Topic: Oat Beer
I re-boiled the oats and 1200 mls of water and then added: 200 mls brown sugar, 1400 mls water, 600 mls sugar, 1 Tablespoon cocoa. When it had cooled, I added the yeast and sediment from some of the brewing ginger ale, along with about 100 mls of the liquid. Stirred well, covered and now will leave it to brew for about 2 weeks.

Topic: Ginger Ale

I tasted the brewing ginger ale and it is too thick, with too strong a ginger taste and not enough sugar (original recipe was 100 mls of sugar, about 700 mls water and 3 Tablespoons of ground ginger). I think I'll add 50 mls sugar and 700 mls water and see how that comes out.

Topic: Raspberry Ale

We drank the raspberry ale. It was OK, but too thick and too sweet. Next time, I will use less raspberries and more water, make a still drink out of it and then add a spoonful of sugar and yeast for a day or two to make it fizzy and see how that comes out. I had put it in a glass wine bottle with a plastic stopper in it.

Topic: Malt Extract

Checked the beer. All the malt beer is flat. Re-bottled it, adding sugar. The sugar syrup didn't seem to have any effect, but a tablespoon of regular sugar brought it fizzing back to life. Maybe we should have drank it all when it blew the cork out of the bottle.

Topic: Malt Extract

I used a length of clear plastic tubing to siphon the liquid out of the bottle and avoided picking up as much of the sediment as possible. I had bought the tubing at an aquarium supplies store long ago for an air pump into an aquarium, but never used it. I added a spoonful of sugar syrup to it and put it back outside in the cold to continue to ferment, or "condition" as they call it in "proper" beer-making.

Topic: Raspberry Ale

I checked the raspberry ale. Seems OK. I put it outside (it's snowing out) to hopefully slow its ferentation down so it won't blow its cork. It's not as fizzy as a commercial soda. I'm going to look for some empty plastic soda bottles with screw-on lids, to use for the raspberry and ginger ale, in the hopes that it could accomodate a higher carbonation pressure in the bottle which would force more carbon dixoxide into the soda.


Ginger Ale

I made the ginger ale by putting 100 mls of sugar in a liter measuring jug, filling to the 700 millilitre measure with water, adding 3 Tablespoons of ground ginger and bringing to a boil. After it cooled, I added a spoonful of yeast sediment from one of the malt beer jars I had emptied into bottles this morning. I think 3 T of ginger may have been too much because I can smell it all over the kitchen.

(I know sugar is not measured in milliliters -- over here in Britain they weigh it, rather that putting it in a measuring jug. But that's too much trouble and the amounts involved here aren't rocket science, so I just look at them in the litre measuring jug.)

Topic: Oat Beer
I took the liter of oats and water that had been soaking overnight, mixed in another liter of water and put it in a slow cooker to simmer for a day. I've decided to make 2100 mls of oat beer in three of the empty liter jars and use the fourth empty jar to make ginger ale.

Topic: Malt Extract
I bottled the last 2 jars of malt beer. It seemed kinda flat, so I added about an ounce of sugar syrup I had made to each bottle. (1 part water to 2 parts sugar; boiled for 5 minutes, cool.) More sediment had settled to the bottom of the jars and didn't get stirred up when I poured it out, so perhaps that would be a better way to go about it to get a clearer end product -- let it get flat in the fermentation jar and the dregs have all settled to the bottom, then add sugar to the bottles to be plugged up. I labelled each bottled with the method used to make it, and I'll compare the different methods when I drink it and then make up a recipe based on the results for the next batch.

Topic: Oat Beer
I put 300 mls of oats into a 1-liter measuring jug, and then filled it with water. I put that in a saucepan and brought it to a boil. That left me something pretty thick and viscous. I poured it back in the jar and covered it to let it set overnight. I'll come up with a recipe for how I want to make beer out of it tomorrow.

Topic: Malt Extract

I tried the malt beer. As soon as I loosened the plastic cork, it exploded out of the bottle with a bang and hit the ceiling. Always a good sign where beer is concerned. I replaced the stopper and set the bottle outside for night - it is still quite cold here. I may decide to drink it tomorrow.

I poured it from the bottle it was in to another bottle to try to leave the sediment that had formed, but it was so fizzy after being opened the sediment just kicked up into the liquid. Up till now, I have been pouring it from one container to another, and not bothering to use the siphon tubing method because it seemed like such a nuisance. I may have to re-think that. Then again, the sediment is brewer's yeast, which is a rich source of B vitamins -- you buy it in pill form at the health food store -- so if it only detracts from the appearance and not the taste, some sediment in the drink may be a good thing.

