Here's an alcoholic drink that requires some special equipment to make, but isn't all that difficult.

Home Made Apfelwein.

Special Equipment
2 gallon or bigger plastic or glass jug with a spigot and screw on top or an air tight stopper. I found a suitable jug at the Dollar Store.
1 air lock or piece of tube that can be ran down and kept submerged under water at it's opening outside of the jug and a stopper. Air locks can be found at home brew shops for $2 or less.
It's important to keep air from getting in while allowing carbon dioxide to escape. That's what the air lock or tube is for. Don't put the other end of the tube into the juice. It goes just into the jug.
A drill to make a hole in the top of the jug or cap for the air lock, stopper and/or tube
You're making a fermentation vessel.

Ingredients
1 gallon or more of apple juice. You want something that is 100% apple juice and has no preservatives. To make more than 1 1/2 gallons, you will need a fermentation vessel bigger than 2 gallons.
1 cup of brown sugar. More will make it sweeter, if you like.
1 pack of Montrachet or Ale yeast. Bread yeast just won't work right.

Make it
This is the easiest part. Mix your apple juice and brown sugar in the big jug. Get all the brown sugar dissolved. Add yeast. Cap it and put in the air lock or tube. Remember to put the end of the tube under water if you use it instead of an air lock. Wait. Wait some more.

In a few hours this will begin to ferment. You'll see it bubble in the jug and blow bubbles of CO2 through the air lock or tube. This will go on for a few days to near 2 weeks. Once it stops, wait 2 or 3 days. You can drink it right out of the jug by dispensing through the spigot or use the spigot to transfer it into another jug. Don't get the sediment. That's yeast. It's best to put it in another jug or bottles and refrigerate it to keep mold from growing in it. DO NOT put it in another jug if it's still bubbling. That's an Apfelwein bomb right there; sticky juice all over.

The taste is light, clean and a bit dry. Sort of like apple flavored water if water had a dry feel. Alcohol content is anywhere from 3% to 8%. It's very easy to drink, so be careful. This is real booze.

Other fruit juices can be added for additional flavor.

Aint, what do you mean with the airlock tube. I don't get it.

You buy one of those two or three gallon plastic vessels with the spigot on the bottom. I understand that.

Where else, besides the brew shop, can you get those airlock thingy's you're talking about? Can it be improvised? Where's the best place to drill the whole for the airlock and how are you going to keep the edges airtight?

Air locks can be found at brew stores and stores that sell laboratory equipment. If an air lock can't be found, that's where the tube comes in. The whole idea here is to allow CO2 inside the jug to vent while not allowing outside air to get in. We don't want air getting in because it can bring with it unwanted bacteria that will ruin the brew.

The tube will act as an air lock since one end is under water. Use a pot of water placed lower than the top of the jug. That allows the CO2 to push though the water, but air cannot push the other way and get up the tube. The other end, that goes in the jug, does not go into the Apfelwein because the tube cannot collect the CO2 until it comes out of the Apfelwein.

The best place for the air lock or tube is on the top of the jug. I put mine in the cap of the jug.

Here's a picture of my Apfelwein maker. It has an air lock. You can see how the air lock is put into a stopper. The stopper fits into a hole I drilled out with the drill listed in the first instructions. The stopper already had a hole in it for the air lock. That stopper keeps it air tight, so all the holes should only be big enough to provide a very snug fit.

A tube would be placed the same way as the air lock, but with one end of the tube under water. It would be best to use a little bleach in that water to keep bacteria from growing in it. Some people use a little bleach in air lock water as well. The tube set up is an improvised air lock called a blow off tube.

The CO2 must be vented from the jug. If not, it will build pressure until it explodes making a big sticky mess.

I put this in Photobucket so I didn't have to resize. It's a big up close pic.

http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj185/Zuljins/DCP_0012.jpg

And the thing thing on the top is the airlock?

