User:Saul/brewing

Mead

Ingredients

• 1.3kg (NZ Bush) Honey
• ~5L water
• M02 Cider yeast (~1/2 a packet)
• ~25 raisins

Process

1. Heat honey with some water until dissolved.
2. Pour into 5L jug with raisins and top up with water until it is a couple inches from the top.
3. Pitch yeast and wait 6 weeks.

Notes

The raisins are there to provide nutrient for the yeast - has little effect on taste. Apparently raisins can add to the 'mouth-feel' like tannins.

Records

01/11/2024

Specific Gravity: 1.080

29/11/2024

Specific Gravity: 1.000 Racked into another jug.

Blueberry Melomel (Mead)

Ingredients

• 1.3kg Blueberries
• 1.4kg (NZ Bush) Honey
• ~3L Water
• M02 Cider Yeast (~1/2 a packet)
• ~10 Raisins
• 1/8 tsp Tannin
• 1/2 tsp Citric Acid
• 1/2 tsp Tartic Acid
• 1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
• 1 Campden Tablet

Process

1. Freeze the blueberries
2. Boil the water with raisins for 5-10m
3. Add frozen blueberries
4. Add honey
5. Mash blueberries and mix the honey.
6. Add campden tablet half way though the next step to help it dissolve.
7. Pour into 5L jug and top up with water until it is a couple inches from the top.
8. Add bubbler and wait 24h.
9. Mix in pectic enzime.
10. Pitch yeast.
11. Ferment for up to 6 weeks and rack every couple of weeks until it clears.
12. Bottle for 6 months.

References

• https://homebrewanswers.com/blueberry-mead-recipe/

Records

01/11/2024

Specific Gravity: 1.126

Tomato Paste Wash (TPW)

For ~2.5L of ethanol, ~500ml of hearts.

Ingredients

• 5kg sugar
• 80g Bakers Yeast (Active Dried Yeast)
• 1/4tsp citric acid
• 200g Tomato paste
• ~25L Water

Process

1. Pour sugar into fermentation bucket.
2. Dissolve citric acid with tomato paste in a jug and add to bucket.
3. Keep adding hot water until sugar is dissolved.
4. Top up with hot and cold water to 25L trying to end up with a temperature of 30c.
5. Stir wash until it is spinning and pitch yeast - no need to stir it in.
6. Takes 14-21 days to ferment, it takes longer than turbo yeast so I like to leave it 3 weeks for optimal yield.
7. Siphon wash and discard sediment.
8. Add 1tsp (optional) of olive oil when distilling to prevent puking.

Notes

• Citric acid is a slight acidity tweak to help fermentation, could probably omit it. Could also substitute with Lemon.
• I have tried a variety of tomato pastes and had no issues - Wattie's Leggo's & Homebrand (Woolworths/Countdown).
• I have cut the tomato paste down to 166g before and did not have fermentation issues.

Records

06/11/2024

Specific Gravity: 1.076

Kombucha

Ingredients

• 600g Sugar
• 50g tea (20 tea bags of Bell)
• ~5L water

Process

Once you have a mix going (copied from an existing scoby), you will need to bottle the mix and get the first fermentation running again around every week:

1. Remove scoby and 700ml of liquid and place in separate container.
2. Stir the remaining liquid to ensure consistency.
3. Bottle the stirred liquid adding fruit and/or any other flavors.
4. Clean out the container (that the liquid was in) with white vinegar.
5. Add sugar to container and dissolve in 1L of boiling water.
6. Add tea bags and wait 10 mins to brew (no need to stir).
7. Remove tea bags and add 3.3L cold water and ensure entire mix is cold (not still hot from the boiling water added from an earlier step).
8. Add your scoby and the 700ml of liquid you placed aside earlier.
9. Cover and ferment for around 1 week.

Notes

If don't do this cycle every 5-7 days, you run the risk of the result tasting like vinegar, if this goes too far the scoby will only produce vinegar tasting product and you will need to start from scratch.

Ginger Beer (Non-Alcoholic)

Ingredients

• 1Kg Ginger
• 6 Lemons/Limes
• Ginger beer yeast
• ~600g Sugar
• 5L Water

Process

1. Blend the Ginger and boil (with a portion of the water) alongside the sugar for 30 minutes.
2. Add the lemon while hot and wait for it to cool.
3. Sieve or strain the liquid to remove the ginger.
4. Add the rest of the water and yeast.
5. Pour into bottles with 1/2 tsp of sugar.
6. Pasteurize after 2 days.

