[Sca-cooks] brewing

Betsy Marshall betsy at softwareinnovation.com
Sat Jun 21 03:33:10 PDT 2008


Beer, wine, and mead- all use the same basic process- Sterilize sugar
solution, add yeast; yeast eat sugar, poop alcohol. All the rest is in the
books. HTH Betsy

-----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 4:49 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] brewing

I thought such books only covered beer....

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 2:31 AM, Betsy Marshall <
betsy at softwareinnovation.com> wrote:

> 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
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Ian of Oertha
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-- 
Ian of Oertha
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