Official Alcohol Discussion Thread!

[DaMexiRican]

Can we get a sticky for this?

What do ya'll prefer to drink? Beer, Wine, Hard Liquor, Wine Coolers? All of them?

I only drink Beer and Hard Liquor. Mint Mojito is about the only thing close to a wine cooler I'll drink though LOL

 

[splax23]

That Nosferatu is pretty good


Man you get all the good brew ha has.


Life = fail for me

Im just happy i found a store that has an excellent selection. And my beer guy always hooks me up. next week he told me they are getting Bell's Oracle. You remember that Hopslam i gave you? This stuff is a new DIPA and clocks in at 120IBUs. Im kinda excited but they most likely will only sell me 2 bottles cuz of the limited availability. ill let you know more

 

[Illiciter]

Im just happy i found a store that has an excellent selection. And my beer guy always hooks me up. next week he told me they are getting Bell's Oracle. You remember that Hopslam i gave you? This stuff is a new DIPA and clocks in at 120IBUs. Im kinda excited but they most likely will only sell me 2 bottles cuz of the limited availability. ill let you know more

Wow... I think that's about as much hops as one can take. You'll be crapping pine cones!


I just ordered 4lbs of hops for $52 from hopsdirect.com - you can bet I'll be getting a little hoppy on a couple brews. Know any cheap online shops for DME?

 

[splax23]

Wow... I think that's about as much hops as one can take. You'll be crapping pine cones!


I just ordered 4lbs of hops for $52 from hopsdirect.com - you can bet I'll be getting a little hoppy on a couple brews. Know any cheap online shops for DME?

Negative. Anything i get is from my cousins homebrew shop

 

[Illiciter]

Negative. Anything i get is from my cousins homebrew shop

Does your cousin hook you up?

3lbs goes for $17.95 here

 

[splax23]

i dont remember how much. i get a 10% discount tho

 

[splax23]

WOO HOO!!! finally I have found some Founder's Backwoods Bastard!!!! Bourbon Barrel aged Scotch Ale. I asked my back up beer guy when it comes out, cuz its only brewed once a year in limited quantities. He said he had some of last years batch just aging. I cant wait to drink it for the first time.

UPDATE: it was just amazing. you definitely got the bourbon taste but it wasnt over powering. now i am drinking Southern Tier Creme Brulee stout. second beer i have had from them and they were both really good. First thing you taste butterscotch. i love it.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Hey Splax and Alpha,

Have you guys ever tried to make wine, mead, or port? I was thinking of a barleywine, but if I'm going that far, I might as well go for a port. The supplier I get stuff from sometimes has a limited edition orange-chocolate port going on sale and I think it sounds delicious. I'm just trying to figure out how much additional equipment I'll need....

 

[splax23]

I never done a mead, wine, or port. not a big fan yet. I have done a BW tho. Its currently aging and should be ready in Feb

 

[Illiciter]

time and patience is the equipment you'll need.


Mead is way easier since it's based on the simple honey + water + yeast + years = good basic mead. I recommend blending in fruit juices at various stages to ferment with the mead and give it some fruity character... One guy used 25lbs of strawberries to make his strawberry mead, but the resulting syrup was downright sinful and intoxicating (literally).

Port you're talking about timing fermentation just right to leave enough sugar for sweetness. It's process is very similar to wine it's just timing when to kill the yeast off.

Wine is "easier" than beer in that you don't have to boil anything. You literally are taking fruit juice and fermenting it's natural sugars. You do have to worry about oxidation and macerating the must to produce better quality wines, but I'll be honest with you I've used wine yeast and fruit juice to create ciders that taste like a good fruit wine. The key to fancy wine like you find in stores is the grapes. You just can't use any grapes you have to use wine grapes with specific flavor characteristics that make good wine. You can just take some Welch's white grape juice concentrate, add water, then pitch some wine yeast on it and wait, but it won't taste like you'd expect.


Barleywine is a straight forward formula. Lots of malt, lots of hops. I'd say minimum 9lbs of dried malt extract, and I'd use minimum 4 ounces of hops with your bittering charge of 1.5 ounces at the beginning and then .5 ounce of flavor/bitter hops every 15 minutes after. Based on a 60 minute boil you're looking at:

0 - 1.5oz
15 - .5oz
30 - .5oz
45 - .5oz
60 - .5oz

Then I'd use the last .5 oz of aroma hops after flameout. If I were to call some hops out I'd use magnum/Galena as my bittering charge, then use a combination of Cascade and Saaz for flavor.. relying on cascade for flavor and Saaz for aroma.. so maybe 1.5oz of Galena, 1.5oz of Cascade, and then 1oz of Saaz for aroma at the end

I'm purely speculating there of course, but with that amount of malt and hops you would be looking at a pretty stable Barleywine. I'd be doing a big starter for mine and maybe push it to 12lbs of DME with 8-10oz of hops to make it a real good aging BW.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Ok, so the whole port idea is out.... too much friggin babysitting and I really don't want to wait a year either. Plus the kit is $107 for only 3 gallons. It also requires that you buy a 3 gallon carboy for fermentation, which is another $25....

