[Sca-cooks] brewing

[Betsy Marshall]

The joy of Homebrewing  by Charles Papazian has all you'll ever need to
know- I recommend starting with one of the used volumes

http://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Joy-Home-Brewing/dp/0380763664

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Ian Kusz
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2008 3:46 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] brewing

Also, am I likely to get a pure, imbibable, palatable, tasty beverage if I
just get the basic beverage, and pop some brewer's yeast in it, and let it
go?  Reliably?

Would this be a licquer?  A fruit wine?

I'm just curious as to how feasible it is to do this with a store-bought
product....most of the brewers I know have a personal mix they use...and I
know nothing of brewing, so it's magic.

I'm just wondering how difficult it is to provide something to the common
hangover.  Does the "stuff" take up a lot of space?  And so on.

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 1:15 AM, Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de> wrote:

>
>
>
> --- Ian Kusz <sprucebranch at gmail.com> schrieb am Sa, 21.6.2008:
>
> > But....what if you had a fruit beverage....(something like
> > Ocean Spray,
> > which is chock-full of sugars, or a fruit cocktail with
> > pure sugar in it)
> > and let it ferment from yeast in the air?  Would the
> > resultant...uh...mess
> > be safe to administer to humans?  And what would it be
> > called?
> >
> > Obviously, out-gassing is a concern, so you'd have to
> > open the bottle, from
> > time to time.  Or you'd get exploded plastic.
> >
> > And how would it taste?  But the most important, would it
> > be something that
> > would make people sick?
>
> This is purely from a theoretical POV - I don't brew myself - but AFAIK
you
> would have to be very unlucky to actually poison yourself this way. As
long
> as your mix does not exceed a certain very high sugar content, it will
> ferment (yeast can not survive in extreme environments, IIRC somewhere
> around 85% sugar, which is why honey and syrup do not ferment unless
> diluted). Most natural yeasts will create alcohol from sugar with no
> problem. I've had it happen to jam that sat around waiting to be cooked
and
> canned for a few hours on humid summer days (then again, I live close to
an
> industrial brewery, so I'm at elevated risk).
>
> If you shut the material off in bottles after the fermentation starts,
that
> should reduce the risk of getting nasty germs joining the mix later on. Of
> course you could easily already have caught some of those when you
harvested
> airborne yeasts, but the risk increases over time. If you simply heat the
> bottles before serving, that should take care of most of them. It's still
> not a particularly safe approach, but hardly suicidal. A friend of mine
> brews mead with natural cultures and he gets good results about 90% of the
> time.
>
> No matter how much sugar you add, the alcohol content will not rise above
a
> certain level. The exact point depends on your yeast culture, but no yeast
> can survive in much more than IIRC 15% by volume of alcohol content. If
your
> ferment in bottles, you might also get a sparkling result. What you want
to
> watch out for is the acetic acid that develops. With so much sugar and
such
> a long process, you might get an undrinkably sweet-sour fruit sauce (or an
> excellent fruit vinegar, if you are lucky). The cultures for vinegar
making
> are just as airborne as those for brewing.
>
> Personally, of course, I wouldn't drink it, but then. I don't drink
> alcoholic beverages anyway. It sounds like a fun experiment, though.
>
> Giano
>
>
>      __________________________________________________________
> Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail.
> Dem pfiffigeren Posteingang.
> http://de.overview.mail.yahoo.com
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>



-- 
Ian of Oertha
_______________________________________________
Sca-cooks mailing list
Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org