Yep, that be the airlock, Stone. It's been a while since my hub and I made wine, but I remember how the contraption works. Makes yer whole house smell like a winery, too... Yummmmmmm.

Hey Aint, as far as the ingredients go, do you only use apple juice and brewer's yeast? We made some apple jack and some grape wine that came out at about 16% alcohol content. Man, that stuff was GOOD!! If it hadn't been so long ago, I'd probably remember all the ingredients.

Stone, we bought our first winemaking kit from Sears, but we were able to purchase some replacement stuff from a local nursery & craft shop. The yellow pages might list suppliers, and the internet would most likely be a good resource.

Oh, okay, that answers my question. Apple juice is already sweet, though, so I don't think I would use any more brown sugar than that... just so it contains enough for the yeast to work on sufficiently.

Has anyone here made their own beer?

Not yet. Don't have the room for it I don't think. But I want to bad like. That's why I like Aints hard apple juice idea.

He's a cheap drunk.

And therefore an economic date?? I think either Dax or Bff have made their own beer... maybe they'll give us a head's up (pun intended).

I'm drinking a home brewed Irish Stout right now and have some home brewed Classic American Lager in the fridge. Me and my neighbor buddy have brewed 3 beers and 3 Apfelweins since November.

Beware of "jacking", as in making colonial American style Apple Jack cider. It's roughly considered a form of distillation; freeze distillation, although distillation is not the best term for it. The technique can leave behind harmful, unhealthy alcohols and is illegal in some places.

Beer making is not too difficult or space consuming, especially from extract recipe kits. I'm off to bed soon, but watch this space.

I've made both beer, ale and wine (apfelwein being my fave)

Not sure if anyone knows this, Dax certainly would, and LM. My hometown of Frankfurt/Germany, is the ApfelWein capital of the world. Every pub or tavern usually has a home brew, especially the smaller older ones.

Mixing this wine with a sparkling mineral water is the local favorite. It's simply called a 'spritzer' and about 50/50 apfelwein and spritz. Delicious.

Most of the ApfelWein sold commercially in Germany is very dry, and you need to ask for a sweeter one, if desired. Conventionally, when you order a 'spritz' you will be served a dry 50/50 .. but you may also request a different mix. i.e. 75/25 etc. You can also request a non-sparkling variety of mineral water. Very good as a thirst quencher, but it's potent. Far stronger than 3-8%. Most likely more like a true wine .. about 12%.

I'll go for a Pils, or 'Dunkle' (dark) brew.

Years ago, I used to mix apple juice and club soda 50/50 and really liked it. Little did I know that it was a 'spritz'. I thought the taste was somewhat similar to beer.

I was trying to give the kids something to drink besides so much sugary Kool-Aid. I might try that with the grands.

Anything to keep kids from Sodas or Sweet drinks.

Drank tons of apfel with spritz when I grew up.

Yum. On special occasions I got the real Apfelwein.

Big yum.

The 'apfel with spritz' you drank as a lad, was that a 50/50 mix? I'm going to buy some juice and club soda next time I go to the store and see how the boys like it. I might try to find a wine kit soon, as well.

We'll see how Aint does with his project.

First, I make a "starter".

A "starter" is a concentrated food source for the brewing yeast. It gets them started. I'll be using dry lager yeast. It's dehydrated yeast cells (microorganisms) that feed on sugars, starches and other fermentibles to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. The starter re hydrates them, bringing them back to life in a sense, and gets them to start feeding, converting food into alcohol and CO2 and reproducing so that I'll have more than the package supplies. The more and more active yeast cells will result in a more complete fermentation which means more flavor and a higher alcohol content. A starter isn't necessary. I just like to make one.

