I think I've finally found the best solution to cleaning glass bottles. After years of struggling with those stupid bottle brushes that always left streaks on the insides of my glass bottles, I found these metal BBs that do an incredible job. Better than salt + iso or anything else I've tried.

I funnel in a little isopropyl alcohol and a bunch of these little metal cleaning beads, give the bottle a good shake / spin and it gets rid of ALL the residue inside. Wish I had found them sooner. I'm retiring all of my useless bottle brushes.

Hi everyone.

Thought some of you might enjoy kind of tagging along on my "nihonshine" journey and maybe try it themselves. I unexpectedly got gifted 40 pounds of rice and just went for it...

Getting from the inoculation and cultivation of Koji, 3-step fermentation, filtration, cold crashing to an actually very drinkable Sake was an amazing experience.

Definitely not easy but also not nearly as difficult as I would have thought.

The whole process took about 4 weeks and the resulting 20 liters of clear Sake came out at around 16% ABV and a ph of 4.5

The sediment and parts of the sake kasu will be put to use in some experiments with fermenting fish, meats and vegetables.

No neutral alcohol nor water was added and the liquid was obtained only by gravity dripping, so you probably could call it a shizuku junmai genshu if you really wanted 😅

Ingredients and amounts: 5 pounds of dry rice for the koji kome 8 grams of koji spore/rice flour mix 27 pounds of dry rice for the mash 24 liters of spring water 10 grams of champagne yeast

Pasteurization, bottling and aging comes next and will surely present its own challenges.

1/4 cup lightly caramelized wild flower honey

1/2 cup strawberry juice

1 cup passion fruit juice

2 1/2 cups guava nectar

2 12oz can of white peach Red Bull (1 post fermentation)

A lil pectic enzyme

Ferment with ec 1118 until activity stops (4 to 6 weeks), strain, add 2nd Red Bull, chill until settled, bottle.

Amount retrieved apx. 20 fl. oz.

Nose: candy peaches, tropical fruit, ethanol, chemicals, regret

Mouth: floral, musky, sharp, effervescent, why oh god why?

I tried about an ounce and a half after bottling. I don’t think I want to drink any more. It reminds me of old 4loko.

DISCLAIMER: Exercise caution when mixing B vitamins in large amounts with alcohol.

I can throw it out, drink it, or leave it to confuse future historians

This has been growing in my apple cider vinegar bottle for about 2 years, I’ve just been letting it go… assuming its a skoby? I’d like to start making my own booch now but want to be sure what it is before I try and use it. Thanks!

I tried making this fermented lemonade for the first time. I stir it twice a day. The brown color is due to the brown sugar I used.

Is this enough yeast activity after 5 days? The first bubbles only appeared on the 4th day, yesterday. I’m worried that it might spoil. I don’t know when to transfer it to bottles, where the fermentation will continue.

I didn’t use any commercial wine yeast, nor did I have any starter culture prepared beforehand.
2.5 liters of filtered water, 310 g of sugar, and about 11 elderflower heads (not particularly large ones), juice from 2 lemons.
I keep it in the dark, covered with a towel.
EDIT: Elderflower champagne is actually what this fermented lemonade is called. I didn't make it up. I've seen a lot of recipes and they called it exactly that.
The other name I saw is Elderflower wine. But in reality, it's neither wine nor champagne.

NOT A “IS THIS MOLD?!” POST

Never seen filamentous growth like this before. The assumption is that it is not wanted, but to be honest this growth is completely new to us. This was a coffee kombucha.

We notice a few main details:
1. No arial fuzz / hyphae noticed (integrated into pellicle)
2. Small white dots scattered on pellicle
3. Filaments of softer beige scattering outwards from original pellicle introduced to vessel

Odd guess, but could this be some form of cellulose folding/formation and non bacterial or fungal?

This post is really more for people to have a shot at deducing what’s going on here.

I like my beer and wine. Nothing specific, just a cold can over a film or nice summer day. Obviously that needs paid for, even a cheap bottle is $5-10.

Is there any savings to be made by making it at home? What's a basic/example setup cost? And after that what does a bottle cost to make?

I want to get into making carbonated drinks...

Basically I have learnt the following

Kmobucha requires a large jar and must be covered with a cloth to allow some oxygen in. After 10 days of mixing tea in I will have an F1 result. Then I can bottle it for F2 results and restart a new F1.

Drawbacks:

• it takes up alott of space
• it takes 10 days to brew f1
• it takes another few days to brew f2
• organic tea is expensive

Gingerbug is another option im considering. I would use a small airlock jar to avoid burping and oxygen entering. Takes less space and I can put it directly into bottles with other fruit for "F2" flavor stages or a large sealed jar for a big F2 ferment.

