1 gallon of strong black coffee (from grounds not instant)
1kg sugar, citric acid, nutrient and a good yeast. Ferment out to make a horrible bitter coffee wine. Take horrible coffee wine and place in a freezer for a couple of days. The water will go like a slush but the alcohol won't freeze. pour off the brown alcohol and chuck the left over clear ice. Repeat until no more slush. Backsweeten and enjoy.
( Peej, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 15:51, Reply)

pricks

(old man river possible lesbian, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 14:30, 4 replies)

You only need instructions if you're an idiot
Back before my brain grew, I bought a cheap home brew kit from a dodgy looking bloke at a farmers' market. Aware that it looked like cess, I decided to make it special by adding a bit of flavour.

Sounds like a plan, right? Can't go wrong with a bit of flavour, you'd think. Well, unless you flavour it with black currants and red chillis, that is.

And of course, being hard as nails, I put a lot of chillis in because I was ever so cool and tough.

You know the diarrhea you get after washing a vindaloo down with a bottle of Ribena? Well, I have a very good idea of what that tastes like.

It took me weeks to drink it all.
(csdaveuk, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 13:32, Reply)

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
Bertrand Russell
( $$ ✅, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 11:58, Reply)

There is a demijohn of brown liquid in my mother's loft
labelled 'Tanpits' which may be from Tanpits cider farm or may be some of my late father's homebrew with an old label. No-one remembers what it is and dad's too dead to ask. Waiting for a special event to crack it out and poison everyone. Then if I go to the same place I'll get a chance to find out.
( A Rory Borealis here under duress, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 11:22, 3 replies)

I make jenkem in my basement and sell it to the local kids.
It's definitely an 'acquired taste' but once you get used to it, it's quite morish.
(Baggenfrock get fucked, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 10:16, 1 reply)

I make homemade booze and most of it is drinkable.
tune in next week (and probably the week after as well) for another exciting episode of Homebrew Chat!
( Peej, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 8:17, 2 replies)

qotw
I not long ago ran into an old mate who I don't see a lot of any more, mostly because he's a veteran I.V. druggie and I'm too old for that shit these days.
So anyway I could tell before he even opened his mouth that he was in a 'fuckin good place' so to speak, and mentioned this to him... apparently as he was hard up a few days short of payday, he had sponged down the interior of his car roof upholstery, which was lined with 15 years worth of the tiny bit that squirts out when they flick it and squirt to get rid of air bubbles, coke, speed, smack, e, and fuck knows what else, reckons he'd been going hard on it for 2 or 3 days and still had more than half left. Talk about people doing fucked up shit to get a fix..
( R2Dtard Poor kids are as smart as white kids, Tue 9 Dec 2014, 7:38, 3 replies)

Home Poo
At family gatherings, my Maw n’ Paw usually drag out this tale from when I was a wee bairn. A babysitter of mine disposed of a used Terry nappy into what she thought was the wash-basket but tuned out to be a plastic barrel containing my Dad’s home brew.

It was left to ferment away quietly and wasn’t discovered for several months. Imagine the gut wrenching disgust when the foul concoction was finally unearthed. But everyone agreed it improved the flavour of the home brew immeasurably giving it a pungent nose and a robust nutty finish.
(Nitrous Nitrous, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 23:20, 4 replies)

at the age of 16
I tried making my own cider by adding yeast to a bottle of apple juice, stretching a balloon over the top to keep it take up any pressure in the bottle and leaving it on the radiator in by bedroom for a couple of weeks.

tasted like cider, smelled like ass though
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 22:57, Reply)

Spoiler alert, look away now
I suspect I have lurked for a decade but now I must rise up and speak. Like everyone else I made piss that turned your own piss blue and gave up. I tried resurecting it by combining 15 mm copper and a pressure cooker. This works but produces turps.

Some years later I thought again. I reckoned if Becks could make good bear maybe I could too; if I only I could know how they did it.

Thank you, the internet. It told me everything. If anyone else wants to know how, Google: Palmer, brewing. His open source book is a masterpiece.

