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Brew From Scratch

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  • Brew From Scratch

    I am just planting this little seed in the sand as its something I have often thought about and wanted to do down the line, purely for the challenge.

    Lots of people expand their horizons to try meads, ciders, wine, gruits, distillation etc. These dont really interest me and I dont really want to learn a whole additional 'field'.

    But what I do want to do is produce as many ingredients at home as possible and make a beer (just one batch) from that, despite the limitations and lack of options that it would present. So for a truly home-made home-brewed brew, this would probably encompass the following aspects:

    Barley/Malt:
    -Allocate a patch of my very small garden and grow some barley. This may need to be done over a couple of seasons. The only thing I found in a quick search was this: https://www.seedsforafrica.co.za/pro...4bbb06a9&_ss=r
    Who really knows what type it is, but its a starting point.
    -Separating 5kg of grain from the stalks would be interesting!
    -I would then take the bulk of it and follow basic malting processes, and then of that take a further portion and roast to various extents to add some 'speciality malt' flavours. The remaining bit I would try and replicate crystal type malts.

    Hops:
    -The only thing I found in a quick search was this: https://www.seedsforafrica.co.za/pro...imber-10-seeds
    Again, who really knows what 'Common hops' would be most similar to, or if even useable, but it would be fun to try it. This may also need more than one season of harvesting.

    Yeast:
    -Now here I would not be able to bioengineer my own strain unless I scraped wild yeast from between my toes or some mutant candida from my tongue, so I guess I would need to reach out to the outer world for this. The next ideal would be to keep it South African, of which the only options I thought were probably grocery store type Anchor yeasts etc (Even tho I rarely see it these days)
    -I dont know much about them, but I saw the Liquid Culture site : https://liquidculture.co.za/home#welcome with this promising wording:"we currently have over 89 strains of yeast and bacteria and new proudly south african strains are being developed..."
    It would be nice if that was some viable option, but I can look further into it down the line.

    Everything Else:
    Luckily beer doesnt have a lot of ingredients so it doesnt get more complex than the above. I guess it would still be good ol' South African tap water and mashed and boiled and fermented in a good old South African made Pineware boilbucket. So theres that.


    Has anyone here ever thought of or done anything along these lines and if so, with any success? Any thoughts or comments?
    Langchop
    Senior Member
    Last edited by Langchop; 15 August 2019, 08:53.
    Cheers,
    Lang
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    "Dudddde...Hold my beer!".... ; "I wonder what will happen if I ...."

  • #2
    Sounds good like a lot of work, sab has their rhizomes patentent (thank the heavens to keep that stuff away from trending) so growing hops will be near on impossible, but maybe you know a guy? Then again hops are related to dagga I heard?

    Yeast, I'd go for farmhouse style stuff or a few runs of the good old pineapple beer ouma type strains, not sure what that is, but a gruit or milk the funk is probably easier, not au fait with the process.

    Growing your own malt could work, get in touch with walts Malts, maybe they'll help? Or just make a corn beer like sab does.

    You could grow your own cow at the same time too, neighbors won't even flinch when it's slaughtering time.

    Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

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    • #3
      Sounds awesome.
      You could do a wild ferment so you use yeast from your garden/surrounds?
      And I'm sure you can get some hop rhizomes from someone - I know there are a few homebrewers with them growing...

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      • #4
        Some more prominent challenges:
        Commercial yield for barley is about 5tons per hectare, which is about 500g per square metre. I would need to use about 10 m2 of my 20m2 garden area! Might have to outsource that to my old man.
        Cheers,
        Lang
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        "Dudddde...Hold my beer!".... ; "I wonder what will happen if I ...."

        Comment


        • #5
          You can use rain water, and yeast can be literally any yeast. Hell, there's a brew I read about not too long ago said to hit the market soon that's brewed with, uhm, let's just say "beard-pie-yeast".

          I would do tiny batch as a starter. If it fails, it could fail HORRIBLY. If it doesn't you got some yeast to work with.

          As a PS: Keep your growing hops away from your dogs. It'll kill them.

          Oh, and as an additional PS, properly grown barley can yield something like 6 tonnes per hectare. Calculate volumes from there. Also note that hops, similar to it's brother marijuana, requires very specific soil conditions to yield proper cones.
          EDIT: Oh I see you did mention it...

