>>2959721 Its been 2 weeks since bottling, and I don't think I can wait another two like I planned.
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Anonymous12/06/25(Sat)19:30:12
I'm going to keg my beer for the first time this month, is there any benefit to keg conditioning with priming sugar vs just force carbing it? How long do you usually force carb a keg?
I make moonshine, corn liquor in my house. I have a 5 gallon still. When everything goes well I produce about 1 liter of 110 Pf in a week. Things rarely go that well. I don’t really drink anymore, I give it away to friends and family and have a swig with them when they come by to refill their jug. I use corn, sugar yeast and water. I’ve been thinking about trying whisky but haven’t worked up the gumption yet to try a batch or two.
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Anonymous12/07/25(Sun)06:11:13
>>2962834 It's something I've always wanted to try but what are some cool ways to really really make sure you don't go blind? I get paid to look at things so it'd be the end of me.
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Anonymous12/07/25(Sun)12:23:35
>>2962846 methanol is vastly overhyped. dont ferment wood or anything with too much pectin (blackberries are really the only things to worry about) the reason people went blind in the prohibition days is because they mixed their moonshine with industrial alcohol that contained methanol, the shine didnt have any before it was added. also methanol poisoning only became a meme during prohibition, you would struggle to find a case where alcohol made someone literally blind (they used "blind" metaphorically, for example when you hook up with a 4 you were "blind" in that moment) in the several thousand years prior. tldr make sure you dont ferment wood and dont accidently add any methanol and youll be fine
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Anonymous12/07/25(Sun)12:27:42
>>2962891 You're a good man. I'm getting a still in the new year. It's funny I drink potin and tapetusa and the fellers that made that are a lot less cautious than me.
I ended up going with option 2, jack on top. It seemed like that was overwhelmingly the most common based off pictures on the internet. I found a few instances of option 3 (jack on bottom) and none of option 1 (jack to the side). It worked great, I got a gallon and a half from maybe 3 gallons of honeycrisp. I put the apples in whole but they had frozen on the tree so they were pretty soft.
I used the stainless steel steamer pot not a plastic bucket as anon had suggested. I guess buckets must work fine as I saw a lot of that on the internet but I was worried it would crack from the pressure. I used 2x6 instead of 2x4 like I had planned, and I'm glad I did since it was making some kinda scary creaking noises.
>>2962927 Thought you were supposed to crush apples before pressing them, maybe it doesn't matter for small batches/small apples
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Anonymous12/07/25(Sun)16:32:11
>>2962941 You are supposed to grind them into smaller chunks, but I don't have a grinder. Maybe that'll be next year's project. Freezing does a lot of the same thing though, since it sort of crushes them from the inside out. I don't think I would've got much more by breaking them up, they were really dry and light when they came out.
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Anonymous12/07/25(Sun)22:42:11
>>2962834 My last batch was a decent rye. Mash was 90% rye, about a fifth of that was double peated. Remainder was a barley oat mix. Had been planning to make more to fill a small barrel but my still self destructed. Ended up mixing it with a batch of vodka and aging for 6 months in oak. It's kind of bland for a sipping rye but is a decent mixer. Something that worked well was switching to that chinese angel yeast. Has a koji mold mixed with the yeast so no need for complex mashing. Can just pitch it straight into the cooked grain.
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Anonymous12/10/25(Wed)11:57:12
What place am I least likely to get screwed buying small amounts of co2, does it matter if I get the stuff they power paintball guns with?
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Anonymous12/10/25(Wed)12:27:21
bump
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Anonymous12/10/25(Wed)20:24:24
>>2963711 Get a 2kg cannister to avoid getting ripped off in the long run. Those tiny cartridges are only good for tiny 2-5L kegs and soda stream cannisters cost almost as much as a normal cannister but aren't refillable, and are made by israel
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Anonymous12/11/25(Thu)04:13:20
>>2962946 I've done a test pressing thawed frozen apples whole vs grinding, grinding still substantially increases yield.
Frozen and thawed apples also yielded more juice than fresh apples, but specific gravity of the juice was the same (given the same type of apples from the same tree).
>>2962927 btw, I mentioned about a book with a DIY cider press and here it is: from a book called “Real Cidermaking on a small scale” by Pooley and Lomax.
>>2964593 I know you’ve already made it but just in case you wanted to improve it or if anyone else was interested. Although if you want to buy a press I’d recommend a stainless steel one rather than wooden.
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Anonymous12/14/25(Sun)19:00:33
>>2963896 Good to know, I will try to build one before next season. I hadn't really planned on making cider this year but then I saw all those apples still on the tree and didn't want them to go to waste. >>2964591 Thanks for posting these. Honestly pretty similar construction to what I came up with, except using a lead screw instead of jack. I had done a lot of thinking about lead screws, but it's a specialty part while bottle jacks are great because you can get them anywhere for cheap. I thought maybe I could modify a scaffold jack but that's more work and more expense. I already had the jack, and it was formerly useless because it was too tall to fit under the car I intended to use it for. Also I wanted the food contact parts to be metal so it'd be easy to clean, hence the steamer. >>2964297 Nice, did you add yeast or use the wild yeast? I was going to count on wild yeast but after a few days I still didn't see bubbles so I added champagne yeast to kick it off.
