Brewers Unite

General lounge
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I’ve heard rumors of brewers about the membership base. Reveal yourselves!

Personally, a friend introduced me to fermentation back in 2011 with a small jar of Water Kefir grains. I’ve brewed countless batches but it was too labour intensive to keep up.

I made about 7 or 8 batches of kombucha from a starter kit, but it never made a baby so I have up.

More recently, I made Tepache which has been refreshingly simple compared to the other processes.

I’m planning to try some mesophilic cultures and need to get a batch of beer under my belt (via the mouth is fine).

I’ve really enjoyed DIY fermentation and look forward to hearing what others may be up to.

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Hey, I started brewing Kombucha one month ago ! And also experiment since 2 years making my own sourdough bread but it’s a lot of work, you need to make bread every 2 or 3 days!

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While I am not a brewer yet, best I’ve done is make Yogurt with my Instant
Pot, I am currently reading

The Big Book of Kombucha

https://www.amazon.ca/Big-Book-Kombucha-Flavoring-Fermented/dp/161212433X

And considering an order from Kombucha Kamp

Assuming I don’t get a mother/scoby from someone locally.

Have Sandor Katz’s fermentation books queued up next.

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That was the problem with water kefir. It just exhausts you after a while. Sanitizing, straining, washing bottles, filtering water, dechlorinating… Every 3 days!!

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Actually you dont. Just stick the jar in the fridge and leave for 1 or 2 weeks, sometimes I add a tsp of flour/little water to give it a small feed. Doing that for 5+ years.

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I have half a died skoby and re-hydration instructions that your more than welcome to. Fair warning, it’s been in the freezer for about a year.

I haven’t done yogurt, but I do have some feta cheese culture and rennet sitting in my fridge waiting for an attempt.

I’ve also been curious to try viili yogurt which is one of those mesophilic strains that cultures at room temperature on the countertop.

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I would switch over to regular kefir grains. Keep in fridge and restart the feeding a few days before you need them: Wash in water; then dump them in any juice, leave for one 24hr period. Reclaim and place in a little milk put back in fridge, now leave juice out for 2-3days with capped bottle - then release any gas once per day. Easy! Delicious fizzy drinks.

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I’m guessing your noun was sourdough. I’ve heard of adding Himalayan salt, baking soda, and some dried fruit to feed the water kefir, but never flour.

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I’m ordering more raisins for ginger beer. Will post when I have them. I’m looking at you @wander and your brew. What was it called? Laurence of Arabia? It was the best of the lot. Laser Moose was okay. Jarrett Claret was good also. @ninetynein made some as well didn’t he?

Think of me as your raisin dealer anyone who wants some. I’ll be out back near the dumpster in a shady corner.

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I’ve got a package of the Junket Rennet sitting on the counter to make
burrata, but a friend who makes it regularly suggested a better quality
rennet is needed (a liquid)

https://www.amazon.ca/Microbial-Liquid-RENNET-Ideal-Coagulant/dp/B077LVKP2D/

I hadn’t heard about viili before, but have to look into that further.

Thanks for the scoby offer, I’ll order from Kombucha Kamp, everything I’ve
read says, fresh healthy and happy scoby is the only way to go for best
results.

Curious where you got the feta cheese culture from?

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I bought the kombucha, feta culture, rennet, and some basic cheese making tools from the Homesteaders Emporium on Hastings kinda on the outskirts of DTES. The owner is really helpful and it’s reasonable prices.

Burrata sounds crazy delicious! Will you share some burrata with me?

If you like viili, you’ll love this:

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Of course, I’d forgotten about HE, been planning to go there for years. When
I actually get time to make burrata, will put some aside for you, though that
could be a while :wink:

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Looks like HE is a place of legend now. Last February they shut down for all but 1 weekend each month.

I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but there might have been too many holdouts. Myself included. It was just a really bad location for that kind of shop.

They should have ran that place on Commercial Drive…

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Yea, I had great luck with your raisins! I also ordered some super old (and very expensive) crystal looking scoby from the UK (http://www.ginger-beer-plant.com/), but it didn’t turn out quite as good. I also found that cheap powered ginger worked better than fresh ginger. YMMV

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@ninetynein thanks for the info on the Ginger Beer Plant. I did always wonder if it was some special thing I should buy. I think @wander used cheap powdered ginger as well and things turned out great.

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I should talk to Stephen over at at Dickie’s Ginger Beer and see what he
suggests.

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Speaking of Kombucha brewing, this looks like a decent starter kit, though no
way to evaluate the SCOBY until you actually get it.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B079RP95DS

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Make babies with me

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It occurs to me that we should probably have a meeting or something.

Strangely, I had a conversation with someone last night who told me about their “Vow of the Nazarite” which prohibits fermented drinks. I wondered why anyone would prohibit such a thing, but then I thought about some of the other prohibitions and realized it’s actually pretty reasonable.

Anyways, I won’t be making any such vow, but I’m willing to help organize if people want to chat about culture…

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I did a fair bit of home brewing back in the UK.

Normally 5-10L batches of turbo cider in demijohns (8%+ cider made from cartons of juice mixed with pasteurized honey)
Also did a few 40L beer kits to a varying degree of success.

I brought my brew log with me when moving here, hoping that i may be able to do some again.