I now have a commercial brewery and can't remember the last time I had to buy beer. You can do this too but don't buy one of those bags. Mead is obviously for cunts.
(Nemesis, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 22:51, 8 replies)

Home brew vodka
More science gone bad:

Never, ever, mention to friends that you work with 100% pharmaceutical grade alcohol (by the gallon) as you'll eventually get blackmailed in to bringing some of the stuff down the pub, mixing it with whatever comes to hand and palming it off as home made vodka.

Its exceptionally, mindburningly, gut wretchingly, horrible stuff.

ideal before mead and weddings....
(DustyD, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 20:54, 3 replies)

Home Brew Mead
A Little science can go a long way.... or very very badly.
Honey is not sterile; its just too sweet to suport a lot of bacterial and fungal growth. So in theory if you want to make mead just take honey, dilute it 3:1 with sterile wáter, bottle it and forget about it

It Works; you end up with fermented honey.... the only problema of course it it's basically fermented diluted bees vomit so you get a lot of very very unpleasant unwanted fermentation products at the same time.

try it if you fancy a relaxing week of intestinal poisoning; ideal before weddings.
(DustyD, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 20:49, 3 replies)

Home brew
My dear late dad made a batch of home brew whenn my brother was around 15 and i was a tender impresionable 12 year old. I remember the ceremonial, "Sterilisation of the equip`ment" which made us have to abandon the house for three hours whilst the smell dissipated, the "Is it ready yet?" from my sister who thought lookig inside the big tum and sniffing was an excellent way to maintain sterility and the competition to mame it (winner: "Regal Lagar"). Most of all i remember my father and brother drinking the stuff on a hot summer afternoon, the sound of regurgitation and the lingering smell of a gazillion gallos of fermented snot after it was poured down the bath.
(DustyD, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 20:40, Reply)

My dad used to make beer in his shed.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 18:40, 6 replies)

FIRST
lol j/k no one cares
(Synchromesh gearbox, overhead cam, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 14:24, 1 reply)

Swansea homebrew
One year at the Glade festival I was offered a swig of "Swansea homebrew" by an inebriated Welshman, whereupon I was asked to guess what it was made from.

Red Bull, MDMA and liquid acid, apparently.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 11:41, 3 replies)

Making your own booze is really pikey.
I mean - Spesh is only a quid, ffs.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 8 Dec 2014, 10:27, 2 replies)

I killed a kangaroo
I went to high school in a mining town in northwestern Australia in the 80s. Me and a couple of mates had discovered the joys of alcohol, but didn't have much money to pay for it (and there was the added complication of trying to buy alcohol in a small town where everyone knows you before you're 18). I had been reading encyclopedia articles on alcohol (this being before the interwebs) and had become aware that a) vodka was made from potatoes, and b) alcohol is basically the product of yeast and sugar. I convinced myself that I now knew the secret to making vodka, and, being blessed with the gift of the gab, convinced my mates that I knew what I was talking about and we should all chip in and buy some potatoes and sugar, and make a still.

Since none of us was confident we'd be able to pull this off under the noses of our parents, we decided it'd be best to start our moonshining operations at a cave a few km out of town. The next weekend, having made a quick run to the supermarket for sugar, potatoes, and baker's yeast, we set off on a camping trip for the weekend to the cave. At said cave, we peeled the potatoes and chucked them in 20 or so 5 litre plastic tubs with some sugar and baker's yeast and water, and sealed the lids on tight. Sterilizing the tubs? Encyclopedia Britannica hadn't mentioned that step. Or any other steps, quantities, or notes of caution for that matter. Confident that our brewing operation was now well afoot, we headed back to town the next morning with the plan of returning the following weekend for another camping trip where we'd spend our days distilling and our evenings drinking the product.

The week passed in a frenzy of still making, producing a masterpiece of coffee can and copper pipe, poorly soldered together with more lead-based solder than your average Roman water pipe. On our return to the cave, we found to our surprise that the lids had blown off all our containers, leaving some liquid and a lot of grey foamy sludge. And a hapless kangaroo, dead on the ground a few metres from our tubs. Much speculation commenced about whether it'd died after consuming the product of our fermentation or of unrelated natural causes. To our sixteen year old minds, the idea we'd brewed something so potent it could kill a kangaroo seemed like a plus rather than a subtle suggestion that maybe we should toss the stuff, so we immediately built a fire and commenced distilling what was left in the bottoms of the tubs. After a few false starts we got a nice dripping action going and slowly filled a cup with a greyish-white fluid. Much argument commenced about who was going to taste the stuff first, since it had eventually sunk in that drinking something that might have killed a kangaroo might perhaps maybe not be a good idea. Finally, the stupidest person in our group (yours truly) dipped a finger in and sucked it, only to discover we'd produced an incredibly vile tasting batch of vinegar rather than anything even vaguely resembling alcohol. Which probably saved our lives, and makes for a better story than 'I killed half my mates with homemade moonshine'.
(spasm Caitifty, Sun 7 Dec 2014, 23:49, 2 replies)

