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Homebrewing - Beer, Mead, Wine, Cider

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So…. What’s the worst idea you went through with? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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From the picture, this tops my list, flaming hot Cheetos… after mentioning it yesterday, my enzyme came in later than expected but I decided to send it anyways. It’s so greasy it’s probably turned me off Cheetos forever. However, science must ensue. Here we have 15 pounds of flamin hot Cheetos mashed with enzymes for an hour and 8 pounds of sugar. Honestly, after tasting the mash, the heat doesn’t come through, and frankly it mainly tastes/smells like a corn mash. Personally I’ll be surprised if I can tell the difference between this and a white whiskey made from straight corn. So, what’s the dumbest thing you’ve done?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

A number of years back someone posted the idea of pumpkin gin to the homebrewing subreddit. Supposedly some senator arguing against prohibition in the early 1900s claimed you could just hollow out a pumpkin, fill it up with sugar and you'd end up with booze. So I gave it a try. One pumpkin I filled up with apple juice and another I filled with brown sugar. The apple juice pumpkin actually fermented and I got a somewhat drinkable hard cider out of the deal. the sugar one just turned to sludge and grew mold.

Another thing I tried was to make my own amylase producing mold using millet and rice cakes and ginger root to inoculate it. They grew mold (some of it white, some of it green) and I used them to inoculate some steamed rice that sort of fermented. It went sour of course, and it ended up tasting a lot like lemon juice, so I must have gotten some citric acid producing mold in the mix as well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It wasn't a terrible idea, but I tried to make maple syrup mead, and it tasted exactly like breaking a branch off of a tree and trying to suck it. Like, that green tree taste. Complete waste of some very expensive maple syrup.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Oh man that’s a shame! I actually really wanted to try a maple syrup fermentation too, but the whole cost of syrup (or even honey) is what always put me off the idea.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Out of curiosity, have you come up with a reason why it tasted so tree like?

What colour did the mead end up being?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

It's really simple when you think about it, the taste of any fermentation is going to be the taste of what you put into it minus any of the sugars. Maple syrup is sugar and the liquid extract from a tree. So once you remove the sugar, all you have left is alcohol and the liquid extract from a tree.

It's actually one of the reasons that I think my need made from honey turned out to be so lovely, is once you take the sugar out of honey what you're left with is extract from flowers.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Loving the goblin fermentation vibes you re giving off there. Never stop.

Mostly beer brewere here, so dumb things I've done were mostly process related. Fermenting beer with unsanitized wood chips - turned sour. Adding too much rye or pumpkin - took me 12 hours to get the damn thing made - stuck mash.

Fermentation wise, not brewing, messed around with some koji with varying degrees of success.

If you're doing things like spam alcohol, have you also considered miso as an ingredient?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

The spams probably going to be a maceration in the still, but no I haven’t thought of miso yet. Might have to add it to the list. And hey as a fan of sour beers, the wood chip one sounds interesting lol. Any fun discoveries you made with an interesting shakeup in the process?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

In retrospect, I should have saved it, but it was my second beer ever and went for an overly complex recipe also. Knowing what I know now, it would have probably aged nicely.

I've discovered boiling is not fully necessary to get a good brew and that heather tips make it awesome. I've just added maybe 1-2 handfuls now to the mash. Next autumn I plan to go nuts on collecting the thing and will try to fit maybe half a kilo in there, see how it comes out.

Honorable mention to red yeast rice, I have this notion of doing a rice mash for maybe a week with it and then plopping that into a raw ale mash to get enzymes and flavour of red yeast rice wine in a beer, as I've noticed that its enzymes also work up to 70ish Celsius.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Live and learn right? And oooh the red yeast rice idea sounds interesting

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Nothing so meme lord. Pure watermelon. It's so sour, and not in a good way. It tastes like underripe watermelon rind. It probably didn't need acid added and it should be back sweetened.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yep! My last one was a watermelon wine I made into a brandy. The key is to only get the red guts and avoid anything slightly white. definitely dont boil the juice either or youll get a carrot flavor. Once it’s done fermenting if it was a good fermentation it’ll taste almost like cucumber, a bit of back sweetening makes the watermelon flavor come back with a vengeance.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The key is to only get the red guts and avoid anything slightly white

Did that

definitely dont boil the juice either or youll get a carrot flavor

I did heat pasteurize, but not boil. Just 160/180F (I can't remember exactly).

it’ll taste almost like cucumber

Eh, I'm not getting cucumber. Maybe? It's mostly just SOUR with some watermelon notes.

a bit of back sweetening makes the watermelon flavor come back with a vengeance.

this is what I'm thinking

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Ahh, it may have been the heat pasteurization that did it in. If you care to glance at a scientific paper, here’s an interesting source. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/ra/c9ra01533g I want to say I’ve seen a low temp method of pasteurizing (that you have to hold for a good bit longer) but for mine I avoided heat like the plague and did everything cold with a huge starter to ensure the yeast outcompete anything and fill the fermenter with alcohol to handle any potential unwanted microbes

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

A long time ago my buddy thought lobster would be fun. (He was a legit winemaker)

Thankfully, I was the one who built the still and stored all the mash.

I hate shellfish to start. I could not imagine it after 4 weeks.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

SUCH a good choice of image!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm currently brewing up a batch of Tang! We'll know in a week or so if it was a success.

I'm hoping the synthetic chemicals that give it a citrus flavor are anathema to my yeast so I'll have something refreshing in a month or so.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

A local brewery down here did a Tang run. It was pretty on point taste wise.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Yesss! Let me know how it goes! I ended up following a post on Facebook about a dude who reduced orange soda into a syrup and used it for a beer. As it was a more… traditional, group everyone was horrified. Apparently it turned out super awesome. Love the creativity and I’m curious about how your adventure turns out :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's coated with powder, but the actual seasoning there actually isn't much of it. I learned this when I tried to make Hot Cheeto fried chicken. The flavor barely came through.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Oh yeah from the smell and taste of the mash it tastes almost exactly like a corn/cream ale I made ages ago, but it’s always worth a shot

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

On my 25th birthday, my roommate and I had the great idea to do Skittles vodka. If you're not familiar, you basically separate each color of skittles and use filters (think coffee filters) to infuse the color/flavor into the alcohol you poor over.

It mostly tasted like vodka. And even though I had a brewery tour and bar outing under my belt, it still tasted like pretty much pure vodka.

What I remember of the night was pretty good overall. But waking up in Skittles-colored vomit... both hilarious (in hindsight) and gross.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Oh man, the key is gummy bears! I got a giant gummy bear (1 pound/0.45kg or so) once and soaked it in vodka. The bear was so big the alcohol barely penetrated through it, but the vodka it was soaking in was delicious, if you have a sweet tooth. The skittles colored vomit however doesn’t sound like the best of times though lol. Learning experiences are priceless though 😅

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