So... I Finally Got Around To Making My Alcoholic Water

[BjornJ]

Well yes the nutrient would be a good start and will possibly reduce some of the off flavours. Many of the commercial versions are White Wine that has been Carbon filtered.
You would only need a teaspoon/Litre of a good quality Activated Carbon to strip out most flavours.
With a simple mixture like your alcoholic water, after fermentation is complete, add the carbon, leave for a couple of days then chill until the "Water" drops bright before decanting.
Should get your brew clear and basically flavourless, ready for whatever flavour you want to add.

MHB

Hi MHB,
I had never thought of that, thanks for pointing it out.
Does that mean I could use Tanga's approach in say a 2 litre soda bottle and after fermentation is complete just chuck in some active charcoal?
Shake it up and "lager it" and decant off the liquid when the charcoal sediments out.

The add this "alco water" to bottles with flavour and carbonation drops to get alcopops?

(the wife likes the odd alco pop)

I have only seen charcoal filtering years and years ago when trying to filter bad moonshine. We filled a long plastic drain pipe with the stuff and a piece of cloth at the end. Poured water through first to wet them, then the bad moonshine. Came out as slightly less bad moonshine
Interesting if possible to do that in small scale in a bottle.

Bjorn

 

[brettprevans]

Would love to hear those BrettC results. So I'm guessing it's not one you can buy from the brew shop then?

You can buy various brett cultures from Wyeast and I think also from whitelabs. If your local hbs doesn't stock it you can order it from one who does.

yup.
Wyeast 5151PC Brett C
Wyeast 5112 Brett B
wyeast 5526 Brett Lambic -

 

[Tanga]

Noooo Bjorn! Add the carbonation drops. But leave adding the flavour (cordial) until she's ready to drink them, then either pour it out into a glass, or just add the cordial to the bottle. If you want to use artificial cordial then I guess it would be OK to add it to the bottle, but regular cordial will be adding sugar as well and you'll get some spectacularly sticky bottle bombs.

 

[BjornJ]

Noooo Bjorn! Add the carbonation drops. But leave adding the flavour (cordial) until she's ready to drink them, then either pour it out into a glass, or just add the cordial to the bottle. If you want to use artificial cordial then I guess it would be OK to add it to the bottle, but regular cordial will be adding sugar as well and you'll get some spectacularly sticky bottle bombs.

ok, ok, no need to yell :lol:
Understand, no flavour until ready to drink.

but the question around using charcoal still stands, hopefully ?

 

[Infinitee]

2kg invert sugar and too much hops to 15L water was my last brewski.
And whilst not quite alcowater (tastes like a strong fizzy hops tea) it's certainly a minimalist, functionalist brew.
Gets the job done, soothes the aching muscles and delivers near instant somnambulance.

But why are we here (on this forum, this planet, this existence?!) if not to throw crazy **** in the fermenter, mix microflora, define new taste sensations and get blotto'ed in as much cheap, self-sustaining style as we can muster, eh?

I'm with zebba on using the plastic bucket, glad wrap and rubber band outfit though.
Nothing stopping you from brewing world class bevvo's in a bucket and no reason imbibable alcohol need cost any more than a dozen cents a litre.
At least when your at your poorest and suffering, anyhow (which I seem to excel in).

I have wondered for a looong while, if alcowater could not be 'cleaned up' simply by a long maturation?
Surely these unpleasant-byproducts denature after some time under pressure?

There's been so many brews presumed infected failures that have turned out as gourmet, taste-exciters and crowd-pleasers given a mere few months in the coolroom.
And yes, my coolroom is a hole in the ground under shade.

 

[MHB]

Before home distilling became so popular there were a lot of products on the market that worked exactly this way (with varying degrees of success).
Make a high alcohol wash (dex/sugar to 17-18%)
Fine, with Casein and Kaolin clay rack and add fine activated carbon, leave to settle, and rack/filter, add flavour.
No reason at all why it won't work, just make sure you have enough nutrients and get a good carbon, see a HBS shop that sells distilling supplies. Kaolin Clay is used in kitty litter, any effective fining will work well enough. We are only talking about a teaspoon of each/L.

Fun to play around with
MHB

 

[Tanga]

Certainly are MHB

There are 14L water filters (with activated carbon, ceramic, silica, and 3 other kinds of filters) on ebay at the moment:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-CERAMIC-WATER-F...=item3a60c6967a
I'd imagine putting your alcowater through one would purify it pretty well (to the extent that you'd have to re-introduce yeast for carbonation purposes). I can't really justify 'wasting' money like this.

If activated carbon is cheap enough I may do a couple of experiments. But filtering is not really necessary as long as you keep the percentage alcohol low. The taste is fine, in fact I prefer it to normal alco-pops because at least it has a little alcohol feel to warn you off overimbibing, and it's not sickly sweet (though if that's what you want, just add extra cordial).

