Making your own wine (okay, mine is prison wine)

[jnglmassiv]

Anyone ever tried their hand at tepache? I’ve only had it once at a picnic and remember finding it very good. I think it is associated with prisons.

Tepache

[China_Guy]

@bump

There’s a *LOT *of fertile ground to be sown in extract-only and extract & specialty grains brews before you even THINK of going all-grain, even BIAB.

I mean, you need to get sanitation down pat, you need to understand the basic brewing process steps - boiling, cooling, fermenting, aging, etc… before starting to fool around with mashing and sparging.

And most of that commentary about extract beers being inferior is old news from back in the days when LHBSes had cans of extract of dubious vintage, and extract manufacturing techniques were not so good. Modern day extracts are tremendously good- you CAN make a perfectly good light/pilsner style lager if you have decent skill at brewing and the right equipment, like a chest fridge, temp controller, plate chiller, and a huge yeast starter. (I’ve done it).

Personally, I’d recommend going extract-only with something like a pale ale or amber ale, and see if you like the process. For me, the biggest sticking point is bottling; dealing with around 50 glass bottles that have to be individually washed, sanitized, filled and capped is almost not worth the beer inside. I used to have a gizmo that let me fill up these plastic bottles with beer and dispense with a CO2 cartridge, but I don’t even know if those are made anymore.

Agreed. A bit of cart before the horse. I still do ~10% of batches with dry malt extract. The can’s of liquid malt extract are fine as well.

to add. I resisted all grain brewing for years because I was intimidated by the process. Brew in a bag is pretty easy and doesn’t have all the hassle that a traditional mash tun and sparge method.
I highly recommend the lightest dry malt extract you can get, then use steeping grains for whatever recipe/style you’re shooting for.

My local homebrew store sells me a 50 or 55 pound bag of DME for $2.50 or $3.00 a pound. YOu can mail order but have to pay shipping and cost ends up about the same so I like to support my local homebrew store.

[bump]

@China_Guy

Agreed. A bit of cart before the horse. I still do ~10% of batches with dry malt extract. The can’s of liquid malt extract are fine as well.

to add. I resisted all grain brewing for years because I was intimidated by the process. Brew in a bag is pretty easy and doesn’t have all the hassle that a traditional mash tun and sparge method.
I highly recommend the lightest dry malt extract you can get, then use steeping grains for whatever recipe/style you’re shooting for.

My local homebrew store sells me a 50 or 55 pound bag of DME for $2.50 or $3.00 a pound. YOu can mail order but have to pay shipping and cost ends up about the same so I like to support my local homebrew store.

I started extract only, then extract & specialty grain for a long time, then moved into all-grain with the ubiquitous rubbermaid coolers and a Phil’s Phalse Bottom.

I did several batches that way, and then ended up going back to extract for a while, because I rarely have the time to mash/sparge, and modern extract is pretty good stuff, especially if you up the flavor profile with hops and/or specialty grains.