Episode 1: What is Fermentation Anyway‽

Find us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/jewishfermentationpodcast/ 

Beer and Mead made with ancient yeast: 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/its-not-what-goliath-drank-but-ancient-yeast-brews-still-bring-giant-flavor/ 

Alton brown Yeast Sock Puppets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7hFsuGIMcM 

Barry’s One Month Mead: https://gotmead.com/blog/articles/bray-denard/brays-one-month-mead-aka-the-bomm/

MeadMakr Batch Buildr for TONSA calculations:

https://www.meadmakr.com/batch-buildr/

Transcript

Evan: 0:00

Welcome to episode one of She Bews, He Brews Jewish fermenting podcast, where we hope to discuss all things home brewing and fermenting, both biblical and modern from a Jewish perspective, including beers, Meads, ciders, wines, breads, pickles, cheeses, and much, much more. today we're talking what is fermentation anyway, and how can you get started with some simple homebrews I'm your host, Evan Harris. And with me today is my co-host. Alison Shay.

Alison: 0:25

Are

Evan: 0:25

you, how are you doing today?

Alison: 0:27

I'm good. How are you?

Evan: 0:29

Doing pretty well. I've got a nice brew what are you drinking?

Alison: 0:31

I am drinking. This is my very first batch of meat ever. It was a fun thing to try It's just a ton of pomegranate juice as the suspension, liquid, and honey pretty straightforward. And it's the same cider yeast. It was, I was using up the last of my batch of cider yeast. So a little bit on the yeasty side. Interesting notes in there. Super tasty. Uh, it's the kind of thing that you want to come in from a cold winter day, playing with the snow and drink it warm, which is what I'm doing now. So very nice.

Evan: 1:04

I don't know how, how much of a cold winter's day it is helped by you this time, but it

Alison: 1:09

it is 75 and rainy.

Evan: 1:11

ahh, ah it's colder than it is up here in Minnesnowda. It's 95 degrees today.

Alison: 1:18

Oh, wow. We've just had a couple of days of down pour, so

Evan: 1:22

Yeah, it's not, but I've got just a nice, simple cider again, which I will be effectively giving the recipe away for later in the episode.

Alison: 1:30

Very exciting.

Evan: 1:31

But it's a nice, simple recipe, but you're a little newer to this. So you want to say a little bit about what we're going to be discussing.

Alison: 1:37

Sure Today's topic is brewing basics. So it might be a little on the dry side or as a brewer might say, it's got an SG close to one, but we'll get more into exactly what that means later.

Evan: 1:49

that's right. So obviously we are a fermentation podcast, so we should probably define fermentation. There are a lot of ways to do it and I've been reading. Both for fun and the podcast, the Noma guide to fermentation. And they had a really well-written definition, which is at the most basic level, fermentation is the transformation of a food by microorganisms, whether bacteria, yeasts, or molds to be slightly more specific, they say it is the transformation of food through enzymes produced by these microorganisms. And finally, the strictest scientific definition fermentation is the process by which microorganisms convert sugars. To another substance, in the absence of oxygen.

Alison: 2:29

So just to break that down into the simplest possible, Level, what you need for brewing at its most basic is one, a microorganism that eats sugar to sugar, three, a suspension liquid, and for some extra nutrients for the yeast, if you're using something like fruit juice, you shouldn't really need anything extra, but you can buy additional, yeast nutrients

Evan: 2:53

That's right. So most of what we'll be talking about, of course, it's going to be yeast, and much like a human can theoretically eat only butter and survive. You need other,

Alison: 3:04

It's not recommended that

Evan: 3:05

it's not,

Alison: 3:06

butter to survive.

Evan: 3:06

yes. I mean, butter or sugar, you could theoretically just eat that and you would get enough calories, but you need other nutrients too. Live well, and so you can add the biggest one for most yeasts they need nitrogen. So that's what yeast nutrient is. And there are a lot of different methods to do it. But for most fruit juices or beers, unless you're doing something really big, which not your basic stuff, you don't need them. So don't worry about them. Interesting things about yeast yeast actually make up about 1% of all fungi. I at least think they're entertaining.