          I have actually considered doing the same as you, but my small yard makes it not feasible. To boot, the dogs will probably eat everything.
          Toxxyc
          Senior Member
          Last edited by Toxxyc; 15 August 2019, 06:35.

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          • #6
            Alrighhhhhhhhty, so the idea is not to just throw random things in a container with the most readily available life form, to have some concoction that bubbles itself into some toxic chemical.

            If I have such low confidence in the selected yeast doing its job that I feel the need to test it, then using it with the barley and hops grown with blood, sweat and tears would not be an option.

            I think I saw typical commercial barley yield as being 4.8 to 6.8 t/hec. In reality, I would probably bank on about half the minimum due to my notorius gardening skills.

            I didnt know hops was toxic to dogs!
            Cheers,
            Lang
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
            "Dudddde...Hold my beer!".... ; "I wonder what will happen if I ...."

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Langchop View Post
              <>

              I didnt know hops was toxic to dogs!
              That is the rumour yes. yet I did not hear of a single homebrewer stating their dog died due to it eating hops and believe you me i watch plenty of homebrewers on YT and plenty of them have dogs. These dogs are with them on brew day and also run around in their hop gardens. So if this is also one of the myths that's been past on from brewer to brewer through the years without actual proof, i would not know.
              My dog likes to eat my cannabis leaves (from the hop family) and he seem high, i mean fine
              The Problem With The World Is That Everyone Is A Few Drinks Behind.!

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              • #8
                This sounds like fun! Would love to do the same! Hops are going to be interesting. I understand that most need LONG days to flower and like Groen said the ones bred for SA cannot be found.
                Maybe you can get lucky.
                I've also learned with planting corn at home, even with more regular watering I get low yield. Farmers have an advanced green thumb

                Sent from my SM-A750F using Tapatalk

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by JIGSAW View Post
                  That is the rumour yes. yet I did not hear of a single homebrewer stating their dog died due to it eating hops and believe you me i watch plenty of homebrewers on YT and plenty of them have dogs. These dogs are with them on brew day and also run around in their hop gardens. So if this is also one of the myths that's been past on from brewer to brewer through the years without actual proof, i would not know.
                  My dog likes to eat my cannabis leaves (from the hop family) and he seem high, i mean fine
                  https://beerandbrewing.com/ask-the-e...rmful-to-dogs/

                  I've done some research on it before, actually, since someone a while ago gave away some rhisomes and I considered planting them. Then I read these articles on the topic, and while we might not be 100% sure, it's best to play safe for myself. I like my dogs

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                  • #10
                    I think like most things, theres always something to it but overdramatised by the media. I just read an article saying "raw meat is bad for cats because it could contain bacteria". No shit. All food COULD contain bacteria, therefore all food is toxic, therefore we should all stop eating.

                    A bit like chocolate, there definately are lots of reputable articles about hops toxicity, but they dont seem to know the actual ingredient/ cause, and you never really know if its a 2g ingestion or a 2000g ingestion risk.
                    Cheers,
                    Lang
                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                    "Dudddde...Hold my beer!".... ; "I wonder what will happen if I ...."

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                    • #11
                      I see an exBeeriment coming up. "How much hops can my dog chow before going to doggy heaven?"

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                      • #12
                        roflol
                        The Problem With The World Is That Everyone Is A Few Drinks Behind.!

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                        • #13
                          Get hold of James at Rocklands Brewery. He grows his own barley and malts it himself.

                          083 307 9566

                          https://www.rocklandbrewery.co.za/contact/

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by jakeslouw View Post
                            Get hold of James at Rocklands Brewery. He grows his own barley and malts it himself.

                            083 307 9566

                            https://www.rocklandbrewery.co.za/contact/
                            In my head I had replied to this! Apparently not. Thanks Jakes, I will keep these details and get in touch when I get going on this. Sounds like he would be an interesting guy to have a chat with over a beer.
                            Cheers,
                            Lang
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                            "Dudddde...Hold my beer!".... ; "I wonder what will happen if I ...."

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Langchop View Post
                              In my head I had replied to this! Apparently not. Thanks Jakes, I will keep these details and get in touch when I get going on this. Sounds like he would be an interesting guy to have a chat with over a beer.
                              he is

                              very interesting chap

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