Cannabis and Hops... Let's Make some Beer

In the pictures it looks like the thing you made to hold your buds the intake hose and the outake hose is the same size. You should make the bottom hose smaller so it fills the cup and drains slower giving your beer solution more time in contact with your buds.

youngbuzz101 said:

Wait up bro run that by me how exactly did you difuse the THC into the beer? Wouldn't there be no alcohol at the point in which you ran your beer through the buds?

Why didnt you soak them say overnight or would that turn the beer to vineger?

Not sure I understand your process although good job bro for following through I'm happy I remembered to check in how long until you have the end product?

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Well its a super sophisticated way of extraction, that was determined throughout this thread. I'll do a more formal tutorial as I get deeper into this but here is a quick recap:

- The beer finished fermentation already (alcohol content ~ 8%)
- The quick wash was determined by a study on hops showing that the quicker the wash time the more flavors and smells that were retained.
- I doubt that the THC content is above 1% (that is a different trial - Maybe we'll call that beer hash bombs)

You can certainly leave them overnight but my main concern on this trial was flavor.
1. Try chewing on a bud... It tastes good for about 30 secs or so and then the flavor goes from spicy and herbal to grass. We do not want grass beer.

In short the extraction process was quite similar to doing a qwiso tech. i.e. quick wash minus the freezing temperatures.

youngbuzz101 said:

In the pictures it looks like the thing you made to hold your buds the intake hose and the outake hose is the same size. You should make the bottom hose smaller so it fills the cup and drains slower giving your beer solution more time in contact with your buds.

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I appreciate the input however, the cup did stay full almost the entire time. We actually had to shut off the valve a couple of times to keep it from over flowing.

This is a 1 gallon trial so we siphoned off 1 gallon into a separate pot and bottled immediately after rinsing the cannabis.

***Note*** Once we have the perfect technique down with 1 gallon we will do a full 5 gallon batch. (Combination of high to flavor and smell to alcohol content)

Outstanding! Okay I didn't know the cup was already filling or I wouldnt have suggested a mod I apologize.

So if you were using buds for a flavor enhancement would you have used less bud then you would say if you were trying concuct so potent beer?

I would imaging more wouldn't nessecarily be better when it came to THC content if you could get 2% THC/vol per beer would probably be good after five beers would would have 10% if my rationality works..

That beer isn't for the slight of heart literally people with heart conditions should be weiry.

youngbuzz101 said:

Outstanding! Okay I didn't know the cup was already filling or I wouldnt have suggested a mod I apologize.

So if you were using buds for a flavor enhancement would you have used less bud then you would say if you were trying concuct so potent beer?

I would imaging more wouldn't nessecarily be better when it came to THC content if you could get 2% THC/vol per beer would probably be good after five beers would would have 10% if my rationality works..

That beer isn't for the slight of heart literally people with heart conditions should be weiry.

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You are right that you definitely don't want this to be a super high concentrate of THC. If we find that we want higher THC% we can also add hash oil or something similar. We don't want people freaking out, we want to enjoy the beer and a slight stone feeling.

Well the best hypothesis I can come up and this is super fuzzy math but here it goes:
Say Skywalker Og has a a THC % of 18%. (We used whole buds so it is safe to assume that this number is close).
Our beer has an ABV of ~8%.
Does this mean that we extract 8% of 18% and divide it by 11 beers?
Equation:
.08 x 18 = 1.44%
1.44%/ 11 = .13% per beer
*I am not a scientist nor by any means do I think that the above equation is accurate this is just my best guess.


It is just easier to say that we used 14 grams/ 11 beers which is ~ 1.27 grams/ beer.

yktind said:

You are right that you definitely don't want this to be a super high concentrate of THC. If we find that we want higher THC% we can also add hash oil or something similar. We don't want people freaking out, we want to enjoy the beer and a slight stone feeling.