Alison: 3:38

there's a lotta, yeast walks into a bar and jokes that can be made there.

Evan: 3:44

Absolutely. there. are about 1500 actual yeast, distinct species, not varietals, but species of yeasts, the most common, both just in nature and for commercialization is saccharomyces cerevisiae. And that the latter part of that does in fact come from the Latin term for beer. Cerevisiae is used for both beer and bread, it is the most common yeast for wine. Almost any sort of use you're going to define for most things is Cerevisiae but it in fact floats. So if you're brewing a lot of things, you'll see stuff floating on the top. That's frequently yeast clusters.

Alison: 4:22

Sure. I think that's what, that cider used I was using was cause that stuff definitely floated

Evan: 4:27

it probably was. So, yeah. Some people, somewhat erroneously referred to it as ale yeast, especially in the beer making community. You don't see the distinction either anywhere near as much as you used to or in mead, cider. Or wine as much, but there's also a saccharomyces pastorius, which used to be called Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis. Because it was named by a scientists working for the Carlsberg brewery, which is bottom fermenting. So it actually sinks and ferments from the bottom. When ale yeast die, they do sink. So you will still get that yeast cake. but bottom fermenting yeasts traditionally are what are used to make lagers. They. Tend to ferment very cleanly, but have a lower alcohol tolerance.

Alison: 5:09

The summary here is that there are a tons of different types of yeast.

Evan: 5:12

are tons of different types of,

Alison: 5:14

and they vary a lot, but honestly, like most yeasts can ferment most things you can use a bread yeast for some things, you're going to have variation depending on the yeast of how much alcohol you can get or how much alcohol, but yeast can survive being suspended in before it just dies. Different uses are going to produce different smells, different flavor notes. I keep mentioning my cider yeast has a very beery flavor to it. Stuff like that. You can also brew using a wild yeast which I have not tried, but is probably almost definitely the original way of brewing. If you've ever had fruit with like a little bit of a white film on it that isn't just wax or some kind of pesticide, that's probably wild east on it. It floats wild in the air and lands on things. So it's pretty common in produce for there to be some sort of yeast there. If you work with a whole grain also there's oftentimes, and I guess it'll come up another time when we do lactic starters, but stuff that lands on things that are grown outside, is very lively and you can use it for things.

Evan: 6:19

Absolutely. And one of the interesting things, because we've only known about microbiology for 200 ish years. But we've known about brewing for closer to 10,000 years. We have been brewing in making yeast before we knew what yeast was. And a lot of these are just cultivated from wild samples, much like people cultivate a sourdough starter.

Alison: 6:42

So yeast and, those microorganisms are the first thing of the four that you need, to brew. The second one, is sugar of which, you can use a lot of different sugars. I have only used sugar and honey so far. I feel Evan. Have you ever used anything else?

Evan: 6:58

Oh, yeah. So yes, early on one of my first batch, of course I've used app juices, plenty, but I've used a brown sugar, which has molasses, which is not

Alison: 7:07

flavor.

Evan: 7:08

Lot of Nice flavor. But has, so you need a fermentable sugar, not all sugars are fermentable, your artificial sugar replacements are not even Stevia, which is natural. But those, can still leave behind sweetness. So you still may want to use them in your brew so you'd get what you want for a final batch and how you get the sugar effectively decides what you're making, because obviously ciders are coming from fruits. mead is made with honey. And how I at least define how your various types of brews is, if it is 50% or 50.1% of the fermentable sugar comes from a source. So if just over half comes from. Fermentable, juices, then it's a cider based on whatever chooses apple pear, strawberry. If it comes from a tree fruit, I should say that's at least my definition, which I realized is effectively what baracha, you'd say on it

Alison: 7:58

Yeah, pretty much. no, I guess what you call it kind of varies depending on who you're talking to. So I've seen definitions where it's just, oh, cider versus a wine that's just based off of the alcohol content.

Evan: 8:13

Yeah, that is a very common one, but there's also styles of beers that are referred to as barley wine. So beers, which includes saké are coming from grains,

Alison: 8:23

starch is basically just chains, the sugars.

