Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

I have an aluminum kettle I used for a home-built electric brewing system. The water heater element I used required a 1.25" hole.

Fast forward a few years and I bought an Anvil Foundry and want to convert my old kettle back to one I can use for occasional propane BIAB batches.

I've searched online and don't see any off-the-shelf options for Bulkhead hole plugs for a 1.25" diameter holes.

Anyone know of a place that sells these or how I can build something myself using items from the hardware stores?

Thanks.

It's true that our 16th-century ancestors drank much more than Irish people do today. But why they did so and what their beer was like are questions shrouded in myth. The authors were part of a team who set out to find some answers.

As part of a major study of food and drink in early modern Ireland, funded by the European Research Council, we recreated and analyzed a beer last brewed at Dublin Castle in 1574. Combining craft, microbiology, brewing science, archaeology, as well as history, this was the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study of historical beer ever undertaken. Here are five things that we discovered.

A friend of mine dumped me a bag of malts he had lying around for like five years. It’s a kit for a Klosterbier which was stored in a plastic bag sealed with a clip, sitting on a shelf in a typical household storage room, so neither totally dark nor in bright sunlight, and slightly below average room temperature.

I’m hesitant now to heat up water and waste energy, time, hop and maybe yeast on these malts because I’m skeptic about how many enzymes are left in there. Have you ever used grains that old? Maybe I should mix them with fresh stuff?

To save money and flavour, I got myself a grain mill. I thought this would be simple, but setting the grind/crush size seems to be even more difficult than in the world of coffee 🙈

So far I’ve learned that AIOs like my Brewzilla (Gen 4) like the crush a little coarser because the grain basket and overall construction restrict the flow of the wort already. Can anyone here confirm or refute that? Does anybody have that exact same system and care to share their preferred setting (or settings/tendencies, as different malts can be milled to different sizes)?

This is the state of fermentation stuff so far. We wild; all wild. Right to left bottom to top:

• lemon juice, squeezed - 1/2 food processor apple added after it went off, added a little bit of salt but not enough to do much. It will probably fail, but I'm curious where it goes. It is quite active already.
• lemon slices in a 2% salt brine with rainwater and the other half of the apple in a mason jar.
• new blueberries with a 3% salt brine and a bunch of raw sugar and rainwater just to see where it goes.
• top of 3 is grapes and watermelon, mid is cantaloup, and bottom is pineapple from a mix fruit platter. All are in rainwater and ~3% salt brine.
• I previously did 3× of these small containers with whole lemon slices, 4 garlic cloves, and an equivalent amount of ginger. Processed this, dried it, and added some salt and smoked paprika. That is in the small grinder. The juice that was left over is a super zesty spicy lemon flavor. That is what is in the lone red/white cap container.
• bottle with the ripped label is half of the sauce I made with the last batch of blueberries (600mL juice), and the remaining (1000mL) stock after a 5lb chuck roast that was smoked for 4 hours and dutch oven for 6 more with chicken stock and a beer. Those were reduced down to ~600mL, filtered, and bottled.
• the mason jar in the back is a large bed of 3 onions that was cooked with chicken over it. The onions were run through a food processor along with some cherries and 3% brine that fermented for 3 weeks, along with half the sauce from the previously mentioned blueberry run. It's pretty good for a first intuitive concoction. It has a savory sweet-and-sour flavor. It would be even better with more back of the tongue full sourness. I might need to try something with a tomato to pull out that kind of flavor. I'm already playing with unique stuff though. I've never had anything quite like this sauce.

I brewed this melomel last July and noticed this thin film... Is this an issue? Or is it expected like the sediment at the bottom?

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NizzYE2Ia24

Martin brews a short and shoddy stout without measuring anything. Just rough guess.

Matches my experience. You don't have to be extremely accurate. It'll all work out in the end.

What other sources are there for yeast without purchasing specific supplies of any kind?

I've done several lactose fermentation experiments and am currently playing with figurative fire by washing and running fruits through a food processor, letting them go active in a (burped) container and then adding them to other fruit juices. Currently I have a small apple for yeast that I added to pealed lemons and some lemon juice. I have no expectations for the results, and intend on buying nothing.

I ran out space in my fermenter so I used orange juice containers. The picture was taken after one day of fermentation iirc. I released the pressure when I saw it. Lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe8zFdYyr1k

Off-flavors in beer can be caused by so many different things. That’s why we created Beer Off-Flavor Jelly Beans - The Fun Way to Learn about Beer Off-Flavors! 🍻

lol lol

Sorry for the newbie question. I'm just trying to figure out if there's some sort of catch here. I don't think the StellarSan stuff is diluted, so I've been trying to figure out how it's so much cheaper than starsan.

