Mash

[googe]

G'day all, my missus does her own ginger beer. She starts with yeast, water and ginger. Over 7 days she feeds it sugar and ginger. This may be the dumbass question of the year but im wondering if i can use this method to do beer. eg; can i substitute the ginger for a grain? Please feel free to give me a slap if i need it :lol: .


Cheers Greg

 

[drew9242]

Oh shit yea greg, malted barley is the go. You are at the top of a slippery slope, but it is a fuckin sweet ride down. There is a lot to learn, but if you search for the how to brew book by john palmer in google you will be well on your way.

Before you know it you will be making shit hot beer all from scratch. Best feeling in the world.

Edit: Should have read your post, had to many beers me think. I doubt that method would work well.

 

[kelbygreen]

i doubt you can as the sugar she is using is already extracted. the grain has sugars but needs to be extracted using a mash between 60-70 degrees to convert the grain to sugars. Just throwing the grain in the fermenter will prob change the colour but doubt it would extract the sugars and dont know if it would make the taste better or worse. others will know more for sure

 

[jphowman]

Grain also has a crap load of lactic acid bacteria on it. If you chuck it straight in the fermentor you will wind up with a really funky beer :icon_vomit:

The idea of gradually feed a beer is sound though. I've not had a great amount of experience, but it is fairly common on high gravity beers. It saves the yeast from blowwing their wad too early.

 

[kelbygreen]

hmm yeah this brings up a interesting formula I never thought off lol but it looks sound as the yeast multiply in a lower gravity then you feed them up so they dont get stressed to early and just drop out of suspention and go bugger this i going to sleep haha. Think I tried to brew a beer to high gravity and they yeast just dropped and wouldnt eat any more but it was still withing the alc% for the yeast as was only meant to be 6.2% but ended up 5.5%.

 

[bum]

G'day all, my missus does her own ginger beer. She starts with yeast, water and ginger. Over 7 days she feeds it sugar and ginger. This may be the dumbass question of the year but im wondering if i can use this method to do beer. eg; can i substitute the ginger for a grain? Please feel free to give me a slap if i need it :lol: .

Not a stupid question but it really, really, really is a very different type of fermentation. The very first beers would have been done in a manner very similar to what you propose but I bet they tasted pretty bloody gross. There are some more simple ways than others to mash grain and you should look at those before you even try to understand the difficulties of what you're suggesting.

What your missus makes is called a ginger beer plant - you really shouldn't think of beer making in a similar manner.

You don't need a slap but those who have told you to do this most certainly do.

 

[Nashmandu]

G'day all, my missus does her own ginger beer. She starts with yeast, water and ginger. Over 7 days she feeds it sugar and ginger. This may be the dumbass question of the year but im wondering if i can use this method to do beer. eg; can i substitute the ginger for a grain? Please feel free to give me a slap if i need it :lol: .


Cheers Greg

While I dont want to put you down. Stupid question. Mate, just read some stuff on the internet about brewing for 30 minutes and you will understand the process. Rather than hanging around here for 3 years learning snippits.
Que attacking comments,

man-du

 

[Nashmandu]

seriously mate, you've shown a complete lack of understanding over the last few weeks. mill in, mash in, lauter (sparge), boil, chill, ferment, condition. Look up these terms and learn.

 

[googe]

Thanks for the feedback fella's, Sorry i dont know as much as you nashmandu, then again i dont want to be that anil. Ive done alot of reading/study on brews and am finding it hard to comprehend as i wasnt born with total brewing knoledge. I have an open mind and im not scared of trying new things. Ive tried to not post crap as i understand this is annoying to some. If you dont have anything positive to say i understand that, but i dont see the point in why you post it.

Cheers Greg

 

[Bizier]

Brother, ignore arseholes.

ED: Nashmandu's post is a very straightforward method of learning to brew, but with all the wrong attitude. Condescending teachers, that is what the world needs more of Nash /ED

I very much advocate reading John Palmer's book, and the first edition is free online. He has very good instructions for basic brewing process.

Do some basic brews to get used to the basic process, and get some "less good" beers out of the way in doing so, and rack up some practical knowledge.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel. I constantly thought like this when I started, and you will realise that the more you know, the less you actually know in the scheme of things. So just take some simple advice to ferment a few straightforward batches and then see what you need to know to take it to the next step.

One of the best beers I ever brewed was an all-grain English dark mild ale on my stovetop. It did not need much grain, so I could use pots and pans, and I think I just used the oven to hold the mash temp. Very good beer can be made very simply.

