Here’s a simple project that has huge bang for the buck in enhancing your life. As usual, when looking for brewing equipment, I scoured Craigslist for a good deal. As usual, the community didn’t let me down and I scored a 5 gallon steel pot for $25. Yay! The down side was that this pot
Braggot is the perfect balance between a beer and a mead. It has lots of honey, a bunch of malted barley, spices and hops. I must admit, I’ve only made one batch of braggot (so far) as it is certainly not a “daily drinker” and a little goes a long way. My braggot rang in
Beer is great. Out of everything I’ve made over the years, beer is the most diverse and enjoyable brew to do. Although the classic Bavarian beer laws state that there should only be 4 ingredients making up beer, there are infinite combinations of ingredients and many methods with which to employ them. Plus, there’s nothing
With the furious bubbling behind us and a mostly still bucket of wine-to-be, it’s time to move on to secondary fermentation. The exponential growth phase of the yeast is done and you’re probably sitting at about 10% alcohol as the yeast chugs along anaerobically. This means that the yeast no longer require oxygen and in
Making wine offers a very good bang for the buck with very a decent product ringing in between $2 – $5 per bottle. Conveniently, wine making is also the least labour-intensive of the homebrews, unless you are growing and crushing your own grapes. I hope to get to that point someday but the quantity of
The beauty of yeast is that they typically are very good at what they do. Give a yeast some sugar and hospitable conditions for growth and they will turn that sugar into booze… ALL of it. This is fine and dandy as booze is our desired endpoint and too much sugar is bad for us
Root beer is delicious. Whether it’s in a frosty mug, buoying up a scoop of vanilla ice cream or straight from a can, it is undeniably the king of soft drinks. Pepsi pales in comparison, Coke cowers before it and Dr. Pepper destroys it. Ginger beer is pretty good though… One thing all these mass-produced
When the brewing bug hits, there is one inevitable problem that needs to be addressed: storage. Fermenting everything in sight is wonderful and yields an endless supply of (hopefully) delicious bevvies but you have to put them someplace. The very first upgrade I did when I moved from an apartment to a house was to
What is “yeastykaka?” This website was almost named “Yeastykaka.com” but limited market research among friends and family revealed that it had gynecological connotations – NOT my intention. Yeastykaka is a word I use to describe an unpleasant flavour in a brew that results from something going horribly wrong. It specifically relates to that yeasty taste
Mead, or honey wine, is the oldest known alcoholic drink and has been called the “nectar of the gods.” There are ancient examples of fermented honey drinks throughout the world and mead (or variations of mead) are mentioned prominently in history and literature. Chinese pottery vessels dating from 7000 B.C. suggest evidence of mead fermentation