What else can I brew??

Mead. And lots of it. If you haven't heard of mead, you're really missing out. It is possibly the first alcoholic beverage of all time. Ever heard of a honeymoon? This comes from the ancient tradition of drinking mead everyday for a month after you get married to induce lots of sex, and hopefully, impregnation. I am not kidding you!

Regardless of your thoughts on sex and impregnation, mead is a simple wine-like beverage made from fermentation of honey-water, and it is absolutely delicious. If you like honey at all and you're curious and want to try it out, put together about 2.5 gallons water and 8 pounds honey, add a tiny bit of citric acid or similar acid (to balance the sweetness), and

1/4 teaspoon of Irish moss, and boil for about 15 minutes. Don't use any hops or malt... this is not beer!! Cool to room temperature, pitch some Wyeast 3184 Sweet Mead yeast or equivalent, and add 1 tablespoon yeast nutrient. Aerate better than you've ever aerated before. Then the waiting begins... you'll need to be very patient. Let the mead ferment for about 2 months at room temperature. Finally, prime with 7 tablespoons corn sugar if you want carbonation, or skip the priming sugar if you'd rather have more of a flat wine-like beverage, and bottle. Condition at room temp for as long as you can stand it (at least a month, or years if possible). ABV should be somewhere around 9%, plus or minus.

I love mead. It's so easy to make, and delicious!! I am going to be making some using this very same recipe this week. Yummy, I just can't wait!!

Try these items:

Root Beer

Flavored soda, orange, ginger, etc.

you can also try your luck with liqueurs, many homebrew supply shops have six week kits for this

Mead - the fermentation of honey

You can also try your luck with flavored malt beverages, i.e. hard lemonade, etc

good luck with it,

You said a magic word. Is that even legal? "Still", I have to say that during the month of December, when all the persimmon trees in central CA are ripe, I find the sugar content of this winter fruit to be extreemley high. Need I say more ?

Cheers!

Yes. In Australia they are and they are a magic little device!!!

Hi Mike.

I use a kit called "Morgan's Ginger Beer" and it is one of the best I have ever had.

I would love to get some recopies too so if anyone has any home made ones please let us both know.

I used to make Ginger Beer as a kid, from a recipe my Grandfather gave to me and it was really nice, but I have lost the recipe.

From memory I used to have to make a "plant" out of ginger, peanut butter, yeast and sugar. Each day I had to feed the plant peanut butter and, I think, either yeast or sugar but I am not really sure. After feeding it for a week I halved the plant and mixed one half with boiling water and half a cane field of sugar to make about 30 bottles. The other half of the plant was kept and fed again for another week ready for the next batch.

Best regards

Garry

I'd like to hear how that comes out if you try it. I'd think peanut butter would be sort of oily for a brewing ingredient, but there's a whole world of stuff I don't know about brewing!

Karl S.

Yeah. A lot of people have questioned the Peanut Butter angle, but I am sure it was peanut butter.

Mind you I was only a kid at the time and my memory may be playing tricks on me.

Common sense would suggest that perhaps it was Ginger, not Peanut Butter but I am still convinced to this day that Peanut Butter was the ingredient!!

Garry

ok sparkling mead i liked

2.3kg light honey. mine was clover and alfalfa 2 cans of grape concentrate frozen. if it says drink ya gotta go looking. i cup corn sugar, always boiled out champagne yeast, best qualityu good for 19 litres water prepared water.

sorry guys unknown the OIL products would not work with most yeasts i have known the only yeasts i know of that eat oil are in the high seas eating up oil spills from super tankers

ginger ale, root beer, and orange fizz drink were common a hundred years ago. tried several types. then made my own actually made gripe water for a lasdy with a colicy baby. the kids drinks are good, cheap and tasty. but since they do have slight alcohol, be sure to monitor it.

I've got this neat recipe for hooch and I haven't gone blind yet: take two and a half gallons of water add five pounds of corn sugar boil for 10 minutes Take five cans of your favorite concentrate fruit juice blend and add it Pasteurize by: covering&slow boiling it for 10 minutes/ or boil hard for five minutes if your not worried about boquet loss Add cold water to five gallons cool to 75 degrees pitch yeast(any works)

-gcitagh

ps. I've made this without boiling anything and it worked Sugar doesn't usually carry bacteria, but fruit juice is iffy

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Correction, it's seven pounds of corn sugar.--

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umm.. it's seven pounds of corn sugar