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Anonymous12/15/25(Mon)22:57:50
>>2964672 I put in a little bit of champagne yeast in there so that I could get something with a bit higher alcohol content. The wild yeast is kinda doing some stuff - I see some larger floaters and the likes.
>>2966870 I kegged a SMaSH pale ale and have some leftover Irish reds in the cellar for Christmas day.
Now that the cellar is below 15C I'm thinking of brewing a lager but only have pale ale base malt. Anyone ever done that before? Can't imagine it will impact the final beer very much besides being a bit less crisp.
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Anonymous12/25/25(Thu)06:30:01
I've never brewed anything myself, but I've always wondered how you can figure out the ABV of a home brew.
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Anonymous12/25/25(Thu)10:49:16
>>2966963 Yeast eats sugar and shits out alcohol. When you brew beer you extract sugars from malted grains and then add the yeast. Before you do the last part, you measure the liquid density of your brew with a hydrometer (you probably did this in high school chemistry class) and it tells you basically the amount of sugar in it. Then you add the yeast and after a week or two, you take the same measurement and see how much sugar has been converted to alcohol. You compare the original gravity reading with the final one and you calculate the ABV based off that. Most people use online calculators but if you brew long enough you can guesstimate the percentage based on the gravity readings and type of yeast alone.
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Anonymous12/27/25(Sat)00:11:31
>>2966963 A gas chromatograph starts at around $10k
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Anonymous12/27/25(Sat)03:11:05
>>2962625(OP) I do occasionally brew up some pumpernickel kvass. Its not particularly alcoholic, the yeast is just for carbonating it. TL;DR: A loaf of pumpernickel is toasted to hardness, slice by slice, then this is busted up into small bits. These bits are boiled in water, about 2 liters per loaf, until the water takes on the dark hue of the bread. This is then strained to remove the bread, some rasins added, and upon cooling, a bit of bakers yeast is added. This is sealed in bottles and left to ferment for a few days. A flavorful drink, being only 1 or 2 % ABV, it is rich and filling.
Did Father Christmas bring any homebrewing stuff for /hbg/ anons? >me No.
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Anonymous01/01/26(Thu)17:56:08
Keep meaning to do a strong ale/barley wine for xmas every year, especially as my nan puts Gold Label in her xmas pudding, but I never get round to it and now she's decided she will never do it again. Hoping to do one in the next month or so and give it 6 months in barrel and then another 5 in bottle, not going to make it too strong in case its a wash out. heres what I was thinking >OG 1066 >60% PA malt >15 % Imperial Malt >7.5% crystal malt >5 % dextrin malt >5% flaked maize >7.5 % invert sugar 120 minute boil >Challenger 120 min (45 ibus) >Golding 40 min (30 ibus) >EKG 15 min (15 ibus) >Challenger & Golding dry hop
>>2962663 >priming sugar vs c02 tank Finer bubbles than c02 tank. I like the finer bubbles but it leaves more of a yeast cake doing priming sugar. You can also get a c02 tank to carbonate a keg way faster.
I screwed up and ordered a beer kit with a high gravity and now I’m going to have 55 bottles of roughly 7.2% ABV beer which is nearly useless because I’ll get drunk way too fast. I didn’t want to omit any malt extract during the boil because I was afraid it would affect the flavor profile. What do? Should I water it down?
How do you remove alcohol from brews? Say I'm just doing basic ass cider in a jug, is the left over from freeze distilling going to taste nice? I just want non alcoholic cider that has tang unlike sparkling apple juice
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Anonymous01/13/26(Tue)12:31:29
My fermentation jar got contaminated or is leaking air somewhere and I lost about 12 liters of wine, alcohol is still there but it tastes like shit, anything I can do with it except pouring it down the drain?
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Anonymous01/14/26(Wed)09:06:20
>>2970587 Depends on how far through fermentation it is, if there is still a high amount of body left then just re-vat it and let it ferment.
Also there is no definite reason to suppose you would hit the target OG if you are a starter, you might end up with lower efficiency; although usually a kit like this would probably assume you aren’t going to have a very high efficiency as a beginner.
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Anonymous01/14/26(Wed)16:25:36
>>2970587 Depends on what happened. We'll need more details to help you. This is also important if you intend to reuse any equipment involved.
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Anonymous01/14/26(Wed)17:27:26
>>2970770 >>2970818 It was a classic grape wine, over 20 liters of it after fermentation was done. I made it over a year ago from my own grapes, every few months I would drain some of it for drinking and move it into a smaller jar when possible. It tasted ok ever time until now when it's undrinkable, I think I might have failed to tighten it properly after last time and it was breathing air but I'm not sure. I think contamination is unlikely as I always clean my jars with potassium metabisulfite and citric acid before pouring anything into them. I don't think I can salvage it in any way so I'm thinking about just dumping it down the drain but maybe there is something I could still use it for I don't know about.