Last time I brewed at home, I had my fermentation bucket in my flat, where the heating pretty much took care about all thermal regulation I needed back then. As I now have kids, I don't feel comfortable doing that anymore for various reasons.

I have freed up some space in my garage now for brewing & fermenting, but I have no heating there. I'm OK though to go with the seasons, brewing beer styles where the yeast's preferred temperature roughly matches the weather. But now, my mind is occupied with the question of how to keep the temperature as constant as possible for fermentation: While a weather forecast of e.g. 15°C doesn't sound too bad for lager beers, it may easily get as cold as 5° at night, giving the yeast probably a rather bad time. As I also don't want to spend a fortune on a temperature regulated fermenter, I'd like to even out those mins & maxes passively.
My thoughts so far circle around insulation (obviously) and thermal mass. Insulating the bucket itself seems like a nobrainer. But I think it also might work to build some cheap wooden enclosure, insulate that with Styrofoam, make everything somewhat airtight and add water bottles, rocks & bricks to fill up as much space as possible. That will of course do little should the weather change drastically, but so far, I think I'd stay way below max and above min temperature in there at all times. This way, I believe I could get a decent fermentation when the average outside temperature of night & day is right for a couple of days.

Is anybody here doing something like that or has experiences worth sharing otherwise?

P.S.: Addressing the elephant in the room: For now, fermenting under pressure is no road I want to go down. Buying a new fermenter, kegs, valves, fittings, hoses, CO2 bottles and either a counter pressure bottling system or even switching to drafting entirely is just too much right now.

Home brewing in the 18th century americas.

Nit pick - the end recipe is not a beer, no grains. Fermented molasses is rumbullion per https://www.thebrewsite.com/rumbullion-and-other-fermented-beverages/ (rum, no bullion, is the distilled version).

To play devils advocate, I think there should be a name for any fermented beverage that's undistilled and under 10%

These days I'm experimenting with tibicos as an (almost) non-alcoholic, low carb yet still festive alternative to beer with a very fast turn around. I usually tend to brew quite strong beers in the Belgian tradition (8-12%) because these are my favorite styles, so not getting smashed while still enjoying a tasty drink is always nice.

I was wondering if any of you have ever tried brewing beer with it. The composition of tibicos grains is suspiciously similar to a lot of sour beer cultures (mostly various strains of S. Cervisae, lactobacillus and acetobacter). I was thinking something along the lines of a Berliner Weisse or some light gueuze/lambic.

How much difference does different yeast strains really make? Is it perceptible like what kind of apples you used or is it delicate nuances when doing a blind tasting?

Putting an image on it is absolutely a big part of the fun in this hobby. I'm trying out Red Ale and Red Rye Crystal malts in my next brew, along with a helping of Simpson's Premium English Caramalt and ginger that made my last two batches really nice and sweet.

I'd like this to be extra red, so I'm even toying with the idea of throwing some beetroot in. Any tips for other seasoning that would provide crimson colour?

This abomination apparently turned out well.

I have been struggling to stabilise things in my last few brewing attempts. I had been using a combination stabiliser (sorbate and sulfite) from the department store Boyes. It doesn't seem to work.

I know have sorbate powder and I already had campden tablets. I am wondering how you dose them correctly. From what I understand it's dependant on the ABV and the pH. Is there an easy way to calculate this? I take it there is no easy and cheap way to do a free SO2 test.

I am begging to think buying a sous vide and doing pasteurization is easier and more reliable at this point.

I always hear people talk about adding lactic acid for ph control. Is that the only kind? What about citric? Phosphoric? Carbonic? Idk. Just listing some I know.

Modified entry to a local homebrew contest. They gave us 5 gals of wort, lightly hopped, light brown ale. I added 5 lbs blended apples, cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice. 2 weeks primary, 4 weeks secondary, 4 weeks bottle. Ale flavor is mild, apple and spice flavor is great. Could be a touch sweeter.

(bonus Megas XLR bottle opener, have to brag, lol.)

Some breweries share their recipes online. Let's create a list here of those recipes as well as others that are publicly available. No paywalls please. Let's give this community a place to get ideas for brews.

BUMPSIES: Update and discussion on bitters/aperitif in comments

This particular little wine was supposed to have the fruits in it for ten days. I forgot all about it over Christmas stress so the fruit has been soaking for over a month. I racked it today and boy does it have an aftertaste of the zest. Do you think it can be recovered? Will the zesty bitterness reduce from aging? Or can I do something else about it?