THE Alcohol (drinkable) Thread (merged)

by **goetic_neuromancer** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 19:31:07

I was thinking that my wife and i are gonna be up a creek if we dont have alcohol for very long. Also we both work in restaurants so we have a considerable budget for drinking in our general plans(300$/month). if the Expletive deleted. slides but doesent get blown it would be stress releaving to drink. we are planning onstocking some liquor (wiskey for the house and bacardi 151 for the bug out bags), but we dont drink much liquor anymore, mostly beer and wine. I was thinking about brewing mead here because its cheap to produce in quantity, has lots of carbs in it, is more resistant to contamination during production than beer and we can stock ingreedients. not to mention as a barter good. I am afterall a bartender........i should learn how to brew something for job security, not just saving money now. when Expletive deleted. goes south people drink more not less. Anything homade beats the ole' Victory Gin. Anyone with any mead or other home brew experience who wants to share their wisdom?

by **Budmeister** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 19:55:10

I put up 23 bottles (750ml bottles) of persimmon wine last fall, tastes alot like Sangria, good stuff, chilled ice cold. Got 5 gallons of blackberry just a bubbling away in the fermenter. Now thats nectar of the gods. Waiting for possum grapes to come in season this late summer/early fall. You do realize that you can make pretty much make all the wine and beer you need. But the Feds will slap you on the pee-pee for making hard alky, seems owning and operating a still is illegal.

That said go here:
Possum Living
Dolly will fix you up. Copper tubing, a pressure-cooker, breaddough, voila, stove-top still. :lol:

by **aldente** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 19:57:16

The question of how to make alcoholic beverages comes quite frequently these days. I've heard that prison inmates collect any given fruit (cherries, apricots, you name it) put sugar in the mix after crushing it (to fuel it up so to say, it also should work with the natural fructose alone) and letting it ferment naturally (there is always some wild yeast in the air). It helps to put the mix in a warm spot, fermentation might not start under cool or cold conditions.

How the mix tastes? Random outcome, always different and also dependend on the yeast that got active. In the worst case other forms of micro organisms got active and you end up with pure spoilage, I guess.

Here a link to a book about "wild fermentation". It goes beyond alcohol and also includes Tempeh, Sauerkraut etc.
Wild Fermentation

by **ONeil** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 20:18:08

Find a local brew store. They will have all the materials that you need and the expert advice that you are looking for. Many will let you produce batches on their facilities. This is a nice option as they have many of the ancillary objects that are needed to produce a good product, in this way you get to try all the toys before you buy your own.

by **Ayoob** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 20:19:37

Absolutely not.

by **Ludi** » Sun 03 Jul 2005, 20:52:07

Wine is easy to make, and if you distill it, you get brandy, also easy.

by **I_Like_Plants** » Mon 04 Jul 2005, 01:55:51

The jailbirds call their brew "pruno" or "swipe" some googling on those terms may yeild some info ..... my guess is there are older/more experienced inmates who know how to do it right and possibly have cultures that they keep that they know will work right, the Keepers Of The Pruno you might say.

by **hoplite** » Tue 05 Jul 2005, 22:12:12

I bought what I consider a lifetime supply of McCallan 25 yr old Scotch. When PO/Socio-Economic Breakdown/Chaos hits, I will remain civilized and eschew dangerous, homemade concoctions. Alot easier to stock up now, and even if PO turns out to be Y2K II, my scotch has almost doubled in price from where I bought it 2 years ago! (better ROI than gold!)

Website · by **Yavicleus** » Wed 06 Jul 2005, 13:55:13

I brew mead. It's really easy to make, and it's as strong as a good champagne.

Ingredients:

12 pounds honey
6 gallons water
1 packet Champagne yeast

Put it all together in a fermenter, and let sit for 8-12 months.

by **aldente** » Wed 06 Jul 2005, 20:29:25

Mead and Champagne, man ! This is America I guess...
Sorry, couldn't resist to comment on that since I sell both Chaucers Mead from Santa Cruz as well as Bollinger Champagne from France. Those are two different animals. Kind'a crossing a horse and a donkey. There you have a mule!

by **FlyAgaric** » Thu 07 Jul 2005, 02:00:52

Homebrewing is easy. And you have the right idea if you are thinking of mead.

