Have you ever made your own boze?

Have you ever made: beer, wine, or spirits? How did it turn out? Was it better tasting than store bought? And was it more expensive or more economical to make your own??? I'd be curious to try it if it's not very difficult.

reply to post by spartacus699


I would recommend not even trying to make your own booze until you can afford quality equipment. Which can be expensive.

I have known plenty of people over the years who brew/distill, both as a hobby or job.

Trying to brew/ferment/distill on the cheap will just be a waste of money.

I have made beer, wine, and brandy. It's a labor of love. You're better off (financially) to buy your booze at the market.

If you do want to give it a shot, I'd recommend starting with beer. The turn-around is shorter.

i used to be right into this hobby 30+ years ago i was even brewing beer when i was 10 and selling it to school friends and got pretty good at wine making .

with wine the right yeast was the key to getting a good wine and the time you leave it to rack with beers you would double the sugar content and the time it took to make .

i was thinking of taking this up again but when i looked at the cost of the wine kits locally wow they have gone up to £20 $32 for a 6 bottle kit when i made it i was friendly with a girl that worked in the local fruit and veg shop and got all the spoiled fruit from her plus we had 7 apple trees and 7 plum trees in the garden so it cost me next to nothing to make a gallon of wine .

i once had hundreds of bottles of wine bottled and it was way better than anything in the shops i even made good champagne and had 5+ gallons on the go at one time .

look in charity shops and craigslist etc for the kit as it is very expensive to buy but lots of people give it up get all your bottles from outback of a bar / restaraunt so it will be just the labels and corks you will buy .

as for spirits i would give that a miss if you have not got anybody to teach you any mistakes can be fatal if you mess up even getting old whisky barrels and filling with hot water to get wood spirits can make you ill .

i stay in whisky country in scotland and do not need to buy it my friend is a cleaner and smuggles me out real good whisky in 300 g gars in his bucket i do not take anything in my whiskey normally but this stuff is so powerful that one inch of spirits needs 4 inch of water and even then the next day you are burning inside .

it is a good hobby if you are patient and are good at cleaning the equitment but to buy the material over the counter it is not economic nowdays unless you can source them yourself cheap but get some books from the library first to help but practise will make you way better but with that it might turn you into a raging alchie to bud so be careful

reply to post by spartacus699


My Mother did and one evening I dropped in to see her and she offered me a thimble size drink of her raspberry wine. Naturally I managed to get her to up it to a decent size glass and two glasses later found myself under the table. (It took something like three hours before I could get my legs back). She claimed to have gone to sleep after three glasses somewhat proud of herself. We both had monumental hangovers and she never disclosed how she made her concoction but it was like nectar.

I am glad she took it to the grave because somethings are toooo good and that was one of them.

I am thinking of making my own booze but am in the process of trying to sell and move but will start up when settled again. I look forward to reading other people's experiences and recommendations though.

i even made good champagne

it can only be champagne if its made in champagne (jeez. even I know that).
i will give your wine a miss ty.

Rikku

i even made good champagne

it can only be champagne if its made in champagne (jeez. even I know that).
i will give your wine a miss ty.

so champagne yeast can only be made in france then all this name game stuff came in a lot later and as i pointed out i gave it up long time ago but i am sure you get the picture

but i am sure you get the picture

yes I do.

you could always import some champagne yeast though.

reply to post by spartacus699


Ignore all of the nay sayers.

Myths:
- You need high dollar equipment
- You need a whole lot of dedicated time
- You need special yeasts
- You need ...well, much of anything.

I make my own spirits and have been doing so for many years. My wine, for example, taste just as clean and just as good as any store bought wine. The cost of my wine comes out at around $2 a bottle, and that's buying everything I need from the yeast and berries, to the sugar and the bottles. The key is knowing about your wine, how you want it to taste and what it involves. There is some trial and error depending on how you want your wine to come out. No matter what anyone here tells you, you dont need special yeasts or equipment to make it.

These directions look way more complicated than it really is.

Basic Equipment: For 5 Gallons of Wine (You can upgrade as you see fit)

ETA - Time to Drink: 1 .5 months to ....

