brewing beer aboard while cruising

[Astrid]

Not necessarily. Alcoholic Spruce beer was commonly brewed on the march by troops and on ships exploring the Pacific North West and Pacific during the latter half of the 18th century, and because of the vitamin C content of spruce buds, helped prevent scurvy.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Believe the brew has to be in a stable environment while it's fermenting. The motion while at sea doesn't agree with this. Probably quite doable while at anchor, however.

Sorry mate but thats bull-dung. I have brewed many at sea.

None of you are in the right century. Its all changed. Beer brewing is easy.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Astrid

Not necessarily. Alcoholic Spruce beer was commonly brewed on the march by troops and on ships exploring the Pacific North West and Pacific during the latter half of the 18th century, and because of the vitamin C content of spruce buds, helped prevent scurvy.

Even more so... IPA was loaded onto ships right after fermentation started. The high amount of hops kept it from spoiling during transport to India (India Pale Ale).

IMO- You certainly could not achieve a clear beer while sailing (anyhow it can take anywhere from a few days to weeks to ferment) because it wouldn't allow the yeast and trub to settle. The impact on that is less stable beer in the long term but short term the beer tastes just fine. Like a Hefe.

In just a few days at anchor, the yeast/trub would settle and you could rack off the clear beer into a bunch of soda stream and carbonate it... using new soda bottles that is. With the soda stream, you don't have to carbonate it until maybe the day before you want to drink it.

Astrid... that is REALLY COOL... I did not know that!

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Sorry mate but thats bull-dung. I have brewed many at sea.

None of you are in the right century. Its all changed. Beer brewing is easy.

I agree, it is easy if you want it to be....some people seem to make it more difficult than is needed....Making wine is even easier...Several pounds of fruit (or a very large jar of jelly if you like M/D 20/20 style wine! ) a little yeast , 5 pounds of suger, 5 gals of water,mix together, cover w/an old t shirt or cheese cloth and wait 3-4 weeks...Let it work until it dosent bubble anymore and it will be very dry wine..11-13 % alcohol by volume..

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Astrid

Not necessarily. Alcoholic Spruce beer was commonly brewed on the march by troops and on ships exploring the Pacific North West and Pacific during the latter half of the 18th century, and because of the vitamin C content of spruce buds, helped prevent scurvy.

Astrid... that is REALLY COOL... I did not know that! I tried making a beer using spruce as the mash filter base based on a norwegian recipe but it got infected so I never got to sample it.

[Wanderlust]

I can agree with Markj .... it's simple, works fine and produces a nice beer. I haven't done it at sea, but did so in an anchorage where the rocking sloshed the brew around in the brewer.

As for not being a clear brew ... that's not right either. The sediment mostly sinks to the bottom of the brewer, so at bottling not much gets transferred to the bottles. The secondary brewing stage is to add sugar when bottling (like lollies - 2 per bottle). Thus causes a secondary fermentation resulting in gas buildup in the bottle. The bottles then sit in a carton for a week or more and some sediment forms on the bottom. On board, and at sea this does not get disturbed enough to cloud the beer. When pouring, I leave about 30-50ml in the bottle to keep it clear in the glass.

Temperature when brewing could be a bit of an issue. The yeast in the kit beer specifies a temperature range between 18 and 27 degrees C. On hot days it may be necessary to spread a damp towel over the brewer to keep it cool enough.

From deciding "I think I will make a brew today" to "finished" would be half an hour or so, and then to bottle it, an hour or so. The plastic bottles with screw caps are re-usable ... I just rinse well and allow to dry ready for the next brew. Once you have the brewer all the ingredients (various flavours) are available from any Coles or Woolworths supermarket.

[Astrid]

The secondary brewing stage is to add sugar when bottling (like lollies - 2 per bottle). Thus causes a secondary fermentation resulting in gas buildup in the bottle.

Yes, once the primary fermentation has taken place (about a week or ten days until the yeast has used up the available sugars in the wort), the beer, porter, or stout can be bottled. I prefer to use unrefined sugar (sugar that has not had all the molasses removed) for the secondary fermentation. As Steve says, this causes the yeast to restart for a short time. After capping the bottles, the yeast does its job eating up the sugar and releasing CO2, thus making it unnecessary to carbonate it artificially.

[seandepagnier]

I brew water kefir, I think it's probably a lot easier

[IceDog]

You're killing me , we are not allowed any alcohol in Afghanistan so I go 6 or 7 months between drinks. Yes there is a black market but I don't use it...not worth being sent home for. I am not an expert but I am a member of the South Pole Brewing Association and brewed beer at the South Pole in 2004 . I look forward to brewing some on the boat in the future.