Take a few pints of water and bring it to a boil. Add brown sugar and some Malt Extract. I'll be using dry malt extract for this beer, a Bavarian Bock. The type of beer is another good reason to make a starter. This one should be at or above 5% alcohol by volume. Boil for a few minutes while stirring to get it all dissolved. Next, cool this mini wort to 70 to 70 degrees F. Do it quickly by placing the pot in ice water. Don't get the water in the wort though. Once it's cool, pour it into a glass jar or bottle. I use an empty fifth of Jagermeister. It should be 1/2 to 3/4 full. Then, add in (pitch) the yeast. Cap and shake you're having a fit. This will mix it all together and aerate it. It will begin to ferment in a few hours producing CO2. So much that it could blow off the cap or maybe even break the bottle. We need a way to vent that CO2. I put a rubber stopper with a hole in it into the bottle mouth and put an airlock in the stopper. Let this sit in a cool dark place for at least 24 hours. It can be kept for 3 days.

Wort, what we just made, is the liquid made from adding the malt extract to water. This liquid will have some starches and a lot of sugars from the grain and barley used to produce the malt extract.

That malt extract is the kit supplied shortcut made from "mash". Mash is the boiled liquid strained from malted grains and barley. Mash can be made at home. Using a kit with dry malt extract or liquid malt extract is just easier. I used liquid malt extract last time. This time I have dry.

Basically, this starter in a mini beer that we will add to our bigger wort after it is made tomorrow.

Do you use a hydrometer to verify the alcohol content of the starter?

No, it's too thick and bubbly for that.

Okay, how do you find out the alcohol level?

Okay, so I heard it's a hell of a lot easier to make a dark beer over an Ale...

You have any success making, say, an IPA?

Or do you just make stouts?

What's your style?

IPA is just a little harder then just plain old pale ale: you just have to roast some grain in the oven and use more hops than usual. It has always turned out great. Well, almost always. I overhopped it once and it tended to make you pucker up.

It sounds as if there is some interest in strange fermented drinks here, so I thought I’d suggest one that is supposed to be easy to make, but not so easy to accept intellectually!

The Mongols, back in the days when they were conquering most of their known world, were a nomadic horse-mounted warrior culture. As befitting warriors, they liked to drink. Their drink of choice was Coumis. It is still consumed in Mongolia today.

Being nomadic, they have ready access to grains or fruit, other than what they looted from the people that they conquered. So they came up with something different and arguably better. Coumis.

Coumis is fermented horse milk; which is pretty high up on my list of disgusting edibles! They carried it around in skins. Sheep? Pig? I don’t know.

You would think that the product of fermenting milk would be something like rotten buttermilk. Not so. It is apparently a golden liquid that has no milk-like attributes whatsoever. Milk contains milk sugar (lactose) rather than the plant sugars (destrose and fructose) that are the basis of beers and wines. The yeast cells don’t care what kind of sugar they process to make alcohol. I assume that the butterfat is skimmed off before the fermentation and perhaps used to make butter for their tea (another !!). The milk solids probably settle out along with the yeast sediment.

Genghis Kahn kept a herd of white mares just for making his Coumis. How’s that for a status symbol?

It is possible, I have read, to make a Coumis using cows’ milk that is pretty good using beer-making techniques. Using champagne bottles is recommended as for some reason it continues releasing CO2 longer and at a higher pressure than regular beer.

During my years of beer-making I occasionally considered brewing up some Coumis, but never got around to it (or maybe never got up the nerve). I gave up beer making a few years ago and promptly lost 25 pounds: be warned you neophyte brewers. Home brew, done right, is so far superior to commercial beer that you can become gustatorily addicted.

Some advice for newcomers to brewing:

Everything must be scrupulously clean to avoid bacterial contamination that makes flavors go off. Soak everything, from fermentor to bottlecaps, in a dilute bleach solution. A new garbage can is a good investment. Soak everything overnight before use.

Keep the temperature up to room temperature for ales (he-men drink ale) by putting a light bulb under the fermentor and using a floating thermometer. Lagers are made at a cooler temperature and take a lot longer. If you don’t know the difference, ales are “top-fermenting” and lagers are “bottom-fermenting” which means just what you would think it means.

