Homemade alcoholic beverages thread

[fcgamer | 4,754]

I remember from NA some people used to homebrew beer, make wine, etc. This is the thread for that.

After a long hiatus, I decided to get back into this, in part because I discovered a homebrew supply store semi locally. Sadly, the shop is only opened through the week and is about 45 minutes away from me, so I need to bother my friend to pick things up for me but... Well, she can enjoy some of the product when it's finished

 

[fcgamer | 4,754]

Yesterday I started some dragon fruit wine. I made some last year as well, and still have one bottle left from the previous batch.

Dragon Fruit are cheap here at the moment, it's an excellent choice for wine making, and tastes good too.

Edit: for reference it was about $6 for all those dragon fruits.

Edited July 17, 2020 by fcgamer

[drxandy | 3,236]

I used to be into home brewing beer and still have a lot of gear, but it's so hard to do in an apartment for me. It's a natural extension of cooking and so much fun to play with flavors.

That dragon fruit wine has such a beautiful color!!

I am really considering doing cider this year as Michigan has apples galore in the fall, and it's pretty easy to get large quantities of delicious unpasteurized cider from the orchard. Cider ferments super easy from the natural yeast on the skins and will ferment out around 5% ABV, which can be boosted if desired with higher alc tolerant yeasts like wine/champagne.

[fcgamer | 4,754]

@drxandy Yeah I'm just in an apartment too, I really had to do a lot if straightening out before I could get a (semi) decent set-up.

I really enjoy cider, but apples here are not very good. Actually a lot of the ciders here are too sweet as well, I miss all the delicious dry ciders in PA.

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

I used to do homebrew back when I had a house. It was an awful lot of trouble just to make something you can buy for not much more money. I guess it was a bigger deal 20 years ago when retail beer selection was pretty awful.

If someone makes a general fermentation thread, I have a few cool things to share

[drxandy | 3,236]

Dood share them here @Daniel_Doyce

@fcgamer are those 1 gal wine jugs as fermenting vessels? I used to use those Carlos Rossi bad bois to split batches of beer and try different things. Made a Porter that was split into 4 jugs one ancho/chipotle chili, coffee, bourbon/vanilla and  the last regular. The pepper one was undrinkable with a growing spice that was awesome to prank people with but absolutely wonderful as a cooking ingredient (made some bomb ass chili with it) , the rest were ok but not as memorable.

[themisfit138 | 523]

I made a batch of honey mead last year. Made it with rain water, clover flowers(for natural yeast), and white oak bark(for flavouring.) It turned out pretty well. Had a bit of a sake taste. 

[Estil | 1,265]

Ooooh, is this how it's done?  When you have to make do with whatever you have?  

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Estil

[Daniel_Doyce | 477]

Assuming it's ok to turn this more into a general pickling / canning / fermentation thread, here's some kimchi i made recently:

 

[Hammerfestus | 3,890]

What sort of things does one need to get started turning stuff into booze?   This sounds right up my alley but I don’t know where to start