Evan: 8:27

Starch has changed the chains of sugar and why I personally suggest you don't start fermenting with beer as much as it is popular is because you have to also convert those starches into sugars. Which in beer or in grain-based beer, not saké you do by keeping your grain in liquid at a certain temperature for enzymes to digest it. In saké, you actually use a mold that's referred to as koji which I've never done. I've never done that. with wines, wines are also easy to do because grapes have a perfect amount of sugar in them. You've just got to press it. out. And I don't like doing wines at home because I don't grow my own grapes and I don't want to just buy grape juice as much, but they've got just the right amount of sugar in it.

Alison: 9:13

I mean, which is what makes them so tasty on their own

Evan: 9:16

Exactly.

Alison: 9:17

grapes are delicious.

Evan: 9:19

But so earlier you mentioned, the specific gravity

Alison: 9:23

Yeah. So specific gravity, in order to like, know what's going on chemically with your brew, you want to be able to measure where your sugar levels are at, right. Cause how much sugar you start with and how much sugar you end with tells you, What the yeast has been up to how much alcohol has been produced and how sweet it is. And by monitoring the specific gravity throughout the brewing process, you can see, how far along the yeast, is how close you are to completion or to what you want to get basically. So you use this device called the hydrometer. It's got little graduation marks on it. It might actually has a piece of paper on the inside with graduation marks on it.

Evan: 10:08

That's how everyone I've ever seen is.

Alison: 10:11

You basically drop it into the liquid and it will float to a certain level. And where you measure it. Whatever graduation mark it is up to, it will be your original gravity. And then when you measure it at the end, that's your final gravity. And the difference between those two is what's going to tell you the alcohol by volume

Evan: 10:34

So at the beginning, you assume for cider, and especially for Mead, that there are two things in the mixture, sugar and water. cider you assume there's a little bit of other stuff, which is where you get a bunch of flavors at the end. You assume there are three things for, again, for cider, sugar, water, and alcohol. And because, you know, the only thing that can happen is the transformation of sugar to alcohol. You can take the difference. That's how they work. As Alison said, and a little more detail, if you remember your physics or chemistry, it's just based on density.

Alison: 11:05

If you're using something that's particularly viscous could look a little funny. we mentioned it last episode, if you're using something really thick. Evan made a batch with mango nectar, which was really thick and had to add some pectin enzyme into his mango nectar in order to thin out, basically break down the pectin. Before that, he was getting some wonky readings, of, specific gravity, just because of how dense the liquid was. And that's not the fault of the sugar. It's just, you know, it's not perfectly smooth juice.

Evan: 11:44

And the tools that we're using are not lab grade scientific tools, and you

Alison: 11:51

I'm brewing this shit in my closet.

Evan: 11:54

Exactly. You don't need that much. You don't need that much accuracy you're being close enough. Brewing has been something that's been going on for, a few thousand years, as I mentioned. So before we get to some recipes, you want to know some fun facts about the history of brewing?

Alison: 12:12

Sure. Always down for a fun fact.

Evan: 12:14

Yeah. So Mead is probably the oldest alcohol based on, modern research, dating back more than 10,000 years. And, the word mead has basically not changed since prodo Indo European language, which is quite a long time ago. Most, every language in Europe, and most of India has derived from it.

Alison: 12:34

Also, I told my mom about this stuff. I was brewing and I attempted to use the terms melomel. And metheglin. Okay. I said it right this time and they're like archaic, like Celtic and Welsh terms or something like that. And they're just really, really old names like this. mead is thought to be just based off of how simple it is. Almost definitely true. At least in my opinion, but the, the thought is that mead is the oldest alcoholic beverage ever brewed. just because all you really need is some honey, maybe some extra liquid, in there, and some wild yeast that floats along on the breeze. That's all you need.

Evan: 13:25

Exactly.

Alison: 13:25

you get it from the fruit that you dunked into the honey. It's really simple.