[MarkJ]

About brewing whilst sailing.

At the fuel dock/marina before going on passage when I was filling the tanks with water I would fill my beer kit and put the container either in the Lazarette, or the aft head.
It would then brew while we were on passage and I would bottle it when we arrived



Photo below is the beer brewing kit from Coopers

it contains

Coopers DIY Beer Kit

• Ref: DBK676
  AUD $95.00

The DIY Beer Kit includes everything needed to make 23 litres of great tasting beer - a patented fermenter that makes brewing even easier and quicker, an easy to read plastic hydrometer specifically made for beer, plus an Instructional DVD ROM to answer all your brewing questions.

The kit contains:

• Fermenting Vessel & Tap
• Durable Hydrometer & Measuring Flask
• Instructional DVD ROM
• Brewers Log Card Instruction Card
• Erasable Marker
• Mixing Spoon
• 30 x 740ml PET Bottles & Caps
• Adhesive Thermometer Strip
• Lager Beer Concentrate
• Brew Enhancer 1
• Carbonation Drops

All this for only AUD $95.00!

Here's a Youtube video about it. I selected one by an American guy so you would belive it can be bought in the USA

Coopers DIY Beer Kit (Revised and Reposted) - YouTube

Here's a USA online shop to buy Coopers Beer kits Coopers DIY Beer Kits

[zboss]

For those of you that are not interested in carrying around 2-3 cases of empty bottles, let alone having to clean all them... here is another option that I have used. They work very well.

Tap-A-Draft System : Northern Brewer

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

About brewing whilst sailing.

At the fuel dock/marina before going on passage when I was filling the tanks with water I would fill my beer kit and put the container either in the Lazarette, or the aft head.
It would then brew while we were on passage and I would bottle it when we arrived



Photo below is the beer brewing kit from Coopers

it contains

Coopers DIY Beer Kit

• Ref: DBK676
  AUD $95.00

The DIY Beer Kit includes everything needed to make 23 litres of great tasting beer - a patented fermenter that makes brewing even easier and quicker, an easy to read plastic hydrometer specifically made for beer, plus an Instructional DVD ROM to answer all your brewing questions.


The kit contains:

• Fermenting Vessel & Tap
• Durable Hydrometer & Measuring Flask
• Instructional DVD ROM
• Brewers Log Card Instruction Card
• Erasable Marker
• Mixing Spoon
• 30 x 740ml PET Bottles & Caps
• Adhesive Thermometer Strip
• Lager Beer Concentrate
• Brew Enhancer 1
• Carbonation Drops

All this for only AUD $95.00!

Here's a Youtube video about it. I selected one by an American guy so you would belive it can be bought in the USA

Here's a USA online shop to buy Coopers Beer kits Coopers DIY Beer Kits

I too have a lot of brewing expertise and I agree with MarkJ, brewing is easy. The additional equipment needed on a boat is minimal, depending on your load out.

While I was wrong about mashing (I was thinking of sour mash when I made my comment , apologies to those offended) and I always refer to grain brewing as that, grain brewing. But why grain brew when you can use malt extract. In my opinion, it would be far easier to use on a small boat. You can buy it for 5 gallon or 1 gallon batches. It would be easy to store and far easier to brew than using all grain.

A glass carboy is NOT necessary, as I have a friend in my brew club that uses 5 gallon plastic water bottles from Lowes for his brewing (frementation stage) and the result is just fine. My son uses a 5 gallon plastic brewing bucket.

In any case, ice isn't necessary to cool the wort, a wort chiller will work, again not as well in the Caribbean, since it is important (though not absolutely necessary) to cool the wort rapidly. I have made several batches of beer and didn't use a wort cooler, allowing the wort to cool slowly, the beer (Ox and Dove Brown Ale from homebrewden.com) was exceptional.

You can brew in smaller batches than 5 gallons so a lot of bottles aren't needed. Another guy in our local brew club uses 2 liter soda bottles for bottle fermentation/conditioning beer and I haven't noticed any particular taste to his beer.

I am still worried a bit about the motion of the boat, but I know MarkJ has had success brewing on his boat.

[s/v Jedi]

You guys should try the stainless steel bottles from Kleen Kanteen...

[brianontheroad]

we're considering using 2.5 gallon stainless mini kegs, boat has two fridge compartments so we're thinking of putting two in there with taps so we'd have 4 all together, basically use them as secondary fermenters and pop them in the fridge when it's time to serve

something like this

no bottles, but we would have to carry CO 2
2.5 Gallon Ball Lock Keg W/ Metal Handles

[Iambatman]

Findings? Isinglass?