Well the best hypothesis I can come up and this is super fuzzy math but here it goes:
Say Skywalker Og has a a THC % of 18%. (We used whole buds so it is safe to assume that this number is close).
Our beer has an ABV of ~8%.
Does this mean that we extract 8% of 18% and divide it by 11 beers?
Equation:
.08 x 18 = 1.44%
1.44%/ 11 = .13% per beer
*I am not a scientist nor by any means do I think that the above equation is accurate this is just my best guess.


It is just easier to say that we used 14 grams/ 11 beers which is ~ 1.27 grams/ beer.

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How about you consider these perimeters to do your bud amount;

each gram of weed has 1000mg dry weight. So if your skywalker is 18% THC then 1000 x 0.18 = 180mg. So each gram of dry OG skywalker weed contains 180mg of psychoactive thc.

SO when medical dispensaries create their edible doses they dose each serving at 10mg thc. So at an eighteenth a gram of 18% or 10mg infused edible concentration people get medicated from one portion.

So assuming we plan on having a good night and want to consume more than one deliciously home brew beverage we would probably want less than an edible dosage as the percentage of thc mg's will increase exponentially with each beer.

*Remember edibles react differently than smoke*

So for safeties sake we will take the 18 doses of 10mg (making the 180mg gram of OG) by a fifth which makes it a mere 3.6 mg of pure thc per beer so drinking three beers will bring us roughly to a regular edible dose. (three beers @ 10.8mg/thc)

Since a bottle of beer is 341 ml
and your brew is 5 gal.
...going to get a calculator.
ok so..
there are 3785.41 ml in one us gal

3785.41 x 5= 18927.05ml
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

18927.05 divided by 341= 55.5045454545 cont.
therefore,
there are 55 beers being made at 3.6mg a bottle
so you only need 198 mg of thc
to be dilluted into your brew evenly which works out to..
1.1 grams of your skywalker OG.

That being said that would be if you were to extract 1.1 of a gram completely which is unlikely so I would double up even so thats only 2.2 grams theoretically to make a extremely mild psychoactive beer.

If you are seasoned with marijuana you could up the the intensity to 6mg which, is a 2/3rd of a dose (dose being a tenth of a gram) which would be 6mg being 1.83 grams. (doubled is 3.66 a little over a half quarter).

Seeing as how your earlier way of extracting weed through the cup is unregulated its hard to say how much of your nugs are being fully extracted. If you were to find a way to extract efficiently like oil or butter methods you can get the effect desired and use a fraction of what you used originally in your post.

As for flavor I have no idea maybe after you extract the thc you could soak the remaining physical bud in your beer to obtain flavor? or run the solution before it become alcohol to extract flavor and not thc and then add desired amount thc concentrate.

The truth is without testing it we just do not know. When making qwiso with 99% you still don't wind up with 100% THC. We are only using 8% alcohol. I like the mg conversion but I don't see 1 gram working for a 5 gallon batch. That being said, I don't think 14 grams will be enough for 11 beers either (flavor yes, high I doubt it). But this is why we try things. So we will see in 2 weeks when we open the first beer and I can judge the flavor and high for myself.

DrunkenRampage said:

Belgian monk brew, sounds like Weyerbacher! good stuff. They also make a great barley wine, "Blithering Idiot", and their Insanity line is pretty delicious. Im an IPA man myself I love hops. Sierra Nevadas are great and kind of like my "bud light", its the cheapest beer i will drink basically, but man nothing like sucking down some freezing cold Torpedos at the lake fishing. I like Lagunitas as well, their Lil Sumthin ale is great as well as their IPA Maximus and Lil Sumthin Extra Ale. You ever try anything from Flying Dog? they make one of my favorites, "Raging Bitch", which is a belgian style pale ale, sooooo good, i think 8.3%. Not all states carry it because it has "bitch" on the six pack carton, and the bottle says something like "good shit", lol.

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Finally tried "Snake Dog" IPA by Flying Dog.