Evan: 13:29

Exactly. If you, had honey and you had it in a container and let's say it rained that, watered it down and would have introduced use from the air, which is honey, as many people know will never do as bad it's because it's, so it is so sugary. Nothing can live in it. So you do need to water it down. Brewing, dates back to the beginning of civilization, and of course in the Torah, there is a ton of references to wine.

Alison: 13:55

Very first thing Noah does when he steps off the Ark is he builds a vineyard, makes wine and gets drunk, which admittedly, if you're stuck on an arc with a whole bunch of animals, your kids, their wives, and your wife for a long time blame the guy.

Evan: 14:19

I don't not at all. There is. And there are all sorts of rules about wine and both sacramental and just stories in general. As well as the archeological record in ancient Israel and all around the world. So the most recent studies I've seen suggest there's archeological evidence in Israel. Dating back to about 5,000 BCE. So 7,000 years ago, for wine production, with evidence of commercial wine production. So not just personal, but commercial wine production dating back to at least 2800 years ago.

Alison: 14:56

which was pretty darn cool. And also pretty darn old.

Evan: 14:59

Yeah. The, the oldest, production though as actually, They keep finding evidence older and older and both China and Georgia, the country, not the state. That date back between about 7,000 and 8,000 BCE

Alison: 15:16

man.

Evan: 15:17

Yeah, it's very old. As I mentioned earlier, grapes are the perfect amount of sugar basically. So you just press them and let it ferment. Many commercially available yeasts are now just, cultivated grape yeast. Basically they've refined a sourdough starter.

Alison: 15:31

Which is real cool. I can find this and leave this in the notes for the episode, but I remember reading a while ago about archeologists finding drinkable beer. That was like 10,000 years old from ancient Egypt. And then this one, dude, it was a Twitter thread. That's what it was. I saw this on Twitter where some archeologist like collected and he made me, he was a biologist who worked in archeology or something to that effect. It was a Twitter thread. Okay. I read it awhile ago. Anyways, he collected. He collected the yeast from bread bowls and from the insides of urns found in Egyptian tombs and he baked bread out of it.

Evan: 16:14

And So I've, I've read that there is a published academic paper there. I know the paper, I will try and find it. We'll have something in the show notes about that. Um,

Alison: 16:23

a fever dream from

Evan: 16:24

no, it's not not a fever dream but what he did there, and this is again, really cool. And as we've mentioned before, this podcast is going to have plenty of puns and tangents. He got a special supply of old grain from Egypt. So still grown the proper way, not modern grains or modern grain varietals was sanitizing it, so that there was no potential cross-contamination with a modern wild yeast and using it. And so the bread apparently tastes good, the yeast grows naturally on that type of grain, as opposed to using a modern yeast on a grain that it can't really digest. Well, most yeast will eat any type of sugar, each one has their preference.

Alison: 17:03

Oh, yeah.

Evan: 17:04

in the show notes already, I have something similar, not drinkable beer from 8,000 years ago, but archeologists cultured, similarly to the bread yeast, brewing yeast from an ancient amphora, that cultivate six different strains from places around. Most of them are in Israel. I think one was in Egypt and they cultivated and made beer with them. And one of them researchers also took an extra strain sample of the yeast made a Mead. With it. And there is a link in the show notes to an article in the times of Israel.

Alison: 17:35

that's pretty darn cool. And that's kind of something, just like using those yeasts, the really old yeasts, it's not quite the same thing, but, one of something that, is very prized to me and, I'm looking at it now. I have a bread bowl that belonged to my great, great grandmother. We think it's from sometime around the 1890s, I'm the fifth generation to have it. But there must be some sort of yeast strains that just like have our living on the. Surface of, of the bread bowl. I don't scrub it down with soap. I don't sanitize it. I wipe it down and then I re oil it. But man, Nothing gets a bread to rise better than that bread bowl and the flavors are great. And it's maybe it's because it's been passed down and challah and breads have been made in that thing for a very long time with lots of love. But I think that there is some of its own yeast and bacteria living on that thing. That just makes it fantastic.

