brewing your own stuff is a great skill and yes beer is very high in calories and alcohol of i think higher than 2-3% kills alot of bacteria

 

At last! A survivalist that has his priorities in order.if there's enough beer no problems.

 

you can legaly brew up to 200 gal beer and wine a year

i like mead its good

 

I've thought about starting brewing my own beer but so far I've found that it's alot easier and quicker to go down to the station and buy 18 packer.

I'd never be able to produce a replica to Bud Light:

But I'd say getting drunk in a SHTF is a bad idea.

 

its so much more than that back in the roman times and middle ages fermented drinks were cut with water to purify it

beer was made because in the middle ages there were so many fast days that they found beer was a good way to keep from starving and it also killed bacteria that could kill people instead of worrying bout getting tanked think bout using to purify/flavor water and as a tradable item as there will be plenty of people who would proll sell there soul for a drink

 

Beer is always good trade goods, as are wine and spirits. They are also good feedstocks for making a variety of useful materials, from plastics to explosives and disinfectants.

 

id be careful what i said bout distilling those revenuers is out to get you

 

John, they will be out to get me for other things as well. It's BATF E nowadays....

 

lol maby well be cell mates all well have to do is behave and get to be on kitchen staff and ill show you how to make shine in creative ways : well be makin cash in jail

 

In this politically correct prison that my country has become, aren't we already?

 

true.........

 

I would stay with grain alcohols like whisky and vodka. Not only is there more of an alcohol content in those drinks, but you may even be able to produce fuel. The ethanol at your gas station comes from corn. You can eat and barter corn, make it to consume. AND make fuel. IMO it is a great crop. You drink to feel better. you sell/barter the drink. I'm sure you can convert a generator to run on ethanol. Plus it is a renewable thing, so once its gone, you can get more next harvest.

 

Not to mention, its far easier, and faster to produce "spirits" than beer. If it's a SHTF situation, liquor is far more practical because a little goes a long way, and it's flammable.

 

id say either learn to make it or buy now new booze tax coming down the pipes
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=130063

 

If the SHTF, it's not going to matter if it's legal. There are still plenty of moonshiners. Hehehe trust me

 

lol there are some but not many good ones i would trust i would say makin shine is a dying art

 

It would be better, to have the skill and ability to make alcohol that does not make you blind.

 

making good shine is a dying art

 

Actually I recently started making Sake.
Using traditional Asian yeast and short grain (football shaped) sweet rice and flour.

4 cups of rice, a teaspoon of yeast and a tablespoon of all purpose flour yields 750ml of the finished product. Additionally the left over rice/mash can be eaten or frozen for later use in other recipes. One is to mix the leftovers with honey and bake until the top browns. It cuts and serves like brownies.

Put the rice in a pan and cover with boiling water, cover and leave for one hour.
Put the rice in a steamer and steam for 20 minutes.

Spread the rice on a sheet pan and let cool.
Mix a teaspoon of yeast and a tablespoon of flour and sprinkle evenly over the rice.
Mix the rice/yeast/flour by hand, don't try to knead it into a dough, just toss it together to spread the mixture evenly.

I distributed the mixture evenly into four one quart mason jars and sealed with plastic lids. Put them in a warm (room temperature, 75 - 85) place and cover with a towel.
Leave them alone for 30 days.

Strain mixture from the jars and gently squeeze the rice to extract as much liquid as possible. This should fit into a quart jar, place this into the fridge for 30 days to settle.

You should now have 700 to 900ml of good tasting sake with an alcohol content of somewhere around 16 to 20% depending on the yeast used. I got my yeast at an Asian market. It has no brand name but seems to be the traditional "Ragi".
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O39-ragi.html

The flavor is surprising, somewhat tart and sweet with a thickness rather like a good quality sherry.

20% alcohol while not a total disinfectant, will kill plenty of nastys.
I'd hate to waste this stuff though, it is very good and does not require heating like cheap sake.

