alcohol ban! need advice please

Rudibrew

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Hi everyone,im Rudi from South Africa.
Great to be a member,thank you.

Our beloved government has once again banned alcohol,apparently due to mind boggling covid 19 issues.
i managed to get some basic brewing supplies for a beer.
im not looking for a quality beer or anything refined,just a beer that i can brew and be ready to drink in 3 to 4 days.
I know eyes are rolling...
i cant get more supplies as those shops are also closed under the law from today!

i managed to get;
Citra hops 500g
Finest pale ale golden promise grain 5kg
English high performance ale yeast *8 packs
10 liter fermenter with carboy
I understand it takes a few weeks to brew a good beer,but desparate times.....

What can i brew with these ingredients that i could drink in 4 days.

in our previous lockdown i had minimal experience in brewin g traditional african beer,no stock of ingredients as of today!,and pineapple,ginger beer with bakers yeast!
these were horrible.

please,any suggestions or advice?thank you
 
crap,i couldnt get malt,but brown sugar is still available
 
No malt at all? you're not going to have a tasty beer but you could try doing something like a ginger beer, or some of the old timier things.

This is one I made for my wife a year or so ago. It wasn't "beer" but it was pretty tasty. Substitute or modify as you desire.

Stay safe in SA my dude.

3-4 days to get drinkable is impossible if you want any carbonation though.


5 gal batch

2 lbs fresh ginger, cut into slices
17 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1 vanilla bean, split
1 packet champagne yeast

Boil 2 lb ginger for about 30 mins. Remove from heat, stir in the sugar and spices. Cool, transfer to fermenter, pitch yeast.

After fermentation is complete, rack to a secondary, crush and add 5 campden tablets to kill any remaining yeast. You can also add another lb of fresh ginger if you really like the ginger flavor. Let it sit for about 2 weeks (1 week if not using more ginger). Boil a small amount of water and add sugar needed for desired sweetness. Add to keg, then rack the ginger beer on top. Force carbonate @ 30 PSI (serving pressure).
 
It takes a little longer than 4 days but if you can get a hold of some honey you can try to make a cheap mead. You would need some yeast nutrient and I'm not sure how tasty it will be after a week....
 
thanks for replies,honey is available,how would i make the mead off it and could i use that as a sub for the malt?
it sucks that government drops this alcohol ban on a sunday night,all shops closed and not allowed to sell brewing stock onwards....
 
thanks for replies,honey is available,how would i make the mead off it and could i use that as a sub for the malt?
it sucks that government drops this alcohol ban on a Sunday night,all shops closed and not allowed to sell brewing stock onwards....
There are a ton of mead recipes on the internet. I will be trying one this fall but have not tried one yet. From what I have found making mead is "supposed" to be easier than making beer. Your yeast has enough abv tolerance but you WILL need some kind of yeast nutrient to add, the honey does not have enough nutrients by itself.

You can try a combination of the golden promise and the honey as well. It is called a "braggot". A lot higher on the difficulty scale and NOT ready in 5 days.

You could also look at brewing gin. I've never tried but it was very popular during the prohibition times in the USA. But again, not ready in 5 days.

I better shut up now...I do not want to encourage anyone to break the law................
 
There are a ton of mead recipes on the internet. I will be trying one this fall but have not tried one yet. From what I have found making mead is "supposed" to be easier than making beer. Your yeast has enough abv tolerance but you WILL need some kind of yeast nutrient to add, the honey does not have enough nutrients by itself.

You can try a combination of the golden promise and the honey as well. It is called a "braggot". A lot higher on the difficulty scale and NOT ready in 5 days.

You could also look at brewing gin. I've never tried but it was very popular during the prohibition times in the USA. But again, not ready in 5 days.

I better shut up now...I do not want to encourage anyone to break the law................
Lol,dont worry ,80 percent of south africa is googling the same thing i am since yesterday!
 
