Couple of Homebrew Questions

Hi guys

some more questions for you all.....

Can you use bread yeast to make wine?

Do people out there use containers other than demi's for fermentation, such as large milk plastic bottles, or large water bottles?

Cheers all

Digi

Bread yeast would ferment but that is about all.
Bread yeast is a yeast for making bread, that why it is called bread yeast.

If you want cloudy wine that is weak and smells of bread then give it a try. Also as bread yeast will not survive the alcohol level you would have to recalculate the sugar you need at the start.

Otherwise if making wine get a wine yeast, very cheap at places like Wilkinson, probably less then bread yeast from a supermarket and it will make wine as you probably want and expect.

Unfortunately the water companies charge if you don't return the empties :-( (about £4.00 to £5.00). If you know of a company that doesn't then please let me know and I'll change my account to them because not only would the empties make great carbouys/large demijons, but by cutting off the bottoms you'd have great cloches too.

SS

Depends what you are trying to achieve with your yeast. Yeasts are captured `so the yeasts you buy such as champagne yeasts  were originally native to that area. The `same goes for real bread yeasts (also known as sourdough yeasts) In the wild the wine yeasts do best on grapes, the bread yeasts like  flour & water mix. Real bread yeasts come in an amazing variety depending on location and change the bread tastes, rise etc etc  I use small ale (a medieval brew) yeast in bread and it tastes great, but vice versa tends to not work unless you bring on the culture, I also do that with my small ale culture and pop it back in the breew, but small ale is only alcoholic enough for a day on day drink it isn't strong in the way we tend to expect alcohol to be.

I suspect mead was in the past, brewed with a do all type yeast too.

The ref to Ginger beer somebody mentioned I think means a yeasty ginger beer, REAL ginger beer is brewed using a plant a kind of blooby microbe that is far less alcoholic, again moving back to the expections from the past brews to now. So depends what you want, you will brew something with bakers (bread) yeast how strong, just like wine yeasts depends on what baking yeast you use, but it is unlikely to be as strong as the yeasts bred for high alcohol, resistance you can get in home brew shops.

If you buy oz caps you can use pop bottles to brew in, very easy to turn fruit juices into alcoholic drinks. I use them from time to time, but mostly I'm quite happy with demijohns.

Usually lots of these on your local reuse group

Mel

Using bread yeast to ferment wine, = No, it will ferment but wine will taste awfull.
use any vessel as long as its food grade,its big enough, its sterile and you can incorporate an air lock of some sort.

no always use a good quality wine yeast i tend to buy the kind in the silver sachet expensive but very good.
i have got a couple of them water bottles they are great but you can only brew 4 gallon in them, if you do happen to get hold of a couple your home brew shop should have the bung but the hole in the top is a little bit bigger than your fermentation lock so you have to improvise to make it air tight.

Brewers wine yeast is cheap enough so dont scimp and risk ruined wine after all its all about patients and enjoying the bevy when its cooked proper.