What can I do with a one gallon demi-john?

Sleepy

Back in college I had a few goes at home brew. Made a barely drinkable (by my then student standards!) red wine from the kit, then made a couple of batches of "peach schnappes" that IIRC was really just base alcohol with peach flavouring added from a sachet at the end! :eek: (Googled it there, it was Prohibition spirits kits that I got in Easons at the time).

Up until last month, my demi-john and equipment was buried in the mother's attic, I'm not wondering what to do with it. I like the idea of making a batch of mead but don't think I'd have the patience to wait 6 months to drink it. Any suggestions as to what I could get done in a shorter time frame that'd be tasty?

Also, I notice a lot of articles about brewing in the 5l spring water bottles... would I be best to brew a first stage in one of these and then rack it into the demi john?

Mr Benevolent

Cider is your best bet and by far the easiest, just get supermarket apple juice, dump some honey in, stir and add yeast. I've brewed twice now in 5L water bottles and it's been fine.

oblivious

A medium strength beer will ferment in a week to tow and bottle condition in another two after that

Sleepy

Wouldn't I need a larger container for beer? Thought most kits came in quantities of 12 litres or higher?

Sleepy

Another dumb question:

Our house doesn't have anywhere that temperatures wouldn't swing quite a lot (old house with storage heating). I read a mention of using an aquarium heater (which I have a couple of lying around) to maintain a constant temp. Am I right in thinking this would be done by leaving the demi-john in a basin the heater was running in rather than attempting to sterilize something that's been in a fish tank and put it into the fermenting mixture?!

BeerNut

Sleepy wrote: »

Wouldn't I need a larger container for beer? Thought most kits came in quantities of 12 litres or higher?

Here's a very quick-and-dirty small-scale extract recipe. Here's a bit more info on small-scale brewing.

Sleepy wrote: »

Our house doesn't have anywhere that temperatures wouldn't swing quite a lot

As long as it doesn't go above 23 or so it doesn't matter if temperatures fluctuate. Just allow extra fermentation time if it's going to be below 16 at any point.

oblivious

Sleepy wrote: »

Wouldn't I need a larger container for beer? Thought most kits came in quantities of 12 litres or higher?

Sorry posted in the wrong thread , but cider is the easy choice or a small scale beer

ClimberC

Confab wrote: »

Cider is your best bet and by far the easiest, just get supermarket apple juice, dump some honey in, stir and add yeast. I've brewed twice now in 5L water bottles and it's been fine.

Could you be more specific in your recipe please?

Mr Benevolent

ClimberC wrote: »

Could you be more specific in your recipe please?

Ok:

5L apple juice (no preservatives, can be from concentrate)
1 454g jar of Tesco Value honey
1 sachet of yeast (I used Lalvin EC1118)

Method:

Pour 3L of apple juice into a pot and heat to body temperature.

Add honey and stir until mixed.

Pitch in yeast and mix well.

Pour into clean 5L water bottle and put on cap.

Tighten cap slightly so that it can still let out air.

Put in a dark place and check it the next day, should be bubbling.

Leave for 5 days, then top up with the rest of the juice, leaving a bit of space.

Leave for another 5 days.

Pour into 9-10 500ml carbonated water bottles and pour a little bit of normal apple juice into each one (maybe 25ml).

Seal bottles and forget about them (in a dark cupboard) for 6 weeks.

Try one after six weeks, If you like it, fine, if you don't, leave it some more.

Mine took about 2-3 months to mature into something drinkable.

Enjoy, it's worth it.

Sleepy

Think I'm going to go with a cider but off the basic rules of making anything to eat or drink, go for the best ingredients I can afford (so good pressed apple juice) and good unprocessed honey (should be easy get in Superquinn or similar).

Any tips on what's the best yeast for cider? Are there specific cider yeasts like there are for different beers / wines / champagnes? And how come there's no sticky here of home brew suppliers!

loyatemu

is the honey necessary in this? Good pressed apple juice should have enough sugar to ferment out to 5-6% cider, with the honey I'd imagine it would be rocket fuel (maybe that's the idea...)

Sleepy

Right so, all I need is a good pressed apple juice and a good yeast?!

Mr Benevolent

loyatemu wrote: »

is the honey necessary in this? Good pressed apple juice should have enough sugar to ferment out to 5-6% cider, with the honey I'd imagine it would be rocket fuel (maybe that's the idea...)

It gave my cider an ABV of 9%. Homebrew should always have a higher ABV then shop bought stuff imo. No particular reason though. Anyway, I used concentrated juice - the final product doesn't seem to care what you use as long as it has sugar and flavouring.

BeerNut

Sleepy wrote: »

Right so, all I need is a good pressed apple juice and a good yeast?!

Lidl cloudy apple juice and Young's Cider yeast generally does the job for me. I see a couple of suppliers are doing a pre-sweetened cider yeast. I've done a batch with it and early tastes are promising.

Sleepy

So, I've just placed an order with homebrew.ie for some bits and pieces:

3 sachets of Lalvin Champagne Yeast (EC-1118)
1 rubber bung (my old one was cork and it's been in the attic for a decade)
1 siphon (again, old tubing was mouldy)
12 Amber Swing Top Bottles
1kg of Brewing Sugar

Came to just under the price of a couple of crates of Tuborg in my local off-licence so I better make sure to get some use out of it. Still, the sugar and yeast aside, the majority of what I've bought should be usable over-and-over again.

Going to have a go at cider with the best apple juice I can get my hands on. May well end up just being Lidl / Aldi pressed juice but I'll see if I can dig out something better. Thinking these won't be ready to drink until February at the earliest?

rubadub

If you want to do beer you could possibly make up a simple kit batch using a dry kit.

I am not sure what these kits are composed of

http://www.homebrewwest.ie/hambleton-bard-strong-bitter-40-pt-dry-kit-149-p.asp

Containing spray dried malt extract and Hambleton Bards own unique hop extract, these kits are uniquely pure, with no flavour distortion from the heat normally used to make a malt extract.

Each kit makes 40 pints of full bodied tradional ale in just 3 weeks.

Requires sugar.

If the hops are already in the dry malt then it would be easy enough to weigh out 1/5th of the kit and make 1 gallon. It the hops are in a bottle or something you may need a syringe to do it properly. You also need more yeast for the brews.

BeerNut's link requires proper boiling, but I am guessing I could just buy spraymalt, yeast and hop extract like this
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/hop-extract-sachet-40-pints-487-p.asp
and just add a 1/5th of the pack. You could probably freeze the hop extract(?). If you have no syringe you could dilute the hop extract to make it easier to estimate 1.5th of the pack.

Sleepy

I think a pale ale will definitely be the next thing I try, the ale section of the O' Briens is becoming far too tempting: I'm paying 5/6 quid for two 500ml bottles of decent ale as a treat for myself whilst buying a case of Tuborg for €20 as an everyday beer!!!