The only thing with homebrewing, though, is that you really need to keep your gear clean. I've been living without running water for a number of years now and homebrewing has been something of a problem for me for this reason. My buddy has a city tap, and I've just been brewing at his place. But post peak, I worry that I might not have that option.

People I know brew all the time without running water. It's just a pain in the ass and I confess to being something of a sloth. I love beer.

by **aldente** » Thu 07 Jul 2005, 08:50:01

FlyAgaric wrote: I love beer.

Is that you??

by **FlyAgaric** » Thu 07 Jul 2005, 10:06:16

Um, no. That guy is drinking out of a can. Anyone who truely loves beer will drinkk it out of glass, and ideally not a narrow-opening bottle. I ride a bike, so I'm not fat.

And for reasons that have nothing to do with anything, I don't own a television. Evil they are. I've yet to brew any mead. It takes too long. I'm impatient.

by **farmingengineer** » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 00:28:36

I brewed my first batch of beer this winter. The guys at work said "this kind of tastes like beer". I'll third the reply that sanitation is everything in making a good batch. Now that I'm a Peak Oiler I think I'll start looking for some things on my property that could become some kind of spirits. Dandelion wine anyone?

by **Pops** » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 09:30:27

This place had 4 grape vines of unknown variety, which I took cuttings from early this year, and I now have about 30 new plants. They old vines seem to be doing well without any chemicals and are putting on a good amount of fruit – if they turn out to be tasty I’ll probably take some more cuttings next spring.

I also have plans to plant a small orchard, mostly apples and have planted a couple of elderberries to use as nursery plants as well.

I cleaned out a pumphouse for a neighbor in exchange for the billion mason jars stored there and discovered about a dozen gallon sized cider jugs so I’m getting closer to setting up my winery.

Someone here once posted a link to a nice still, they company also had a column that attached to the top of a beer keg that looked pretty neat.

by **roebuck** » Mon 11 Jul 2005, 12:57:19

As a long-time (almost 30 years now) home brewer, I'll 4th the notion that sanitation is key. Perfect sterility is, of course, impossible, but you pretend as if it were. Of course, as Papazian always said "nothing ruins a batch of beer as much as worrying too much about it", also commonly formulated as RDWHAHB*

Now, talking about self-sufficiency... yeast is easy, hops are easy (in many parts of the country, including mine), but I really need to learn how to grow/harvest/malt barley. I've been meaning to put in a patch of barley for years now, but one thing after another, y'know?

Maybe next Spring...

- roebuck

* Relax Don't Worry Have A Home Brew

by **aldente** » Tue 12 Jul 2005, 01:02:01

A big advantage of brewing yourself is that you don't depend on trucks for delivery.

by **TurboJoe** » Tue 09 Aug 2005, 17:53:17

How feasable is it to produce 200-proof alcohol from distillation? other methods?

Is there anyone here producing 200-proof? I'm interested in setting up, producing, and testing different proofs of alcohol. 170-190 proof is a dime-a-dozen it seems, but how about completely removing water? Are there methods to produce 200-proof on a small scale & budget?

Any help is appreciated in pointing me in the right direction.

-Joe

by **Jack** » Tue 09 Aug 2005, 18:06:57

As I recall, the maximum level you can achieve with distillation is 190 proof. To accomplish 200 proof would require some sort of drying agent - a chemical of one sort or another. This LINK should get you started. Obviously, were this for human consumption, one would need to be concerned about toxic effects.

Be sure to check local and federal regulations. The Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms can be rather picky about such things.

by **boilingleadbath** » Tue 09 Aug 2005, 18:09:12

The only alchohol I know of that you can distill to 100% is methonol. Ethonol forms an azeotrope with water at 96%, and isopropanol at 89%.

Not to mention that distilling gets really slow as you near 96%. You might as well stop at 93 or 94%. That takes about 8 distillations, if I remember correctly.

If you want to remove the rest of the water, you'll have to look into zeolite - it's often called "molecular sive"... apperently, it only absorbs water - the alchohols are too big to fit in it's pores. After the zeolites are used, you get to bake the water out and reuse them.

THE Alcohol (drinkable) Thread (merged)

THE Alcohol (drinkable) Thread (merged)

Drinking drinking drinking coca coca cola

Producing 200-proof Alcohol?

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