What ingredients should I use for a grocery home brew?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I've decided to burn some time by trying out my first home brew. It has come with many challenges though. I do not have access to barley other than pearled barley, which I am not going to use, nor do I have access to hops. I have come up with some ingredients that I can use but I don't know what ratios I should be using and whether the ingredients will work or not. My ingredients list are as follows:

  • Hops replacement:
    • Green Tea
    • Orange Peel
    • Coriander
  • Grains:
    • Rye (Lightly malted at home)
    • Rye (Green malt to ensure enzymes for breaking down carbs)
    • Wheat (Lightly malted at home)
    • Corn (Lightly malted at home)
  • Potential adjuncts:
    • Eucalyptus honey
    • Squeezed Orange Juice (probably not going to use this)
  • Carbonating sugar:
    • Eucalyptus Honey
  • Yeast
    • Standard baker's yeast

I would like suggestions on ratios, anything I should add to my list, and anything that I should perhaps omit.

Could anyone give me some advice?

Topic wheat-beer first-time-brewer rye homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

I would get some honey, maybe some fruit, bakers' yeast and make a mead.

Factory produced bread yeast generally has an alcohol tolerance of around 14% AbV.

https://www.growforagecookferment.com/mead-recipes/

You can probably also buy malt extract (cooking grade) in the baking section.

1
answered at

Let's start with your hops replacements. Traditionally (before hops became common) all sorts of other herbs were used. These all had something in common: an intense bitter flavor. You need the bitterness to offset the otherwise cloying sweetness of the beer. While green tea, orange peel or coriander may work to flavor a beer (not sure I'd enjoy a coriander-flavored beer) you still need some bittering.

Tradional "gruit" botanicals used in ye olde beeres included Sweet Gale, Mugwort, Sage, Yarrow, Ivy, Horehound, Heather and a host of other weird and wonderful weeds, most of which have anti-bacterial properties and an intensely bitter taste.

Your grains should work, provided you have enough enzymes in the mix to convert the starches into sugars.

Honey will improve your fermentability. Golden syrup also works.

If you want to make a fruit beer, you can try adding jam or marmalade to the mix.

Not sure about the baker's yeast. This will almost certainly not give you the right flavour profile and the alcohol tolerance may or may not be more than a percent or two, depending on what you've got.

That said, if this is all you have and you're looking for a way to kill time, then give it a go! Make sure to let us know what happens!

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