With the ingredients i currently have,could i end up with a beer if i substituted brown sugar for the malt?
Once again,thanks for the replies,really appreciate it
 
Hi everyone,im Rudi from South Africa.
Great to be a member,thank you.

Our beloved government has once again banned alcohol,apparently due to mind boggling covid 19 issues.
i managed to get some basic brewing supplies for a beer.
im not looking for a quality beer or anything refined,just a beer that i can brew and be ready to drink in 3 to 4 days.
I know eyes are rolling...
i cant get more supplies as those shops are also closed under the law from today!

i managed to get;
Citra hops 500g
Finest pale ale golden promise grain 5kg
English high performance ale yeast *8 packs
10 liter fermenter with carboy
I understand it takes a few weeks to brew a good beer,but desparate times.....

What can i brew with these ingredients that i could drink in 4 days.

in our previous lockdown i had minimal experience in brewin g traditional african beer,no stock of ingredients as of today!,and pineapple,ginger beer with bakers yeast!
these were horrible.

please,any suggestions or advice?thank you
Do you have yeast? Even bread yeast will do.
 
Can you get hold of Cornflakes?
I worked out a recipe on here that could use ingredients found in a prison!!! - it sounds like you are in a worse place.
Well it was an idea anyway and Cornflakes and porridge oats were the only things I could think of that were available.
Before you ask NO I'm not in prison - this was a mental excercise and wondered if it would work.
I haven't tried it yet so let me know how it goes - if you dare!!!

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/674321/special-breakfast
 
Apple juice fermented with bread yeast
You could boil up some raisens/sultanas with a bit of bread yeast for a yeast nutrient supplement.

Also would be good in your mead.i did a mead awhile back it's different to beer where you shake it almost daily to get rid of co2 in solution and add yeast nutrient at different stages but I did see a bread yeast mead. I'd add some flavouring like cut up oranges peal on or spices cloves one for instance or coriander.

Hawkbox s ginger recipie looks the goods too.
 
With the ingredients i currently have,could i end up with a beer if i substituted brown sugar for the malt?
Once again,thanks for the replies,really appreciate it

I don't know about just fermenting brown sugar...I'm sure you would get alcohol but whether you want to drink it or not is a totally different questions. You can make brew from just about anything...the question is "does it taste good?" Try to google Prohibition brew recipes and see what you find. You may be able to stretch your malt out using corn and or rice to bring up the alcohol content with fewer malted grains. In fact, you might be able to find a good rice beer recipe. If memory serves the Chinese used rice, honey, and fruit to make beers...if you can't get barley that may be a good substitute. Or you can make a wheat beer, those are tasty.

There are also decent hops substitutes. The Scottish used to use Calluna (Heather flower) in thier beers. Just google hop substitutes.

I think the only your imagination is the limit when it comes to making alcohol. As long as you have yeast you can make liquor. ;)
 
Guys,I have grains,hops,Brewers yeast.
 
Yeah apple juice and yeast will get you a mediocre cider in short order.
 
Guys,I have grains,hops,Brewers yeast.

Looks like you've got everything you need to brew a decent SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop). But not in four days. The only question I have is whether the Golden Promise is crushed or not. If it isn't you need to find a way to crush it, you could google techniques for using a blender or other members could comment. The challenge is to get crushed, broken grains and not powdered grains.

Using the recipe builder I created a 10L recipe with 5 kg Golden Promise and 25 g Citra (60 min boil) and came up with this:
upload_2020-7-13_17-35-6.png
 
The issue I see is 4 days, the yeast can't be rushed, they are living organisms, and they move at their own pace. Unless you could get your hands on some Kveik yeast, which works fast, but that sounds like it is out of the question.
 
I would also go for applejuice and yeast.
Even bread yeast will work ;)
Been there, done that.
Rhodes apple juice works fine as it just has vitamin C as a preservative.

This ban you guys have, affects us as well as we get almost all home brewing stuff from SA. We are lucky though (so far). Mosi and Castle are available as are imported beers. It's just the pubs that are closed.
 
The grain that I have,is that not the malt?
 

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