Notes

This has ~12% sugar, might want to reduce that to 9% or even 6% - need testing.

Ginger Liquor

Ingredients

• 1Kg Ginger
• 6Kg Sugar
• 6 Lemons (Or 300ml of juice)
• M02 Cider yeast (Or ginger beer yeast, brewers yeast or bakers yeast)

Process

1. Wash ginger (don't peel)
2. Blitz ginger with water to make a paste.
3. Move to a pot for boiling.
4. Add 2Kg of the sugar with ginger paste.
5. Add juice of lemons.
6. Bing mix to boil.
7. Simmer for 40 minutes.
8. Turn off heat and cool.
9. Strain mixture into fermenter. (Can rinse ginger with more water to extract a little more flavor.)
10. Dissolve the remaining 4Kg Sugar.
11. Top up to 23L with water.
12. Pitch yeast
13. Ferment until complete (~2 months)
14. Bottle and leave to age for at least 3 months.
15. Once clear it is good to drink.

Notes

This was really slow to ferment for me, I think this is due to very little nutrient in the mix, maybe add some dead yeast (boil yeast to kill it) or raisins to add more nutrient?

References

• Trev's Life - HOME BREW GINGER BEER

Coconut Rum (Malibu)

Following recipe is for ~1L

Ingredients

• 325g Virgin Coconut Oil
• 32g Shredded Coconut or Coconut Flakes
• 1L Vodka or White Rum
• ~400mL Coconut Water
• ~188g Sugar

Process

1. Very lightly grease a pan with coconut oil and clean with paper towel. (This is to stop other flavors from the pan infusing.)
2. Add coconut flakes and dry fry until golden, if you have bought toasted coconut you can either skip this step or lightly fry it.
3. Add coconut oil and heat to infuse.
4. Move mixture to a jar and allow to cool.
5. Add vodka seal and shake to infuse the contents.
6. Let sit for at least 2 hours, shaking every 20 minutes or so.
7. Place in the fridge overnight to allow the coconut oil to solidify again.
8. Pour liquid through a muslin cloth to filter out the bits of coconut.
9. Pour liquid through a coffee filter to help remove the remaining bits of oil.
10. (Optional) Heat remaining oil again to liquify and filter it into a jar for cooking.
11. Measure out 22.4g of sugar per 100ml of coconut infused alcohol.
12. Measure out 48mL of coconut water per 100ml of coconut infused alcohol.
13. Dissolve sugar and mix coconut water into infused alcohol.
14. Bottle.

Notes

This stuff tastes nicer than the store bough Malibu and is only a fraction of the price to make.

References

• Kevin Kos - Homemade Coconut Rum Liqueur

Piña Colada

Following recipe is for ~3 large glasses.

Ingredients

• 180g Coconut Rum (Malibu)
• 280g Pineapple Juice
• 100g Coconut Cream
• 300g Ice
• Juice of 1/2 a small Lime

Process

1. Add all the ingredients to a blender and mix aggressively.
2. Pour.

Notes

• It is smoother and frothier if you blitz it fast for a longer time (~30s)
• Use the thickest coconut cream you can find for best results.

Limon Cello

Following recipe is for ~1L

Ingredients

• 420mL Ethanol (90%+ Alcohol)
• 420mL Water
• 290g Sugar
• 10-20 Lemon Skins

Process

1. Put skins into a jar and cover with the ethanol. (Remove skins if they are not pretty much covered in the alcohol.)
2. Shake jar every day for up to 4 weeks.
3. Heat water in a pot and dissolve sugar.
4. Allow to cool.
5. Filter ethanol from the skins and add to water/sugar mix.
6. Bottle.

Notes

• Sweetness is moderate in this mix, you can go up to 420g of sugar (way too sweet) or reduce down as desired.
• You can replace the lemon skins with skins of oranges or limes for different flavors.
• You can replace the ethanol with cheap vodka but it will produce a worse product.
• You can reduce the infusion time to reduce flavor a bit. Should infuse for at least a week.