Making Your Own Alcohol

[Dogbert]

Who has done it? Who wants to do it? I know I'd like to try with...

... since I'm not a big fan of beer. There have to be at least a couple people on here who have brewed their own beer or made their own alcohol.

 

[Cobol74]

I did it years ago - it was from a kit and was frankly terrible - one secret do not be tempted to make the brew stronger than in the instructions but I tried twice and the stuff was undrinkable - yuck!

May be the kit or the brewer - I hope that you have better luck.

 

[Dogbert]

^ What did you try to make?

 

[Cobol74]

First time Bitter and the second time was Brown Ale - supposedly the most difficult to muck up!

The Kit was called Geordie and had a picture of a trawler on it for some reason!

 

[chaos386]

This thread reminds me of when my parents used to buy bottles of grape juice along with yeast pellets. Ah, the memories!

 

[jlee221]

i've brewed beer before when i was in culinary school. did 5 successful batches...

the thing about it is, FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. we found that deviations from the times given resulted in catastrophe.

also when we bottled the beer, the amount of air left in the bottle meant the difference between a broken bottle and an intact one.

it was pretty fun.

i've also made my own limoncello. good stuff. pretty simple to make... but it's not really "making" alcohol.

 

[The_Finn]

My dad brews probably 4-5 batches of beer each year. He even designed a awesome exterior tap system for his garage using an old GE (1950s) fridge it really is quite something. I am not a HUGE beer drinker but everything he has done i like and a few of my friends rave about his stuff so i assume he does pretty good. Recently i have been looking into making a potstill that i can use on my porch to make liquor but the initial investment appears to be intense enough that it will have to wait until i get a better job (soon hopefully)

 

[Hidden_Hunter]

First time Bitter and the second time was Brown Ale - supposedly the most difficult to muck up!

The Kit was called Geordie and had a picture of a trawler on it for some reason!

The trawler was on it because it tastes like bilge water

 

[Dogbert]

My dad brews probably 4-5 batches of beer each year. He even designed a awesome exterior tap system for his garage using an old GE (1950s) fridge it really is quite something. I am not a HUGE beer drinker but everything he has done i like and a few of my friends rave about his stuff so i assume he does pretty good. Recently i have been looking into making a potstill that i can use on my porch to make liquor but the initial investment appears to be intense enough that it will have to wait until i get a better job (soon hopefully)

I know someone who has a similar setup. There really are brew nerds just like there are computer nerds. :lol:

 

[Shawn]

I haven't made my own, but I've had plenty of home-made alcohol in Iran since the ban on alcoholic drinks has (merely) led to bootlegging.

They mostly do a distilled spirit similar to vodka, which doesn't taste too bad but is quite high in alcohol content (I think it's about 120 proof).

 

[bone]

my dad used to make his own wine for years. from anything you could come up with: grapes, rubarb, tomatoes, bananas, ...

and before i was born, he used to make beer as well...but he couldn't compete with the beers you can buy in the store here

 

[Twerp128]

My Grandpa made wine for decades, due to living in Michigan though he wouldn't limit himself to grape wine, made a lot of cherry, peach, and blueberry wine.

 

[vikiradTG2007]

I'm not a drinker at all, but there is a homemade alcoholic drink around here that would blow all your brains out. Made out of plum juice, fermented and distilled up to the point of no return. I've had a whiff of its smell and even that nearly knocks you out. :lol:



Tr?iasc? p?linca!

 

[H0nzik]

Personally, I don't see the point of schnapps being distilled to ridiculous alcohol concentrations. If it's way above 40 %, you can't really taste what fruit it's made of anyway over all the alcohol, so you could just as well drink antifreeze.
I particularly like pear schnapps, but we don't make it ourselves, it's too much hassle, we just harvest all the pears at my parents' weekend house and get it converted into 10 litres of pear schnapps by some local distillery every year.
But it's great. In fact, I'm gonna go and have some now.

 

[Seasonone]

Me and 2 other friends made our own liquor in high school. Just used normal run of the mill sugar and yeast from the local brew store (hard to require somebody to be 21 just to buy yeast). Than we just split the cost of a water distiller instead of making anything copper and fancy.