I used to have a few apple trees in the back garden ...
... so one year I decided to have a go at making scrumpy. It wasn't particularly potent but it turned out it was very good to cook with.

My girlfriend obviously agreed as she told me she loved having my pork in cider.
( Ghoti Fingers, Sun 7 Dec 2014, 18:50, 6 replies)

Cheers.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sun 7 Dec 2014, 14:25, 3 replies)

I was probably 13 years old at the time,
and I was interested in making wines after finding a book with recipes for various "country" wines. I gathered a number of wild sunflowers to make a sunflower wine, pulled the petals and steeped them in boiling hot water, added the sugar, yeast, and, I think, a tablespoon of very strong tea.

Of course I had little idea of what I was doing, and not having a fermentation lock, I screwed the top of the half filled gallon jug tight to keep the "bad bacteria" from infecting the newly made must.

I came home to a very angry Mother, the section of my solid oak desk I had put the fermenting liquid in "to keep it in the dark" blown wide open, the dog shaking in another part of the house, and thick sugary liquid all over the floor. There were shards of glass embedded in the wood of the file drawer of that desk that I never got out.
( CapnChkn I would rather be flying elephants., Sun 7 Dec 2014, 13:48, 3 replies)

Sloe women and fast talkies
About five years ago we went to a friend's for a Sunday afternoon party-with-a-purpose (can't remember what, though). Lots of people, lots of booze - including a couple of bottles of home-made sloe gin. I was driving, so couldn't really drink but I had a taste - it was very nice and I remember wishing I hadn't agreed to drive that day.

On the way home we suddenly became aware of how talkative our four-year-old was, sat in the back seat, next to her godfather. "Shops, Uncle Brian - have you seen the things you can buy in shops?" Or "Traffic lights - they just change colour all the time. What's that all about?" I know that children's chat is usually only funny and endearing to the parents but there was a surreal quality to it that took it out of the realm of normality.

This carried on for the forty-minutes or so it took us to get home, whereupon she went straight to bed and crashed out until eight o'clock the next morning. Next day our hostess called my wife, asking if my daughter was OK. It turned out that just before we left, someone quietly relieved her of the plastic breaker of sloe gin they found her swigging from and which she obviously thought was Ribena. That's mah gurrl...
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Sun 7 Dec 2014, 13:37, 5 replies)

I've been making me own beer and cider for years
when I moved to london a sarth efrican mate in wimbledon told me he had an apple tree and a lot of apples that were going to waste lying on the ground. I took two huge duffle bags and headed out across town to fill them up. They were that fucking heavy once full, I'd reckon each one was at least 50 kilos. Now I'm a big strong bloke, but I reckon getting those bags home was the hardest most physical thing I've ever done. I didn't think I'd make it to the end of the street, let alone, catch three trains and walk a couple of miles with them. It was a stupid, painful torture and it almost fucked my back. I had deep bruising on my shoulders where the straps had cut in.
When I got the home I found my cheap juicer I bought at Currys had to be cleaned after each apple so it took forever to juice up.
I'm normally generous with my homebrew, that's if I can get anyone else brave enough to touch it. But I was buggered if was going to let other people have some of me cider. My wife would offer it to people at parties, usually after all the regular piss had been drunk, but I wasn't having it. "They can have the stout, or even my wheat beer, but not that. I sweated blood for that cider"
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Sun 7 Dec 2014, 11:42, 21 replies)

Helpful child
I bought a beer brew kit which is a big bucket with a loose lid and the can of gunk and some sachets. After careful preparation I was rewarded after few days with a nice froth. One day I turn up at home and the place stank of beer. I look at the bucket and it looks okay but the floor is sticky. Wife isn't very quick to explain but finally it turns out that our 3 year old decided to copy mummy and mop the floor using my bucket of beer.