Evan: 18:48

Absolutely. Science would back you up because a lot of ancient breweries would have either yeast rings, which are these intricately carved rings that they place in each batch and they wooden rings and they'd be placed in every batch. And for good luck is what they thought, but what actually. People realized once we discovered microbiology, is that you, because you've left it in each batch, it would just, all the yeast would grow on it and you'd move it over to the next batch and you'd have this lot great live yeast culture living on the surface, going into your new brew. Or they be using the same, the same sticks to mix things in the such and you'd get the good cultures to grow Especially in a dedicated facility, you've got molds and yeast in the air, but as I mentioned earlier, grapes, you don't need it at quite as much because the best yeasts for grapes effectively grow on them and the right at the right sugar. That they grow perfectly and you don't get things you don't want growing instead, which is something as homebrewers we have to be more careful about. But now that we've talked a little bit about both the history, let's actually talk about some of the equipment. So you're a little newer to this.

Alison: 19:54

So quick overview of what I use. I have a large glass carboy, which is basically, those big plastic jugs that you fill up with water and like they go into kind of a water cooler thing and there's a tap. Pretty much a carboy looks like that, but may not have solid glass holds five gallons of liquid with some Headspace in there. And you put a valve on top, and the valve looks like a sideways S and you fill the middle with water and, Basically a tube going from inside the carboy to outside the carboy that passes through that water. And as the gas is escaping in the carboy, because gas is produced during fermentation, it forces its way through the water. That means that nothing can get in and only gas can get out of the carboy. So that keeps everything inside sterile, and I sterilize everything beforehand. Once that's done, I use a siphon, which. Siphons liquid from inside the carboy to outside the carboy. And I use a siphon with a hose attached to it, to fill up, bottles and I use the swing top bottles. That have, if you've seen them in a restaurant there's like a little plug and a wire, that you like push on top and it produces a really good seal on top. I have heads up, this is something Alison has done. Then I say learning lesson to anybody.

Evan: 21:20

Part of the goal of this is to give them the lesson, let them know our mistakes, so they don't make them.

Alison: 21:25

Yeah. Well, this was intended to be An experiment. I wasn't sure if this was going to work, as I mentioned in the previous episode, I do work. With a lot of canning scientists, canning specialists. And I did ask one of them whether or not they thought this would work. And they said they had no idea, and then I should try it out and let them know. So I used some ball jars, filled them up with my apple cider and I added some carbonation drops in there. Because I wanted to see whether or not they would, you know, hold the seal and be able to carbonate, the cider. And the answer is not really because that's not the direction of pressure that those seals are intended to hold. So they're intended to like suck downwards rather than hold something from pushing outwards. They can hold something just fine. If it's not carbonating in their what I'm drinking right now, I pulled out a ball jar. This pomegranate Mead or melomel, this was stored in a ball jar. But if you're carbonating something, they can't really handle the gas expansion. So stick with a swing top bottle, if you're planning to carbonate.

Evan: 22:43

Yeah. So swing top bottles, especially when you're starting, I think are a great item to have, but as you said, the other things you kind of need are a carboy and an air lock or a valve. As the Noma definition, you want to do it with the absence of oxygen. And as, yeast eats all the sugar, they, uh, they fart out, carbon dioxide. If you'd like a better, more scientific and entertaining, descriptions, I will link a video of Alton brown explaining what you do in the show notes.

Alison: 23:13

But I would say given the fact that, you know, your farts are produced by gut bacteria, it is entirely accurate.

Evan: 23:22

no, it is completely accurate. It is just comical to think. And Alton brown

Alison: 23:26

with that, my closet with cider yeast definitely smelled like the yeast was farting. So I'm going with it.

Evan: 23:35

so another few things that I say you definitely should have, when you're starting out is you need a sanitizer. The best one to use in my opinion, is a product called StarSan.

Alison: 23:45

It's good stuff. It's easy to use, which is really nice.

Evan: 23:49

another thing you want is a funnel that fits your carboy,

Alison: 23:54

Also

Evan: 23:54

have small

Alison: 23:55

large, yes. Also you want a really large bowl to fill with starsan and water also really helpful. Like a really large bowl.