I'm going to the brewshop tomorrow to get the ingredients to do a 20L batch. Stuff it, why not. About $7 for all the ingredients to make the water, then I can experiment with which cordial flavours go well. Already got plenty of fans =).

 

[browndog]

Certainly are MHB

There are 14L water filters (with activated carbon, ceramic, silica, and 3 other kinds of filters) on ebay at the moment:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-CERAMIC-WATER-F...=item3a60c6967a
I'd imagine putting your alcowater through one would purify it pretty well (to the extent that you'd have to re-introduce yeast for carbonation purposes). I can't really justify 'wasting' money like this.

If activated carbon is cheap enough I may do a couple of experiments. But filtering is not really necessary as long as you keep the percentage alcohol low. The taste is fine, in fact I prefer it to normal alco-pops because at least it has a little alcohol feel to warn you off overimbibing, and it's not sickly sweet (though if that's what you want, just add extra cordial).

I'm going to the brewshop tomorrow to get the ingredients to do a 20L batch. Stuff it, why not. About $7 for all the ingredients to make the water, then I can experiment with which cordial flavours go well. Already got plenty of fans =).

Tanga, after you have used your carbon a couple of times you can reactivate it by boiling it for a while then putting it in a hot oven for 30 mins.

cheers

Browndog

 

[Tanga]

Hahaha! Now that's ghetto. Thanks Browndog. I may just do that. =)

 

[browndog]

Hahaha! Now that's ghetto. Thanks Browndog. I may just do that. =)

Very worthwhile if your carbon filter happens to hold a kilo of the stuff

 

[Tanga]

Very worthwhile if your carbon filter happens to hold a kilo of the stuff

=O

Your bottled water filter?

 

[browndog]

=O

Your bottled water filter?

Correct, I used to love my bottled water before I found AG brewing :chug:

 

[Tanga]

Holy crap! Probably the best alcoholic ginger beer I've ever had. Bunderim's Ginger Refresher made up with this. Shits all over the kits, and even alcoholic GB from the bottle-o. Fans of Bundy GB will love it. The ginger kick hides that after-taste (stomps it into submission). I am about to make 20 L of this stuff. Wish me luck - this could be dangerous. =)

 

[TonyC]

Tanga,
i could supply a kilo or two of activated carbon if needed no cost, pm if needed.

Regards Tony

 

[technoicon]

mrs Fury wants to do one of these.

would a lager yeast work ok? and what do you use for nutrient? does it need some boiled yeast like a cider?? or is there just one yeast addition?

I have danish and bavarian.

tanga, did you add the juice in the ferment or after or when serving?

 

[Tanga]

Do you mean the lemon juice or the cordial Fury? Lemon juice is added as nutrient / pH at the beginning of the process, cordial is added in the glass. I don't use any other nutrient, at these alcohol levels it's not necessary.

Any neutral yeast should work, which most lager yeasts are meant to be. I haven't tried it, but at a guess I'd say it'd work. Lavlin champers yeast 118 definitely will (even at low temps).

What was Mrs Fury after exactly? An alcopop?

PS: If you leave it a few weeks it becomes pure and clear (like water) and the winey aftertaste drops off. I'm in the process of sitting some on activated carbon now to see if I can eliminate it entirely. Then I will lager both bottles (one with carbon, one without) and then carbonate (with added yeast). All this extra faffing about isn't necessary though. Just thinking of doing a full fermenter of pure, clean tasting, carbonated alcowater is kinda irresistible.

PPS: If you want to do a larger batch the 10-12 L spring water containers with gladwrap and rubber band airlock works a treat. 1kg dextrose in 10 L water, 50 mL of real squeezed lemon juice.

 

[Tanga]

So I'm doing 20 L of the stuff. I've had the ingredients for a while and nothing's fermenting atm =(.
2 kg of dex,
100 mL of lemon juice,
1 tspn of yeast nutrient,
the washed yeastcake from my last cider (nottingham)

I'll let interested parties know how it turned out. If there are any left? If you have tried this I'd love to know what you / your Mrs thought of the results.

PS. Will probably not use activated carbon. It does remove some of the edge, but not enough to warrant the extra faffing about filtering.

 

[technoicon]

we are doing one now.

180g of Coopers brew enhancer
25ml of lemon juice
10ml of danish lager (wyeast2042)
1.8l of boiled water

will let you know how it goes.

next we will try a rasberry. would i be possible to put the cordial in, instead of sugar/dex?? if i did a gravity reading?

 

[Tanga]

Brew enhancer 1 should be fine, a little heavier in body and lighter on the alcohol. Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

I haven't tried sugar instead of dex yet. It might work, it might end up being cidery. I'm pretty sure a dry (not sweet at all) raspberry wouldn't be for me, but by all means give it a go. Top crop or use a bit more of the lager yeast in 600 mL as a test maybe? Need to read the sugar content and add as much as the alcohol content you want needs.

I will do a sugar test sometime, not soon though.

 

[technoicon]

will be interesting. was dead easy to do! used a 2lt coke bottle and glad wrap