Back in 2021 I found 6 unopened, expired 12 packs of Coors light in my local bottle dumpster.
Never one to sniff a gift fish, I took them, figuring I could probably at the least use the bottles for cider at some point, but thought maybe in the not too distant future more free beer would magically appear and I'd get enough to make a proper run.
3 years later I'm cleaning my garage, making serious decisions about what to keep, throw out or process further and came across the Coors light.
Originally I was going to just pour them out and throw the bottles away...but... Well, I had been running all of last years apple cider into brandy so I decided to go ahead and run it and add it to the low wines that have been sitting on a shelf for several years now waiting for me to make enough low wines for a neutral run or run out of vodka, whichever came first. Neither of which has happened yet
So, to make sure the boiler had enough to keep the element covered, I added the beer to setback that was in the boiler from my last apple run and ran it, collecting a pint every 10 minutes. About 2.25 gallons later I shut it down. While running I was cleaning carboys, and jars, throwing out bottles and doing various other thing and in the process I somehow cut my finger on some broken glass, although I was careful not to get any in the distillate.
Throughout the run the low wines had an incredibly strong beer flavor so I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to add it to the low wines I already had, which left me with a problem... ...what do I do with only 2.25 gallons of low wines and a 15 gallon boiler that needs probably 4 gallons just to cover the element? I usually never run with less than 8 gallons to guarantee the element stays covered.
So, my solution was to drain then fill the boiler with water until the element was covered by an inch or so, add the low wines and flip the switch, then set about cleaning my shed/shop so Mrs Cranky can sell it collecting a pint every 5 minutes. It's been very hot lately and so of course I was sweating my ass off while doing all this and in the process of cleaning the shed I cut my finger on a broken Christmas light and bled all over the place but once again managed to keep it out of the distillate.
In all I collected 13 pints. I'm pleasantly surprised at the flavor and how little heads it has. So far I've only kept jars 5 through 9, which is about a half gallon but jar 4 has a lot of good flavor and seems to have very few heads and jar 10 also has very good flavor but might be a little too tailsy but I'm considering adding it, after all, I do plan to age for potentially a considerable amount of time.
Just for the hell of it I asked Microsoft's AI to render a label for a whiskey called "Blood Sweat and Beers. Here's what I got
Blood, Sweat and Beers
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- Yummyrum
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Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
Great story Cranky . I love the waste not want not attitude . Hope it ages well .
Haa haa , that AI is channeling Vlagavoulin
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https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.ph ... ion_Theory
https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.ph ... ion_Theory
Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
Yummy beat me to it .... great story and I don't see any reason why it won't be an enjoyable product in a few years.
Disregarding the bad rap hops get on this forum, I have done several successful gin runs with hops in the boiler.
Disregarding the bad rap hops get on this forum, I have done several successful gin runs with hops in the boiler.
Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
Now there's a phrase that may have never before been uttered about Coors Light!!.... an incredibly strong beer flavor
Great story; hope it turns out great.
- IAmPistolPete
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Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
All the way til the end this had the makings of a Pat McManus story.
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- NorthWoodsAb
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Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
Great story Cranky.
- cranky
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Re: Blood, Sweat and Beers
Thank you everybody
Thank you, the flavor right now is actually quite good so I think given a year or two on oak it will be an excellent "whiskey" even though I think Coors Light technically qualifies as sugar head I've been messing around with a couple of AI picture programs for a while now and they can be rather squirrely and unpredictable...and frustrating. Mrs Cranky is trying to make a video for youtube about Corgis and Fairies, that's sort of a kids book kind of video. She tried hiring someone who claimed to be able to do the pics she wanted but they were terrible so sometimes when I have free time I try to do some of it but I have a lot of trouble getting the AI to understand. I can actually get pics that would be acceptable but they need to have the same characters in them and the AIs I've worked with can't seem to understand that You can see in that label the AI didn't quite grasp a few things. I've actually been playing around on Paint Shop Pro making mods that I like better
I don't think Coors Light has all that much hops in it but all the flavors that carried over in the 2nd run are quite good. Not long before the Coors Light I had found 5 cases of Alaskan Icy Bay IPA, which was close to 10 gallons. I absolutely hated the beer and had plans for distilling it but didn't want to deal with cleaning hop oil out of the still so at the same time the Coors went to the still the Alaskan went down the drain My window to run things is quickly closing and I had to make a choice so I chose the low wines that have been on the shelf for far too long.
The flavor actually concentrated when distilled the first time making it much stronger flavored than the beer itself.
Thank you, I knew someone would catch the referenceIAmPistolPete wrote: ↑Thu Aug 15, 2024 4:01 am All the way til the end this had the makings of a Pat McManus story.
Thank you