I tried to make wine from LIDL grape juice more recently following some youtube videos. Didn't go to well and I ended up with a cloudy non alcoholic yeast drink. But the prize for success (wine cheaper than any kit) makes me want to try again.

BTW my earliest disaster at brewing was at the hands of a Boots own brand brew bag. The concept is pure simplicity - pour warm water into a bag, slosh it around, add yeast, hang it on a door and delicious beer comes out of a tap at the bottom 2 weeks later. Except it tasted so foul I poured it straight down the drain.

I see beer bags are still on sale:

www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/CheeseMakers-Golden-Ale-Brewing-Bag.html

I don't know why they claim their system is "patented". Boots were there 20 years ago with this.
(MagicMoose, Sat 6 Dec 2014, 19:02, 4 replies)

Homebrew always tastes shit and only pikeys make it.
Cheers.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sat 6 Dec 2014, 16:43, 9 replies)

Uncle Bob's homebrew
1. My uncle has always made the stuff - apple, dandelion, blackberries picked from hedgerows, the lot. Once he spilt some on the sideboard, and it took the varnish off.

2. My mum once made (non-alcoholic) ginger beer. She was using dozens of those old lemonade bottles, the glass ones (Corona or something). Anyway, she got the recipe a bit wrong, namely by putting twice the amount of yeast in. We were awoken in the middle of the night by a series of bangs from the spare room - a number of the glass bottles had exploded and the stuff was all over the floor and up the walls. The next batch she did was really good though.

3. When I moved into my first house, I found a bottle under the stairs with a hand-written label saying "sloe gin". It took me years to pluck up the courage to try it, but it was lovely stuff.
(Bob the Builder killed Captain Alex, Sat 6 Dec 2014, 16:16, Reply)

Coming!
Late July, residential school, Yorkshire, end of term.
The short-arsed Headmaster, with his Brylcreemed hair and tightly manicured moustache was a throwback to the 30's. He wasn't running some local authority dump for wayward kids. No, his school was the Eton of the North ( without the bum fuckery and wads of inherited cash, obviously).
He decided that as soon as the last kid had departed, the staff should celebrate the end of term with a genteel wine and cheese party. Genteel and very pleasant it was for almost two hours and then... the wine ran out.The party fell flat and the Headmaster and his wife retreated to their private living quarters.
New boy staff member here then leaped to the rescue with:
"I've got some of my dad's homebrew lager in my room if anyone's interested."
Turns out the Deputy, the Matron and three of the female houseparents were interested and followed me hastily to my room.Some time after the first two bottles I seemed to remember my dad had said the lager might be a bit stronger because he'd added more sugar than usual.Some time after the fifth bottle a half naked gaggle of drunkards were into the full swing of a game of strip poker when there was a knock on the door. I couldn't go to the door because I was pissing in the sink by the window at the time so I shouted:
"Coming!" meaning "I'm coming, wait there!"
Apparently "coming!" can sound like "come in!".
You've guessed the rest.
Late edit: if you didn't guess the rest see replies.
(mallyjoe, Sat 6 Dec 2014, 13:33, 6 replies)

My dad tried a bit of home brewing one winter, when I was very small (apparently it smelled so bad that he was banned from further batches)
He did wine and beer. On Christmas Day I was taken to the obligatory mass and watched with great interest as the priest drained the chalice. "Daddy's wine all gone now!" I announced right in the middle of some religious silence, making my grandmother* cringe.

He and his mates then celebrated the birth of my younger brother with the beer. It was so strong that 2 of his mates passed out in the garden on the way home. Lucky he was born in March, not December...


(* Although not as much as when that same baby brother, looking like an angel but acting like a devil most of the time, did an enormous fart, magnified in the way that only a wooden, uncushioned pew can, and immediately turned to her and said accusingly, "little grandma!!!" Shortly afterwards he misbehaved and was taken outside for a bollocking/smacked bum. Desperately trying to prolong the inevitable, he was frantically trying to shake hands with people from his position under my dad's arm, hissing, "peace be with you!" "Peace be with you!" as if that were going to save him)

(I don't even care that most of this is about farts. Farts are funnier than home brew)
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sat 6 Dec 2014, 10:29, 14 replies)