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Brewing Beer
Fri, Mar 31 2006

Topic: Oat Beer
Bottled the liter of oat beer.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:40 PM GMT
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Thu, Mar 30 2006

I found out that this stuff is called "extreme beer", although, after looking at some of the definitions of extreme beer, I think I would call "women's beer" a particular subset of extreme beer. It has no hops and is not brewed for high alcoholic content, although it does seem to have more alcohol than regular beer. Why it seems to have this bigger "kick" than regular beer, I don't know. It's nothing I've done intentionally, so I wouldn't know how to re-create it or remove it.

Another name that can be applied to it is "ancient ale", though my beer-drinking partner calls it "African beer". We in Western societies think this skill is "ancient" because made beer this way for a thousand years, but in Africa, it's just "beer", and it's still made by women. They make it for their families, and also sell it in taverns called "shabeens".

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:07 AM GMT
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Wed, Mar 29 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
I poured the fermenting liquid from batch #2 of malt beer into plastic bottles with screw-on tops. It is very opaque and murky-looking. No wonder women called it "food" when they made beer -- you'd have a hard time passing this stuff off as liquid.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:46 AM GMT
Updated: Wed, Mar 29 2006 7:59 AM GMT
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Tue, Mar 28 2006

Topic: Bottling
I have re-thought my position on using glass bottles. Now that I realize that I have to leave the brew in the bottles for 3 weeks or more to condition them, I have decided to exclusively use plastic soda pop bottles. The first time I use them, I will clean and sterilize them with bleach; after that, I'll just clean them with hot soapy water and thorough rinsing out between drinking the beer from one and then going on to re-ise it for the next batch of beer. Although, truth to tell, I don't see much reason in even removing the sediment left at the bottom of any bottle if I'm going to just pour more beer to be bottle-condtioned right back into it.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 3:26 PM GMT
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Mon, Mar 27 2006

Topic: Rice Beer (Saki)
A friend just gave me a bag of rice flour, so now I suppose I'll have to learn out to make beer out of that, too.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 1:40 PM GMT
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Topic: Malt Extract
I started malt extract beer batch #3, same recipe as #2

I looked at the label on the malt extract and it says it is for "Culinary Use Only". The health food store sells it as a substitute for sugar, apparently. It doesn't even say that it is barley malt -- I just happen to know that it is. I'd like to compare it to malt extract that is labelled and sold for making beer, if I ever get to a store that sells it as such.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 1:36 PM GMT
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Sun, Mar 26 2006

Topic: Barley Flour Beer
I got a 500 gram bag of barley flour at the health food store (about 1 1/10 pounds in weight) at a cost of #.76 (about $1.32 at today's conversion rate) for 500 grams. So, now I wonder, with sugar at #.75 -- could I make beer with barley flour and sugar, instead of the malt extract (#1.09 for a pound which produces a half gallon of beer.)?

I put:

] the 500 grams of barley flour (about 1 liter on a liquid measuring jug), mixed with
] 2 liters of warm water and some yeast from another bottle of beer already made into a plastic bucket. I covered it with a plastic shopping bag, secured with string. I will have a better airlock when I transfer it to the large plastic container that is still holding the fermenting malt extract beer.

Then, I put in a saucepan and brought to a boil:

] 1 liter of water
] 1/2 kilo white sugar (1.1 pound or 500 mls on the liter measure, cost #.35 or US$.53).
] 250 grams (tad over half a pound) of brown sugar (cost #.50 or US$.75).
] 1 Tablespoon carob powder (minimal cost -- I'll round up the final cost to include the small bits.)
] 1 Tablespoon of mixed spice ( " )
] 1 Tablespoon of ground coffee ( " )

I added the sugar water to the barley flour water in the bucket. I made sure it was not too hot, and then I added some more yeast sediment. After I bottle the malt extract beer in the large plastic container, the container will have a lot of yeast at the bottom of it. I'll pour the barley flour liquid in that and add more water then.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:55 AM GMT
Updated: Sat, Apr 1 2006 1:01 PM GMT
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Sat, Mar 25 2006

Topic: Oat Beer
I looked at the oat beer and it is completely flat, with no promise of fizzing yet to come. And it's still too thick and too sweet. So I decided to chalk that one up to experience and bottle it for wine -- it should make an excellent wine -- and start another batch of oat beer.

For Oat Beer batch #2, I used:

] 1 liter water
] 200 mls (on the liter measuring jug) of sugar
] 200 mls (on the liter measuring jug) of oatmeal flakes
] handful of raisins
] generous splash of sediment (several ounces) of yeast and beer from the last batch of malt beer.

I mixed half the water with the sugar and put it in a saucepan to boil.

(You don't have to boil the sugar with the water, but it keeps it in solution better so you don't have to stir it as much to keep the sugar from settling.)

