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?
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?
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