Stygian

The fabled spring time has come at last. The sun no longer vanishes at 6pm, water has been discovered in it's liquid form, and there is an odd green species of flora forming on my lawn. The end of winter is neigh! Or so I thought, I swapped my tires over to All Season for Spring/Summer and we had a blizzard. I'm starting to think I'll have to pull a Canadian version of Breaking Bad just to afford enough to move somewhere warm

Speaking of meth brewing, I decided to rekindle my long lost hobby of brewing. As it turned out, a broke engineering student makes for an apt pupil. I melded all my useless vital science knowledge to decode the art of brewing. Thermodynamics, biology, and a touch of chemistry, is all you need to turn water into wine. I stopped myself from learning to distill, even though I know I could pull it off flawlessly. Thermodynamics and steam is a good chunk of what I had to study for my current job (I'm a Power Engineer or Stationary Engineer in the US). That said, I will revisit my choice later in life when I'm more crotchety and have only a couple decades left on the clock lol

Before I go on. A PSA for the people underage in this forum: don't drink, let your liver fully mature before giving it a thrashing. You'll have the rest of your life to drink, no need to rush into it.

All booze has the same basic principle: sugar solution + yeast + anaerobic environment = Ethanol. I worked a few OT shifts at my old security job (while at school) to buy all the equipment I needed. I saw a recipe for mead, and decided it was the easiest to try first. All I needed was a 4L (1gal) jug of mineral water, honey, birthday balloons, and some yeast. I batched it all up as per the recipe and then let it finish fermenting for about a month. I remember being absolutely thrilled at trying out my brew. I poured a bit into a tumbler, swirled it, and took a sip. It had the complex flavour profile of acetone and burning rubber. It was this day I learned that mead needs to age before it actually doesn't taste like printer ink. Having more dignity than currency to loose, I cut it with something sweet and downed it with my best friend. It was not my finest hour.

I eventually got better at it, and it became sort of an art. I learned how to make beer using kits, sparkling cider, wine, and coolers. My crowning achievement has to be coolers. I was at the height of my success and thought to challenge myself. I wanted to know just how cheap I can make booze, in the loosest sense. As it turned out, I made about 9L of pre-cut coolers for about $20. My friends came to give it the nickname Hobo Wine, but it was far more potent than regular coolers. The trick was let yeast break down a sugar solution, and then flavour the hobo wine using tea bags in smaller containers. All you need to do is cut if with sparkling water and you're in business!

If people are interested I can get more into the brewing instructions, but I left it vague intentionally.

I found a couple bottles of a batch of mead I made 6-7 years ago. The flavour profile was really good. It had complex notes of fruits, spices, and wine. I'm very much thinking I will get back into the hobby. I still have all my gear, so it's just a matter of doing the work. I think I'll brew 10 gal of beer, 5 gal sparkling cider, 5 gal of wine, and 5 gal of mead. I might even make a batch of hobo wine for old time's sake. that'll leave me set for a long while. The wine and mead will take a long time to age, so it'll be beer and hobo wine for summer. It shouldn't cost too much either. Two beer kits, 1 cider kit, 1 pale of wine juice, and some honey, should only cost a couple day's worth of OT. I'm house-poor thanks to my mortgage, but I'm in waaaaaay better shape than my old college days. Should be good summer filled with bonfires and booze. I can't wait!