Topic: Raspberry Ale

The raspberry ale popped its cork. I remember now that the first 2 or 3 days of fermentation are called aerobic, which throws off a lot of gas, and then after that there is anearobic fermentation, which isn't as tumultuous. I don't know if that means that I should put the raspberry in a jar for two days, or if it's drinkable now, as is. I recapped it, but later I'll try it and decide what to do.

Topic: Raspberry Ale

I have made the raspberry ale. I used 150 mls of sugar. I boiled that with 300 mls of water, and then added it to the raspberry juice, which came out to 400 mls. I poured off some of the dregs from the first jar of beer I had made, and then poured the raspberry juice into the jar. Then I realized that since I only wanted the carbon dioxide in this case, and not the alcohol, there was no reason to keep it in the jar. Leaving it in the jar would just eat up the sugar and lose sweetness, which I don't want to do.

So I poured it into another clean wine bottle and stoppered it. It shouldn't take long to fizz up with that hungry, healthy beer yeast in it, so I may get to drink my raspberry ale before the beer. Of course, I now still have the empty 1-liter jar I had planned on using for the raspberry ale, so tomorrow I think I will start an oat beer with some oatmeal we bought intending to make many bowls of porridge, but forgetting that we don't really like porridge all that much. After that, if I have time, I may make a ginger ale or I may wait to see how the raspberry ale comes out.

I bottled another jar of the malt extract beer so now I have 2 empty 1-liter jars in which to make the oat beer.

Yeast

Now that I've poured the beer into the bottle and stoppered it (what is the correct word for this when it isn't made of cork?)and I have an empty 1-liter jar, I've decided to make some light ale/beer -- that which you would call like root beer or ginger ale, as it was made before it was made pumping carbon dioxide into it -- by fermenting it until the yeast had done the pumping in of the carbon dioxide. I suppose everyone knows this, but, for any who don't: put yeast in sugar (or starch, a close relative of sugar) and they will eat the sugar and excrete alcohol and carbon dioxide. That's how we make bread, wine and beer. With the bread, the excreted carbon dioxide puffs up the dough and the excreted alcohol is cooked away by the heat as it is baked. With wine, the excreted alcohol is kept and the excreted carbon dioxide is allowed to escape, and with beer, the alcohol is also kept, of course, and the carbon dioxide is trapped during the final stage of fermentation.

So, anyway, I decided I will make a bottle of raspberry ale first - what you would call raspberry soda pop except that it will be made as it was in old days by fermentation rather than by modern methods of carbonation. I got a liter of frozen raspberries from the freezer -- frozen individually as we had grown them ourselves -- and after they thawed, they occupied about half the liter measure. I'm sure you could use store-boughten frozen raspberries. Anyway, I added about a half-liter/pint to them, boiled them for awhile and then put them through the blender. Now I'm straining them through a jelly bag, which in this case is the sleeve of a flannel nightgown with the end sewn shut on one side. You can also use 4 layers of cheesecloth/muslin, which is what I used to use to strain jelly before I made the flannel jelly bag. When the liquid has drained thru I will add some amount of sugar the quantity of which I have not as yet decided on but I plan to meditate on it while the raspberry juice is draining.

I sampled one of the jars and found it tasted like beer ... a little fizzy ... so I decided to bottle one of the jars as is, with nothing further added to it, though it seems like I should be doing more to it. But I'll see how it turns out. The way I bottled it was to put it in a clean wine bottle, stop it with a plastic cork, and over that put a large plastic sandwich baggie, secured snugly with a sturdy elastic band. That way, if the beer throws the plastic cork out it will be caught in the baggie, and won't be spoiled by any contamination. I would just replace the cork and let it ferment a bit more. I have used this baggie-and-elastic-band trick with wine making, and I found that if it did blow out the stopper and foam out over the bottle, the baggie would trap the overflow as well and I could just pour it back in the bottle and nothing was lost.

An empty champagne bottle with a replaceable stopper would be ideal for this, because they're made to withstand pressure from the fermentation, but, as I don't have an empty champagne bottle with a replaceable stopper, a wine bottle is what I shall use. A wine bottle with a regular cork would probably work, too, though if that is what I had to use I would wrap the cork with thin plastic film before stuffing it in the bottle.