I put the oatmeal flakes into a blender and turned them to powder, then added some of the rest of the water and a handful or raisins and blended that into a puree. Mixed the sugar water with the oats and raisins water, checked to make sure it wasn't too hot, and added the yeast from a previous batch, stirred it up and covered it with an airlock of plastic sheet held securely by a thick rubber band.



Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:57 AM GMT
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Topic: Yeast
Question: can you get yeast from bread that's already cooked?


You can't get yeast that will make other bread, beer or wine etc. There's yeast in yeast bread, but it's dead and no longer active.

If you put a half-empty bottle of fruit juice in the fridge and then forget about it and open it 2 weeks later and it's fizzy, that is because of yeast in the drink and you could use the liquid to start something that needed yeast.

You could also put some cooked bread in a jar, cover it with warm water and then it will probably start to ferment from airborne yeast --- this is usually easier to do in the warmer months, especially late summer and early autumn when there is more yeast floating around in the air because of fruits and veg that are growing outside.

Bruised apples that have been hanging around for a while and you see a little foam around the bruise have yeast in the foam/bruised area.

The green fuzzy stuff on jam is a kind of yeast -- it's actually a fungus, a bunch of yeast living together. You might be able to get them to come back to yeast if you keep them somewhere warm with water and sugar.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:47 AM GMT
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Fri, Mar 24 2006

Topic: Ginger Ale
Hopefully, tonight we will have "lashings of ginger beer" with our supper. I put a liter of ginger ale into a glass bottle with a screw-on top two days ago, with a tablespoon of sugar to prime it. Later, I'll set it outside for it to cool. I'll have to think of some other way to cool it down to "cellar temperature" when spring gets here and it's warm outside. The fridge is difficult because there's no room except in the door, and I don't want to be swinging it back and forth when I open and close the door.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 7:34 AM GMT
Updated: Fri, Mar 24 2006 8:20 AM GMT
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Thu, Mar 23 2006

Topic: Oat Beer

It occurs to me that caramel is toasted sugar, so, instead of buying a caramel bar to add to the oat beer currently brewing, I toasted a couple tablespoons of sugar under the grill. (Btw, this stuff looks and tastes *exactly* like butterscotch, so I suspect that butterscotch is just toasted sugar. Be careful not to over-toast it if you want it for candy. For beer, the burnt/bitter taste that overcooking adds would be OK.)



I put the caramel into the bottom of a jar and added a pint of oat beer. The oat beer is still quite thick ("gummy"), flattish (it has a little fizziness) and sweet, so pouring it over the caramelized sugar is going to make it sweeter and possibly thicker.


Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 9:02 AM GMT
Updated: Thu, Mar 23 2006 9:27 AM GMT
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Wed, Mar 22 2006

Topic: Recipes
Since the first batch of malt beer was a success, I will start another batch and then make a half-gallon a week of malt beer from now on. I will continue to experiment with other types of beer.

I started the second batch of malt beer using yeast left over from the ginger ale and from straining the oat beer. I measured the jar of malt extract I bought from the Health Food Store and it was about 12 ounces. Here is my recipe:

] 1 jar of malt extract (454 grams or about 12 ounces)
] 2600 mls water
] the contents of 1 capsule of St. John's Wort.
] the contents of 1 capsule of hawthorn berries
] a pinch of black pepper
] 1/4 tsp vanilla
] 5 Tablespoons of cocoa
] 10 Tablespoons of sugar
] yeast from previous batches of beer

I mixed half the water and everything else together in a saucepan and stirred and heated it until everything dissolved, then I put it in large plastic container and added the rest of the water. Checked to make sure it wasn't too hot, then added the sediment and liquid from the ginger ale and oat beer for yeast, (about 12 ounces of thick liquid).

Covered it with a piece of plastic, secured with a thick rubber band, for an airlock, and put it on the kitchen shelf so it will be easy to get at. I'll stir it once or twice a day for 3 days and then set it out in a warm spot for another 5 days.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 12:01 AM GMT
Updated: Fri, Mar 24 2006 8:57 AM GMT
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Tue, Mar 21 2006

Topic: Oat Beer
The oat beer seems rather thick -- "gummy", as it is called. So I decided to filter it through a flannel jelly bag in the hopes of making thinner. Then I learned that, of all the sins I have committed against "proper" beer making, this is probably the worst. By filtering it through the bag, letting it drip out through the air, I am re-introducing oxygen to it, thus stopping the fermentation. So I've decided I am going to look for a chocolate caramel bar and melt it down and add it to the wort and then I'm going to call it "double chocolate caramel oatmeal stout" instead of "oat beer", since I'm sort of starting over again with it.

I also found out that in making oat beer it is much better to use flaked or processed oatmeal rather than whole-grain or cut oats, and instant or quick oats would be best. Which is good, because I used flaked oatmeal because that is all I had.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 8:55 AM GMT
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Mon, Mar 20 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
A small amount of beer had been left in a plastic bottle with a screw-on top. When I opened it, there was a mighty whoosh. Tasted it and it tasted fizzier and less sweet, but no less potent, than when we drank most of it last week. Must look into this secondary fermentation, how long it takes....