ED II: Also, if you haven't already gone out and bought your gear, please ask on here for advice, because I am sure everyone here has bought some items 3 times before working out the one that best suits their needs. You could stand to save some mental and wallet trauma there. E.g. the Bunnings BMW "open head camper drum" (if still available) are a great fermenter for $15 odd. Save the pennies for temp control and a kegging system.

 

[Brewer_010]

WOuld agree with Bizier here. Read the John Palmer online this will give you a good feel of the whole process, rather than learning in snippets from this forum. Especially when certain lofty experts (who will remain un-named) slam your questions without offerring much direct help.

Just google 'how to brew' and read the all grain section, that will get you a long way.

 

[bum]

Que attacking comments,

Attack, defence. Same difference, right?

Looks to me like he's admitting that what he is proposing is totally different to the conventional method which shows some knowledge of the things you're getting into him about. No, his original proposal isn't a good one but how is a beginner supposed to know that? He's asking us a question to find out if it'd work or not and you're getting up him for asking instead of getting up those who're telling him to do it? Good work, fella.

As for How to Brew, googe, it is a good book but I don't think it is as good for some beginners as everyone else suggests. I found it completely awful to try to read from cover to cover and found it more useful to dip into as a reference once I better idea of what I wanted to do and needed a reminder of techniques/theory. If you feel the same and find the online version of How to Brew isn't what you're looking for (once you've had a go at it, of course, and you should) try The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Charlie Papazan. That's if you're a book person but, frankly, I reckon reading old posts here can be far more useful for fundamental brewing stuff than any one text because you get dozens of perspectives and you can use that to work out what methods you think will suit you best.

 

[bignath]

While I dont want to put you down. Stupid question. Mate, just read some stuff on the internet about brewing for 30 minutes and you will understand the process. Rather than hanging around here for 3 years learning snippits.

Stupid ******* post. Absolutely no help whatsoever to someone who has asked for it.

seriously mate, you've shown a complete lack of understanding over the last few weeks. mill in, mash in, lauter (sparge), boil, chill, ferment, condition. Look up these terms and learn.

Even worse post. What's crawled up your ass and put you in such a fine mood?
Seriously mate, you've shown a complete lack of understanding over the last few posts..

Thanks for the feedback fella's, Sorry i dont know as much as you nashmandu, then again i dont want to be that anil. Ive done alot of reading/study on brews and am finding it hard to comprehend as i wasnt born with total brewing knoledge. I have an open mind and im not scared of trying new things. Ive tried to not post crap as i understand this is annoying to some. If you dont have anything positive to say i understand that, but i dont see the point in why you post it.

Cheers Greg

Amen to that Greg! I'd come out swinging too if i had a reply like that to one of my questions - and there have been many too.

Brother, ignore arseholes.

ED: Nashmandu's post is a very straightforward method of learning to brew, but with all the wrong attitude. Condescending teachers, that is what the world needs more of Nash /ED

Amen to that too!

Attack, defence. Same difference, right?

Looks to me like he's admitting that what he is proposing is totally different to the conventional method which shows some knowledge of the things you're getting into him about. No, his original proposal isn't a good one but how is a beginner supposed to know that? He's asking us a question to find out if it'd work or not and you're getting up him for asking instead of getting up those who're telling him to do it? Good work, fella.

Good post bum.

My $0.02, whilst this forum is a fantastic resource of information for brewers of ALL levels, the sooner people stop posting useless, non helpful posts when help is asked, the better. Yes i've posted some crap in threads too (we all have i would guess), when the mood of the post suggests it is appropriate, but i've never attacked someone for asking a question.

Nath

 

[speedie]

googe
my best advice would be to locate a brew club near by where you live
dont feel shy about contacting these people has they have all come through a major learning curve and most are more than willing to provide guidance
see if you can get to one of there full mash sessions you will find this the most useful way to get into brewing and related brewing questions
and as the other positive guys indicated dont be put of by negitive comments as most of these guys have limited knowledge
good luck :icon_chickcheers:
speedie

 

[speedie]

one other thing for your defence all of the major brewing companies use a pratice of continual fermentaion
ie they pump unfermented wort into the first of a chain of vessels and by the end of there process line out comes beer
so it is a practical question

 

[googe]

Cheers all great advice thanks. And thanks for the backup :icon_cheers: . Good idea about seeing a mash done speedie, they have displays at a local brew shop not far from here that i want to go see. Will help alot seeing it first hand. Thanks bizier i ll have a look into that book. I'd have to agree bum, i love looking up stuff on here and weighing up whats good advice and whats not. Theres always a millions ways to do something the same.


Cheers Greg