I may still do the barley wine though, there's nothing better in jan/feb

 

[splax23]

well today is the day!!! THE ORACLE!!! Bell's new DIPA. I guess its only sold in single bottles for like $3.99, so im gonna try and pick up 6. So far it has an A+ on beeradvocate. Im so pumped

 

[splax23]

Ok, so the whole port idea is out.... too much friggin babysitting and I really don't want to wait a year either. Plus the kit is $107 for only 3 gallons. It also requires that you buy a 3 gallon carboy for fermentation, which is another $25....

I may still do the barley wine though, there's nothing better in jan/feb

yeah it usually takes a year to age properly

 

[Illiciter]

Ok, so the whole port idea is out.... too much friggin babysitting and I really don't want to wait a year either. Plus the kit is $107 for only 3 gallons. It also requires that you buy a 3 gallon carboy for fermentation, which is another $25....

I may still do the barley wine though, there's nothing better in jan/feb

Bah, if you're going to get a carboy just get one of those 6 gallon plastic Better Bottles for like $33 bucks or so... That way you can do more than 3 gallon batches whenever you want

I'm not surprised by the price for the ingrediants though.. unless you are growing them yourself they have to import that in and a lot of the work has been done for you.

Barleywines are pretty tough to screw up because they are so heavy and so hopped that it will mask a lot of little off flavors. Just make sure you clean, clean, clean, and sanitize well and you'll come out with something tastey.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Bah, if you're going to get a carboy just get one of those 6 gallon plastic Better Bottles for like $33 bucks or so... That way you can do more than 3 gallon batches whenever you want

I already have two glass carboys, one 5 gallon and one 6. But that port recipe called for a 3 gallon because that is the batch size... I looked at a bunch of their other wine kits at about $100 and most of them were 6 gallons so this one was ridiculous, who cares if it was limited edition

Looking hard at the barley wine now. I want one with a nice amber/purple-ish color and tons of hops. It's between that and an imperial oatmeal stout that I made a couple years ago, I remember it being fantastic

 

[Illiciter]

I got scared of the glass carboys after I read all the horror stories of them shattering. I have a 6 gallon one but I use it only if I have to and I got a brew hauler strap to carry it with.. I HATE cleaning it because that's how all the horror stories start. I use PBW and I leave it in there for days to make sure it's 100% clean before I rinse


I have yet to have an issue with a better bottle, but I guess the downside is you have to use PBW to clean it since you can't scrub, but oh well, I'd be doing that with glass ones anyways.

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

Oh man, I love my glass ones. I have the brew hauler too, that thing is a must when the carboy is full.

When you say you've heard stories about them shattering, is that from a drop or from somebody pouring hot wort in there?

 

[Illiciter]

Oh man, I love my glass ones. I have the brew hauler too, that thing is a must when the carboy is full.

When you say you've heard stories about them shattering, is that from a drop or from somebody pouring hot wort in there?

Either dropping them, or accidentally bumping them against something while washing them. In some cases it didn't even take much as there were slivers that formed around the neck of the bottle and then while washing just grabbing the top of the carboy broke it.

Here's some from people I don't know, but they are similar to the ones I've heard from the brew club from some who have had unfortunate accidents:

Broken Carboys

 

[MacDaddyOJack]

holy crow... every single person who cut their hand on a carboy ended up cutting through tedons and/or nerves and had to have surgery. That's some serious **** right there.... I would be so unbelieveably grumpy if I couldn't get to the gym for 6-8 weeks!

I'm using my brew hauler any time I move those things from now on

 

[Illiciter]

holy crow... every single person who cut their hand on a carboy ended up cutting through tedons and/or nerves and had to have surgery. That's some serious **** right there.... I would be so unbelieveably grumpy if I couldn't get to the gym for 6-8 weeks!

I'm using my brew hauler any time I move those things from now on

Yeah, I totally switched to Better Bottles.. thinking about converting my glass one to a decorative piece and retiring it just because I cringe every time I reach for it... it's like my last result fermenter when I forget I got all my better bottles loaded with fermenting yumminess.

Truly the greatest site a brewer gets is seeing all his kegs and fermenters full. :tear:

 

[splax23]

Southern tier is now one of my favorite breweries. I've had pumking, mokah, jahva, and creme brule. All fantastic!!!!