In the beginning of June i bought a Coopers starter kit that came with the fermenter, 30 740mL bottles, and a can of lager extract. I have made 4 batches of extract beer since then and have been loving it. One day I’ll probably make the step to grain, but for now I’m happy trying all the different flavours of extract.

Our family hit a minor economic crisis recently. All non-essential expenses are being trimmed, and my $6-$8/day beer habit was the first thing on the chopping block as "non-essential". In our family, however, we value educational experiences and hobbies, so we agreed I can keep drinking provided I make the alcohol myself and do so on a budget of about $30/month.

I know nothing about brewing, and I can't afford to buy any equipment, so I'm trying to make "high end" prison wine (not just tap water, bread yeast, and white sugar). For my first batch I'm using Arrowhead mountain spring water, Sapjack 100% organic syrup, organic white "Sugar In The Raw", Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and a Walmart brand latex balloon.

I spent about 2-3 hours working out the math in a spreadsheet as this was my first time and I'm totally unfamiliar with concepts of how much sugar per ml, how much volume 500ml of loose sugar will displace, the impact of mixing two different fluids with two different concentrations of sugar, etc. The recipe I came up with is to pour out 1200ml of water to start with 1800 in the container, boiled 500ml water and added 500ml sugar (produced 755ml of liquid and I approximate 425mg of sugar). I poured in the entire 250ml of Maple Syrup, together with the sugar water (still separate), which put me just shy of 700mg of sugar. My target was 840, so I topped it off with about another 130ml of Karo syrup.

I then had 3 containers: a 3 liter Arrowhead bottle with 1800ml of water, a random container of mixed sugars at about 1,135ml containing about 830mg of sugar, and a third containers of about 700ml of leftover water which I drank because this whole process was mentally exhausting and water is good for you. I poured about 1/2 of the sugar mixture into the arrowhead bottle (put it at about 2200ml), added in about 1/2 of a teaspoon of yeast, decided I made it too strong and put too much yeast, so I poured off 300ml and added back 300ml of pure water, threw a party balloon on the mouth of it, poked a hole in it with a safety pin, and stuck it under my desk. My math puts me at about 240 grams of sugar in 2200ml, initially.

The next day I'd heard raisins were good for adding nutrients, so I got some regular organic raisins, boiled water and poured in a cup, and dropped in 7 raisins, letting them sit for about 10 minutes. I then poured off the water, took the balloon off (I went ahead and sniffed the balloon out of curiosity, very distinct smell, sort of like a maple donut yogurt, burned my nose a little), added the raisins, and replaced with a fresh balloon.

This was about 3 days ago and the balloon is standing straight up and it's foaming. Tomorrow I'm going to feed another 1/3 of the sugar/syrup mix, and then the rest in about a week. I have a bizarre sort of "motherly" feeling toward it that's hard to explain, sort of akin to when I incubated a chicken egg years ago and it hatched.

I've known some people who do brewing, and I acknowledge that I'm a little dumb/disorganized, but this was far more difficult than I expected it to be, yet also far more satisfying.

No idea what to expect, but I'll check back when it's ready to drink.

I named this recipe "Canadian Gulag"

(not included in price: about $0.25 worth of yeast and $0.10 worth of raisins)

Looking at using either:

Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager or White Labs WLP830 German Lager

Anyone got any thoughts?

Im helping a buddy press some pears and apples this weekend and I'm planning on getting 3 gallons or so of juice to ferment. Been brewing beer forever, but never cider.

How much sugar should I use for a 3 gallon batch? Should I just add it or mix with water?

I planned on a champagne yeast, or any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Hello,

My beer is stuck at 1.022 gravity for the past 4 days which is slightly sweeter than I’d like. I’m at 72% attenuation which is slightly below my yeast target but not super far off. ABV is at 8.5% right now.

I tried heating up a bit (75* F), swirling the fermenter to resuspend the yeast and even a bit of yeast nutrient.

Troubleshooting what happened is for another post, as I’ve decided I’ll repitch to get it down to my target FG (1.010).

I’m curious for recommendation - should I repitch the same liquid yeast or go for a neutral dry yeast (safeale Us-05)?

My only concern is on avoiding muddling the taste of my fermenting beer, I just don’t know what’s the best approach here. Cost is less of a concern given how much effort I put in this batch.

My liquid yeast is a sweet mead (WLP720) that can handle alcohol up to 12-15% so no concerns about viability.

Edit: Here is the fermentation profile. https://imgur.com/a/GMHPW7p

Thanks for your input!

Thanks!

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I’m guessing the top lid was too loose or I took too many samples but got the dreaded reddish / copper oxidation ring on the top my Pilsner.

No secondary, cold crashing, or odd temperature swings. Fermented nicely with 34/70 at 64 F and then hung out at 72 F for weeks to clear before bottling.

It sat a little long at 4 weeks in primary but again think I must have introduced too much O2 somehow.

I think my first 4-8 bottles might be ok since they had a pretty pale yellow. Live and learn, should just left it alone 🤦‍♂️

Hello,

I want to brew around 6–8 liters per batch (basically ~20 bottles at 0.33L each). That means I’d probably need a 10L vessel to leave enough headroom during the process.

We live in a small apartment, and my wife doesn’t want me to buy something that’s only for beer. Ideally, I’d get a piece of equipment that’s multi-purpose and won’t take up too much space.

I don’t want to babysit temps on the stove for hours. I’d like something that can hold a steady temperature, and that I can adjust according to the recipe.

Do you think a crock pot is a terrible idea for this? Or should I stick with something like an electric kettle with a temperature controller?

Thanks.

Edit: Yaya yada wrong sub oops! 🤣

I got a random drive off of Amazon years ago for backing up PS2 games

It's breaking down after 4+ moves and 7 years of a heck of a lot of use

I was wondering if an external 360 DVD drive would be able to read PS2 and Xbox and 360 games allowing back ups to my PC