Brewing with VERY limited resources.

[andybox]

Hi all,
I'm new to your forum, so hopefully your collective brewing brains may help me overcome a unique situation.
I'm currently working in Saudi Arabia on a long term assignment, and live on a very secure compound within a comfortable 2 bedroom villa. There are a few guys brewing wine and spirits, however nobody brews beer. So, I have at my disposal;
Molasses,
Baker's Yeast,
2 x 20 litre water bottles, the type that get turned upside down on top of a chiller,
Filtered water.
The Molasses comes in 350ml jars, and is sold at the local compound supermarket. In the main supermarkets they sell Holsten Pills non-alcoholic beer in an amazing number of varieties, mostly with fruit flavours added.

This is what I propose doing;
4 x 350 ml bottles of Molasses, 1 kilo of sugar, some baker's yeast.
Boil some water, add the sugar, mix the sugar slowly to 18 litres of fresh water within one of those 20 litre water bottles mentioned above.
Add 4 jars of Molasses. Sprinkle a table spoon of Baker's yeast into the water, agitate until mixed.
Cut a small water bottle in half and place over the top of the 20 litre bottle neck.
Set the temperature in the room to 25c, place vessel in the bathtub and leave it for a period of time.
Decant once bubbles have stopped, about 2 weeks?
Add 1 teaspoon of sugar to a 1 litre bottle, cap and leave for a few more weeks.
Drink beer and post back here.

Tell me i'm mad, tell me i'm dancing with fire, but please tell me this will make palatable beer.
Any and all replies are very much appreciated.
Cheers, Andy.

 

[Rodolphe01]

It will be nothing like beer, you will need some hops too.

I wouldn't bother personally. I'd sooner add some of one of your mates base spirit to non-alcohol beer.

 

[andybox]

Thanks for your (very) quick response Beer God. I'd rather persevere with what I have at my disposal, if only to experiment a bit. Any tips on how I can make a decent beer with what I have?

 

[Bribie G]

Can you get bottles of apple juice? You could make a very palatable cider from juice and bakers yeast. Add extra sugar to the brew and you could bump it up to around 8%

 

[New_guy]

What cereal / grain products do you have access to at your supermarket or at any large local market ?

 

[mojonojo]

you might be able to make something with Moussy (which i used to be able to get in Riyadh) which is hopped.

otherwise you should be able to do something with rice, however Juice cider is your friend.

Apple cider

Orange wine - there is a bit of a cult on this one in the uk - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=10179

more exotic - you used to be able to get some pretty decent bulk honey - so mead was always an option.

 

[stakka82]

If it were me I would totally go the juice cider... might actually end up being pretty good. Any chance of getting some hops and dry malt extract mailed in?

Couple of kilos of DME, 100 grams of hops and a sachet of dry yeast and you could actually make quality!

 

[joshF]

Thanks for your (very) quick response Beer God. I'd rather persevere with what I have at my disposal, if only to experiment a bit. Any tips on how I can make a decent beer with what I have?

Not meaning to stamp on the parade, but you won't come close to making anything drinkable. Will it contain alcohol? Yes. Will it be palatable? Definitely not.

Molasses is pretty much only added to darker stouts, porters etc in small quantities, say 5% or so. Having only molasses as a 'base' sounds terrible and there is a reason why bakers yeast is used by bakers, and brewing yeast is used by brewers. I would be highly suprised if the bakers yeast fermented pure molasses down at all.

Also the vitamins and nutrients that yeast thrive on in wort (in addition to the sugar obviously) helps the yeast grow. There's a reason why apple juice takes longer to ferment because it doesn't have the nutrients that wort from malt does.

Good luck anyway, but let the garden/toilet/sink know to be prepared for 25 litres of stuff to be heading its way...

 

[joshF]

Tell me i'm mad, tell me i'm dancing with fire, but please tell me this will make palatable beer.
Any and all replies are very much appreciated.
Cheers, Andy.

Mad = yes. Dancing with fire = yes. Palatable beer = no.

Still shaking my head.

 

[Mardoo]

Want me to ship you some malt syrup, hops and yeast? PM me if so.

 

[Florian]

Agree with Rudi, take a Holsten Pilsner and add a shot or so of the cleanest spirit your friends are making.

that alc free Holsten Pils is actually not bad for what it is.

EDIT: Holsten knallt am dollsten!

 

[Bribie G]

Carlton Cold used to have a version with Vodka added, I didn't mind it at the time.. I'm in agreement with Florian, probably taste not too bad.

 

[pcmfisher]

Want me to ship you some malt syrup, hops and yeast? PM me if so.

If caught with that evil contraband, he would probably be shot at dawn.

 

[Mardoo]

"But sir, it's not beer yet!"

 

[hoppy2B]

Molasses is much like brown sugar which ferments pretty well.

You will have a very dry beer without any hops in it if you use the ingredients you have listed.

You need to at least find a substitute for the hops. Is there any wild Horehound growing in the area, or perhaps some other bitter herb you could use?

To overcome the dryness you could steep some grain, either wheat or barley for a couple of days to initiate germination. Put it through a blender. Bring it up to 65 degrees for an hour. Decant and boil for an hour with your bittering agent. Add molasses and sugar. Ferment.

 

[hoppy2B]

Actually, I had a small think about it and you should actually be able to make something like beer if you have flour that you can roast in an oven.

I recommend doing a half batch of around 10 litres to start with so its not overflowing your bottle.

Directions :
500 grams of roasted wheat flour
500 gram of wheat steeped for 2 days
2 tubs of molasses
Bittering herbs
Yeast
Boil for an hour
Cling wrap and rubber band over the top of the bottle

Everything should settle and clear in the bottle after fermentation when you can siphon off and into another vessel with priming sugar added at a rate of 8 grams a litre.

Cheers, enjoy.

 

[New_guy]

There must be some local grain of some description - you can malt it yourself then dry it and then crush it
Hops substitute ? This is what the google machine coughed up: http://herbs.lovetoknow.com/List_of_Bitter_Herbs

 

[indica86]

Make a prison brew, 1 litre milk bottle, bit of torn up white bread, fruit juice and sugar.
I've seen it, it works.
Smells like arse though.

 

[Mardoo]

Just realized that many places sell diastatic malt flour. It usually comes labelled as Malt Flour and is very common in bread making. You can use it with any grain flour to convert the starch to sugar (within the diastatic capacity of the malt flour). How's that bread making habit of yours going, hmmm?

 

[TimT]

My one experience with brewing molasses left me a sadder and wiser man. Basically, all the sugar will ferment out cleanly and quickly, but you will be left with something tasting rather like molasses.... but not sweet at all. It's not particularly pleasant.

Still, I salute your can-do attitude, Andy. I think the trick for brewing with molasses is probably adding *a lot* of spices, maybe an unfermentable sugar as well, such as lactose (which you might be able to get as whey powder, or as I do, by just making cheese).