More ButterBeers... More Brewing Info

[Steve]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Tammy Rizzo" <tammy at m...> wrote:

> On 30 Oct 2003 at 20:00, alshainofthenorth wrote:
> 
> > The traditional May Day drink in Finland is called 'sima' (Fin.) or
> > 'mjöd' (Swe.), and translates as 'mead', I suppose. It consists of
> > water, brown sugar, lemons, raisins and yeast, and some people add
> > hops for a little bitterness. It's fermented for a few days, and
> > what you get is a fizzy drink tasting of caramel with hints of 
> > lemon ...edied...


> 
> Oh, don't stop sharing there, Alshain!  Tell us more!  Give us a 
> recipe!  It sounds quite tasty, and I for one would love to try it.
> 
> ***
> Tammy
> tammy at m...

bboy_mn:

Just an additional warning when making you own fermented beverages.

1.) don't use grocery store yeasts (bread yeast or even common grocery
store brewer's yeast) these will not give the best results. Go to your
local store that sells home brewing supplies or one of the many home
brew stores on-line (they have them everywhere in the world). I've
heard that champagne yeast creates a very rich cream head of foam. 

They also sell flavor concentrate for home brewing ginger ale, ginger
beer (not the same as ginger ale but still mostly alcohol free), root
beer, and many other traditional fruit, herb and spice type beverages.
They can probably advise you on the best yeast to use.

2.)store the finished product in plastic screw top 'pop' bottles.
Don't use glass, because even after being refrigerated, the yeast can
still grow a bit and the expanding gas will cause the bottles to
explode (or at least break). Another advantage to champagne yeast is
that it is more sensitive to temperature and is more likely to stop
fermenting once refrigerated.

3.)everything used in the brewing process must be absolutely CLEAN as
close to sterile as you can get under home brewing conditions,
otherwise you are likely to create a very good crop of mold, not to
mention germs and bacteria. 

Don't let this scare you off though, if you make small batches and
drink them as soon as they are ready, the chance of harmful
contamination in very small. The Home Brew stores also have a variety
of bottle/kettle disinfectants that you can buy.

If you are experienced at this, you can very accurately guess the
yeast to sugar ratio, and then glass storage may no be that big a problem.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn