THE Alcohol (drinkable) Thread (merged)

[Shaved Monkey]

Ive got the basket press and 3 large demijohns 30 odd litres each
Plus all the odds and sods for wine making
Just waiting for some time and a glut of fruit to start again
Besides plums, peaches and nectarines
I have 2 grape vines so far and will be trying to get some Shiraz or Tempranillo cuttings to make a mini vine yard that will produce in a hot climate.
I have made lots of red wine a few years back

Local bush tucker makes good wine too, Davidson Plums and Burdekin Plums


Currently the price of Australian wine is so cheap I am getting my fill
Over production and decreased export demand due to the US and England in recession and we have been getting great wine for a few dollars includeing postage.
$6 Shiraz and Cab Savs that are very good wines and $2.50 Sav Blancs that arent bad either.
This cant last as Wineries go bankrupt and a lot of grapes are being bulldozed to releave the glut.
So I am getting in while its good, might have 2 or 3 years left, max of bargains.

[Specop_007]

Today I finished bottling my second batch of peach wine:



Fourteen 750 ml bottles. Again, very unique and strong!

Now if I set up a still, I'll learn the procedure to make brandy.

I put this picture on the labels:

YUM!

You ship right?

[PeakOiler]

YUM!

You ship right?

Only if you ship something back that you made...

[vtsnowedin]

YUM!

You ship right?

Only if you ship something back that you made...

Peakoiler how about a pint of VT maple syrup for a bottle of you peach Texas sunlight?
I know you can't use much of it with type 2 diabetes but you can feed it to the grand kids if you have them and two tablespoons will work just fine if you have a low glucose event, equal to a glass of orange juice.

[PeakOiler]

Peakoiler how about a pint of VT maple syrup for a bottle of you peach Texas sunlight?
I know you can't use much of it with type 2 diabetes but you can feed it to the grand kids if you have them and two tablespoons will work just fine if you have a low glucose event, equal to a glass of orange juice.

I still have most of the maple syrup that Revi sent me! lol I guess another pint of syrup will give me a lifetime supply at the rate I'm eating it. Send me an email and we can discuss a trade. Is it legal to send wine in the mail?

Unfortunately, my sugar levels are still too high. I haven't experienced too low a glucose level yet. The doctor I saw last week has prescribed glipazide in addition to the Janumet and Actos. I'm not injecting insulin. I have been keeping my total carbs under 200 grams/day.

[alokin]

I've only made three batches of beer from a supermarket brewing kit so far. I made them without sugar as light beers. The first was good, the second was drinkable and the third won't even serve for snail traps. I must have made something wrong, maybe it was because I reused plastic bottles?
I have made banana wine and dandelion wine. After four or five month we opened a dandelion wine and I found it was too strong. I followed a usual country wine recipe and while at least it was not sweet the alcohol overpowered too much the dandelion. I wonder what the least amount of sugar is that the wine doesn't spoil but I still have a good flowery taste.

[PeakOiler]

I now have a lifetime supply of maple syrup.

Thanks again, vtsnowedin. I hope you enjoy the wine.

It's a shame the drought thwarted my peach crop this year.

btw, I learned that the US Post Office will not ship alcohol, even just one bottle of wine.

[Shaved Monkey]

Thats horrible.... in the land of free.
I buy all my wine online and get it delivered by Australia Post,its the major thing that keeps me sane.I've got 8 dozen coming this week they had a 2 for one offer works out to $5 a bottle for what is described as the best $10 wine in the world.
Neighbour bought a dozen for $10 a few weeks ago and raved about how good it was.(should be twice as good at $5)

[papa moose]

Peak Oiler,

I assume you are using rain water as a start point.
Does the water coming out of your tank have a "plasticy" odour?
With sterilisation/cleanliness so important to the process do you boil it prior to starting the brewing process?

[PeakOiler]

Peak Oiler,

I assume you are using rain water as a start point.
Does the water coming out of your tank have a "plasticy" odour?
With sterilisation/cleanliness so important to the process do you boil it prior to starting the brewing process?

The rainwater I used for making the wine was filtered through a 5 micron sediment filter, a 3 micron carbon filter, irradiated with UV light, and distilled with my solar water distiller. No, the rainwater does not have any plastic taste whatsoever.

[PrestonSturges]

Someone mentioned sorgham the other day, and apparently it can be distilled into rum, it is used in Africa for beer, and it might be used in place of sugar in moonshine.

[Pretorian]

rum can be made only from sugar cane, but yes you can make vodka-like drink out of sorghum

[PeakOiler]

I'm going to start my third batch of peach wine soon using the remaining ~5 kg of frozen processed (pitted, sliced, and skinned) peaches from the 2010 harvest.