......time passes, I RTFM on how to make beer on the net......

Aaahhh...... you brew the beer *1* week and then keep it in the bottle *3* weeks. Well, well, well. That would brewing it for 3 weeks and keeping it in the bottle for 2 days produced a flat beer. I wonder where I got that impression? Well,I guess I have to go hunt up some bottles and jars to move my beer into.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 9:57 AM GMT
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Sun, Mar 19 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
We enjoyed another half pint each of the malt beer again tonight. This process seems to work best: let the beer set down a sediment and get as clear as it's going to get, which in this case is not very clear. Pour a pint into a bottle with a tablespoon of sugar, screw top on tightly and wait two days. Serve cool.

Cloudy ale is better than pure clear ale, anyway. OK, I say this after I tried to remove the cloudiness, but it is still true. First, the yeast is still swimming around, metabolizing, making esters, which are chemicals that add different flavors to the beer. Second, this cloudiness is brewers yeast, the stuff you buy from the health food store because it is high in protein and B vitamins. This is what made country ale a full meal to the medieval peasant. So cloudy ale tastes better and is better for you. I shall try to accept that and be happy with cloudy, real ale.

In every site I have looked at they all say that bread yeast, which I am using, is very weak and will produce the least amount of alcohol of any yeast available, but all I can say to that is you can't prove it by me. I had just the half pint with supper and could feel the alcoholic effect for about an hour and a half afterwards. Perhaps it is the amount of sugar I added.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 12:01 AM GMT
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Sat, Mar 18 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
I have boldly put a pint of brewing beer into a glass jar with a tablespoon of sugar and screwed the lid on tight. I placed it in two plastic bags and then put it in a plastic bucket to contain any explosion, should one occur. I put another pint into the plastic soda pop bottle as usual.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 10:07 AM GMT
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Fri, Mar 17 2006

Topic: Ginger Ale
I checked the ginger ale yesterday. It is coming along well but is rather flat and his little brown flecky things floating in it. I will have to filter it once and then put it in a bottle with sugar like I do the malt beer.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 4:28 PM GMT
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Thu, Mar 16 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
We had another pint of the malt beer for supper tonight. It wasn't very fizzy so I added more sugar and gave it another day to ferment. Still not much in the way of fizz, not for someone who's used to commercial beer, and no head. My partner says it tastes fine and I should look up the Campaign for Real Ale.

I checked CAMRA and the definition for real ale is that it has the yeast still in the container from which the brew is poured (check), without extraneous carbon dioxide (check) and with traditional ingredients (doesn't say what those are, and if malt extract is OK or if it has to be malted barley), so I may very well be making "real ale" Anyway, by adding extra sugar it certainly gives it more alcohol, could definitely feel it from just a half pint. I don't know if there's any way to measure the alcohol content of beer. I think I shall buy another jar of malt extract and start another batch, along with the oat beer. Also, must check on the ginger ale sometime today.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 9:08 AM GMT
Updated: Thu, Mar 16 2006 9:18 AM GMT
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Wed, Mar 15 2006

Topic: Oat Beer
I strained the mash to remove the lumps of oats, so now it is a brown liquid. It doesn't appeal to me, but that may be just because I expect it to smell like fermenting barley. It looked dead, so I added a little sugar to it. That brought it back to life with lots of fizzing and bubbles throughout, so it looks a little more appealing.

Later, when I finally summoned up the courage to actually taste it, rather than merely sniff it, it tasted acceptable. Flat, bland and sweet, but OK. Also, it felt a bit too thick and viscous (like the raspberry ale). I'm going to let it set down its sediment and then I will bottle it as I did the beer, trying to avoid pulling up the sediment. It's not going to taste like barley malt beer, but no doubt it will probably be quite strong, what with all the sugar I added.

I just have to accept and expect that it's not going to taste like beer made from barley, and I'm used to beer made from barley, and I prefer it.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 3:30 PM GMT
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Tue, Mar 14 2006

Topic: Malt Extract
We had our first glass of homemade beer today. It took 3 1/2 weeks from start to the first glass to drink. It was good, it tasted like beer. I think it had more alcohol in it than regular beer, as I expected, because I had kept on adding more sugar. Although it didn't *taste* any more alcoholic than any other beer (was quite mild, in fact) but I could feel the alcohol in it after just one 5-ounce glass. It was murky, with all the brewers yeast being mixed up with it, and it didn't hold its head after being poured, but other than that, it did what beer is supposed to do. I started the next bottle by pouring in some fermenting beer I had previously bottled into the plastic bottle with screw-on lid and adding 1 teaspoon of sugar.

Posted Charlotte O'Neil at 12:01 AM GMT
Updated: Thu, Mar 16 2006 9:26 AM GMT
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