I am not much experienced in the art of reviewing and tasting a beer but I'll give it a shot.

It has an awesome fresh grain smell almost roasted sugar like. Makes you want to dive right in. Sweet Than hoppy bitterness with a hop finish. It is not a heavy beer considering the 7.1% ABV, I want to just keep drinking it.

Roasted Malt to a sweet then quite bitter with a smooth finish. That is from start to finish on a drink.

I read a high times article once were they where making THC infused alcohol some liquor variety.

Anyways all they did was drop a gram nug in the bottle and let it sit in there for 2 weeks.

They claim that it was some potent shit lime they said only to do a shot of it. And then switch to regular liquor. So that shows you a gram will go pretty far I'll try to find the article.

yktind said:

Finally tried "Snake Dog" IPA by Flying Dog.

I am not much experienced in the art of reviewing and tasting a beer but I'll give it a shot.

It has an awesome fresh grain smell almost roasted sugar like. Makes you want to dive right in. Sweet Than hoppy bitterness with a hop finish. It is not a heavy beer considering the 7.1% ABV, I want to just keep drinking it.

Roasted Malt to a sweet then quite bitter with a smooth finish. That is from start to finish on a drink.

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...Thats not because of the flavour bro.....LMAO...jk

Tasting day is finally around the Corner. We are planning for Saturday to pop one open and give it a try. If you are in my area and I told you I would give you a brew and or let you try it, send me a PM and we might be able to get together for a brew and smoke sesh.

I wish I could give everyone on RIU a brew but only made 11 this round. Oh and there is a recipe if you want to try and recreate it .

I'll still be updating the thread as I try new things with the brew and share anything I learn about brewing in general. Thanks for sticking around everybody! Couldn't have made it this far without all the feedback!

I am thinking the next trial should have an extract for THC content and trim, larf, bud mixture for flavor and smell. That way we can do a lower alcohol content. We will play it by ear!

Hey!!! I wanna beer!!!LMFAO....

Drum Roll please....

Finally got to taste the Cannabis Beer. Here are my tasting notes:

Oh by the way, There will be two different tasting notes 1. being cannabis infusion 2. being the normal beer.
Cannabis Infusion:



Smell: Hoppy, Light, Refreshing to inhale, Smells of Vermouth Olives (weird but good).
See: The color is everything that I wanted. A little cloudy, holds head very well.
Taste: Spicy, Bitter Hop Dunked In Alcohol, Sweet Roasted Honey, After Taste Reminds you of Cannabis. 2nd Taste: Sweet Malty, Hoppiness (I believe this flavor is the Cannabis), Finish = Burning Bitter Alcohol Flavor (I think this is because of the high gravity).

Final Conclusion: If I did not know that there was Cannabis in the beer I would have no idea that it was dry hopped with Skywalker OG. Perhaps a longer soak would help but on the day of the bottling and infusion the flavor and smell was very intense and could easily tell that there was in fact cannabis in the beer. My thoughts are that even with a longer soak the flavors would be lost in the hops.

Thinking back to when I did a side by side taste test of both the hops and cannabis the flavors are easily mixed up, especially after tasting one or the other. Even the smells become similar after taking a whiff a couple of times and jumping back and forth. The only difference in flavor was; when the hop was finishing it turned very bitter and more intensely got more and more bitter with every passing second and chew. The cannabis on the other hand went from a spicy earthy flavor to grass and then faded to nothing.

So my analysis would be to remove hops entirely from the equation and use cannabis throughout the process. My fear would be that grassy taste sticking around and ruining the beer. A normal person would not be able to taste hops and cannabis at the same time and be able to differentiate which was which.
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Next trial will be using a hash extract mixed with everclear (or similar solvent) and pouring this into the beer wort after the first week of fermentation. I think the hash flavor will be more prevalent and it is quite different then the Cannabis flavor. The other benefit is that this next batch we will be able to give a better estimate as to how much THC is actually dissolved, mostly because I will be able to say well there 5 grams/ 5 gallons (or whatever the ratio ends up being).

