Pumpkin Ale #1

Getting into the fall season with a couple batches of pumpkin ale.

Recipe:

3 quarts water

2 cups sugar

1 can 30 ounce Libby Pumpkin Pie Filling

handful of hops

Boiled this down to 2 quarts

Then added another half cup of sugar

ABV measured 7% potential

Once cooled added 2 quarts of fresh strained keifer to the 2 quarts of pumpkin.  Added three hops and then added airlock.  Process started on 8/12/2016

On 9/4/2016 there was no bubbles in airlock so i decided to bottle.  Measured 0% ABV, so conceivably i made 7% drink.

When it came to bottling i decided to make ginger tea and cinioman tea (both from natural ingredients, not ground)

3 bottles (Basic):

12 ounces from carboy, 4 ounces fresh kefir + 1 tsp sugar

3 bottles (ginger)

12 ounces from carboy, 2 ounces ginger tea, 2 ounces fresh kefir + 1 tsp sugar

3 bottles (cinamon)

12 ounces from carboy, 2 ounces cinnamon tea, 2 ounces fresh kefir + 1 tsp sugar

Note: After bottling and sitting for 2 weeks, i don't think cinnamon is a good spice for kefir/pumpkin brews.  Really adds an off flavor.  Ginger was really good, but next time lesson ginger in the tea.

The basic bottles of just pumpkin had faint under tones of pumpkin.  Next time i will add molasses and more hops to the base.

Orange Coriander

Read a recipe for a Hefivisen beer that had hints of orange and coriander.  So why not brew with those two.

Recipe:
2 liters of water
.25 ounces (weight) crushed coriander seed. ( i used McCormmick) but i started growing my own for next season.
1 full orange peel
2 cups of sugar
After boiling, added 1/2 squeezed orange.
(Note: this smelled really good!)

This was added to 2 quarts of fresh keifer. The ABV potential was 10%

5/20/2016 the final ABV was 2%, so in theory should have been 8% ABV (i question this too as i can not tell if i screwed up the readin gon the hydrometer.

Some bottles I added fresh orange juice, others added more coriander.  I think the combo with more coriander was really good!

After though:  One thing was clear in all my prior kiefer brews i bottled when airlock still had activity.  COuld have been 17 seconds to 25 seconds per bubble, but it was something.  IN the coming catch up posts i will be talking about failures to fix and just trying to figure out why that might be.

Considering lowering the ABV from between 8-10 and moving it back to 5%.  Not sure if i am killing off everything in high ABV or if i need to bottle when still active.

Preparing for Spring Brews - Lemon-Ginger

Trying new flavors for the spring.  Transitioning from the heavier porter/molasses style.  Thought i would take advantage of the lemon-zest and fresh ginger brews.

Recipe:
zest of one lemon
2 cups of sugar
2 quarts of kiefer in the carboy

I question my reading skills of the hydrometer, it said potential of 10% but i really think i was reading something else.  I also had to of added ginger to 2 quarts of water + zest of lemon + juice from 1 lemon.  I would have boiled this for 10 minutes or so.

On 4/28 i began the bottling process.

At bottling i added some flavors to the base:

3 bottles received this recipe:
6oz water + 2 TBS dried crushed peppermint (Boil both for 3 minutes)  then added 2 ounces to 3 bottles. Also added 2 ounces of fresh kiefer to 12 ounces of lemon ginger 1st ferment.

3 bottles recieved this recipe:
8oz water + 1 TBS crushed coriander (Boil both for 4 minutes)  then added 2 ounces to 3 bottles. Also added 2 ounces of fresh kiefer to 12 ounces of lemon ginger 1st ferment.
NOTE:  was able to taste faint coriander taste.  Next time tripple.

All bottles where good and had sufficient fiz.

Ginger root makes the bubblies

What is it with the ginger.  I have several observations with respect to ginger.

1) It makes things extremely fizzy.  Especially when pieces are put into bottles.
2) Speeds things up, Has potential to consume sugar to make drink taste really dry with marginal improvement to ABV.

Porter Style Dark Keifer Brew #4 - Much better

Decided to go back to basics this time around.  Sticking with Molasses, just even less of it.

Recipe:
3 quarts water
3 grams hops
1/4 cup Molasses (Black Strap)
2 cups sugar
50 grams raisins

Boiled down to 2 quarts.

Then strained into the carboy and waited for it to be cool.

Added 2 quarts kiefer to the carboy.

Initial ABV = cant remember where i wrote it down >5%

Fermentation start 2/7/2016
Stopped 3/192016

Bottling I poured 12 ounces of fermented carboy into bottle, then added 2 ounces of fresh strained keifer plus 2 tsp sugar.

Notes:

• This was really good.
• Added ginger to a couple bottles, really balanced the flavor.
• Consider adding Amaretto 
• Really could not taste  the raisins.

Porter Style Dark Keifer Brew #3

Decided to go back to basics this time around.  Sticking with Molasses, just not so much of it.

Recipe:
3 quarts water
3/8 cup Molasses (Black Strap)
1.5 cups sugar

Boiled down to 2 quarts and in the last minute added zest of one lemon into the wort.