Evan: 24:06

Large stockpot I've used, I've used that for starsan as well, or because I've been doing this for a few years, few years now, a second carboy or a third carboy or a fourth carboy,

Alison: 24:17

I'm not at your level

Evan: 24:18

Or my bottling bucket. So a bottling budget is not something you need to do a carboy. Carboys come in many sizes. Cider if you're only doing cider, I think you can get away with the single gallon. I find Mead is not worth making in less than three Gallons for both mead and cider. I think three to five gallons are the sweet spot.

Alison: 24:40

I do think it's worth noting that like, depending on how much alcohol you're trying to put in a chair mean, the quantities of honey that you're getting are going to get pretty excessive, pretty fast. I have right now brewing and, what will hopefully be an 18% ABV Mead it's lemon. And Rosemary mentioned it last episode that I was about to set it up and I did set it up. And for one gallon of liquid, I added 4.1 pounds of honey. So you go to Costco and you get the big bottle of honey. I used. Yeah, I used most of that. I use 82% of that thing. Just for one gallon, which also had a large enough volume that it's more like a gallon and a half now, but still, The honey quantities get pretty large if you're going for a high alcohol content. So it's just kind of something to be aware of. The honey does have volume to it, which like you're not necessarily factoring in into your calculation, but you need to be aware of that. If you're trying to make one gallon of mead,

Evan: 25:57

that's correct. But it's with mead, especially if you are doing just one Gallon, mix it in another bowl and import into carboy, because it's just a lot to fit in and to mix in a single gallon. But in the show notes, I actually have a, link to a Mead calculator, online by the people at Mead makr.

Alison: 26:16

That I use.

Evan: 26:17

So you can mess around with that all you want, and it will also tell you how much, They use a combination of yeast nutrients, but if you're local home brewing store sells a combined, just yeast nutrient, just add up the total weights and use that, But yeah, so my, the cider recipe that I said I would give earlier, that recipe is cider from the local farmers when seasonal

Alison: 26:38

trader Joe's just works too. They have a

Evan: 26:39

trader Joe's warts, too, they have a good selection. And in a moment, I'll say why that's where I would go for liquid cider. And for every five gallons, one packet D 47 yeast made by LALVIN.

Alison: 26:53

We are not sponsored by

Evan: 26:55

We're not, sponsored, but it is a very good mid range, yeast. I believe it goes up to about 10% or maybe 12. So it's not going to get you all the way to the wine use levels, but it's an expensive yeast. It's a good choice. And it's relatively, neutral. You can get yeast that gives you all sorts of flavors, which is great. But when you start out. I think you should use a neutral use and get something you like and play with that. If you like it and it wasn't poisonous, it was successful.

Alison: 27:26

At the end of the day, that's what matters that you don't die. And then you had a good time doing it

Evan: 27:31

correct. I like

Alison: 27:32

in that order.

Evan: 27:34

yes. in that order. I clearly. And more than happy to use some of the kind of fancier terminology that might seem a little hoity toity sometimes. But my goal is not necessarily to use that to be restrictive. It is Patricia. It can be very good at defining and very specific, and I hope to make it so that everyone else can understand what I'm saying and therefore use the same vocabulary and learn. And therefore be able to describe something. You don't have to be a Somalia with a golden tongue to bear, to come up with something you'd like, but there's all sorts of fun flavors you can try out. And hopefully we can explain them to you that you might figure out what you want to try and try them yourself.

Alison: 28:16

Again, we're not selling anything here. We're not trying to do anything fancy here again, I'm brewing this in my closet.

Evan: 28:28

Not prison. Hooch, closet, hooch.