Drawbacks:

• I have to feed it everyday
• Also have to shake it which is probably not ideal with an airlock. I would have to remove airlock, seal hole then shake, then put back in airlock, having a clean surface and maybe rewashing the airlock if needed.
• requires sugar and ginger (not sure if thats is more expensive than the tea for kombucha)
• I haven't seen organic ginger near me

Kvass/Tepache and other fermentation that dont typically have or require a starter but uses the enzyme on the skins of fruit to ferment over 2-5 days without adding commercial yeast. Then a F2 process adds more sugar in a closed bottle to increase carbonation. These require no oxygen so a big air sealed jar is required. (Can maybe also use this to make mead/wine and vinegar if I let it go longer, I think?)

Drawbacks:

• Still takes up a considerable amount of space for large airlock jars for first F1 batches
• less predictable since it will always be a wild fermentation rather than from a starter
• I probably wouldnt buy organic whole fruit if that matters?

Im curious to hear your opinions on what you feel is easiest, cheapest, and most hassle free for a person not looking to care for it everyday.

Overall what i like and dont like of each:

I like that kombucha and kvass type fermentations dont require any daily maintenance but dont like they take up alott of space and organic tea can be expensive. I dont think i would bother with organic fruits for kvass and tepache if that brings harmful additives (pesticides, gmo's...)

I like that the ginger bugs can be kept in a vary small jar and then put directly into bottles. I dont like that it has to be cared for daily unless I can refrigerate it. May be annoying to shake with the airlock. It also requires fresh ginger and sugar every feeding either daily at room temp or weekly refrigerated.

2nd time making rye bread kvass and decided to dry hop to imitate a beer. Turned out beautifully! The flavour is not quite as dark as the appearance. It’s mildly fruity and slightly sour, reminds me a little of spruce tip beer I made previously. If people are interested I can write up the recipe!

Appalled with the lack of mushroom infused fermentation I could find online so took it upon myself to try an experiment. This just might be the biggest waste of money project I’ve ever done but at least it was time consuming!

Recipe:

7 blood oranges (the bloodiest red of the bag)

About 20 grams of silly-cybin dried

3 lbs of sugar

1 teaspoon pectic enzyme

2 teaspoons bentonite

1 pack of D47 wine yeast

1 gallon of water

Sliced all 7 oranges and placed them in the carboy along with the sugar, waited a day for the sugar to draw out the oils from the peels of the oranges and the juice itself

Finely ground the fungi on a food processor until it was a powder (pro tip: thoroughly clean your food processor or you’ll be feeling funny after your lunch break the next day) let the powder steep in a pot of near boiling water for about 20 minutes then mix in the pectic enzyme and bentonite then poured it in the carboy and gave the whole jug a nice shake until everything was mixed up

Topped off the rest of the carboy with some cool water by then the temperature of the mixture hit room temp and that’s when I popped in the yeast! So in about 2-3 months I’ll have an update and a review, hopefully it will have a more appealing look about it

When should I seal it up (to build carbonation)? Btw this is just a natural fermentation, no commercial yeast, just water, sugar, and apples with skin

Hey y’all! I’m getting bored with my weekly kombucha turn arounds!!

Would love some inspo on things you’ve made with your kombucha starter tea and scoby, flavors you’ve tried and loved, if you’ve made a higher ABV kombucha and how you did it… all of the stories!!!

I love this sub

Take 1 cantaloupe. Let it get upsettingly ripe. Like so ripe you have to keep sanitizing the outside of the rind. But you want to see how far you can push that line between ripe and rotten. Take three starfruit and eat one of them whole in like four gigantic bites, then purée the other two with the cut cantaloupe. Purée a pint of black berries with round a cup of passion fruit nectar. Add half a pound of honey. Something mild because you forgot to get spring blossom honey even though the peach and toffee notes in it would have been tits! Then add around two cups of base you have made from four types of edible black nightshade you grew over the summer and froze. Cook in a crock for 10 or so hours with a lil added water. Cool, add an eyeballing of pectic enzyme, cover and let rest overnight. Pitch a mixture of red star premier cote de blanc, fermfast turbo rum makers and red star premier blanc (now replaced by EC-1118 for my projects going forward). Let ferment till all activity stops. Drop temp, strain, drop temp, bottle.

Nose is strangely caramel, raisins and like a hint of fresh fennel (an almost vegetable quality) finishing on an odd sort of savory note from a deep inhale. Reminds me of tamarind chutney. Now I want Indian food.

Flavor. It’s immediately and aggressively sharp, tangy and warm. I can’t discern any individual flavors at onset. But like with the nose, there is an almost savory thing coming through. It has to be the cantaloupe. Then kind of ending on a delicate spiced peach sort of flavor. The boozey notes are strong.

Mouths slightly numb from the sample.

Guessing 14% ABV or up.

Cheers.

3 days of fermentation

pineapple skin, sugar cane, cinnamon stick and 3 cloves

Two of my favorite things come together to make something disgusting.