Old Homebrew Recipe

[BOB357]

Was perusing some of the homebrewing forums and came across the recipe below on the r/homebrewing sub.

 

[thunderwagn]

Pretty neat. 7 cent yeast cake!

 

[Nosybear]

That is Prohibition ale, my friend.

 

[BOB357]

That is Prohibition ale, my friend.

Yes it is. It was the person who posted its grandfather's recipe. He was a Pearl Harbor survivor, as was my dad. so was the right age to have brewed shortly after the repeal of prohibition. I'm sure this would have been a typical recipe handed down from bootleg brewers.

 

[BOB357]

Pretty neat. 7 cent yeast cake!

Thinking that was the likes of Fleishman's or Red Star bread yeast.

 

[Nosybear]

Thinking that was the likes of Fleishman's or Red Star bread yeast.

Yep. Bread yeast.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Supream malt - 12 gal cock pot gee wizz brew tester must be hydrometer priming was a fine art it seems. Thanks bob

 

[BOB357]

Supream malt - 12 gal cock pot gee wizz brew tester must be hydrometer priming was a fine art it seems. Thanks bob

Bottle bombs were also a fine art. I remember going with dad to visit a friend of his back in the late 1950s. The friend and his wife owned, and .lived in. an apartment building that had steam radiators for heat. He had bottled a batch of what dad called bath tub beer and had it down in the boiler room.
As the story was retold years later, this was during the Summer in San Francisco, where seasons don't really mean anything. Dad said he smelled something weird when we entered the foyer. He told his friend, Chester, who ran downstairs and into the boiler room to find the floor covered with beer and pieces of glass.
As it turns out, the weather had been warm so the boiler had been shut down. Evidently, a tenant had complained that their apartment was cold, so Chester's wife had fired it back up that morning.