Alison: 28:31

Yes. And also something that I have discovered. And then, had to convince me a little bit of this earlier on, unless you do something really wacky, it's probably going to taste just fine it's hard to screw something up so badly with a cider or like a really basic need that it's just not going to taste good. My first batch of apple cider I've thought, oh, you know what, I'm gonna get something that tastes whatever. I have no idea what this is going to be like. Bottled it with some carbonation drops, let it sit for a couple of weeks, open that stuff up. And I could have bought that in a store happily because you know, it's easier to get something that's really tasty than it is to screw something up here. Unless it's contaminated. It's probably going to taste fine, but. If something doesn't taste great. This is the part that Evan had to convince me of. If something is not great at first, like that pomegranate orange wine that I was drinking last time, not great in the beginning, let it sit for a while. And it got so much better. We just actually just a couple of days ago finished the last bottle of it. At the beginning, for the first several weeks of us drinking it, we had to add a significant amount of honey, like a couple of tablespoons just to really be able to drink it. Cause it was pretty tart, but by the end, by the time we finished, you could drink it straight up. No problem. And it got, I would describe it as. The word pleasant sounds like it wasn't that good, but like, it was genuinely something that I enjoyed sitting there relaxing drinking, which is not something I would have said at the beginning.

Evan: 30:14

Yeah, there's reasons why old wine is so coveted frequently.

Alison: 30:19

Yeah, but I, you expect like, oh, it's, this is my wine, then I've brewed. And I'm going to let it sit for for 20 years. No, this is, this is my closet hooch that I thought just didn't taste that good. And you know what it mellowed out after a couple of weeks, just giving it a little bit of time. Thank you, Evan. For just telling me just wait, Alison, it'll be fine.

Evan: 30:46

Yeah. no. I will say there are a few ingredients where that doesn't apply to though. The only notable one, I would say here is hops if you have something with a lot of hops, aging won't necessarily improve the hop flavor. The hops will mellow out. Everything else will mellow, which is what your problem was. But you're not brewing with hops. What we're talking about today, isn't with hops, but if you're brewing an IPA, you don't like it. Letting it age might not help,

Alison: 31:13

But if it's something that just happened, orange and pomegranate are both really tart fruits. They are something that I would recommend being more careful with the flavor balance in the future, just because you don't. No, as a casual drinker, how much of it is sugar flavor and how much of it is fruit flavor.

Evan: 31:34

Non fermentable sugar you have.

Alison: 31:36

yeah, but if you give it a little bit of time, you know, that tartness really does mellow out. Just the tartness of the fruit itself. It'll calm down

Evan: 31:47

Yeah,

Alison: 31:48

and you know what, it's probably going to be good.

Evan: 31:51

Absolutely. Part of the fun is finding things out and especially, I mean, honey can get a little expensive, especially with ciders. Making them is cheap. Yes. You've got a little bit of capital to invest to get the carboys. But once you have your brewing equipment, it's a lot cheaper to brew a batch, a cider than to go to the store and buy some

Alison: 32:11

Oh yeah. So my first batch, the ingredients that went into my first batch, I got like a set of this apple juice concentrate, and that was 40 bucks for five gallons, plus, I don't know, maybe 50 cents worth of sugar and it five gallons with that. Right. Hey, just doing the math quickly. So let's say I made the volume of eight, six packs that would come out to, okay. That's$5 per six pack. Which is less than you're going to buy any six pack for

Evan: 32:47

I mean, if you go to a bar it's less than, you'll get a cider for

Alison: 32:49

get one, drink four. Yeah.

Evan: 32:51

Like, I, I was just, I was just traveling for a friend's wedding and I went to a commercial meadery and cider place. Which is the first time I've had good commercial mead, I thought. And Yeah. it was, I mean, their prices were good$6 for a 12 ounce.

Alison: 33:07

I'm about to make, Evan mentioned buying a cider from trader Joe's. I just bought a whole bunch of cider from trader Joe's to make my next batch was$4 per quart. So$8 per gallon. My ingredients are going to come out to roughly$8 per gallon, which,

Evan: 33:26

and you yeast is three bucks for a packet that will do five gallons

Alison: 33:30

the stuff that I got, I think was like 98 cents a

Evan: 33:33

okay. So even less, I have three bucks for the fancier yeasts,

Alison: 33:36

Yeah. I got the basic LALVIN stuff.

Evan: 33:38

Yeah. That

Alison: 33:39

LALVIN? Whatever it was. Okay.

Evan: 33:42

I'm do not know French.

