stir up the mead, so I will need to give it another week to settle down again before final bottling.

05th September 2012

Got a chance to bottle the mead whilst I was working on the Blackberry mead. Bottled using wine bottles and a hand corker. I aimed to fill 3 wine bottles and a number of 'single serving' beer bottles.

The mead is mellowing out nicely now, a good depth of flavour and a orange finish. I would serve it chilled as it is quite a strong flavour which might not be appropriate.

Easy Hygienic Auto Siphon

I was searching for a low cost way of siphoning my homebrew. The other main requirement was that the approach had to be hygienic.

This is the easiest way I found to siphon with only the minimum of equipment. Thanks to this video for the idea.

Notes

This technique only works on vessels that you can create an air tight (ish) seal on. Bottles, demijohns and similar narrow topped containers are ideal.

As with all siphons, the fluid to be siphoned has to be above the container you want to siphon into.

Steps

You will need the following:

• One long tube which will be your siphon tube. I used a brewing racking cane and siphon hose.
• A short tube (5cm will do). Use any tube like material you have to hand. Cable sleeve or party straw would do fine.

Place the two tubes, so the main tube reaches the bottom of the vessel to be siphoned. The short tube is held at the top.

Grasp the top with you hand doing the best you can to create an air tight seal. Pressing down on the container will help.

An alternative is to use something like blutak or any putty like material to create a seal.

Blow into the short tube. If the seal is good enough then it will force the fluid up the main tube.

Once enough fluid has been siphoned, gravity will take over.

Blackberry Mead

28th June 2012

Started the mead base. Will collect blackberrys when they ripen in a few weeks time.

• 1360 grams honey
• 25 raisins
• 2 teaspoons baking yeast (Alison's Easy Bake Yeast)
• 4ish liters of spring water

Lesson learned: It is better to work slowly, jar by jar rather than rush getting the honey into the demijohn as doing so made a bit of a mess.

29th June 2012

Fermenting with vigor. Audible fizz and the air lock is popping every few seconds.

29 July 2012

Waited for the blackberries to become ripe. The first of them now are so I took the chance to collect some and prepare them for the mead.

In this case I froze 236g of Blackberries and then placed them in a clean demijohn and racked the mead onto them. Stabilised the mead at the same time to prevent any infection from the blackberries and to start the clearing process.

Later on that evening I checked on the mead. It has started to take on the Blackberry colour and strangely a substance has collected around the blackberries that are floating at the top.

Giving the demijohn a slight shake it drops to the bottom so I suspect it is yeast from the mead that has attracted to the blackberries. Like some sort of fining effect.

07th August 2012

The berries have been in the mead now for 11 days now so I thought I would sample the flavour and take a gravity reading. It has really taken on a nice colour from the berries.

Final Gravity: 0.996

The blackberry flavour is very good, not too strong and not to subtle. Feels about right. The mead is strong, but thats not a bad thing and with some honey to sweeten I think will be just right.

I used a 50ml sample to determine how much sweetnes to add. At around 3g-4g it was just right. So scaling that up we have apx 360g for 4500ml which is about a small jar of honey. I figure the same level of sweetness can be applied to the orange mead.

So next task will be to rack of the berries and batch sweeten the mead.

14th August 2012

Racked the mead onto a total of 343g of blended honey which brought it up to the right sweetness. It is quite a lot of honey but it is required of offset the bitterness that i think the baking yeast has introduced.

20th August 2012

He mead has been clearing nicely now for a while and I decided to get the bottling started. There was a fair bit of Lees at the bottom of the demijohn which I didn't want hanging around too long either.

Bottling into a mix of 1L swing tops and some clear beer bottles. The mead is very clear and looks very tasty!

The bottling was a little tricky because the Lees were very easy to stir up. I feel like I need to create some sort of cap that holds the siphon tube in place so I can operate the other end with two hands (one to turn the value, the other to aim).

Still, the result is worth it.

Turbo Cider

Quite excited about brewing in general has lead me to have a go at something which will be ready to drink a little sooner...

07th July 2012

Ingredients

• 5L 100% Pressed Apple Juice (Aldi Rio Dora)
• 150g Dark Sugar
• 2 tsp Allspice
• Black tea (2 tea bags steeped for 10 mins)
• Bakers yeast - 1 teaspoons

Preparation

• Brewed tea for 10 mins
• Heated a small amount of juice to dissolve sugar and spices.
• Added solution to container with juice to make 4.5L total
• Measured original gravity 1.054
• Shook for 5 mins to aerate
• Setup blow-off tube, seal and secondary vessel
• Pitched yeast

Due to limited fermenting equipment I am brewing this in a 5l water bottle. I have constructed an airlock from siphon tubing and a bottle with water in it. This will act as an overflow if this really takes off!

All indications from other peoples attempts are that this should come out at about 6-7% ABV. Tasting the sample used for measuring the OG, it was just about the right mix of flavors.

08th June 2012

I was initially concerned that the yeast was very slow to start, as I had only pitched half the normal amount. This was because it was clear from other recipes I was over-pitching my yeast.

However fermentation started and there is a good foam building. The ad hoc airlock/blow off tubing is working fine and the headroom is proving sufficient.

Now we wait...

10th July 2012

Interestingly the brew has lost all its foam, which was looking quite unsightly and was causing mild panic. Plenty of activity, and since covering it with a blanket, it has picked up nicely.

15th July 2012

Fermentation appears to have slowed and there is a lot less activity.

26th July 2012

Racked the cider to a new demijohn, and measured the specific gravity and tasted.

Specific Gravity 1.000. Tasted like cider (which is reassuruing). Could taste the dark sugar and spices. Definite fizziness with a surprisingly bitter aftertaste. Mixing the sample with sugar corrected that bitterness.

28th July 2012

Stabilised the Cider in preparation for sweetening with sugar later in the week.

31st July 2012

Sweetened with some sugar and another litre of apple juice to bring it up to a nice rounded flavour. I suspect because of the baking yeast it had developed a bitter flavour.

The bottling went rather well with 16 284ml bottles capped. Used my grandfathers hand bottle capper which was effective but noisey and not suitable for evening brewing once baby is asleep.

03rd August 2012

Now onto labelling the bottles. As my first attempt at labelling it was a very interesting design exercise, with the most promising label as this one.

Sadly my printer wasn't up to the task and so I'll use a laser jet next time round. Still, the cider is labelled and looks more presentable.

I'm happy to call that one done.