Once you get into it, get a small keg of beer (full, to start) but don’t return it for the deposit. Buy a CO2 canister, pressure regulator, and gauges/valve setup that connects to the keg and decant your whole batch into it. It keeps your beer under pressure. I think I spent about $100 for the whole setup. (You can exchange the CO2 canister when you run out at a welding supply.) You will then be able to pour a pitcher and put it in the refrigerator for while to get it down to a temperature acceptable to Americans. If you aren’t an American you can just drink it out of the tap, which tastes better anyway. Your beer will never go flat, and you won’t have to mess around with bottles and caps.

If you should happen to make some Coumis, I’d like to hear the results!



First Post. Sorry to write such a long one, but I didn't have time to write a short one.

Well I'm glad your first foray into the forums was to enlighten us with a lovely explanation as to what Coumis is. I was sort of hoping you actually tried to make the stuff. I wonder if it makes you hallucinate.

Where would one actually get horse milk, aside from horses, of course?

One of our Australian users here, Tutti, has a few horses... Perhaps we could get her to give Coumis a shot.

I'm definitely a huge fan of IPA's and if I could brew one myself, I'd be in beer heaven. I've had it before but not for a while, so I was quite happy when over the weekend I found a spot that sells Rogue's Dead Guy Ale. It's a little sweet and not as hoppy as I normally like but it is a delicious beer none the less. It's almost worth picking up for the bottle alone. For anyone who hasn't tried it you, I most certainly recommend it.

The back reads: Gratefully dedicated to the Rogue in each of us. In the early 1990s Dead Guy Ale was created as a private tap sticker to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead (November 1st, All Souls Day) for Casa U Betcha in Portland, Oregon(or something to that effect). Think they're Dead fans?



You're also very much correct in the observation that beer does add to the waistline, something I've discovered to much shagrin. I thought switching to good vodka might help in that area but now I just find myself drinking both vodka AND beer.

Very much correct! We're making a place for bacteria to live. Let's make it a place for the right bacteria to live. Iodine based cleaners are also very good. This is another reason to make a starter. It gives the brew yeast the upper hand. Superior numbers.

Welcome to FM Bad Bird.(good brew) Nice to have a fellow brew fan aboard.

Several members here are beer enthusiasts, some who make their own.

I have made loads of beers and ales, with IPA being my fave.

I have access to some beautiful hops, thru a friend who owns a micro-brewery in Santa Fe, NM. I adore his ESB (bitter ale) and of course, my fave (IPA). He owns 'Second Street Brewery' if you're ever around these parts. 'Blue Corn Cafe' and 'Chama River Brew Co' all make wonderful local brews. All carry everything from IPA's, Stouts, and even Pils. Authentic Czech Pilsner Hops, which I secured for Second Street originally, now buy by the truckload, straight from the Deutschland and from the Czech's.

I agree, as would anyone with 'brews' on their minds, that cleanliness is next to even more cleanliness (therefore Godliness)

There are so many micro-brews available, that I've stopped making my own, and when I can't buy 'Growlers' (Gallon jugs from my micro dude), I enjoy the Redhook IPA, out of Seattle and New Hampshire. Available almost anywhere now, in bottles, although I prefer draught, fresh, by miles.

Arrogant Bastard is good, Steamworks is good, and on and on.

I too, would be curious to taste the 'Coumis' if someone were to make it.

Let's get Ain't to try it .. He'll try anything, even things Mikey won't, Lol.

(as an aside .. IPA stands for India Pale Ale, (most but not all know this) and the reason it got so popular during Englands wars with India, was simple. It travelled well. And Warriors indeed deserve their 'grog' after battle. IPA remained incredibly stable, even over the long hauls))

That's the hops that made it keep so well.

Rahr and Sons Storm Cloud IPA is the only IPA I've had that I liked. Most of them try to kill ya with hops.