Choose your berries - what you choose and the amount of alcohol you end up with will help determin how long your wine can be stored for.

* In a 5 Gallon batch - 1 Lbs Sugar = 1% Alcohol potentual *

1 Gal Berries (Mash)
7 lbs Sugar (7% alcohol potentual)
2 Gal Water
5 Gal Bucket
1 Cool, Dry, Dark Place
(Note: you can do this in your closet, but keep in mind that wine making produces a lot of CO2, so be safe. 1 Five Gallon batch is ok, but when you start making 2 or more batches at a time, and you live in a small place... you might find yourself breathing a little harder if that CO2 can't escape your living area)

- Mash your berries well and dump them in a CLEAN 5 Gal Bucket
(you can use bleach and water to sanitize - this keeps out the wild yeast that will turn your wine to vinegar, which is ok if that's what you're going for)
- Add 7 lbs sugar
- Add 2 Gallons water
- Add 1 pack of yeast
(you can use regular store bought bakers yeast. The flavor is not much different. You would have to have a really good pallat to tell the difference. If you're making beer, baker's yeast does make more of a difference than it would for wine. Baker's yeast has a cut off of around 14% alcohol vs specific wine yeasts which range from 10-18% and more. 14% is good, though, since you dont want to overpower your wine. 10-14% is the normal wine alcohol content - BUT, wine yeast, if you have a local brewery outlet store, is generally better to use and costs pretty much the same, so if you can get it, use it instead. Still, either will do for home made wine)

- Let your mash ferment for 8 days. Stir 2x each day. Letting a little air (O2) in the first day is fine and helps the yeast to work better, just make sure you cover your hooch so no outside contaminants get in. Wild yeast will turn your batch to vinegar quickly.

- After 8 days, strain your mash very well from the juice. Take the juice and place in a 5 gallon waterbottle, charboy or whatever container you plan to use. Again.. This container MUST be sterile and free from contaminants. Bleach and water will do just fine.

- Add another 7 lbs Sugar (14% alcohol potentual total)
- Fill your bottle the rest of the way with clean water - Distilled water works best and provides the cleanest taste.
- Ferment for 30 days

At this point, I generally like to shake or stir my container once a day to make sure the yeast/sugar gets around and doesn't settle too much.

Make some sort of filter system. This is important. You must let the CO2 get out but you do not want to let anything or any O2 get in. The most simple do it yourself is - get a cap for your 5 gallon waterbottle, poke a small hole in, attach an aquarium air hose, run it to a bottle of water and submerge the hose so air can bubble out but none can get in. The CO2 will layer on top of your wine. This is a good thing, so leave a little room between your wine and the top of the container so this CO2 can barrier from the O2. The CO2 helps keep the wine fresh and free of contaminants.

Once your wine achieves a certain amount of alcohol, the alcohol will help prevent any wild yeast from turning your batch to vinegar. In the hundreds of batches I've made, I've never had any of my wine turn sour. The key is making sure your equipment is clean.

- after 30 days, your wine will stop bubbling or the bubbles will be very slow. Once it's done, you can start to fine it. Slow bubbles may also be an indication that your wine stopped fermenting and the CO2 is just releasing from the wine. At this point you can shake it up well to help release, or just rack it now. Personally, I like a lil C02 in my wine. I like the added spritsy bonus in the taste.

- Now your batch is done or very close you are now ready to "Fine" your wine. This is the process of making it clear as bottled water.

- Buy unflavored gelatin from the store. Follow directions (hot water mixture) and pour it in your batch of wine. Shake/Stir well. Let sit untouched for 2 weeks or until the wine is as clear as you would like it. The gelatin will grab all of the stuff clouding and floating in your wine and pull it to the bottom. Siphon everything above that layer of sediment out to bottles or jugs.

* Note: you can buy Chitosan that will take only 24-48 hours to fine - Brewers carry this or you can order online. There are other kinds of fining ingredients that work differently and take different amounts of time to work *

Drink up! You can drink your wine right away or let it sit for days, months, years. The longer the wait, the better the taste.

