Brewin Beer

[Totem]

In our travels we have encountered many micro breweries and fans. I have also encountered folks that make their own maple syrup and honey. That settles it; I am brewing my own beer. Picked up some huge glass carboys, antique everedy bottle cap press, and ingredients from one of the best breweries in the world, the Dark Horse in Marshall Mi.

I intend to use both LME and DME (malt extracts) for my boil as I am too lazy to mash on the get go.

I also intend to experiment with some raw honey and maple syrup that I have picked up. Basically anything that has sugar can go toward the net sum yeast output of work.

Its been a while since I have commented in here; speech is restricted and all, but I don't see how beer can hurt... well unless you drink too much. While we are at it; I might just build a kegerator for my RV too. drilling a hole in the back of the fridge so that there is a tap hanging outside. now THAT would be a nice mod. Of course I will have to valve it inside so that I am not feeding the campground when not at home....

So what style beer is your fav? any good recipes?

[linda s]

You can never go wrong talking about beer. I have never attempted it but I do ferment pretty much all the fruit I can glean from my neighborhood. Made lots of wine, most of it nasty but every once and a while I get lucky and it's pretty darn good. Yeah I would like to see some beer recipes too. Sounds like fun

Linda S

My hard cider last year was epic by the way. Best I've ever tasted. Can't wait till fall to try to duplicate my results. Alas the good stuff is gone. I hate when that happens

[Totem]

Mead would be honey only, i was rather thinking of substituting honey over finishing sugar during bottling.

But hey if i could find enough honey alone sure.

[kayakthecoast]

This is a great downunder beer prank (I can relate I'm a Kiwi) a husband and wife come home and find their entire house is plumbed with beer!!

Go for it do the Yota beer mod!! I can see a temporary mini keg install would be a great addition, just make the tap non reachable to the driver! Im thinking an exterior galleybox on the rear would make a perfect summer beer tap/bar. I'm ordering up a couple or rear storage boxes.

[Bob C]

I made my own wine for several years and the best I ever made was from apple cider. A local orchard would only sell the cider that they made on the day that they pressed it so I bought about 40 gallons of the day old cider and made some of the best apple wine I ever had. I also made some hard cider the old fashion way, ferment the cider and then set it outdoors and allow it to partially freeze. I then used a stainless steel "straw" to tap out the liquid. Oh, that went down smooth but standing up could be a problem if you enjoyed too much.

I am trying cherry wine this summer.

[rigger camper]

I will look and see if I can find any old recipes. I used to brew a half barrel almost every week. Good stuff too. You might be happier with a jockey box instead of a kegerator. Good beer is all about sterile bottling and temperature control. We used to bottle into Cornelius kegs, easy to clean and you can put a relief valve to release pressure if you bottle too early. Also nice to back pressure your beer thru a filter to remove yeast before drinking but I may be getting too involved.

Good luck.

[Totem]

How much honey is needed to do a 5 gallon mead?

[MontanaChinook]

I used to brew when I lived in Utah. Once I moved to Montana I didn't see the point! But now there's great beer everywhere, including Utah. I'm there now and at this point in my life, I'm actually really enjoying the 3.2% alcohol beers. I can have one or two and not set my whole day/night off course.

I did the full all grain mash, and kegged my beer. But it's a lot of work, and there's just so much great beer at the grocery store and local brewery...

I do want to get into fermenting more stuff, though. Especially on the road. I'm figuring out my cooking on the road, but it would be really cool to have some fruit or honey fermenting while I'm on the road. I think the biggest issue with anything while you're traveling would be keeping it at a constant temp, and keeping it from getting constantly shook up.

I threw away all my old recipes when I sold all my brewing gear, just a few months back...they were all-grain mash recipes, though.

[rigger camper]

I would guess that you would need 15-20# of honey for 5 gallons. Check out a brewery supply store. I only made one batch of mead and it was kinda funky. We ended up mixing it with ale to make snakebites. I have used honey many time when I was doing a brew if my specific gravity was low. I found that more than 5# had bad results( that was for a 15 gallon batch )