Speaking of, there is a hop shortage on now. Seems the past few years, last year especially, were not kind to the hops crops. This, combined with an overall decrease in hop farming, has home brew ingredient suppliers limiting the amount they will sell to each customer and some are not selling to new customers or customers who do not buy a full set of ingredients to go with them. The cost of beer may also rise. Surely, a shooting war is not far off.

I haven't made any yellow beer, yet. Seems the challenges there, compared to dark beers, would be clarity and purity of flavor. People expect to be able to read the newspaper through a translucent yellow beer, like an IPA. It's going to be important to let things settle very very well to get that amount of clarity. Irish Moss is supposed to help. Yellow beers also do not have the robust complexity of flavors found in dark beers. That big flavor can hide or even accentuate mistakes that a yellow beer could not. My buddy's Classic American Lager, made from an extract kit, came out great.

I did my boil on Friday. It's the Bavarian Bock kit from The Home Brewery. Not having my buddy's turkey fryer this time, I did a two part boil. 3 1/2 gallons in one pot, 1 gallon in another, with the ingredients haphazardly divided among the two. After loosing some wort to evaporation during boil, I had to top off with 1+ gallons of plain water. That's worked out well so far. I don't have a wort chiller, so I cool the wort in the sink with ice and water. It should be cooled to 75-70 F before pitching the yeast or yeast starter. Cooling this two part boil was faster than cooling nearly 5 gallons at once. It's important to cool as fast as possible so air borne bacteria don't set up shop in the wort. It's also important to stir in any top off water very well into the primary fermenter or brew pots. For best results, all the liquid must become one with the wort. Stir like mad.

Being a Southerner, I could not have big boiling pots on the stove without adding all sorts of stuff. To this boil was added a few cups of brown sugar and some hefty dashes of cinnamon. I have no idea how it will turn out. It's no longer Bavarian style Bock. It's Aintla'exican style beer.

Given that the beer fermented with such fervor as to blow apart my 3 piece airlock, twice in 24 hours, I think it's gonna kick ass on the booze scale. Starting gravity was 1.053.

Stone, I got into this for around $200, including two cases of bottles, a 4 gallon stainless brew pot, the Irish Stout kit and shipping. In hind sight, I could have spent less on the brew kit and a little more on a turkey fryer that is 5+ gallons and done full boils all the time. Partial or two part boils are completely acceptable and people do it all the time. If you've got a stove big enough to boil the wort, most residential stoves are fine, that's all I have and it's a 1970s model electric, and a small closet or dark corner for the fermenters, you can do extract brewing too. The fermetenters must be kept in a cool dark still place. Light and heat skunks beer.

Aintla'exican?? Can I apply for patent on that name for you?

The first beer Dax and I ever made was a Canadian Pale Ale from a kit, and it came out GREAT! Our very first try, and of course that terrific result was very encouraging. We bottled it all... I forget how many 6-packs 10 gallons came out to, but it was a hell of a lot of beer for two people. We gave some away a few 6-packs to some folks as a gift and they left in in the back seat of their car on a real hot summer day after a long bumpy drive. (grin) And you know who got the blame? Some people have no brains at all!

We made lots of beers, both light and dark. I always found the dark ones too bitter for my taste. I love aroma hops, but not the bitter flavor hops, and I'd always hold back some on those and throw in extra aroma hops, and my yellow beers were always refreshing and zesty without being bitter.

We haven't made beer in a few years, mainly because when we moved to our house here, one of the things that was lost in the move was our big 20 gallon stainless steel kettle, among other precious things. Just..... *poof*, gone. And we've been so busy laying around running a website, attending college and eating potato chips that we haven't had time to run out and buy a new one, but.... someday.

KA-BOOM! Oh, yeah

Me and my evil twin made rotten scupernogs in water with sugar this one time. We made it in big plastic Gatorade bottles, the kind with ribs. The ribs were bulging out when we took it out of my trunk, in August, in New Orleans. We tried to ease off the cap. psssst-BOOM! The bottle ceased to exist and the... concoction vaporized. The next day in school, the chic who lives 2 blocks away was asking what we did.

Good times.