I want to make room in the solar-powered freezer by getting all the peach freezer containers out of there. I have enough empty bottles again now since a few bottles have been consumed (emptied) over the last 6-7 months.

This time, I'm not going to allow the peaches to ferment as long and rack the wine three times. Hopefully that will result in a sweeter wine. I may also reduce the amount of white sugar called for in the recipe I downloaded and rely more on just the fruit's sugars.

[SeaGypsy]

Make sure you boil the hell out of everything first, then you don't need to peel and waste the sugars in the peel for starters. Pretorian is correct about rum if you are a purist, but if you have honey or maple syrup, even corn syrup will get you in the right direction. I prefer a nice local honey rum to about anything top shelf.

[PeakOiler]

pup55 makes a good Pale Ale. I'm drinking it as I type this. Thanks pup!

The 12-oz brew poured into a frozen glass really put a head on it! pup's Pilsner was good too. I tried it the other day.

He probably won't like the bottle of peach wine I sent him. It's very strong. Better mix it with some 7-up and make a spritzer, pup! Does Captain Jacks allow set-ups at 8:00 in the morning? We can just see you on the Captain Jacks cam with a bottle of peach wine! LOL

[JimG]

Started an Irish Stout on Jan 1. It's about 6.5 ABV in the bottle now.
It's just ok as I tried a bottle... Still very little foam.
Needs a bit more priming sugar. Have to look into that next time.

Started 5 gallons of Olde English Ale from an online recipe. It's a
final gravity of 10% which is wayyyy to high for my taste. Have to fine
tune that one for next time as well! Feh!

[Keith_McClary]

Please, it's now referred to as "all liquids".

[Loki]

I tried making a starter for a pale ale using the sludge from the bottom of a few bottles of red ale I made last month. Didn't work. Fermented a little, but not enough. Oh well. Next time I'll try using all the trub.

Made a batch of saison the other day. Never made or even tasted saison before, hopefully I'll like it. Finally got some soda kegs, so I can at least skip the bottling part. I hate bottling.

Started 5 gallons of Olde English Ale from an online recipe. It's a
final gravity of 10% which is wayyyy to high for my taste.

I hope you have a good stash of malt liquor bottles and screw caps

I generally prefer my beers to be 5.5% or so. I find beers that are >6.5% to be almost undrinkable. I'd rather drink mead or wine.

[Loki]

Speaking of mead....

I'm still a beginning beer brewer, have only brewed a dozen batches or so, with varying success. I steep some crushed grains for flavor, but for the most part I use dry extract. I have to buy all of my ingredients from a local brew shop, prepackaged this and prepackaged that from who knows where. Really only a step or two removed from just buying a six pack at the local Stop and Rob. And I save barely any money.

It seems to me that self-sufficiency when it comes to beer brewing is difficult at best. I don't see myself growing and preparing my own grains any time in the near future. Unless I can figure out how to make brewing cheaper (buying grain in bulk?), I'm not sure I see the point of home brewing any more. There are plenty of microbreweries in my state that make better beer than I do.

I'm beginning to think I should refocus my efforts on hard cider and mead. Apples grow in abundance in Oregon, and I have a few sources for local honey. Both are crops I could produce myself. I've made cider before and helped a friend make mead, both seemed easier than beer. Make a ton in the fall and don't worry about it for the rest of the year.

Main draw back of this plan is taste. Cider is OK, mead is all right every once in a while, but neither holds a candle to beer.....

[PeakOiler]

Well, I finally got around to starting my third batch of peach wine using processed (sliced, skinned and pitted) frozen peaches from my 2010 harvest. (There's still about six pounds of frozen peaches in the solar-powered freezer from 2010!)

The four gallon batch recipe this time included:
5.376 kg (11.84 lb) processed peaches,
8.5 liters (9 qt) distilled purified rainwater,
7 lbs white sugar,
Two Campden tablets,
6 tsp Acid blend,
4 tsp Pectin enzyme powder,
2 tsp Yeast energizer,
2 tsp Wine Tannin,
1/8 tsp Potassium metabisulphite,
and of course some yeast.

This batch will not ferment as long as my first two batches since those came out really strong and I prefer a sweeter wine.

I recently celebrated my 54th bday, and at the party (at a friends house) I shared a bottle of the peach wine (from batch 2) and got rave reviews! lol I asked if they were just being polite but when I was asked if there was any more, and the only bottle I brought to the party was empty, they were disappointed. I told them I'll reserve them a bottle from the next batch.