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Well, Im bored as hell on a rainy day, and working on an early buzz, so here ya go...
For the first timer who wants to give homebrewing a shot with stuff laying around the house. And, with minimal investment to start. Will probably move to beer forum later.
If you experienced brewers that want to point out the million ways to improve this feel free, but again, trying to keep very simple and.not too long.
What you will need:
2 1 gallon jugs
balloons (12" is good)
Needle
Yeast
Sugar
1-4 cans frozen juice concentrate (white grape works great, apple too. Any flavor really)
Plastic straw
Lighter
Small nails ( or 1" pieces of solder, wire, etc)
Sharpie
Push needle through balloon, so it makes 2 tiny holes. Set aside.
Cut straw to ~5". Use lighter to gently melt one end sealed. Water proof is the goal. Get a glass of your source water and add nails (or metal weights of choice) into straw until straw floats straight up and down in water (~ 2/3 submerged is good). Make sure weights go to bottom so straw doesnt lean. Mark this waterline on straw. Set aside in clean dish and dont spill weights
.
Time for a little math
...and some rough approximations.
1 kg sugar = 2.2# ~ 5 cups. This is about the max of sugar you'll want to use here. This has a potential alchohol content of 15% . Potential alcohol means the % of alcohol when your batchs specific gravity reaches the same as your water source. It can go further, but back to task. Lets shoot for 0.8 kg sugar/4 C sugar. Thats about 12% potential alcohol. What ever juice you choose just look up the g/serving of sugar ( say 40g) and multiply by servings per container (say 6). For an example 40x6=240. If using 2 cans thats 2x240= 480. Subtract that from the 0.8 kg sugar youre shootin for, 800g-480g=320g. Thats how much sugar to add. Using the approximation up top (~0.2 kg/cup) thats roughly 1 3/4 cups.
once you figure out how much granulated sugar to add, boil 2 pots of water to finish with ~1 gal combined. Add sugar to one pot of boiling water and dissolve. Set both pots aside to cool. Add thawed juice concentrate to sugar water, pour out water from other pot ( no sugar content) into coffee cup. Set rest of the boiled water aside to top off gallon jug later. Add 1.5ish tsp of yeast to cup of water and let sit ~15 minutes (the amount of yeast to use can vary, keeping it simple here, and hopefully as short as possible).
When sugar/juice water is room temp grab that straw (your about to be homemade hydrometer ) and float in sugar water. Mark this water level with sharpie. Rinse off and put in a safe place.
Pour sugar water in 1 gal jug, add yeast/water mix from cup. Shake a little. Top of with plain water from other pot. If using cleaned out milk jug only fill to top shoulder, because the more surface area the better, with compromise.
Place balloon on top of jug to seal and place in cool, dark area.
It SHOULD take anywhere from 5-14 days to "finish", depending on your storage temps. Thats where your handy straw comes in. when it floats back to the first line its done(~12% alcohol) You can push it further, but dont worry about that now. Decant in another container, leaving cake at the bottom of original jug behind, and chill to quickly refine clarity or chug away. Bottling the stuff is another topic.
Pointers:
Sanitize all equipment (boil/diluted bleach/microwave etc.)
Make sure no air leaks/balloon inflated.
Use common sense. If it smells putrid, dont drink it.
You want to shoot for at least 10% ac when fermenting with fruit. This is the preservative point.
The warmer you ferment the quicker the process, also the more punchy yeast flavor you will get. Not really desireable. Too cool and it could take over a month to finish, but the flavor seems more refined and decreased chance of spoilage (pretty rare if sealed and handled properly any way).
72-75 degrees seems to work best for me for fruit fermentations.
If you.want to make some top notch.shit, do more research. This is an extremely basic intro to a super cheap way to see if this might be a hobby for you.
Experiment with whatever flavor you want. I do a lot of fresh fruit ferments for gatherings. People love the shit.
Yes, you could just buy a bottle of booze and mix with juice. But, what fun is that. Plus, the flavor is completely different, and I prefer to strip out as much sugar out as possible.