 

that actually does sound good and i do like sake

 

Do both! You can eat the spent grains after making the beer (wort).
Just get an ethanol permit for the alcohol, Its free and easy to get, good for 10k gals/yr. You are supposed to add like 1-2% kerosene or gas to denature it but I dont really expect the feds to be knocking on my door anytime soon. And yes, read up on the vapor temps of methanol, ethanol, isopropyl, etc. Its a very handy tool.. trading, fuel, disinfectant, molotovs....

 

i am rather well informed and practiced in that area no permits as i dont want em

 

If I recall correctly, it's legal to make your own alcohol-based fuel. The apparatus could probably be tweaked simply enough in TSHTF to power more than your lawn mower.

 

better register your still if your going to do it with batf or your going to be in deeep do do if you get cought with unregistered still

fuel or not

 

looks like a good thing to have set up if SHTF!!!! have fun and have a high demand product for trade.

 

It is legal to make 200 gallons of your own beer or wine each year. Any distilation concentration or fortification is illegal and gets the JBT's down on you.
Making your own alcohol fuel is legal IF you buy the permits and jump through a bunch of hoops.
As far as being a practical skill for survival I believe it is absolutly a necessity. If you know how to brew beer or make wine then you probably know how to make vinegar.
Vinegar will help a lot when it comes to pickling anf preserving foods.

Learn the finer arts of brewing and it isnt a stretch to learn how to make alcohol.
Been doing it for years

 

well if you happen to leave a 55 gal drum of fermented applejuice out in the dead of winter and it freezes almost all the water and you only are left with 10 gallons of 150 proof i dont think they can blame you as if god ddnt want your cider fortified he wouldnt have frozen it:thumb:

 

what does mead tastes like? I've brewed beer. I like the dark lagger, and I do wine, mostly Cabernet, but I have never tasted mead.

 

I have made mead before and it is very good

this is recipe i used

Mead (Honey Wine) - 5 gallon recipe

8-10 lbs pure raw honey (for light, delicate Mead)
(or) 12-13 " " " " (for medium sweet Mead)
(or) 15-16 " " " " (for very sweet or alcoholic Mead)
4-5 gallons purified spring water (not distilled)
3 tsp. yeast nutrient (or 5 tablets)
1 tsp. acid blend (combination malic/citric acid)
5-7 oz. sliced fresh ginger root (1 finger's length)
1/4 tsp. fresh rosemary (optional, as desired)
5-6 whole cloves (optional, as desired)
1-2 vanilla beans (optional, as desired)
cinnamon/nutmeg (optional, as desired)
lime/orange peels (optional, as desired)
crushed fruit (peaches, strawberries, grapes, etc.)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (to clarify Mead)
1/2 tsp. clear gelatin (to clarify Mead)
1 packet yeast (champagne or ale yeast)

Heat spring water 10-15 minutes till boiling. Stir in honey, yeast nutrients, acid blend, and spices (rosemary, ginger, vanilla, nutmeg, cloves). Boil for another 10-15 minutes, (overcooking removes too much honey flavor), skimming off foam as needed (2 to 3 times during last 15 minutes). After 15 minutes, add Irish Moss or clear gelatin to clarify. After last skimming, turn off heat, let steep 15-30 minutes while allowing mead to cool and clarify. After mead begins to clear, strain with hand skimmer and pour mead through strainer funnel into 5 gallon glass carboy jug.

Let cool to room temperature about 24 hours. After 24 hours, warm up 1 cup of mead in microwave, stir in 1 packet "Red Star" Champagne, Montrechet, or Epernet yeast (or Ale yeast in order to make mead ale), and let sit for 5-15 minutes to allow yeast to begin to work. Add this mead/yeast mixture to carboy jug and swirl around to aerate, thereby adding oxygen to mead/yeast mixture.

Place run-off tube in stopper of bottle, with other end of tube in large bowl or bottle to capture "blow-off" froth. Let mead sit undisturbed 7 days in cool, dark area. After initial violent fermenting slows down and mead begins to settle, rack off (siphon off) good mead into clean sterilized jug, leaving all sediment in bottom of first jug. Attach airlock to this secondary carboy. After 4-6 months, mead will clear. During this time, if more sediment forms on bottom, good mead can be racked off again to another clean sterilized jug.

