From the picture, this tops my list, flaming hot Cheetos… after mentioning it yesterday, my enzyme came in later than expected but I decided to send it anyways. It’s so greasy it’s probably turned me off Cheetos forever. However, science must ensue. Here we have 15 pounds of flamin hot Cheetos mashed with enzymes for an hour and 8 pounds of sugar. Honestly, after tasting the mash, the heat doesn’t come through, and frankly it mainly tastes/smells like a corn mash. Personally I’ll be surprised if I can tell the difference between this and a white whiskey made from straight corn. So, what’s the dumbest thing you’ve done?
A number of years back someone posted the idea of pumpkin gin to the homebrewing subreddit. Supposedly some senator arguing against prohibition in the early 1900s claimed you could just hollow out a pumpkin, fill it up with sugar and you’d end up with booze. So I gave it a try. One pumpkin I filled up with apple juice and another I filled with brown sugar. The apple juice pumpkin actually fermented and I got a somewhat drinkable hard cider out of the deal. the sugar one just turned to sludge and grew mold.
Another thing I tried was to make my own amylase producing mold using millet and rice cakes and ginger root to inoculate it. They grew mold (some of it white, some of it green) and I used them to inoculate some steamed rice that sort of fermented. It went sour of course, and it ended up tasting a lot like lemon juice, so I must have gotten some citric acid producing mold in the mix as well.
Amazing! Maybe you can rim the glass with crushed hot cheeto too
this reminds me of r/prisonhooch which I miss dearly.
Be the change you want to see in the world my friend. Here’s the list of what’s on my radar for distilling next lol. Milk wine sounds whacky but I made it before (called blaand) and it’s surprisingly just tastes like white wine.
I paid for the still, I’m gonna get my moneys worth out of it 😂 and by that I’m just curious what flavors come through the process. While these are mostly horrid ideas, you never know when you’ll be surprised and can make something interesting from it. Hell sour beers were considered bad at one point in history and now people (including myself) make them intentionally!
We tried brewing watermelon and banana wines before. I forget which one, but one of those didn’t last long before it started turning more vinegary…
But now you perked my interest, SPAM wine?..
Yeah, that’s what got me into trying stupid stuff. All the research I did on watermelon said it doesn’t turn out. I made a brandy that easily topped my list of things I made. Did you by chance boil it? As an originally beer brewer it’s ingrained, but I think that’s what kills off watermelon flavor fast. At least from my one attempt at it that was a raging success.
And yeah, spam won’t ferment, unless there’s some enzyme that turns proteins into fermentable sugars, but I plan on macerating spam in a still during a run, I’m curious what flavors, if any, come through. It goes back to an old joke my buddy and I had in the woods ages ago where we drank vodka out of a “spamteen” (can of spam cut out to hold a shot of liquor, it was horrible)
Loving the goblin fermentation vibes you re giving off there. Never stop.
Mostly beer brewer here, so dumb things I’ve done were mostly process related. Fermenting beer with unsanitized wood chips - turned sour. Adding too much rye or pumpkin - took me 12 hours to get the damn thing made - stuck mash.
Fermentation wise, not brewing, messed around with some koji with varying degrees of success.
If you’re doing things like spam alcohol, have you also considered miso as an ingredient?
The spams probably going to be a maceration in the still, but no I haven’t thought of miso yet. Might have to add it to the list. And hey as a fan of sour beers, the wood chip one sounds interesting lol. Any fun discoveries you made with an interesting shakeup in the process?
In retrospect, I should have saved it, but it was my second beer ever and went for an overly complex recipe also. Knowing what I know now, it would have probably aged nicely.
I’ve discovered boiling is not fully necessary to get a good brew and that heather tips make it awesome. I’ve just added maybe 1-2 handfuls now to the mash. Next autumn I plan to go nuts on collecting the thing and will try to fit maybe half a kilo in there, see how it comes out.
Honorable mention to red yeast rice, I have this notion of doing a rice mash for maybe a week with it and then plopping that into a raw ale mash to get enzymes and flavour of red yeast rice wine in a beer, as I’ve noticed that its enzymes also work up to 70ish Celsius.
I’m currently brewing up a batch of Tang! We’ll know in a week or so if it was a success.
I’m hoping the synthetic chemicals that give it a citrus flavor are anathema to my yeast so I’ll have something refreshing in a month or so.
Yesss! Let me know how it goes! I ended up following a post on Facebook about a dude who reduced orange soda into a syrup and used it for a beer. As it was a more… traditional, group everyone was horrified. Apparently it turned out super awesome. Love the creativity and I’m curious about how your adventure turns out :)