RIU: I would love to hear some thoughts about what ratio we should do the hash and Everclear mixture. Also, how much Everclear to hash (this is just to help the hash be dissolved into the actual beer, since hash won't mix well in a 8% - 10% ABV).
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Taste Test w/o Cannabis:



Smell: Sweet with Citrus and maybe a hint of apples
See: Perfect Color, A bit Cloudy
Taste: Full Body, Thick, Hops are in your face, bitter, spicy with a smooth finish with an extra bite hop flavor.
Start to Finish: Floral, Spicy Sweet, Full Body, Spicy, Very Bitter, Hoppy
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So the two different beers look and smell similar but the taste veers slightly. I think the Cannabis added the extra spicy flavor and that Vermouth/ Olive smell, Perhaps the THC affected the final fermentation and carbonation process (which is unlikely becasue the Cannabis Beer actually held a better head so... ????).

Make sure to save a bottle or two, let them condition a little longer, might mellow that "hops dipped in alcohol" flavor, mellow the bitterness, and let the back flavors come thru a bit.... we had that with our first attempt at graff, was much much better after another month or 2 of bottle conditioning. (clarity improved too)

Found a few @ my moms last month (6 month after initial finish) was fucking amazing.... n we were GIVING this shit away (thats how it ended up there) was bitter, then flat... empty tasting.... that 6month one.... omg...

Flagg420 said:

Make sure to save a bottle or two, let them condition a little longer, might mellow that "hops dipped in alcohol" flavor, mellow the bitterness, and let the back flavors come thru a bit.... we had that with our first attempt at graff, was much much better after another month or 2 of bottle conditioning. (clarity improved too)

Found a few @ my moms last month (6 month after initial finish) was fucking amazing.... n we were GIVING this shit away (thats how it ended up there) was bitter, then flat... empty tasting.... that 6month one.... omg...

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Good Call on that. I still have 10 left of the Cannabis Beer. So maybe I'll let them sit for another month and then try another beer.

I have about 40 of non Cannabis beers (same batch) and it is pretty good. Threw a 12 pack in the fridge last night. I think being cold will help ton down the intensity.

Also, just in case no one knew this:

Our beer style should be tasted closer to room temperature not and artic freezing. Being warm allows all the flavors to come out. I will try to find an article about it. I'll be back.

Here is a little article about tasting beer:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/taste/

How To Taste Beer
When analyzing a beer, you can't just swill it down, burp and say "it's great" or "it's crap." And, even though tasting is an individual art, there are a few steps, which if followed, will take your beer tasting to a blissful level.
Look
Take pause and marvel at its greatness before you partake of it. Raise the beer in front of you, but don't hold your beer to direct light as this will dilute its true color. Describe its color, its head and its consistency.
Agitate
Swirl your beer, gently in the glass. This will pull out aromas, slight nuances, loosen & stimulate carbonation and test head retention.
Smell
90-95% of what you experience is through you sense of smell. Breathe thru your nose with two quick sniffs, then with your mouth open, then thru your mouth only (nose and mouth are connected in the experience). Let olfaction guide you. Agitate again if need be, and ensure that you are in an area that has no overpowering aromas. Enjoy its bouquet.
Taste
Now sip the beer. Resist swallowing immediately. Let it wander and explore your entire palate. Let your taste buds speak. Note the mouthfeel, the consistency of the liquid's body, and breathe out during the process of tasting. This process of exhaling is called "retro-olfaction" and will release retained stimulations at the mucus and mouthfeel level, but at a higher temperature. At times this will be the same as the olfactory process if not different and complimentary. Try to detect any sweetness, salty flavors, acids and general bitterness. Explain what they are, or what they are similar to.

Also, try tasting the beer after it warms a bit (just a bit mind you). Really cold beer tends to mask some of the flavors. As a beer warms, its true flavors will pull through, become more pronounced.