Keep in mind, with only 14% alcohol, you've probably burned up all the sugar in your wine to make the alcohol, so it will probably be very dry. You can add more sugar if you like sweeter wines, but do so only in small portions. You can use 20lbs total (10 first then 10 second) to make desert wine which is very sweet. Play with your sugar amounts to put the wine exactly where you like it. I personally brew 18% alcohol wines (yeah I know it's a lot but I like it) with around 19lbs of sugar or a little less for that fruity taste that's not so sweet but not do dry.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me anything.

Spiced Honey mead is my all time fave to make. That is a slightly different process. Same idea, none of the sugar but lots of honey.

Since I have gotten much deeper into my wine making and enjoy my wine daily, I have more expensive equipment to make the process much easier and more specific to my taste. You still do not need all of this, but it does help the process and makes for more delicate wines.

reply to post by spartacus699


I am a beer brewer and I agree with the poster above. You absolutely can brew wonderful beer with minimal equipment and expenditures. Start out with a kettle that can boil at least a couple gallons and use extract at least at first to get a feel for it. You'll need a fermenter and for this you can use a plastic bucket, though I never have. I would recommend a glass carboy. I wouldn't use the plastic ones, the only batch of infected beer I've ever brewed was fermented in the plastic 'better bottles'. Grow your own hops (I do) and you'll save even more.

Look it up, there are plenty of resources on the internet. All the necessary ingredients are widely available. Nowadays they are very good quality as well. I brew all grain and I can brew a barrel of good beer for around 40 dollars in ingredients. That's 31 gallons or 248 pints at about 16 cents each. You'll also have energy expense that will vary depending on how you bring your wort to boil.

Also, I'd keg it and don't fool with bottling.

reply to post by spartacus699


I have found that with a counter top water distiller and some fruit, herbs and spices, you can turn any failure at making beer or wine into wonderful spirits.

You can use A toy like this: www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380383350&sr=8-1&keywords=Water+distiller

Take the #fail wine, add some cinnamon, cardamom, Perrier corns, maybe some rosemary and citrus peel, pop it all into the distiller, turn on and wait for the magic to pop out. Taste every now and then and stop when it starts tasting watery. Passing the result through another time or two for high octane versions. Then let it sit for a few months with oak shavings or fresh fruit.

Doing this is probably illegal in most places, so check before some SWAT team pops in and kills you because you're perceived as competition.

Of course this approach is also really useful for making your own tinctures, spyragic potions and other medicinal magicks. That may make it less or more illegal depending on where you live

what would be neat is if you could actually find a way to replicate popular brands. That would be worth doing. But if it comes out and just tastes nasty then it's hard to say. Ideally I'd like to make JD, but from what I understand it would be near impossible to do from home.

TDawgRex
reply to post by spartacus699

 

I would recommend not even trying to make your own booze until you can afford quality equipment. Which can be expensive.

I have known plenty of people over the years who brew/distill, both as a hobby or job.

Trying to brew/ferment/distill on the cheap will just be a waste of money.

Well thats completely wrong, for a start.

You can make some of the best beer with a plastic bag if your skills are good enough. If you're a nincompoop then even with a $500 brewing kit you're going to make crap. Do you sell equipment by any chance

I say skills, I mean knowing how to actually make wort. You can use a can or the kit gear with 1.5 kg of sugar and you'll make alcohol with a beer flavour. But you want to make your own beer, then you make it properly. Kits are good if you like to mix and match and have a decent tolerance.

As long as you keep things sterile... you're not going to die.

The distillation process on the other hand, requires a reasonable amount of knowledge. heads and tails get put back into the next run, or discarded. This does not happen in commercial bottles of spirits.

More often, a good distiller makes better and safer alcohol than the stuff you buy over the counter.

My still cost me just under $500 and to remain legla in Aus, can only do 4 liters at a time. That makes me about 700 ml of about 80% spirits of I run it a few times. You don't drink that and come away from it feeling the normal every day pangs of human existence. Oh no, you are solidly pickled and in dire need of medical attention. But it's good hooch.

