Home Brewing?

Is anyone brewing their own beer as part of preparedness? I haven't tried my hand at it for a variety of reasons, but it is an interesting project. Here in the States, it is legal to brew beer and make your own wine without a license. Distilled liquor, however, requires a license issued by the ATF.

Thanks for sharing any thoughts, observations, etc.

 

I can't say I've tried brewing beer in particular yet either, though I plan to. However, given that my grandfather and I have a small vineyard, I'm quite familiar with the wine making process. As far as I could tell, it seems much simpler than brewing beer. When we make wine, the picked grapes simply go through a press into a large barrel, yeast specifically intended for winemaking and a bit of Potassium metabisulfite are added, and then you let it sit for a while, stirring it every day. Obviously I oversimplified it but that's all there is to it. Then with the left over grapes from the fermentation process, we make distilled alcohol.

 

I have not tried brewing beer yet but my friend and I are trying our hand at wine. It is really not as hard as we thought it was going to be. There are lots of local blueberry farms in the area and I happen to be friends with one of the farmers. We got our hands on lots of free blueberries to try out our skills with. We are now in in the waiting phase of the wine making so I will have to get back to you on how it turns out.

 

Yes, I defintely think there are more steps to beer brewing than making wine. I think if you have one of those beer making kits, it is quite a bit easier though. I think regardless of what you do it will require quite a bit of experimentation however. You need to make sure that you have your ducks in a row when doing any kind of brewing however.

 

Drinking alcoholic drink and home brewing is not culturally accepted in our family. We do home brewing sometimes. This is especially for the workers in our farm. We brew rice or corn beer. Our home brewed beer is mild. We also make wine, we use fruit juice to make wine. We use wine to warm bodies during the cold winter months.

 

Once brewed your wine and beer should last a very long time so that is one of the good reasons to do brewing. Besides if you are in a survival situation you may not have access to TV or other sort of electronic entertainment and distractions you might as well enjoy yourself with a pint, or a bottle of wine. Also, it could give you some needed calories.

 

My father had a go at beer and wine and cider. I may give it a go at some point

 

I'm not a big drinker of anything or drink often. Usually I am to busy to bother drinking and I also have certain rules about drinking...when I do indulge.

I don't drink and run machinery..including lawn mowers.

I don't Drink and reload ammunition or handle firearms.

To me alcohol and certain things do not mix........ever.

I don't work or repair machinery when I have been drinking..which is very seldom that I do drink..even beer.


I am not at all against drink. I am against stupidity.
I have been gifted in my life to do some incredibly stupid things while stone cold sober.
I just realize I do not need to be augmenting my stupidity by drinking and handling the above described things.


Now having said that ....I am not particularly interested in manufacturing beer or wine....although I am very well aware of the record of food, spices and alcohol in History.

One of the most interesting and fascinating books I read was an account of the history of food and spices.

It was titled..."Food in History." A very interesting and fascinating account of the caravan and trading routes and how many spices came to the western world.
We so take much of this stuff for granted today ...just go to the stores and get more. ..but this was not always possible in history.


I have put back certain amounts of alcohol for preps and some for purely medicinal reasons. Of recent I have put back 4 pints of blackberry brandy as I used up most of what I had when I came down with this bug which seems to be going around.


But up in my radio room I have these put back and the oldest bottle is now some 9 years olde. I expect that with this alcohol percentage that they have about as long a shelf life as can be expected for any commodity.



These preps have been purchased a bit at a time...as priorities came and went...but this was not the highest priority and only fitted in when I could so do. Also put back is two pint bottles of the same.

Other than medicinal purposes I consider this capital..for trade or barter. and to this day none of them has been opened. No reason to so do.


Thanks,
Watcherchris

 

Out the box thinking watchchris hopefully I bump into you post shtf

 

Oh....before I let this get away from me....


One of the interesting items to note from history ...is this..

In the more temperate latitudes....even with the significant variety in languages and customs....among humans...

Almost every group of people across this globe, at these more favorable latitudes, has figured out the process of fermentation.

I find this an interesting facet of human history.


Thanks,
Watcherchris

 

LOL, I got busted by the Moms patrol for making and selling home brew when I was 9 years old. I had 5 five gallon glass jugs with condoms on top fermenting at all times. I wouldn't have got caught but some of the Moms were getting suspicious about their loopy kids. I shut down operations and just bottled what I had and hid my jugs. Three warm days later those bottles started exploding and I was busted!! Normally I didn't bottle until it stopped blowing the condom up and the fermentation stopped. I thought that straining and bottling would stop it...wrong!

All the kids in my area were blessed by having an old codger that taught us all manner of things that our parents weren't always proud of. I was in trouble another time when we almost put a garbage can in orbit with gun powder that we made ourselves. Got in trouble with carbide crystals too. BIG BOOMS from a homeade carbide canon!!

 

9 years old and make moonshine.....respect

 

LOL LOL LOL...Texdanm.

Now that is funny....

I have a picture in my mind of the condoms acting as a sort of gauge in illustrating the rate and pressure of the fermentation process.


You know Texdanm...one of the funniest movies I've watched is a movie concerning Africa wherein at a certain time of the year...a certain fruit grows ripe on a certain tree. And the animals love it..and flock to these trees to devour this fruit.

The problem is ...that as they devour quantities of this fruit....and it ferments....in their stomachs..they become drunken.

It is hilarious to see Baboons falling out of trees...warthogs who can hardly stand up....giraffes too.

As I am give to understand ...they become drunken and also thirsty and go to the rivers and ponds for a drink. There they become vulnerable ...and often stuck in the mud and or drown. The park rangers have great difficulty getting many of these animals unstuck from the mud.


Now ..as I am given to understand it...fermentation is a naturally occurring process...it cannot be stopped with certain items.

All men do is control and regulate the process for their purposes...towards a finished product.


I've never tried Mead. I shall have to try it one day....no hurry. I still have a Fosters Beer which Has been in my fridge for over a year now.


Thanks,
Orangetom

 

When I was a kid my Grandmother had a huge mulberry tree in her yard. When the fruit got ripe and started falling off the tree the birds and squirrels would rush in and eat them. After a few days they would start to ferment and the critters would get so drunk that they couldn't fly or climb. Then the cats would show up and they would catch the birds and squirrels. For about a two week period every year things were pretty busy in her yard.

Plain old home brew is easy to make. We used frozen juice concentrate, sugar, water and yeast in a 5 gallon glass water jug. You shake it up and then put a condom on top. When it gets to fermenting the condom blows up and you have to go by every day and bleed the pressure out of the condom. When it stops blowing up the condom it is done and you filter it and bottle it. You can drink it immediately but it actually is better if you bottle it for a week or two before use. We were making grape and strawberry homebrew and selling it for 50 cents a bottle if we provided the bottle and 25 cents if you provided the bottle. Understand this was back when a Superman comic book was 12 cents and a cola was 10 cents. For a quarter you could get a coke, a bag of peanuts and a small candy bar so we were doing pretty good. I was supplementing my 50 cents a week allowance.