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Good Morning All

D

dr.ben

My name is Ben Stafford.  I live in Beaumont, Texas.  I've been brewing beer for about 2 years now.  All kits.  Started with extract kits and then went to partial mash kits.  We are blessed to have an amazing brewing supply store in Austin Texas (www.austinhomebrew.com) and they have a large supply of very high calibre brewing kits.  I bough beer smith about a year ago but never even tried to use it until recently.  I used it to make a recipe for an amber braggot using pieces of old kits I had left over (a five gal tub of amber malt extract, two oz spalter hops, 1 0z kent golding hops, .......)  I don't know yet how it will come out but it has me hooked on brewsmith!

I live where there are a lot of pine and oak trees.  I am wanting to begin to experiment with pine and oak leaves instead of hops.  Does anyone have any experience in this area?  Is there a way I can calculate the ibu's of pine needles and oak leaves and then use that knowledge to insert these ingredients into recipes?

All help appreciated.

Ben
 
Ben,
  Welcome - we are happy to have you here!

  As far as pine/oak trees - they will not provide IBUs in the traditional sense.  I see you have another post, so I'll follow up there.

Brad
 
welcome
pine needls and oak leaves sounds kind of interesting. I have used stinging neadels before but only in mead.
 
Stinging nettles?  You are a much braver man than I am.  My main interest is to replace the, now expensive, hops with something local and cheap.  What was the result of stinging nettles in the mead? 

A buddy and I have been toying with mead for about a year now.  We have made a very passable blackberry melomel and we've just made a delicious brew from concentrated peach/white grape juice and honey that we call fuzzy pyment because you can almost taste the peach fuzz.  Abv comes in around 18%.

Ben
 
I have a recipe for a very good mead on this forum. It is the same mead that is used by many European Asatru groups. The needles were different. I like them better in cooking.
 
2 quarts water
2.5 lbs honey
1/2 cup lemon peels
1 tablespoon strong tea
1/4 teaspoon grape tannin
1 teaspoon yeast energizer
1 packet mead yeast (champaign yeast will do)

Stir the honey and the water together, heating slowly. Stir in the lemon peels and tea. When it gets hot stir in the grape tannin and the yeast energizer. Alot of brewers will bring it to a full boil to ensure the honey is sanitized but I don't I find it has a better flavor if you don't and I have never had a bad batch yet.
after it cools continue on like you are making wine. Remember to let it ferment in a dark place this is very important for the taste and colour of the mead. I usually put a big black garbage bag over my carboy.


here it is!
(I up it to a 5 gallon size)
 
Welcome Fellow Texan! Glad to have you here!

Cheers

Preston
 
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