Distillation is the process to be cautios of. As in, no.. no glass setups with a fire out the back. No plastics. No corrosive or toxic metals, so no you cant solder your own kit together. No using the radiator from the broken down pickup.

You can use ALL of these if you intend to make fuel, apart from the open fire. But anything you intend to drink, you do it properly. That I agree with.

But beer, wine, meade, bananas and apples, pruno, you name it.. if you keep it clean and you control the fermentation process and not just bung it all in a bucket and run away, then you're going to produce alcohol you can drink. The better the starting products, obviously the better the end result.

If you have a carboy with an air lock or a food grade quality plastic bucket and some glad wrap, you can brew.

Waste of money? Nahh.. a learning process and a brilliant hobby.

God I wish I still drank lmao...

reply to post by winofiend


I was stating what I knew from experience. I know the Master Brewer at the Great Lakes Brewing Company and of course he recommended all sorts of stuff to make what he thinks would produce quality beer.

My Grandparents used to make their own wine and beer and I remember thinking that was a lot of stuff. Everything was glass and copper. But I also never remember turning away a sip.

On the other hand, I also have a buddy who is trying to be self sufficient in every aspect, but on the cheap. Every one of his attempts at brewing beer, cider or wine have been a failed experiment. He follows the instructions to a tee and yet keeps producing some nasty stuff. So, it can be expensive if you end up pouring out batch after batch.

He sprays the bad beer in the garden. Are there other uses for a failed batch?

i looked on ebay last night for prices for kits and they are not cheap £20 for beer kit plus sugar and wine is about the same anybody got good sources in the uk for cheap ingrediants as i might get back into doing this again

geobro
i looked on ebay last night for prices for kits and they are not cheap £20 for beer kit plus sugar and wine is about the same anybody got good sources in the uk for cheap ingrediants as i might get back into doing this again

Wine kits here in the states run from 50-150$ depending on if they're on sale or not. To be honest, all the kits provide are the exact amounts of berries and sugar and other little ingredients to make whatever it's advertising. You dont need these kits.

I'm not much into making my own beer, since every person I work with makes their own beer, and most everyone I know is making some kind of drink. It's the new fad, I guess.

Believe me, all you need is sugar, berries/fruits, yeast and water to make wine. How much of each is key.

If you want to know anything about it, please feel free to pick my brain. There are also millions and millions of pages dedicated to making your own beer and wine on the internet. You will pay more for the kits than you will buying the ingredients by themselves, but if you really dont want to know how to make any of it, other than having directions on hand each and every time, and you need the directions because you dont want to be creative or selective, those kits are for you.

I'm always available to answer any wine questions. I make 10-15 gallons a month for family, friends and co-workers. It goes quick!

Later, I'll compile a list of ingredients that you need for each area of wine making, if you want to get really selective. I'll tell what every ingredient is for and what is needed for what process, if you're interested.

reply to post by spartacus699


I make home made wine. I myself do not consume alcohol, but the wife likes her Cabernet. If you like u2u me and I can set you up with a pretty inexpensive wine recipe. Makes a wine at about 17% alcohol. or less if youu want it to be. It's simple, it's relatively in-expensive. EX: I'll do a 4 gallon carboy and get about 18 to 22 750ml bottles, averages out to about $2.75 a bottle. As I write this I have the legal limit for home wine making in my state. There's 99 bottles in the store room, as 99 bottles is all they say I can make. I use grape/cherry blend 100% juice, it make a nice Cabernet style wine. Once you make a batch and it turns out nice, you'll be hooked on making it.

I make Blackberry every year, this year put back 33 bottles of the BB. I might not drink, but if the Zombie Apocalypse takes place....I'll damn sure be ready to start back. Let me know if you want the info, just to much for me to write here. The poster above me is correct, wine making is pretty easy once you know the basics. Not to mention it makes you feel good when one drinks it and tells you how good it is.

Its very simple. I dunno about quality equipment my uncle uses ceramic jars to ferment his beer. Running a still is also simple. If you aren't making vast quantities you can get a nice batch of beer or moonshine. I don't drink anymore though but when I did I preferred Duvel. The champagne of beers.

Anyhow don't go blind drinking ethanol.