If you were doing this at home and didn't have a bottle or corks to use, you can always use a regular screw-on metal lid on a jar, however the risk here is that if the pressure builds up too much it could explode, so if I were going to do that, I would put the jar in a plastic bag (to contain the spillage) and put the bag in a cardboard box to stop the outward force, and maybe put the whole apparatus in a large plastic garbage bag as extra insurance. Then just check the jars a little more regularly to see how it is coming. If you get a big "whoosh" when you unscrew it, and the liquid is fizzy when you dirnk it, you can drink it then.)

Topic: Malt Extract

Here's what I did: I measured the wort and found it was 1400 mls, so I doubled it with another 1400 mls of water and added another 4 tablespoons of sugar, because it seemed like a good thing to do. They don't have corn syrup here in England, they just have something called golden syrup which is sugar syrup -- I'm not sure if it's beet sugar or cane sugar, but it's sugar -- so I just use regular granulated sugar and trust that the water I use will make up for whatever liquid would be in the corn syrup. When it clears, I'll put it in bottles.

OK, here's the plan. I washed out 2 1-litre jars. I will measure out 1200 mls of water (straight from the hot water tap, btw) and then pour 300 mls of water in the two jars. I will then stir up the 2 jars of fermenting liquid (called "wort", pronounced "wert", I believe) and pour 300 mls of wort into each of the two jars of water, and then pour 300 mls of water into each of the two jars of wort, now having 300 mls left each. Woo-hoo. And you thought I couldn't do the calculations.

I found a recipe that calls for 4.5 gallons of water to 6 pounds of malt syrup and 3/4 cup of corn syrup. 1 US gallons = 3 785.4118 milliliters, 1 gram = 0.00220462262 pounds and 1 US cups = 236.588238 milliliters. So if I add the malt syrup and corn syrup together, that's ... Oh, I give up. I think I'll just take the fact that the 454 grams are 1.022etc pounds, this recipe calls for 4.5 gallons water to 6 pounds of malt syrup, 1.022etc pounds is almost 1 pound so let's say 1 pound, which is 1/6 of 6 pounds so 1/6 of 4.5 gallons is ................. 2839 milliliters! More than twice as much water as I used. Which is what I was beginning to expect because it was so thick and dark. I shall have to wash out two more 1-litre jars and I think I shall add 1200 more mls of water..

Topic: Bottling

I see from my picture (on Feb. 22) that I should explain about my airlocks. If you have ever wanted to make beer or wine, you have heard about airlocks. The directions always say you have to buy airlocks. These are things you put over the fermenting liquid to keep the fruitflies out (if you don't want to end up with vinegar) and yet still be able to let the gases made during fermentation escape. This is one of the fancy gadgets you can buy that I have discovered while making wine that it is just as easy -- nay, easier -- to use a piece of plastic shopping bag over the top of the container, tightly secured by a rubber band. So that is what you see on the liter jar of fermenting beer in the picture - a piece of plastic I cut out of a plastic shopping bag secured to the jar with a thick rubber band. Anything elastic would do, however, as long as it holds the plastic firmly against the glass.

Here is the beer after 20 days. So far, the plan is going OK. It has been fermenting away prodigiously and it has a really strong aroma of beer. (It actually smells like beer!) I am concerned, however, that it appears so thick and hasn't cleared, even though the sediment is settling at the bottom. Not really concerned, however, because the worse that could happen on that account is that I would have to add more water. I didn't know what ratio of malt extract to water I should use when I first made it, so I just guessed. If I have to use more water, so much the better, because that just means more beer for the same cost.

So here's how I made the mash I intended to ferment to make the beer:

I boiled the 1200 millliliters of water with the 454 grams of malt extract, the contents of half a capsule of St. John's Wort, 4 Tablespoons of sugar and 1 Tablespoon of cocoa, then poured it into two 1-litre jars. When it had cooled down, I added some yeast to it. The instructions I had read said not to use bread yeast, but bread yeast was all I had so bread yeast was what I used.

After about 10 days, I stirred it thoroughly and then set it back to wait for it to settle. The plan is that it will "throw down a sediment", as wine does, and when it has done so, I will siphon or pour off the clear stuff on the top above the sediment, then pour it into wine bottles with some added sugar, and plug it securely with a plastic cork and wait for the residual yeast to eat the added sugar and excrete carbon dioxide to fizzy it up. That, at least, is the plan.