Then strained into the carboy and waited for it to be cool.

Added 2 quarts kiefer to the carboy plus an additional 1/4 cup sugar.

Initial ABV = 7%

Fermentation start 1/30/2016
Stopped 2/26/2016 @ 17 seconds per bubble
Still had 2% ABV to go going into the bottling.

Bottling I poured 12 ounces of fermented carboy into bottle, then added 4 ounces of fresh strained keifer plus 1 tsp sugar.

After a week in the bottle started enjoying it.  My goal is to wait a minimum of 1 week once bottled.  Ideally I would prefer 2-4 weeks.  But to do this I need to invest in more bottles.

Not bad, but still had that molasses taste.  Taking these notes to consider for future variations:
1) Less molasses
2) Lemon zest to the carboy.

Porter Style Dark Keifer Brew #2

So when I made my first molasses based recipe it had a dominant molasses taste.  On the second go at a Porter style I wanted to try some other flavors to balance out the molasses finish.  I am going to ruin the rest of this post for you.  This attempt did not accomplish anything, well maybe that is not true.  There was a profound learning experience when my brother came out to help install recessed lighting.

So, i created the wort as follows:

2 grams of hops
1/2 cup molasses
3 quarts water
1.5 cup sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup almonds lightly crushed.

Boiled this down to 2 quarts

Once chilled I added 2 quarts of strained keifer

The ABV was between 6 - 8%.  Not really exactly sure

Bottles after about 3 weeks.  Added 4 ounces of strained keifer plus 1 tsp sugar.

Now, I could not taste the almonds or even the maple syrup.  In hindsight I would think that I have to roast the ingredients to caramelize any sugars out of them.  I think that is the trick to making malts for traditional beer making.

My brother came out to visit and after a long couple of days we cracked one of these open to share over a game of Stratego.  We each had about 8 ounces and we were starting to feel the effects of a strong IPA.  The flavor was still molasses but we were able to experiment with additives.  Fresh lemon squeezed in made a big difference.  We then went Mcguyver and Mr Wizard to take a room temperature bottle and make it cold.  Grabbed a pot, some snow, and a boat load of salt to rapidly chill the bottle.  Worked just as good as we remembered it from the episode in the 80s.  By the time we finished this bottle we were feeling really good.

At this point I know i was onto something with fermented keifer.

Porter Style Dark Keifer Brew

Needed something heavy for the cold months.  Stumbled online to an article about "Porter Keifer".  So i decided to give it a try with some added variations.

Porter Style #1

I have a friend at work who grows his own hops.  Lots of articles talked about the benefit of hops in brewing.  Talked about slowing down bacteria eating sugar, adding aromas and even taste. So i decided to try hops myself.  I have always stayed away from hops, never really liked them, but I think it was more I never understood them.

Recipe:
4 grams hops
1/2 cup molasses
2 quarts water
1.5 cups sugar

1) Put all this in a pot and boiled for about 20 minutes.  Then let it cool quickly

2) Added  strained keifer, 1 quart

3) Measured potential sugar to 5%

Started fermentation on 12/10/2015 and stopped 12/29/2015.

4) Added tsp sugar to all bottles and filled.

Flavor profile was heavily molasses.  Not bad, but not good.  Definitely needs some iterations.  The drink started out strong like a portere but finished like molasses.  Needs another flavor profile to kick in just after the molasses picks up.

From lemon and mint experiments to an Orange Juice success

I have been trying 1 quart variations for awhile.  Back in November of 2015 I bought myself a one gallon carboy from a local home brew store.  I am now setting out to document my recipes to start learning the art of keifer fermentation.

Simply Orange

8 cups of Strained keifer
4 cups simply OJ
4 cups water
1.5 cups regular sugar (white)

Going into the carboy ABV potential was 7%

I let this ferment maybe 3 weeks.  Since i really do not know what I was doing i was afraid to let fermentation stop outright so i bottle prematurely.

The way I bottle to be consistent is I added 1 tsp of sugar to each bottle and filled up.  I also added between 1/4 and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract to some bottles for a nice variation in flavor.

Let the bottles sit for a week and began to enjoy.

The Fizzy OJ was a success.  Balanced flavor and the bottles with vanilla made for a nice Orange Creme.

About 2 years ago I started brewing water keifer for the probiotic effects.  It is a great way to water down juice and get some good health benefits.  Eventually i found a website that said I could make fizzy water by allowing keifer to ferment an additional day or too in an airtight bottle.  Bought a 1 quart grolsch bottle from Amazon and started making various fizzy drinks.  The funny thing is i would forget about the bottle and one and sometimes 2 weeks later i would remember about the bottle on top of my fridge.  Eventually I started to realize I was getting a buzz from these drinks.  Flash forward to today, I have evolved considerably, I now own a bunch of 16-oz grolsch bottles, several gallon carboys, a bunch of airlocks etc.

This journey came with ups and downs.  I was using cheep flip top bottles and one exploded in my cabinet resulting in hours of clean up.  There was the time I made vinegar and drank about half a quart before i realized it.

I really can not find any good material out there about fermenting keifer for alchololic drinks.  So I decided to start a blog to document my journey for other aspiring home brewers.