When bottling, in order to add carbonation, add either 1/4 tsp. white table sugar per 12 oz bottle, or stir in 1/2 to 1 lb raw honey per 5 gallons mead (by first dissolving honey with a small amount of mead or pure water in microwave).

 

Nearly anything can be made into booze. Dandylion wine? Beet wine? Garlic wine? Sure might have to add some sugar to feed the ethyl makin' yeasts but is it potable?? Just cause it tastes bad does not mean its useless. Add some blackberries, elderberries, etc and you have a medicinal tonic.

I've made many a tasty beer, wine, mead, etc. Its easy- just sterilize everything with bleach water or boiling water. A big pot to boil the stuff, food grade buckets and plastic hose all your tools. 200 gallons, per adult, per year. Legal. Primary ferment, secondary ferment, rack 'n bottle. I like using plastic soda bottles- they hold carbonation extremely well and wont blow up with glass shards everywhere if your beer isnt done fermenting out all its carbon dioxide.

As for making shine its not illegal to know how. Ethanol boils off from your 'beer' at 173 degrees. Water boils off at 210. Now alot of other things boil off before 173, and those impurities, and others, are what cause blindness. Alot of prohibition era amature distillers working out of lead soldered radiators 'n stuff were to blame. But you capture the steam of 173 farenheight and run it through coolers and you get pure. Run it through again, purer. Third time, triple distilled... Theres techniques like slag boxes 'n thumpers to get the impurities out, but that requires more permanant unit. You can get distillation units, for making steam extracts.

FYI grapes do not produce fusil oils like grains. Not saying you wont get a spliting headache. But anything sweet or starchy can be made to beer which can be steam captured and drunk, or run in gasoline mix. Ethanol runs hotter and is a better solvent than gasoline, cleans tank (clogging intakes/etc and ruining gaskets) but you can do conversion ahead of time... For my desert dwellers, dig up agave roots when the stalks are 'asparagus shoots' in the spring and rough chop them up. Pit oven them for several days, condensing the sugars. Make beer/pulque. Distill for tequilla...

Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock cause their beer supply was running out. Boiled water, grain sugars- pure water, liquid bread. Distilled spirits just dont go bad, turn to vinegar. Like vinegar is a bad thing...

 

I plan to start making 'homebrew' this month, a friend of mine makes bitter and wine
and its not bad at all. He is in the habit though of drinking most of it before its actually
ready.

 

Fermentation of beer is of a low alcohol content normally 3-8%. Bacteria dies at 11.8 % alcohol and that's the magic number wine makers look for. I've made wine/mead up to about 18% but it depends on the type of yeast you use. Some survive up to 21-22% of ABV.

 

I had went to distill when I was in GA and discovered the 5 gallon rule. That was only a year ago. When did this all change? Because I read the same when I started building up here in NC

 

You know, everyone is concerned about the use of wine or beer to sanitize water, but in fact you can boil the water to clear it of bad things, or use your Still to purify water too.

My wife and I make a lot of wine throughout the year and we make a lot of mead.

 

What? No hard cider?

 

you can also make beer into vinegar for preserving food

 

Mead (Honey Wine) - 5 gallon recipe

8-10 lbs pure raw honey (for light, delicate Mead)
(or) 12-13 " " " " (for medium sweet Mead)
(or) 15-16 " " " " (for very sweet or alcoholic Mead)
...

When bottling, in order to add carbonation, add either 1/4 tsp. white table sugar per 12 oz bottle, or stir in 1/2 to 1 lb raw honey per 5 gallons mead (by first dissolving honey with a small amount of mead or pure water in microwave).

For any new brewer:

DO NOT add sugar at bottling unless you know the specific gravity, alcohol content and alcohol tolerance of the yeast you used. You CANNOT carbonate anything but a dry mead/wine using this method and then you need to know what you're doing. It's very easy to make a bottle bomb. Since this recipe does not call for chemical stabilization, you can make bottle bombs pretty easily. All it make take to set a bottle off is for the temperature to change.

 

i did that my first batch i ever made unintentionaly accidentaly bottled before it was done fermenting 2 bottles busted with enough force to put glass into the wood nearby and a few others just shot the cork out but the rest were really bubbly