Armageddon Homebrewing

It looks like there is some interest in the matter. I love homebrewing! A guide is in the works for this forum but I'm on my way to work so it wil be posted later.

In the meantime a question.

It is widely held that our status in society after Armageddon would largely be skill based. Tradesmen, healthcare peops (esp surgeons) and those wilth military training are gonig straight to the top.

What about the homebrewer! I have an uncle who claims this will be near the top too -I have my doubts.

What do you guys think?

You, uh, recon you'll survive Armageddon?

i don't see a collapse of modern society on the horizon, but speaking hypothetically: yes, those who can make quality fermented and distilled spirits have usually been held in esteem and most likely would be still [pun intended].

to attest this fact: even most of those cultures for whom food procurement has been touch and go have been willing to sacrafice some of it to the cause. there's almost a peace of mind brought on by indulgence, whether it is a good idea or not, with with celebration at one end of that spectrum, and self destructive behavior at the other.

just remember that any time you're not sitting fat and happy, it's often a waste of resources.

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Originally Posted by canid

just remember that any time you're not sitting fat and happy, it's often a waste of resources.

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This is exactly right. Brewing could be resource intensive in a resource restricted environment.

To make anything resembling todays beers one would require carefully grown, harvested and malted barley. About 20-35 sq feet of planted barley per 5 gallon batch or so I have read.

Hops.

Yeast propigation could be an issue. Sterile conditions are necessary and refrigeration would be preferred.

Sanitary conditions are needed for fermentation which would generally require cleaning products of some form and lots of water. About 75% of homebrewing is cleaning things. They say its 90% for professional breweries.

Aside from cleaning, the brewing itself uses alot of water too.

I wonder if prison wine, moonshine and other 'still' types of concoctions would be more viable than beer...

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Yeast propigation could be an issue. Sterile conditions are necessary and refrigeration would be preferred.

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it's not that hard. non soured yeast is hard to culture [well, hard to maintain for long with certainty, though many strains available are hundreds of years old] without proper laboratory technique, but you have to remember we've been breeding yeast for a couple thousand years.

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Originally Posted by canid

it's not that hard. non soured yeast is hard to culture [well, hard to maintain for long with certainty, though many strains available are hundreds of years old] without proper laboratory technique, but you have to remember we've been breeding yeast for a couple thousand years.

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Breeding yeast on accident, perhaps. Yeast was not discovered until 1719. It resided on the stir sticks brewmasters used, spreading the unkown agent from one vat of beer ot the next on accident.

Anyway, here's a post to the homebrew thread with my guide!

People've been brewing beers and distilling spirits long before sterile conditions and refrigeration were invented. Once the world goes postal, not too many people are gonna worry about a few bugs in their beer. And I think anything alcoholic, no matter how bad it tastes, will probably be in some demand.

And keep in mind that beer and other spirits served a purpose back in the day when clean water wasn't always available and boiling wasn't all that understood.

it was no accident. is it an accident to start your car because you know you must put the key in the ignition while there is gas in the tank, but don't know how the ignition timing, the lead-acid battery and your fuel injector work?

do you think people needed a microscope to see the yeast, when all they had to do is observe that starters developed properties that new dough or wort did not have? when you couple that with direct physical and cultural evidence that they did so long before the advent of microbiology?

yeast culture positive starters and worts have clear and obvious differences from fresh material and there is no mistaking it.

for that matter, as simple as the life cycle of budding yeasts is, understanding the nature of the organism vs learning by experience how to propagate a lineage of starters offers surprisingly little advantage.

Wild yeast and bacteria in the beer will yield sour and medicinal, nasty flavors... If you luck out you may get something like a lambic, not the fruity, sweetened version most of us know here, but the sour Belgian farmhouse version that most of you would cringe at.

So dirty beer isn't pleasant or drinkable. If it is infected, you will not like the results.

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Originally Posted by canid

for that matter, as simple as the life cycle of budding yeasts is, understanding the nature of the organism vs learning by experience how to propagate a lineage of starters offers surprisingly little advantage.

