Home brew in Thailand

[buksida]

Any home brewers on the board?

Just bottled my first batch of home made mead, using ginger, cinnamon and liquified brown cooking sugar, took about a week for the yeast to do its work, got 4 litres out of it.

If I don't post again you'll know why!

[lomuamart]

Lucky you didn't blow yourself up!!

[sargeant]

I have made pineapple wine on quite a few occasions

quite potent

mead i always make with honey

[buksida]

Yeah, this was more of a ginger beer, I'll have a go at mead next time.

Any idea how to determine the alcohol content apart from just tasting it and falling over?

[Nereus]

Yeah, this was more of a ginger beer, I'll have a go at mead next time.

Any idea how to determine the alcohol content apart from just tasting it and falling over?

You need one of these:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=alcohol+hydrometer

[sargeant]

I just give it to BinL and wait to see if he falls over

far far safer

[Korkenzieher]

Getting hydrometers can be tricky (they break in transit) - but you *can* rig one up. There's instructions variously on the net (google is your friend) - but in simple terms, some kind of tube (a plastic straw will do), weighted at one end so it will float vertically. Then drop it in something long enough and filled with booze of a known concentration (cheap stuff like sangsom will do fine - and you can still drink it). Look at where your device settles and mark that point off. You have now calibrated it to 40% ABV, and can use it to thin out a distillate from distillation concentration (usually something around 65%) down to a more drinkable value.

Further calibration for wine and / or beer - use distilled water (any clean water really...) to set a zero value, and interpolate by thining out the cheap spirit. Obviously down at the difference levels between 4% and 5% (say) it isn't going to be very accurate. But as a general principle, it can be refined to make something that really *is* quite accurate.

[margaretcarnes]

Yeah, this was more of a ginger beer, I'll have a go at mead next time.

Any idea how to determine the alcohol content apart from just tasting it and falling over?

Home brewing kit is - as you know - like rocking horse s..t in the LOS. A proper hydrometer is a basic tool. Try to get someone to take one out for you.
Wines are the usual starter for home brewers. Again you won't find wine making kits there but you do have the advantage of plentiful and cheap fruit - and veggies. Almost anything is worth a try, but pineapple or mango could be good for a white. Reds will be more difficult in the LOS. Carrot can produce a good result.
Bananas are good for putting into any fermentation because they aid the process - producing natural sugars without a detectable taste.
Adding a white spirit to any wine brew will produce a potent fortified wine. The best is a Polish white spirit, which is colorless and tasteless, and the strongest you can get, and probably not available to you. The only probable alternative is your old fave!
And in the absence of demijohns I guess you are going straight to bottles for the first fermention. Which is fine of course, but you need to be able to allow some air into them before the final bottling and sealing. So in the absence of rubber bungs with airlocks it is worth trying tampons. I kid you not. I've done it in the UK years ago when the bungs ran out and it works. Soak an OB to expand it - stick it in the bottle top. Bingo.
Beers - a whole different story. Could be done in the LOS, but needs slow simmering of the grain first, and you have to use a boiler with the right sort of metal lining. If you get the wrong kind it can contaminate the brew. The same principle would apply to ciders/meads.

[Bernard]

I was briefly into home brewing years ago in the UK and on one occasion I made a couple of gallons of white wine which should have been a Chardonnay. It came out "fizzy" so being a careful sort of guy I poured it down the sink. It was a little while later that I read of "Malolactic" fermentation. which I think is the wine fermenting for a second time and producing a "sparkling wine". The article said something like, "this is quite rare so if you are lucky enough to achieve it...... enjoy"!

[buksida]

Well I don't have a hangover this morning so that could be the nail in the coffin for the dearth of choice here (4 or 5 badly tasting, formaldehyde filled, hangover inducing, Thai lagers).

Don't have any fancy kits or technical equipment either, this was just an experiment to make ginger ale using a 5 liter water container, hose and filter for siphoning and the ingredients.

With moderate success I may venture deeper into home brewing!

[pharvey]

Isn't home brewing illegal in Thailand and several other Asian countries? Maybe just restricted to high alcohol stuff, but I'm sure I read somewhere that beer/wine etc. was also included....... Guess that's why you don't see home brew kits or equipment around?

[buksida]

I think farting is illegal here also (at least without the correct natural gas permit), but we all let one out from time to time ...

[Big Boy]

[pharvey]

I think farting is illegal here also (at least without the correct natural gas permit), but we all let one out from time to time ...

Very true!!

[Takiap]

Well done Buksi. I've made the ginger version and the pineapple versions many times back in SA. When I was a kid my Dad used to make pineapple cider all the time, although for us kids, he'd make it without adding yeast.

I asked my wife what the law is here in Thailand, and she said that if it contains alcohol, it's illegal, but like you say, so what? I'm sure I've read that even if yeast isn't added, home made "traditional" ginger beer will still have a certain amount of alcohol? If that's the case, a lot of parents used to give their kids alcohol.

Buksi, did you use brewers yeast? I've not seen it here so I'm curious because I'd like to do some brewing myself.