>>2970832 Can I make decent quality vinegar this way? I have hear I could do this but I assumed it would be inferior to off the shelf vinegar and smell really bad I guess I could give it a shoot, not like I'll use it for anything else, do I just leave it open and let bacteria do their thing?
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Anonymous01/15/26(Thu)20:21:55
>>2970863 Should work, you can also probably buy a vinegar mother or dump some live vinegar in. I would just cover it with a cloth and let it go.
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Anonymous01/18/26(Sun)22:05:28
>>2970828 Add kombucha. That'll chew through the remaining alcohol and sugar and crowd out the other bacteria. People have been experimenting with it for reuse of pomace and the results seem promising.
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Anonymous01/27/26(Tue)23:56:00
>almost a month into the year and I have made no beer getting low on stock as well. Was going to wait 3 month for my schwarzbier to lager but think I’ll just bottle it as it’s been over 6 weeks now.
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Anonymous01/31/26(Sat)13:45:26
i have a lot of yeast slurry stored in the fridge from previous brews / ciders. all have separated into a liquid an solid phase. am planning on using some to make a cider. is it as easy as just taking it out the fridge and mixing it together with the apple juice? i dont want to hassle with making a starter with it or whatever. should i take it out the fridge 12h before pitching?
>it will leach flavors dont care. i have dumped some apple juice on top of the yeast cake of a saison brew before and actually enjoyed the flavor profile
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Anonymous01/31/26(Sat)19:01:11
>>2973843 >should i take it out the fridge 12h before pitching? Yes >>2973843 >i dont want to hassle with making a starter with it I didn't want my latest batch to smell like fart, but here I am.
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Anonymous02/01/26(Sun)03:32:11
>>2969288 You could just use a weak yeast so it has a very low to negligible ABV, I've done that for carbonation before
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Anonymous02/01/26(Sun)07:54:48
>>2973932 here's the thing, i have neither a stir plate nor DME to make a starter. and most importantly, I never made a starter to begin with. i am just unsure if the lag time of directly pitching old-ish slurry will result in stressed yeast and thus off-flavors.
how would you go on about making a starter for cider? mixing the solid and liquid phase of the slurry together, add a bit of apple juice and boiled (room temp) bakers yeast as nutrient, and wait until it foams?
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Anonymous02/02/26(Mon)05:36:25
>>2974035 Sanitise large jar (boil lid 10 min jar in oven 180C 10min if you haven't got another way). Boil bakers yeast. Let everything cool. Add apple juice 1/3 of jar, close lid and shake, this adds oxygen. Pour out most of the liquid from the slurry (it's just water since you cold crashed it in the fridge) and add. Cover jar with tissue paper, secure with rubber band. Wait a day after it start to get active, it doesn't go "bad" until the yeast has eaten all the sugar. Give it a gentle shake a couple of times a day.
Or to put it simpler: you're just brewing a small batch, but instead of restricting air access to get alcohol you're introducing oxygen to grow more yeast cells.
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Anonymous02/02/26(Mon)05:56:19
>>2967270 I had kvass dispensed out of a vending machine along the street in 1988. I tried one time to make it, not starting with pumpernickel bread. Can kvass be made from wheat bread?
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Anonymous02/02/26(Mon)06:00:09
>>2969197 You could use yeast to generate in a separate bottle and pipe in the natural CO2 to carbonate your drink.
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Anonymous02/02/26(Mon)12:01:09
>>2973843 Just pour off the excess liquid beforehand and then dump just the yeast into the new brew. >>2974035 You don’t need DME just pour in some of the pre-fermented wort/juice in with the yeast and that’s your starter, as the other anon said. some worry too much about oxygenation but it’s not really that much of an issue for pre-fermentation wort especially at a homebrew scale.
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Anonymous02/03/26(Tue)22:54:59
Have any of you keggers tried using them for filtering and then carbonating for bottling?
on the never ending quest of making some good ginger cider, i am planning on adding some to the bottling bucket. particularly i am planning to press the ginger with a garlic press (or rather juice it) and boil the leftover skin in apple juice, then sieve the skin out. this way i am hoping to get both the taste as well as the spiciness. has anyone experimented with a similar approach? mainly worrying about the amount of ginger to add to 20 liters of cider.
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Anonymous02/06/26(Fri)11:17:22
>>2974880 >press the ginger with a garlic press (or rather juice it) and boil the leftover skin in apple juice, then sieve the skin out. this way i am hoping to get both the taste as well as the spiciness. has anyone experimented with a similar approach? No. >>2974880 >mainly worrying about the amount of ginger to add to 20 liters of cider. You could make two batches of different strength and blend to taste.