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Respectfully, I have to disagree with you here. The Reinheitsgebot forbade anything but water, hops, and barley. There is no mention of yeast or yeast slurry or "funky sludge at the bottom of the last barrel of beer"

"The Reinheitsgebot stated, in brief, that only pure and essential ingredients be used in beer. The only ingredients allowed were barley, hops and water. Today, of course, yeast is also recognized as a vital ingredient. Yeast was a brewing element whose effect was not understood at the time the law was written. In the 1500’s, brewers utilized naturally occurring, airborne yeast and attributed fermentation to the will of God. In fact, lambic beers are still produced this way."

Some of them scooped the yeast containing Krausen off the top of one fermenting batch by accident transferring it to the next uninnoculated batch with the same stir stick and this was later adopted as widespread practice but they had no idea they were transferring yeast.

Modern science has yielded much healthier, purer strains of yeast that make much better beer than available in the 1600s as well as the ability to mass produce, package and distribute that yeast culture around the world without it being contaminated. The biologic activity of beer is infinitely lower and shelf life infinitely longer than ever before, so I think it sort is of important to understand microbiology when brewing beer.

Note my post above states beer resembling todays commercial beers would be nearly impossible to accomplish consistently without sterile conditions for yeast propigation and preservation and certainly without sanitary ones for fermentation. Especially on an ongoing basis. I stand by this statement. Any homebrewer knows this to be factual.

well it sounds like we're in agreement in a few places, and where otherwise i like to have your input. thanks.

I'm sticking with applejack. You can spend your acres of land growing barley that might be better off for growing food. A small orchard will give you the drink you need/want for use or trade. Of course, there are probably more nasty yeast beasts out there today than there were in the Colonial era, or before... Gotta love today's biotechnology.

you can make wine out of dang near anything and with more alcohol content. i like my dandilion wine because while the whole plant is edible, most don't like to eat the flower and it's great for wine. why waste food sources?

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Originally Posted by mountain mama

you can make wine out of dang near anything and with more alcohol content. i like my dandilion wine because while the whole plant is edible, most don't like to eat the flower and it's great for wine. why waste food sources?

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How interesting. What does it taste like?

Alcohol content is primarily a factor of sugars content over time and temperature, up to the maxima the yeast strain can survive. Some yeasts [such as some bred for baking, and some wild yeasts] can tolerate only a few % alcohol, and some may survive quite high concentrations.

That wines formulations tend to be stronger than beers [which is not always true] is merely incidental. Samuel Adams makes a beer over 20% abv, which is stronger than almost any other non-distilled spirit.

dandelion wine is pretty good. i've also used the unripe flower buds as a bitter herb for beer.

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Originally Posted by canid

Alcohol content is primarily a factor of sugars content over time and temperature, up to the maxima the yeast strain can survive. Some yeasts [such as some bred for baking, and some wild yeasts] can tolerate only a few % alcohol, and some may survive quite high concentrations.

That wines formulations tend to be stronger than beers [which is not always true] is merely incidental. Samuel Adams makes a beer over 20% abv, which is stronger than almost any other non-distilled spirit.

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If memory serves, beer yeasts range from roughly 65-88% in attenuation depending on the strain. Meaning they will attenuate, or ferment, 65-88% amount of the fermentable sugars present in the wort.

As you point out, many yeasts can't survive in higher alchohol environments, this is one limiting factor for the final ETOH level of beer.

The final alcohol content of a beer that has a highly attenuitive, ETOH tolerant yeast is dependent on one final factor, the amount of sugar extracted from the malted barley. Most brewhouse efficiencies are 90% or better. Meaning of the extractable sugar in the malted barley, they are able to extract 90% of it away from the grain and into the liquid wort for the yeast to ferment.

Once efficiency is maxed, to get more sugar, you need more grain. Higher ETOH beers have higher grain bills, sometimes 2-3x more than 4-6% beer. They take longer to produce and usually require aging to mellow the alcohol bite. They have more hops to balance the sweetness of any unfermented sugar which adds to the expense.

Barleywines are a common high alcohol content beer, 9-13%.

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Originally Posted by greenbeetle

How interesting. What does it taste like?

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Ever tried Alize?