Here is an article about what temp to actually taste and what the differences are:
http://www.ratebeer.com/Story.asp?StoryID=479


These are general statements. If you click the link it goes into a bit more information. But for our purposes this is good enough.

Very cold (0-4C/32-39F): Any beer you don’t actually want to taste. Pale Lager, Malt Liquor, Canadian-style Golden Ale and Cream Ale, Low Alcohol, Canadian, American or Scandinavian-style Cider.



Cold (4-7C/39-45F): Hefeweizen, Kristalweizen, Kölsch, Premium Lager, Pilsner, Classic German Pilsner, Fruit Beer, brewpub-style Golden Ale, European Strong Lager, Berliner Weisse, Belgian White, American Dark Lager, sweetened Fruit Lambics and Gueuzes, Duvel-types



Cool (8-12C/45-54F): American Pale Ale, Amber Ale, California Common, Dunkelweizen, Sweet Stout, Stout, Dry Stout, Porter, English-style Golden Ale, unsweetened Fruit Lambics and Gueuzes, Faro, Belgian Ale, Bohemian Pilsner, Dunkel, Dortmunder/Helles, Vienna, Schwarzbier, Smoked, Altbier, Tripel, Irish Ale, French or Spanish-style Cider



Cellar (12-14C/54-57F): Bitter, Premium Bitter, Brown Ale, India Pale Ale, English Pale Ale, English Strong Ale, Old Ale, Saison, Unblended Lambic, Flemish Sour Ale, Bière de Garde, Baltic Porter, Abbey Dubbel, Belgian Strong Ale, Weizen Bock, Bock, Foreign Stout, Zwickel/Keller/Landbier, Scottish Ale, Scotch Ale, American Strong Ale, Mild, English-style Cider



Warm (14-16C/57-61F): Barley Wine, Abt/Quadrupel, Imperial Stout, Imperial/Double IPA, Doppelbock, Eisbock, Mead



Hot (70C/158F): Quelque Chose, Liefmans Glühkriek, dark, spiced winter ales like Daleside Morocco Ale.

The hash and everclear sounds like a good idea. It should get rid of the grass and give it much more OG flavor. I would use just enoigh everclear to disolve the hash, then let some of it evaporate off so the beer doesnt get too boozy.

I have some qwiso drying out now. I was going to bottle some kolsh today but i think I will wait until the iso drys out then I will disolve it in the everclear and mix before i bottle. The hash should show up more in the kolsh. I thought the IPA hops would mix well with the OG but it sounds like it might have covered it up too much.

Thank you for trying this and sharing it with everyone and giving me the idea to try some hash and everclear. I'll probably bottle it next weekend and let you know how it goes.

farmasensist said:

The hash and everclear sounds like a good idea. It should get rid of the grass and give it much more OG flavor. I would use just enoigh everclear to disolve the hash, then let some of it evaporate off so the beer doesnt get too boozy.

I have some qwiso drying out now. I was going to bottle some kolsh today but i think I will wait until the iso drys out then I will disolve it in the everclear and mix before i bottle. The hash should show up more in the kolsh. I thought the IPA hops would mix well with the OG but it sounds like it might have covered it up too much.

Thank you for trying this and sharing it with everyone and giving me the idea to try some hash and everclear. I'll probably bottle it next weekend and let you know how it goes.

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That is great, Farm! Do it.

I just made some some QWISO myself. That is a good idea with the Kolsh. Maybe I'll try a light pale ale to let the Skywalker shine through. I've never made a lager and my temps are no where near where they should be otherwise I would try that. Maybe like a Stella or Peroni type.

Well it has been a while since the last tasting. Will be doing another this week sometime.

Also, we will be making a Honey Mead. Target is about 18% ABV should be interesting. (This is for the Game of Thrones opener next October. Considering the Mead takes over 6 months the timing should be perfect).