Home Brewing and Distillation

[KieranBroadfield]

I've looked around on the Forum for a thread regarding Home Brewing, and can't find one..

SO, thought I'm hoping by making this thread, I'll learn a little from other people regarding home brewing.

So far, my knowledge consists of using a kit like this, it's ideal for getting the basics of brewing, but the beer isn't "amazing"...


A friend of mine here in New Zealand has a kit like this,


This thing churns out 90-93% alcohol! (works great in the trangia)

Which we then water down to 40%, then simply add wood barrel chunks from various whiskey companies, then wait.

Within a few weeks, you have a beautiful whisky.

I want to improve my beer brewing knowledge, and hoping for some advice on what works and what doesn't work, I'm sure there's got to be a few of us who've done the odd home-brew

[Chubbs]

Kieran

Check out Still Spirits. They originate in NZ and also sell to the UK.

If you added wood barrel chunks to the plain spirit you wouldn't have Whisky but spirit tasting of the wood chunks. To make a Whiskey you need to make a mash, and once fermented and cleared you then distill it to make your brew, adding barrel chunks to give it additional colour and flavour.

[KieranBroadfield]

I don't know how he does it, all I've seen is the 90% Alcohol burning in my Trangia, and I've tasted the plain 40% alcohol, and the homemade whisky, then he showed me the wood chunks he uses..
I aim to learn though

[Midge_Fodder]

Aye the tannins in the wood mellow it out, but it's still new make until it's 3 years old. The wood chunk thing comes from Tennessee whiskey production, a famous black labeled brand steeps the casks with charred sugar maple to sweeten it. But a good whisky needs to be Oaked. The best thing you can do is take your grain spirit and put it in a wee table cask for a year, virgin cask will be a bit tannic but the second fill will probably taste a lot better. The thing is all good whiskies are stored on bare earth with no heating, this matures it far better than in the cupboard under the stairs. Also Distilling twice will help, after the angels have had their share it should be pretty palatable kind of. Whisky making is a funny old thing.

[KieranBroadfield]

Aye the tannins in the wood mellow it out, but it's still new make until it's 3 years old. The wood chunk thing comes from Tennessee whiskey production, a famous black labeled brand steeps the casks with charred sugar maple to sweeten it. But a good whisky needs to be Oaked. The best thing you can do is take your grain spirit and put it in a wee table cask for a year, virgin cask will be a bit tannic but the second fill will probably taste a lot better. The thing is all good whiskies are stored on bare earth with no heating, this matures it far better than in the cupboard under the stairs. Also Distilling twice will help, after the angels have had their share it should be pretty palatable kind of. Whisky making is a funny old thing.

there's method in the madness -

the only us lads do here is more of an instant 'flavouring' - all a new game for me, just brewing my first batch of beer now

[Midge_Fodder]

Beer is good, I like brewing ales myself. Not a lager fan myself tbh

[KieranBroadfield]

me also, don't ever really drink lager (obviously, there is the exception)
Ale is by far better, going to get some ingredients for an English Ale this week, hopefully it will be a reasonable brew!

[Midge_Fodder]

If you can get it try Fraoch, it's made with Bog myrtle and heather, it will show you what you can use to make a foraged ale. Another one is Alba ale which is made with scots pine. Both don't use hopps

[KieranBroadfield]

I'll do some research them words sound pretty foureign too me!

[Midge_Fodder]

It's Scots Gaelic for heather lol. So yes it would sound foreign.