Make your own micro-mini-brewery and a batch of George Washington’s “small beer”

Well, sorta George Washinton’s molasses small beer. Adapted from Making Homemade Wine and Beer’s recipe.

Make a mini-microbrewery and brew George Washington’s Molasses “Small Beer”

I have a Mr Beer mini-brewery keg that I like. It works pretty well with or without the ingredient kits. If not using a kit sized for it, simple arithmetic allows conversion of recipes for larger batch mini-brew setups (typically sized for 5 gallon carboys or plastic buckets).

But, when I had a brew started in my commercially made rig and wanted to try making a molasses “small beer” recipe (mostly based on one George Washington used), I just didn’t want to wait another week to get it started, so…

I made another “keg” of about the same size using:

1 plastic “kitty litter” bucket. (three cats; you do the math on how many of these things I have laying around…)
1 plastic water spigot–the kind you would avoid putting in outside for your water hoses/sprinklers, whatever (because it’s cheezy and easily broken) but which is better than brass for a brew setup.
1-male/female threaded coupler to fit the spigot–and a rubber “hose washer”
1-male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler
1-male threaded/female Unthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler
2-1.5″ sections of 1/2″ PVC pipe
1-1/2″ PVC “trap”

(The last four pieces are used in constructing the airlock for the keg/bucket fernemnter.)

I cleaned the kitty litter bucket very, very well with dish soap and water, then rinsed it and filled it with clean water with 1/2 cup chlorine bleach (yes, I soaked the lid in the bleach water for a few minutes before putting it on the bucket). I let that soak over night.

Traced the size of the water spigot end and the male/female threaded couplers in their respective places—the spigot about 1″ above the bottom edge of the bucket and the male end of the coupler (to the airlock) traced in the center of the snap-on lid to the
bucket.

Placed all the plumbing parts in the bleach water to soak.

When the bucket and parts had soaked overnight, I discarded most of the bleach water (reserving about a gallon for cleanup after finishing construction), rinsed them and laid everything out on clean paper towels.

Next, using a razor knife, I cut the holed on the inside of the traced lines and threaded the male threaded/female UNthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler coupler for the airlock into the hole on the lid and secured it with the male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler on the inside of the lid.

Then, I threaded the hose washer onto the water spigot and the water spigot into the hole 1″ above the bottom of the bucket. I then secured that with the pipe coupler that fit its threaded piece.

Next, I rinsed the rest of the plumbing pieces yet again in bleach water, then clean water and assembled the airlock as per the graphic.

I then filled the bucket with the remaining bleach water, topped it off, shook the water around and then drained all that would drain through the spigot, dumping the rest from the top. Followed that with a thorough rinsing with plain water. Placed the top back on.

Here’s a pic of the final product:

It’s easier to just show it than to describe the process. *heh*

(Since the pic above–and a batch of the brew below–I have made the airlock more airtight by the addition of some white Gorilla Glueâ„¢ between the top on top) and the exterior fitting, as well as a rubber washer inside.)

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Now, George Washington’s Molasses “Small Beer” as adapted for this setup:

Makes about 3 gallons

• – 20 ounces of molasses (that’s 2.5 cups)
• – two ounces of mild hops (or make it like George did, without the hops!)
• – one ounce cream of tartar
• – zest from one lemon
• – 1/2 teaspoon ale yeast (you can make a “starter” from some yeast saved from the dregs of some bottle carbonated beers, or saved from the trub of a previous brew OR even use bakers’ yeast in a pinch. Won’t taste quite right, but it will work… sorta. I’m told. :-))
• – 1/2 teaspoon ginger (presumably ground)
• – 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

SANITIZE all utensils and equipment using a dilute bleach solution. Rinse well with clean water (bleach kills yeast, so do rinse well!).

Bring about a 1-1.5 gallons of water to a boil, add the molasses, hops and lemon peel and boil the mix for an hour.

Add the cream of tartar, ginger and ground cloves for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Meanwhile, start your yeast in a cup or so of warm (NOT HOT!! UP TO 100F) water and maybe a teaspoon of molasses or cane sugar. Just about body temperature or a little less will be a good temp.

Strain the boiled mix (the wort) into the brew bucket (fermenter). Well, actually, those are copied from the recipe I adapted this from. I let all the fixin’s go into the fermenter. We’ll see how that goes. Strained it when bottling, but just the last little bit to avoid too much trub entering the bottles.

Add clean water (good, not too heavily chlorinated tap water or bottled “spring water”–NOT distilled!) to cool the wort to about 70 F and bring the water level up to about 3 gallons. Then check your yeast starter for signs of life and then GENTLY stir in the yeast, using a sanitized plastic spoon.

Place just enough clean water in the airlock to form… an airlock, of course. 🙂

Let the brew “cook” away in a location that stays about 70 F for at least a week or until the airlock doesn’t bubble at all. (You probably should check the airlock for water level daily. Mine stopped showing signs of fermentation after THREE DAYS!)

When bottling, prime by saving some of the wort (about a quart) and re-mixing with the fermented brew when it is bottled OR add about a teaspoon of cane sugar for each 16 ounce bottle (about 3/4 teaspoonful for a 12-ounce bottle). Add the sugar to the bottle, then gently pour the fermented brew into the bottle–down the blttles’ necks to avoid any unecessary aeration–to about an inch below the top of the bottle andcap it. Gently swirl the sugar/brew mix until the sugar’s dissolved. DO NOT SHAKE VIGOROUSLY. You do not want to aerate the beer at this point. Trust me.

Bottle condition the beer for at least one week in a dark place with a constant temperature of about 70F. (Well, after writing this, I

For a more traditional “beer” flavor, you can try varying this recipe a bit. Here’s one variation that doesn’t even require a trip to a brew shop for most folks–just a trip to your pantry.

• 1C Malt-o-Meal cereal (I separated the cup into four batches and placed the 1/4C portions in coffee filters tied off with zip ties)
• 1C pearled barley

Boil the Malt-o-Meal and pearled barley in the 1.5 gallons of water for an hour and then strain them out (you can combine the stuff and eat it for a hot ceral right away, if you want *heh*), then add the other ingredients and boil for another hour. Sure, it adds an hour to the
prep and Malt-o-Meal and pearled barley aren’t the same as malted barley/wheat you can mash for “real” beer, but it does add back in some of the flavor/texture of those traditional beer ingredients. Or at least I think so. 🙂

[Update: gave the molasses beer in the Grolsch swingtop bottles more time to bottle condition. Much better head and flavor; the additional carbonation and time for flavor conditioning was a Very Good Thing. Taste much improved. Note to self: drink more Grolsch (for the bottles, of course *heh*). Definitely will give a bit more bottle conditioning to the next batch. ]

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