Probly made a shit ton of mistakes and omissions. Ill fix as noticed.
For the first timer who wants to give homebrewing a shot with stuff laying around the house. And, with minimal investment to start. Will probably move to beer forum later.
If you experienced brewers that want to point out the million ways to improve this feel free, but again, trying to keep very simple and.not too long.
What you will need:
2 1 gallon jugs
balloons (12" is good)
Needle
Yeast
Sugar
1-4 cans frozen juice concentrate (white grape works great, apple too. Any flavor really)
Plastic straw
Lighter
Small nails ( or 1" pieces of solder, wire, etc)
Sharpie
Push needle through balloon, so it makes 2 tiny holes. Set aside.
Cut straw to ~5". Use lighter to gently melt one end sealed. Water proof is the goal. Get a glass of your source water and add nails (or metal weights of choice) into straw until straw floats straight up and down in water (~ 2/3 submerged is good). Make sure weights go to bottom so straw doesnt lean. Mark this waterline on straw. Set aside in clean dish and dont spill weights
.Time for a little math
...and some rough approximations.1 kg sugar = 2.2# ~ 5 cups. This is about the max of sugar you'll want to use here. This has a potential alchohol content of 15% . Potential alcohol means the % of alcohol when your batchs specific gravity reaches the same as your water source. It can go further, but back to task. Lets shoot for 0.8 kg sugar/4 C sugar. Thats about 12% potential alcohol. What ever juice you choose just look up the g/serving of sugar ( say 40g) and multiply by servings per container (say 6). For an example 40x6=240. If using 2 cans thats 2x240= 480. Subtract that from the 0.8 kg sugar youre shootin for, 800g-480g=320g. Thats how much sugar to add. Using the approximation up top (~0.2 kg/cup) thats roughly 1 3/4 cups.
once you figure out how much granulated sugar to add, boil 2 pots of water to finish with ~1 gal combined. Add sugar to one pot of boiling water and dissolve. Set both pots aside to cool. Add thawed juice concentrate to sugar water, pour out water from other pot ( no sugar content) into coffee cup. Set rest of the boiled water aside to top off gallon jug later. Add 1.5ish tsp of yeast to cup of water and let sit ~15 minutes (the amount of yeast to use can vary, keeping it simple here, and hopefully as short as possible).
When sugar/juice water is room temp grab that straw (your about to be homemade hydrometer
) and float in sugar water. Mark this water level with sharpie. Rinse off and put in a safe place. Pour sugar water in 1 gal jug, add yeast/water mix from cup. Shake a little. Top of with plain water from other pot. If using cleaned out milk jug only fill to top shoulder, because the more surface area the better, with compromise.
Place balloon on top of jug to seal and place in cool, dark area.
It SHOULD take anywhere from 5-14 days to "finish", depending on your storage temps. Thats where your handy straw comes in. when it floats back to the first line its done(~12% alcohol) You can push it further, but dont worry about that now. Decant in another container, leaving cake at the bottom of original jug behind, and chill to quickly refine clarity or chug away. Bottling the stuff is another topic.
Pointers:
Sanitize all equipment (boil/diluted bleach/microwave etc.)
Make sure no air leaks/balloon inflated.
Use common sense. If it smells putrid, dont drink it.
You want to shoot for at least 10% ac when fermenting with fruit. This is the preservative point.
The warmer you ferment the quicker the process, also the more punchy yeast flavor you will get. Not really desireable. Too cool and it could take over a month to finish, but the flavor seems more refined and decreased chance of spoilage (pretty rare if sealed and handled properly any way).
72-75 degrees seems to work best for me for fruit fermentations.
If you.want to make some top notch.shit, do more research. This is an extremely basic intro to a super cheap way to see if this might be a hobby for you.
Experiment with whatever flavor you want. I do a lot of fresh fruit ferments for gatherings. People love the shit.
Yes, you could just buy a bottle of booze and mix with juice. But, what fun is that. Plus, the flavor is completely different, and I prefer to strip out as much sugar out as possible.
Probly made a shit ton of mistakes and omissions. Ill fix as noticed.