Alison: 33:45

Yeah. I just got a bunch on the cider and you know what, eight bucks a gallon I'll take it like that's way cheaper. Sure. It's going to sit in my closet for two weeks, but who cares?

Evan: 33:58

And if you plan it out and especially if you're doing batch after batch, you've always got something in the works. So a note on ingredients, for ciders, not necessarily something you need to pay attention to for honey, but just honey is sterile by itself. You do not want to get, a cider or a fruit juice with any added preservative. No, potassiums or no salt and no sulfates. Which is, those will Also, kill the yeast that you're trying to use to grow stuff. It kills all the yeast. Trader Joe's doesn't have any your local farmer's market. Double-check when you ask, because my local farmer's market, they sell both, for people's convenience too. Some people want just to have drinking cider, non alcoholic for a longer period of time. But when apples are in season, I go and I asked, can I get 12 gallons of your unpasteurized, no preservative cider? And they're like, yeah, that'll be whatever

Alison: 34:54

you can check with your local Homebrew store. I know my local home restore does like some sort of special with some local farmers and during apple season, they will have really large quantities of apple juice from a local farmer that they'll be able to supply.

Evan: 35:09

Absolutely true. My last batch of cider was done via that. My local Homebrew store also does the same for wine, or for grape juice as well. So they, worked with, a vineyard to make grape concentrate specifically for homebrewers. I have not taken them up on that yet, but. That is something that is done.

Alison: 35:29

yeah. And experiment for another time.

Evan: 35:31

Yeah. And it's for another time, but just one of The best things about this is you get to experiment

Alison: 35:36

Yup. The best part of. Just trying this stuff at home just, nobody's telling you what to do. I mean, I guess Evan's going to challenge me and I'll challenge him at some time,

Evan: 35:46

yeah, that that's, that's

Alison: 35:47

just,

Evan: 35:48

It's fun. It's fun.

Alison: 35:50

you haven't fun. You don't kill anybody. I mean, presumably you haven't killed anybody. Don't tell us, we're not asking questions, guys.

Evan: 36:02

but, so I do have a slight challenge, of course, for our listeners, something easy, something that requires the smallest amount of equipment I've ever seen. There's a link in the show notes for Barry's one month Mead.

Alison: 36:13

Try it out.

Evan: 36:14

The equipment is a gallon of Ozarka. Springwater a balloon honey yeast nutrients and they use a different, they use a Belgian ale yeast that brews faster, but you can use any yeast you want, how long it'll take will change. That is the most, very basic thing to ferment. So that is. The sort of set up, I think. you're due for some experiments, things that are really wacky. And that's where, I want you eventually to try your sourdough starter in a setup like that.

Alison: 36:42

I'm going to have to, cause I mean, I'm keeping my carboys set up. Totally gluten-free so at some point I will do that.

Evan: 36:49

Yeah, So that, or you can get with, like, you can get a single down glass jar as well. Both worked well.

Alison: 36:55

there's kind of some space constraints here given that, it's in my closet and there is a cat who, I guess I can plug the cats, Instagram and our, in our closing. But yeah, my roommate has a. Extremely adorable cat, who is also very curious as cats tend to be. And he knocks things over sometimes. So let's keep him away from anything I'm trying to brew or any balloons that he may try and knock over or whatever. I'm just, I'm just going to kind of, oh my space and keep it away from the cat.

Evan: 37:33

That is very true. And that this cat can be found, on Instagram as cat necessities.

Alison: 37:38

That's cat underscore necessities.

Evan: 37:41

cat_necessities.

Alison: 37:42

He is exceedingly cute. He's a little Floyd boy and he's very fluffy. 12 out of 10. We'll probably go pet him after this

Evan: 37:50

that's an, I am jealous.

Alison: 37:51

Come visit me in the Carolinas.

Evan: 37:54

Yeah. Hopefully, eventually now that things are opening up. And with that, we'll wrap up. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of SheBrews HeBrews a Jewish, fermenting podcast brought to you by myself, Evan Harris and Alison Shay with special, help for getting us started from John West of stationary orbit podcast As always, you can find the podcast at Jewish fermentation podcast on Instagram, and remember, please drink responsibly.